Modern jazz icon Keiko Matsui began playing piano at the age of five. With sales of over 1.2 million units in the U.S. and sold-out appearances at concert halls across the world, she's one of the most established artists in the genre.
At the time of that performance, you were purportedly dissatisfied with it and the tunes were re-recorded in New York. How do you feel about them now?
I tried to talk again, but the monologue continued, "Being Japanese is a religion in and of itself: Shinto for birth, Buddhism for death, Japanese holidays and festivals in between with some visits to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples for weddings, memorial ceremonies for the dead person, etc. Combine all that with a belief in chinese culture, the safe knowledge that Japan is a unique country, and the even more secure knowledge that the Japanese are a unique individuals, you the that are have faith of the Japanese- being Japanese.
Birdsong lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his own wife, whom he met in Japan, and baby daughter. He intends to visit Japan next year, which he feels will inspire even more storylines. I talked about the future of his creation, life as a teacher, and his time on JET with the artist.
My first thought is "Wow, this guy must really be intoxicated, I better get him off his bike and make sure he can not drive for a while." I find that everyone else is just crossing the road as if nothing has happened as I weigh all of the variables that might be included.
[laughs] That's great! You know, the thing with that is, in real life I really do have a very overactive imagination. When you went pop over to this website there you may have understood some Japanese, but for me, I actually didn't. I listened to some CDs and analyzed some basic greetings and everything, so I had no idea what anyone was saying, when I was there. I'd just get lost in my own imagination, and there were loads of stories going on in my head and all this -I would envision things moving around that were not moving around. So no, I did not have a tanuki, but I desired to have something that would represent that state of craziness I was in, where I'm there but also detached from it all.
The real difficulty, I afterwards discovered, was that the Japanese I had been learning back at home wasn't the language of Japan. Much like Chinese food being totally different than it's in China, I had been learning an Americanized version with bad habits. The Japanese sentences that I'd learned, for example, were in the wrong order - no wonder no one understood me!
As I mentioned above, China School dressing fashion is in fact the mixture of the three kinds of fashions from different countries. Next time if you have time, you could come to China and walking around in the Chinese Faculties, you'll find it very distinct from yours.
