00:10
Hey Len. Hi Aslani. How's it going? We are now in completely different time zones.
That's true, that's true. I mean, we were in different ones to begin with, but now it's very
different. Yes, but now it's very different and now it's very inconvenient for both of us, but
rest assured we will continue this podcast one way or the other. One of us might just sound more
exhausted each day, so... Yeah, we'll see. But let's talk about when we were in the same time
zone for a brief period of time, which was last... no, how many weekends ago at this point? Like what,
two, three weekends ago? Two weekends... it's two or three, I don't remember.
Yeah. Anywho, we had a lot of fun attending the ポッドキャストシンポジウム , hosted by
Len-san from Science Talk, along with various other podcasters which I am familiar with because
they are kind of like regulars of the 科学系ポッドキャスト that we do, the monthly installments
that we do, where we have a common topic and discuss, you know, interpret your own ways and
share your two cents with the community, with the hashtag 科学系ポッドキャスト
あ、違うよ。科学系ポッドキャストの日。 That's the correct... あ、そうか。の日。
Hashtag の日、そう。 Yeah, but I feel like I forget it so I do both, just in case.
Yeah, I feel like both is probably a good idea. I feel like it's probably not just you that might
drop the の日, right? Because it feels like the title is not necessarily 何々日, right?
Yeah, yeah, so anywho, so for those from there, they had Hiyoken-san, Gutsuzaku-san,
Yamichi Kusohamu-san, Sasaki Ryo-san from Uchuubanashi as well. I don't know if you've
listened to any of those, but maybe you have heard Hiyoken? Because I had a collab with them.
Hmm, so yeah, I mean, you've told me to listen to a bunch of these, and we also met Hachi,
who then told me adamantly to listen to the ones that you were on as well. So I do have those lined
up to listen to since the symposium happened, but the last few weeks I have been neck-deep in
related teaching stuff, so there hasn't really been time to... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:02
Well, yeah, so you are familiar with some of those. Yes, yes, and of course I got to meet them.
That was the first ever in-person podcast-related events I've attended ever.
I think in Japan, like things like Podcast Weekend, which was happening at the same weekend
as the podcast symposium, is sort of like the big ones where they essentially have a bunch of booths
and people do whatever they want with their booths, and you can see and interact with the
podcasters that you're normally only listening to. We had it in a very fancy studio, the Amazon
Music Studio, Tokyo, and I would say that maybe there were like 40, 50 people there.
Oh, that's a good... Yeah, yeah, so there was probably like, what, six in front of us by like,
yeah, five or six rows, so at least, yeah, probably pushing 40, and then plus all of the hosts.
But then there were like a bunch of extra seats that they needed to like makeshift.
There were chairs pulled from like other floors, so it was definitely like,
maybe that was intentional, but they definitely filled up the space that was available to them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and how was... So for most of you who didn't get to go to this podcast symposium,
the format was to sort of mimic the symposium or like gakkai conference, like academic conference
style, kind of like a panel discussions that happens at these conferences. So at typical
conferences of like large enough sizes, you know, other than the sort of like a scientific
presentations that happens, you know, which is a normal, you know, a scientist stands up in front
and talks about the research style. Other than that, there's usually a section for different
scientists that are sort of collected under different themes, right? Like different sub
themes of the conference. And sometimes it's not even related to the sort of scientific theme of
the conference. Sometimes it's like, oh, let's see who are the women attending this conferences or
let's get like sort of minority representation on a panel list and talk about their career
trajectory rather than science of it all. So there are sort of events like that. And I think
they were going for that kind of panel discussion vibes, except so the six podcasts who were hosting
06:03
Oh my, I forgot to mention one more person.
Who you were talking a lot at Uchiage, you know, afterwards. Yeah. He's such a, he's such a regular
fixtures that I like, completely assumed that he's like already there. But yes, yes, did not forget
him. Anyway. So there were six hosting podcasts, and they were each paired up. So we had three
sessions of this kind of collaborative talk, I guess, between the two. And I guess the themes
and what to discuss were up to them, the individual pairings, as long as it fits this
big umbrella theme of kyokai, which was our theme for the November months for the
podcast Kyokai Boundaries. So many of them talked about,
yeah, like boundaries between like, different careers. Some of them talked about boundaries
between different planets, different exoplanets. Yeah, I think, yeah, things like that.
So yeah, and so so they're all sort of in the loose theme of boundaries, but they all had
whatever they wanted to talk about, discussed. Oh, yeah, you have the you have the pamphlet,
right? I have the pamphlet, which I intended to get before we had started and then I forgot. So
I was getting a funny look. Okay. I also don't want to give away too, too much because the
intention was that this in-person event will be will stay in-person event. Sure. Yeah, not not to
give anything away. Yeah, I think they are planning to share snippets of these panel discussions
on their own platform. But for now, it's, I think it was nice, like it was nice that you kept they
kept it as strictly in-person events, not a hybrid event, because they,
I don't know, there's something nice about like knowing that this atmosphere, this vibe is,
you know, shared between just you and the audience who are there. And hopefully this encourages
more people to attend to future events. Although I think it does, you know, make like what does
make this in-person event kind of stuff hard is like, for some people, it requires like, you know,
a lot of coordinations and traveling, taking time off, either from work or from like home,
09:02
you know, housekeeping stuff. So not always feasible, but it was indeed nice because many
of the many of the podcasters, including us, we have yet to expose our faces to the public.
So, you know, it was like nice to see a person who's behind the microphone who we normally
don't get to see. And then like, wow, you're a lot taller than I thought.
There were a few there were certainly a few of those immediate
height references between one's imagined height and one's real height.
I bet so many people never thought that your hair was this long.
Yes, that's true. They probably didn't realize that my hair was this long. No.
Yeah, but so it was a fully Japanese event. How did you like it?
How did I like it? Well, I enjoyed it.
Or how do you feel like you fared?
That wasn't that wasn't to say like, oh, I didn't like it. That was just me
like sort of anticipating the wrong question. So no, I wanted to sort of second that I've
never been to an event like this. Right. So this is I haven't been to like a podcast.
I didn't even know there were podcast weekends, I guess you mentioned.
Yeah. No idea.
But like, I listened to my fair share of podcasts. So I figure,
you know, these groups have to get together somehow. So you network and connect with people.
But I really enjoyed it. I think I specifically liked how they did this sort of pairing format
that you mentioned, just because I could watch it and take them in as conversations.
And it helped that it wasn't just, you know, I guess not to give too much away, but right,
it wasn't just vocal. There was also some slide decks, right, that they were using,
just like there were some visual. And so the mix of those, at least, gave me enough
to contextualize where I needed to and to, you know, fit together discussion, right? It wasn't,
you know, the boundary type idea we'd already discussed, I sort of knew what that could be.
And then once I was given topics, I could sort of fill in the gaps, right? So
then it was just piecing in the frame of which, you know, which host was sort of describing what
idea out of their sort of two ideas that they were playing with. Yeah. So not to say that I
understood at all, right? That's not. No, but I told Len that if you are lost, if you have no clue
what's going on, and you want to know, like, you know, feel free to tap tap on my shoulder,
and I can kind of briefly cue you in. But I don't think that ever happened. I think you just like
12:04
vibed off of, you know, yeah, conversations. And you were happy with your, you know, 60 70%
understanding of what's going on. And yeah, I had, I had made the decision as it was going on,
right, I expected to try and mainly vibe with it, because I was more than pleased, right,
that you were offering to help sort of, you know, guide that information through to me. But
also doing so, I like inherently am aware that it takes my attention away from what's happening,
which then makes it like, I'm afraid to catch up, right? I'm afraid of losing that. And I'm afraid
of like, turning to ask, and then realizing I sort of got it. And like, now I'm behind,
though, in the phrasing. And so there's, there's a constant juggling, right, when I'm with,
with anybody who say, like, speaks right, better Japanese than I do. And just whether I attribute
my focus to trying to listen, or if I try to check in more often, right. So I think I checked
in a few times. It's easier if it's a one on one. Yeah, maybe. If you are talking to the person,
and then it's easier to be like, hey, hold on, what does that mean? Yeah, I've never heard of
that. Right. But like, if you are sort of being observer of another conversation that's going on,
it's hard to interrupt them. I mean, you can't really interrupt them. Yeah, right. Yeah. So
100% that's the, if I'm going to try and get something, I have to, I have to keep feeling
out for things I can possibly grab. And if I can't get, I'm certainly not picking up the nuance,
right, that might exist in here. But I'm picking up the idea of there is a conversation occurring
in front of me about, you know, a topic that I have some frame to work with, I can tell that there
is a bit of, you know, a difference or shared experience to either side, you know, I have some
text on screen that I can, you know, and slide decks and stuff or images that I can go, ah,
okay, that's the context for what they're saying right now, I have a better place. But yeah, with
with one on ones, you can just stop them and ask, right? Like, you can just be like, hold on,
you know, whatever that word was, can you just Oh, wait, okay, I knew that word, you know, moving
on, we'll check again. But that feels very slow as well. This is an internal thing for me, I get
I get frustrated if I have to slow down the flow of a conversation. When I when I think I'm like,
I can keep up, but I can't actually keep up and say like the language, right that I'm that I'm
working under. So it's right. And also, very rarely, you need like, 100% following. Yes. Yeah.
Words in order to get the gist of the conversation. I mean, I mean, who really does it even in your
15:05
native languages? Like you're not, you're probably not listening to every single word that's uttered.
And all you need is, you know, like 80%. And then like, kind of interpolate in between. I mean,
which is why misunderstanding happens a lot of the times, no matter how careful you are with the
words. But still, like, you know, that just means most of the conversation doesn't have to happen
with 100% like, verbal understanding, linguistic understanding of the conversation. So
I'm glad you enjoyed. I think I think you I was surprised. I mean, I really, really know,
like how comfortable you are. Because I don't know, I never seen you speak Japanese all that much.
That's true. We never speak to each other in Japanese all that much. So like, I have no way
to gauge. And also, especially when you are in a stage where you can understand really well,
follow the conversation, follow the writing. But it's like, when there's a gap between that skill
and your outputting skill, like how much you can speak or write in Japanese, when there's a gap,
it's even harder to guess how much of an understanding is going on. Like,
I don't want to underestimate your understanding. But I also don't want to like,
you know, assume too much. And like, leave you in the dark. So I think that was,
I just was like, well, we'll see. Like, you know, if Len's uncomfortable, he'll let me know.
Yeah, I would just tell you. So yeah, so I'm happy that you stuck through the entire events.
You even came for the after parties of some sort. Just like, so a few of us with the podcast,
the other podcasters and the hosting podcasters got together afterwards for a brief dinner of
some sorts. And that was really nice, too, I think. Yeah, you were in the middle of the
conversation, completely independent of mine. So yeah, well, you know, it helped, like you had
said before, right? I mean, there's obviously, you know, English ability throughout the group,
right? It's a mix, right? It's pretty high. Yeah. So I certainly didn't have to,
I didn't have to push myself too hard to, you know, use it, shall we say, right? Well,
at the same time, I could kind of pick and choose what would make it easier
to communicate with either, either English or Japanese. It's, I should just for all of the,
for all the listeners, and for you as well, Asami, because this isn't clear.
It sounds like I'm pretty casual about this. This isn't done with like, oh, super confidence,
18:04
like in the in the moment, right? Like, I do not want to give the impression that I want that to
be clear that it was just like, oh, yeah, you know, I just wandered in and just kind of you're
just just you're just really good at giving the air of comfortableness. Like, it's my space. Yeah,
it's, it's my vibe. That's, you know, sometimes, sometimes I am really putting that off. Other
times, I am definitely forcibly creating it. But, but, yeah, I say that to also just normalize and
recognize for anybody doing a different language. I am certainly not over the whole, like,
being afraid to generally ask for repeats, right? Being afraid to, like, express the lack of
understanding. And in fact, the gap you just mentioned, which makes it hard for you to identify
what I may or may not get, right, to sort of guess, right, to predict what that is,
also makes it uncomfortable for me, even though it's my gap, because I might know a bunch of
things on one end that seem like my level is like, super high. And then I'll ask something like,
like, you know, somebody says, like, I don't know, obviously, I know what yasashii is. But like,
that's the first easy word, right? You know, like, yasashii, I'm like, yasashii, like, you know,
I don't know what the word is for a second, just because it didn't register. And now I'm like,
oh, I was just asking, like, what the word, like, you know, kind is, right? Like, it's just,
it's just the the severity, right, can be extreme. And that internal experience, I imagine, for
others, as well, not just myself, can be really disorienting. So, you know, yeah, I feel like
we can talk about it more in depth on a separate. Yeah, I think so as well. To wrap this one up.
It was a great time to see everyone. It's great. And you had fun. Yeah, I had fun. And if
they're gonna do this again next year, maybe around the same time or something.
And if I happen to be in Japan, I would love to come. All right, cool. Yeah, great times. Glad
we could share. That's good. That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on
X at Eigo de Science. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time.
