00:13
Lilico
Hello, listeners. This is the very first episode of Japanese Point of View.
Japanese Point of View is a podcast show that share topics related to Japan.
The show is hosted by two Japanese women, Lilico and Maikou, mostly spoken in English.
Maikou
Okay, okay. So I didn't know what to say after the introduction in Japanese. We say hi, but I
Lilico
didn't know how to start in English, so I was glad that you said okay first. Yeah, it's so awkward
to have conversation in English, to be honest. Yeah, that we both are friends. We actually do
different podcast shows individually, both in Japanese, and we normally talk to each other
Maikou
in Japanese, so it's so awkward. Yeah, it's like our third time talking to each other in English.
Third time. Yeah, we didn't even practice. Yeah, we did not practice. We just did some like
collaboration shows and podcasts we do, and that's all, I think, and it was just partly English.
Lilico
Yeah, yeah, it was just partly, and we didn't even have conversation fully in English, so this is
actually the first time to like fully talk in English, and it's just not my...
We're not really used to this kind of conversation. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So at the very beginning,
we had some introduction, and then we said like we're gonna mostly speak in English, but like
as I said just before, we normally talk in English. We normally talk in Japanese, and
we live in Japan, so we don't, we rarely have a chance to speak in English, and this is exactly
Maikou
the reason why we wanted to start something in English. Yeah, so it's kind of a practice trial
thing for us, so this is a quote from the Japanese comedian Naomi Watanabe. She did,
she used to do a podcast show called Naomi Takes America, and she was saying that she's not used
to speaking English. She just went to New York for comedy, and she was saying please raise me
like a tamagotchi, which is a Japanese pet breeding video game, so we hope that everyone
regards us like tamagotchis. We are just trying to improve in English, so we hope that everyone
03:05
Lilico
treats us like tamagotchi, and we hope we grow like tamagotchi in a good way. Yeah, we're just
Maikou
tiny little babies at the moment. Yeah, we're only like newborn tamagotchis at the moment, so we need
Lilico
to grow. Yeah, since we both are Japanese, and we're going to introduce ourselves later, but
we used to live overseas, and that's the reason why we can speak in English. We are Japanese
citizens. We have Japanese nationality, and also we currently live in Japan, so we wanted to have
some conversations, something related to Japan, you know, some of our daily lives, I don't know,
some news in Japan, sightseeing experiences in Japan, maybe. Yeah, something related to Japan,
Maikou
for sure. Yeah, so our show has the title Japanese Point of View, and we think that even if we talk
naturally, it would become Japanese Point of View, so we hope everyone finds, yeah,
so we hope everyone finds why we are so like Japanese way of thinking in everything, so
we hope to do this as a kind of a log of how we think as Japanese people.
Lilico
It's pretty automatic, anyway, that we have Japanese thoughts. We've been living in Japan
Maikou
for quite a long time, so we are Japanized, quote-unquote. Yeah, most of the time we have
Lilico
lived in Japan, so we are really Japanese people. Yeah, so can we introduce ourselves for a little?
Yeah. Should I go first? Yes, please. Sorry for not saying anything. No, no, no. Okay, I think
we both are female, so our voice tone is pretty similar, like not too high, not too low,
but yeah, it's similar anyway, so it's hard to like recognize our voice when you're listening
for the first time, but this voice is Liliko, okay, and so let me introduce myself first.
So I was born in the UK, and I only lived there for two years, so I don't have any memories there,
to be honest. I went back to Japan after that, but when I was seven, I went to another country,
which was Malaysia, and then I went to the UK again and lived there. So I lived in Malaysia
for about three years, and then I lived in the UK for the second time for about two and a half years,
and I learned English during that time. I was in an international school, and I was learning
06:01
Lilico
in English, so it helped me gain the skills that I have now, but then I went back to Japan again when
I was 13 years old, and I lived in Japan for about 10 years, but then I wanted to go overseas again
somewhere outside Japan, and I've decided by myself to go to Australia using working holiday
visa, and then I lived there for about three years. Yeah, during that time, that experience
helped me improve my English again. I was working fully for the first year, and then after that,
I learned at a university for two years, and then that virus thing happened,
so I came back to Japan, and that's where I live now. That's the brief history of my life.
Let me say my generation and my gender as well. I'm millennials, and then I am straight woman.
Mm-hmm. Lastly, I think it should help describe my personality, so I will say my MBTI type as well,
so I am INFP, which is kind of troublesome personality, apparently, but yeah, that's
my personality. I am kind of creative. Not sure about fairly like. I don't want to say fairly
like. I'm not such thing, but yeah, that's my kind of type. I think I'm not describing well, but
Maikou
I'll give it to Maiko. Okay, so I would like to introduce myself. This is Maiko that I'm talking,
and I used to live in Wales, which is the part of the UK, and I used to live there for two years,
seven months or something when I was in primary school, so it was like the end of seven years old
to 10 years old, so it's relatively shorter period compared to Ruriko, and actually, I do not travel
overseas that much compared to Ruriko, so I basically stay in Japan, so I entered the company I am
working now like 10 years ago, and since then, as a part of my job, I need to do some presentation
in English occasionally, and also I work at a manufacturer, so I need to communicate with
overseas colleagues in English so we can explain about our products. The only English I used to
know was like baby English, like this is really great or let's go over there or something like that,
09:00
Maikou
but suddenly I needed to speak grown-up business English, so now I am really in the middle of
improving my English, and my concern is that I don't know, you know, chit-chat kind of English,
a frank English, not polite, just like usual talk. That's not what I'm good at right now,
so I hope to improve in my English skills in that sense, and I really do not speak English
daily. It's like once in a month or twice in a month when I have meetings overseas, but I
write in English all the time when like in emails or Slack or anything like that, but really I tend
to forget English when I don't speak, so I hope I can utilise this podcast as well to not forget
my English anymore. Speaking of my generation and gender, I did not know until recently,
I think I'm born in the time which is called Gen Y, which is before the millennials,
and I am, yeah, I'm not a millennial. It's named Generation Y, which is really like not common
Lilico
in Japan. No, no, no, it's the same. Is it the same? Yeah, it's the same. You are definitely
millennials. Ah, so I was a millennials person. Yeah, we are the same generation for sure.
Maikou
Ah, is it the same? So I didn't really know about this. It's the same. So I'm also a part of
millennials children, and I'm a female in gender, and as of my personality from the MBTI-like 16
personalities website, I'm an ESTP person, and in this website, it's described as like extroverted,
observant, thinking, prospecting for the four points, and also it says energetic and perceptive,
but from my point of view, I think I might be like annoying to so many people, so that's what
I consider about this entrepreneur personality. Okay, so thank you. That was my introduction
on myself. Nice. Thanks. I think we forgot to say how we met. Ah, well, we met in an event,
a podcast event that was held in Tokyo, in Japan. Yeah, last year. Yeah, last year, last December,
there was an event in Tokyo called Podcast Weekend, which was a one-day event where podcasters came
to, it was a kind of a fair, I think. It was similar to a flea market, or maybe, I don't know
12:02
Maikou
how to say in English, but some of the popular podcasters had the market, yeah, I think it was
kind of a market. Some podcasters had their stores for the really popular podcasts in Japan, and we
went there as volunteering staff, so we were like handing out flyers and setting up the tables,
chairs, and everything, and there we met each other, so Ririko and I became friends, and after
the Podcast Weekend, I found out Ririko used to live in, or was born in the UK when she was so
tiny, so I was surprised because we had so many things in common, such as, like, favorite music,
or our hobbies, so it was a surprise that even the experience of living in the UK was common for us,
Lilico
so we were like, yeah, we naturally became friends to each other. Right, yeah. Yeah, we have so much
in common anyway, like our hobbies, interests are quite similar anyway, and our experiences are in
common as well, so it was so natural to start something new together, you know, I'm pretty
excited to start this show as well. Me too. And then, like, another thing that we have in common
is that, as I said before, we have our own podcast, there are different podcasts that are in
Maikou
Japanese. We both had partners in those shows, but we both lost our partners. Yeah, sadly, we
lost our partners due to change in their life stages. Yeah. I don't know if this English is
correct, but there were some changes in their jobs, their family, so we became solo podcasters.
Lilico
Yeah, we are solo podcasters as well. So we had some conversation about that as well, like, we are
going to do something about that topic as well, because, you know, why not? Yeah, so we have so
much to talk, you know, it's so far, I feel like it's infinitive. Yeah, like, we can talk forever.
Yeah, true. Yeah, and then there is another disclaimer that I want to mention,
that if you are a native English speaker, it's kind of a pain to listen to this podcast. Sorry.
I guess, but we are not native speaker in English anyway, and then as we have already made a lot of
grammar mistakes in this show, there are a lot of mistakes, for sure. And then we're going to say
a lot of filler words as well, like, um, like, you know, something like that. So please, forgive
Maikou
that. We can't really control that. So yeah, if you can hang on with that. Yeah, we will try not to
15:09
Lilico
as much as possible. Hang on, if you can hang tight. I'm not really sure about the expression
Maikou
because I've been forgetting quite a lot. Yeah, I know. That's the same for me. So if everyone can
kindly remember that we are still baby-born tamagotchis, we will react as much as possible
to improve our English. So yeah, I know it's kind of like, annoying that I know that I made some
mistakes already in this podcast, in this first episode even. So I know that I made a mistake and
Lilico
like, end to with the words like that. So yeah. But it would be really great if you can like,
point the mistakes. Yeah. We make a lot of mistakes for sure. So it's gonna be a little
too annoying if you point out every single mistake that we make. But if you can point out some big
mistakes, the word choices that we made were totally different, totally wrong or something,
Maikou
then that will be really helpful. Much appreciated. Yeah, that reminded me of Hermione a little bit.
It's Wingardium Leviosa. When you said I'm pointing everything out, I remembered about
Lilico
Hermione suddenly. I met a person like that before, which was a little annoying to be honest.
Maikou
Yeah, I know. I had a friend like Hermione before, but it's like, kind of occasional to me.
Yes. Anything else to say? I think I'm good for this episode. Honestly, I have
so much things I want to talk about, but let's keep it for the next episodes.
Lilico
Yes. This episode is far not enough to get to know ourselves, but that's it for today.
Yeah. Yeah. If you have any topic requests, please reach us out via Twitter slash x. We've made an
account. Our account name is JPob under the bar podcast. J P O V under the bar podcast.
Please look it up if you're interested. Thanks for listening to the end and have a nice day.
Maikou
Bye. Bye. See you again.
