32: On Being Language Seen: A Japanese American in Japan: Ken Hirano

In this episode we are talking to Ken Hirano, who was born in Japan but his family moved to the U.S. before he started school. He has returned to Japan to live a few times in his life, and now is one of them. He moved back to Tokyo about a year ago and recently wrote a post on LinkedIn on this geographic anniversary about his cultural and language identity. And that is what we are digging into today. This identity path took us through how he feels in different languages, why he feels more simple and defenseless in Japanese than English, how Japanese locals versus expats in Japan treat his Japanese & Americanness and where he is the most comfortable. Spoiler: none of these issues have a clearly defined answer and that is what made this nuanced discussion with Ken so interesting to have.  

You can find the full show notes, links, etc to this episode at https://www.stephfuccio.com/geopatslanguage/32

Ken's Information:
LinkedIn:  https://www.kenhiranotherapy.com/

Links:
-The book I mentioned where the Author talked about "kitchen Farsi": Lipstick Johad: A Memoir of growing up Iranian in American and American in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni
-The black Japanese entertainer that Ken mentioned:
https://yogozansu.jp/soejima-jun/ and Ken's post about his work:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6716525741359661057/
​
Announcement: Other Geopats Podcast Network shows about Japan/Japanese
-Geopats Books: Yuki: ep 9: https://www.stephfuccio.com/geopatsbooks/9
-Geopats Language:Lucy, ep 6:  https://www.stephfuccio.com/geopatslanguage/6
-Geopats Language: Eric, ep 4: https://www.stephfuccio.com/geopatslanguage/4
-Geopats NaPodPoMo: Lisa (2 parts) ep 9 & ep 10: https://www.stephfuccio.com/napodpomo/9
& https://www.stephfuccio.com/napodpomo/10
-Geopats NaPodPoMo: Dakota: ep 5 https://www.stephfuccio.com/napodpomo/5

This episode was created with:

• Both tracks were recorded on Zoom cloud recording : Steph used a Samson Q2U microphone
• ​The episode art was made with Canva, https://www.canva.com
• Producer, Editor, & Host: Stephanie (Gmail: stephfuccio (at) gmail.com). 
• ​Music courtesy of ​Damon Castillo.The song in this episode is “California Minute" from the "Mess of me" album http://www.damoncastillo.com/

​Geopats Language & HearShare Productions: 

• Would love to hear from you! Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn  & you can even leave a voice message on Speakpipe.
• ​​​Check out all of our podcasts & podcasting services: https://stephfuccio.com/​