NISHIMURA Ken <nis@bigfoot.com>
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NISHIMURA Ken <nis@bigfoot.com> |
FrequentlyAsked Questionsabout Ken |
Japanese(“ú–{Œê)
Revised(April 2008)
I was born on September 16th, 1970 in Osaka, the 2nd biggest city. So, I speak one of the strongest dialects that probably has the biggest number of native speakers who are notorious for using the dialect in public without knowing it. I moved to Tokyo at age 18 so I speak the Tokyo dialect on a daily basis. By some linguists and historians, the western and the eastern Japan are quite different that they could have become independent nations. I have two different cultural backgrounds, believe it or not.
I got married in 2005, and had a baby right after that.
Ever since I was in University, I have been working in the publishing industry. I had worked for a monthly computer magazine for nearly a decade and also for a weekly computer magazine for about 3 years. Now, I work for an online medium which deals with IT technologies since the sales of ``paper'' magazines has been plunging dramatically. I'm a tech geek.
Juggling is my favorite pastime. It's almost my obsession. Although I used to swim and loved skiing so much, I would strongly feel like juggling if I had time for wasting time in a stupid pool. Sorry for swimmers!
I've been juggling for nearly 3 years and I can juggle up to 6 balls. I also practice clubs(the bowling-pin-like objects, yeah, that's it), but for some reasons I prefer balls. Counterintuitive as it may sound to you, juggling is one of the easiest activities that you can pick up in a short period of time. You sense the improvement yourself on a daily basis in the begining. That doesn't happen with, for instance, musical instruments. The feeling of progress is rewarding; ``Wow, I wasn't able to do this before and never thought I would be, but, God! It's really nothing now''. Even though things get tough when you try to go farther than 5 balls, the basic principal remains the same. You practice, you improve. After 2 years of struggle, I was running 5 balls with ease. The longer the pracitce, the more satisfaction you get. Addicted to this feeling, I am dreaming of doing 7 balls in the future. Although I can barely do 7 ball now, the pattern seems to be emerging from a complete chaos.
I majored in physics at Waseda university. I did some numerical analysis of nonlinear partial differential equation. That doesn't have much to do with what I do now. It sometimes helps, though.
When I turnd 30, I went to San Francisco to study English as a second language and I spent 10 months there, attending some language schools. To be honest, English was an excuse. I needed to take a break from hard work. Turned out to be an awesome long vacation and it was really worth spending a lot of money. Had a great time, obtained this useful communication tool that you guys refer to as English.
Look, European people... Chinese, Korean and Japanese ARE different. It's not like in Scandinavia where most ``languages'' should be considered as a dialect of one or two old languages. The relation between the Chinese language and the Japanese language is like the one between Greek and English. In the grammatical point of view, they are totally different. They do not even belong to the same linguistic family. Pronunciations are no similar, no matter how similar they might sound to you. Yet, they share lots of characters and so many words that ancient Japanese learned from China some 1500 years ago. What's more, everybody in Japanese junior high school was supposed to study how to ``decipher'' ancient Chinese poetry. Althoght this doesn't apply to young people any more, citing Chinese poetry/story/events/philosophy is a typical practice among educated people. Even though oral communication is impossible between a Japanese and a Chinese, if they were to write down characters on a piece of paper, on a palm, or even in the air, they could understand at least what the opponent is trying to say. I have done this write-read-frown-laugh communication so many times and it really works. The reason is each Chinese character represents its meaning. I don't think Chinese people can understand Japanese newspapers because of Japanese own phonetic alphabets, but the opposite way is quite likely. Plus, I have tried to pick up Chinese many times with a limited success. I could enjoy a magazine written in Chinese, somewhat. Got the picture?
With my wife and little daughter, I currently live near the Tokyo tower.
A typical Japanese for my age.
I had been smoking for nearly 10 years when I quit it at age 28. Smoking was commonplace back then and just like in any other developped countries, smokers are evils now. Well, I quit smoking but I occasionally smoke when somebody else is smoking around me. It's pretty hard to break this habit, but then again, it's not like cocaine or something. You can still enjoy ``the bad habit'' without making it your real habit. To me, it's like smoking cigar in a very limited occasion. You can, and probably should, live without smoking, however, you need something bad in life, don't you think? (lame excuse?).
Same goes for drinking. I was a heavy drinker in my 20s. I didn't know how to sleep without drinking. I never had any problems with this habit and I was healthy on any measurements, except that I couldn't swim as fast in those mornings I had a slight hangover. In short, I was a happy drinker. But one day, I noticed quiting wasn't easy. I was going to hurt myself seriously, physically or mentally, or both if I didn't stop the drinking habit. It took me a single book to break this habit. The book, the persuasion worked like a magic for me. After that, until I finally took a sip of beer out of pure mistake, I had been on a water wagon for a couple of years. And now, I drink very occasionally.
Tokyo is so dense. Owning a car is a stupid idea unless you either live in the suburban area or you earn like a couple hundreds thousands dollars. Buses, taxies and subways will do.
I used to think saying that I am an atheist is somewhat offensive for certain people, however, a lot of young Europeans and Americans do not seem to be as religious as they used to be. Some even proclaim they are atheist. So, I lately stopped worring about making others uncomfortable by saying this.
He is a surfer. A tax counselor who sings, plays the guitar and the piano well. No, he doesn't juggle and we don't make a team.
