Yuki: An Interview
Photo © Karl Dubost
Yuki is the webmistress of Kissui.net, a weblog to which she posts stories, reflections, links and lots of photos. She lives in Tokyo and studies at Waseda University. She was born in Chiba, Japan, in 1986, where she spent the first ten years of her life. Then she moved with her family to San Jose, California, and returned to Japan after four years in order to complete her education. She speaks and writes both Japanese and English fluently, and currently studies French.
Yuki kindly agreed to be interviewed on Tawawa.
::
You’re at Waseda University now — how do you like it?
Getting into Waseda was the best thing that happened in my life. I’m having the most awesome time here!
That applies to your studies as well as to your social life, I hope?
Of course! It’s everything that I’ve dreamed of.
Which class(es) do you enjoy most?
We are in our first year, so we get to take a lot of different classes. I like anthropology classes and linguistics classes.
In my experience, most freshmen are studying Chinese now. What made you choose French of all things?
It’s used internationally, and it sounds sexy.
University is probably quite a bit different from high school…
Yes, there are a whole lot more people, more diversity, more excitement, and more independence.
Going back a bit: aged ten to fourteen you were living in California. How did you manage to adapt to your environment in the U.S.?
Other Japanese people who were in America knew that they were there for a certain number of years, for they had contracts with Japanese companies. But my dad worked for an American company, so we did not know for how long we were going to be there. I thought we would be living there forever, so I studied hard and considered San Jose home.
How did you cope with the different culture and the language? Did you manage to relate to your classmates in school?
Of course there were culture shocks, difficult times and things I did not like — but I was in an ESL (English as Second Language) class at first, where everyone was going through the same thing. There were immigrants from all over the world, and I think we inspired each other to learn English and our own cultures as well.
When you came back to Japan, did you have any difficulties fitting in again? Being a kikokushijo (returnee) probably wasn’t easy.
I came back half way in the third year of middle school, and we went to a local middle school where there were lots of kikokushijo (there are government apartments for diplomats nearby). It was a very strict, traditional school, but I didn’t get picked on for speaking good English or for being a kikokushijo.
Japan’s middle and high schools enforce a high level of conformity. After middle school you went to ICUHS, which might be a bit different, being an international school…
ICUHS is not an international school! And it does not enforce Christianity, and is not attached to ICU. It is just a small school with a fancy name in the countryside. Most students in the school are kikokushijo though, with basic education in Japanese. Therefore it’s very international and liberal.
It is true that Japanese schools enforce conformity. I really wanted to change the way it is while I was in it, but now that I am out of it, I think it was a good life experience. What is an ideal school anyway? Schools in America are supposed to be very “free,” but they’re way too free so they aren’t places to study anymore. It is very understandable that Japan’s schools value conformity since it has been a tradition for a long time. You can’t form group personality and individual personality at the same time. And most of Japan’s schools are currently enforcing the former.
How did you get involved with the Internet?
I was in the U.S. then, and we had to do research with the Internet. Typical!
So you immediately got yourself a LiveJournal account?
I will just tell you my internet history, then! I got a computer in my room when I was nine. It was a Mac, and my friends and I sometimes used it to play games. And when we moved to the U.S. and I was about eleven, we had to do research on the internet for homework. I had a friend who showed me her website. It was framed and had cute animated gifs, and I was much impressed. I wanted to make one of those. Some sort of website creator came with the Netscape browser, and dad taught me the basics — how to paste images, create a link, and upload a page.
I was twelve and the Nagano Olympics were on. I fell in love with this Russian figure skater Ilia Kulik, and so the first “page” I made was about him. It was on GeoCities, it had rainbow-colored buttons and stuff, and it was rather ugly! Then it evolved to an Evgeny Plushenko fan site, and I made other various fan sites which were very popular. Some of the mailing lists that I started are still running.
All of the html was self-taught from looking at other sites and learning techniques.
Then I got bored with figure skating and moved on to Cirque du Soleil. (Still very maniac, eh!) It was hosted on Tripod and my site became the biggest and the best fan site. I made a lot of friends doing that site, and got invited to their shows and backstage tours. I even watched “Quidam” from the sound mixing seat last year when they came to Japan! I got a domain and the site was very successful, a friend and I made an unofficial fan club, and it’s still the best fan club!
And again I got bored with Cirque du Soleil, and moved on to make a personal site. I got a domain and I had lots of drawings and poems up there. But then I had to concentrate on my high school entrance exam, so I drifted away from the net scene.
Around the December of my first year in high school, I made another site — a blog. It was hosted on a friend’s site, and it was called “Japanish,” where I wrote about Japanese culture. That site moved quite a lot, but the content was the same all along.
Then sometime later, I got stalked by some weirdos. So I closed down my site and moved to LiveJournal as “pineapplemonade” and continued the blog secretely. Somewhere along the way, the stalkers stopped bothering, so I tried to make my site more public. And it did succeed, I hope. I had close to a hundred comments on every post I made. But the fact that it was on a “free” hosting service didn’t satisfy me; I got a domain, hosted and run by a wonderful fan. Some guy registered “Japanish” as a domain before I did, so I chose Kissui as my next weblog title.
Whew, long story, eh! But my design skills were much much better in the past, I can assure you.
I’m almost completely ignorant of the LiveJournal scene. From what I’ve seen, LiveJournal is a self-enclosed universe whose members interact quite a bit. Can you describe the LiveJournal culture?
Livejournal is for beginners who want to have a journal online. It has features which enable you to control who can read or comment on your journal, so in a way you have privacy but it makes LiveJournal a closed community. It’s a very nice place to find people with same interest, though.
What made you leave it and switch to Movable Type?
In LiveJournal, you had to have their banner on every page, and pay to customize the layout. It just can’t beat MT and its many features.
Do you think of Kissui.net as a community?
No, it’s just a small site where I post things I like, and random people surfing the net telling me that they like it too.
Who are the people who comment on Kissui.net? Are most of them from LiveJournal?
I don’t know most of them. My (real life) friends don’t comment at all. But they give me their feedback privately and their opinions are what I value the most.
Could you comment on Japanese weblogging? Are any of your fellow students keeping weblogs?
The Japanese internet world is shrouded in much anonymity. Almost nobody writes their weblog under their real name, never reveal the place where they live, and they mosaic the faces out of all the photographs they post. It’s pretty understandable since it’s a small country, but with such advantages, the “comments” are usually rude and the webmasters are able to suddenly close their sites.
Some of my friends keep weblogs, but not many.
What’s the difference between a nikki (diary) and a weblog?
I don’t really get this but I think a nikki is a place where you write about your feelings and daily life in a way that is understandable for others, and a weblog is more like an entertainment, where you are able to write anything, mostly for other people. I have a separate journal for the nikki, but it’s not linked from the site.
You also take a keen interest in photography and design. Are you planning to pursue these interests professionally in the future?
I would like to if I could, but I want to pursue my writing more. Art doesn’t sell unless you are really talented, and I’m not risking my life for it!
Any other plans for the future?
Yuki is taking further questions…Graduate university. Study, learn, have fun, and travel as much as possible during that time.
Comments
Yuki :: July 25, 2004
Yes, questions! :D
>Why did you edit out half of your face in the picture included in the interview? Artistic license? At least, she posted a few full face shots on her site recently.
-Well.. I didn’t take the photo! And I didn’t pick the photo! But I think it looks mysterious and cool like that.
>Seriously though, as a regular reader of kissui.net, I just wanted to give Yuki props for her site and this interview. I even learned a few things that I didn’t know before like about the fan sites and such.
-Thank you very much! I feel like a celeb doing an “interview”.. hahaha
>Okay, here is a serious question. You mentioned wanting to travel. What are the top 10 countries you would like to visit?
-Italy, Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Korea, England, South Pacific Islands, North European countries, and everywhere in the world!
karl :: July 25, 2004
As I’m the photographer of this picture. I decided to shoot it like this, and not make a full face shot. So it has not been reframed.
Behold the power of the referrer log.
Hi Karl! I’m glad you didn’t mind having the picture “borrowed” without permission.
karl :: July 26, 2004
No Rudolf,
it’s perfectly fine. :) You put the credits and that’s really the best you could. :)
I had two referrers:
* My Web logs indeed
* Yuki herself
(ok I’m a bit late on my entries, one week for the man who has one entry a day, time to write ;) )
Good article Rudolf
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed on Tawawa! I’m a contributor to this group weblog and a senior in Mie University.
Then, can I ask you some questions? First, what is your major in Waseda University? And why did you choose it? Myself, I major in English education, because I wanted to be an English teacher when I was in high school.
My second question is about Kissui.net. I like the illustration on the front page a lot; I mean the picture of fireworks and goldfish. How did you make it? Do you change the picture by the seasons?
Yuki :: July 27, 2004
Replies to your questions!
>First, what is your major in Waseda University? And why did you choose it?
I am in Daiichibungakubu, School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences I. We don’t pick our majors until our sophomore year, but I hope to major in Anthropology.
>My second question is about Kissui.net. I like the illustration on the front page a lot; I mean the picture of fireworks and goldfish. How did you make it? Do you change the picture by the seasons?
Thank you very much! I made it using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I felt like creating something, but I like the previous banner better so I don’t know if I will keep it. I am very fickle..
Hi, Yuki-san.
I have a question: What is Anthropology? I know the Japanese meaning of the word, but I can’t imagine what you study in that major. Could you tell me what the study is about?
Hi, Yuki.
I am impressed that you know what you want to do in the future. When I was freshman, I managed to prepare for English class and didn’t think about myself. I studied and played soft tennis.
In Japan, mobile phone is more familiar than PC, so your (real life) friends may feel a little awkward about posting comments.
I think you are very cute;) You looks like one of my friends. Huhu..
Yuki :: August 2, 2004
Hey Rudolf didn’t let me know that I had even more questions! (I feel weird saying Rudolf even though you’re a professor!)
Anyways..
>I have a question: What is Anthropology? I know the Japanese meaning of the word, but I can’t imagine what you study in that major. Could you tell me what the study is about?
I am planning to study “Kaihatsu Jinruigaku” which I don’t know the exact translation of in English. Development anthropology maybe. These days the technologically advanced countries are “developing” other developing countries. But they are colonization in modern ways, ignoring the natives’ original lifestyles and ecological problems. Kaihatsu jinruigaku is studying and actually applying the original lifestyles of the developing countries when “developing.” There are other genres within anthropology though, like linguistics and applied anthropology, and they seem very interesting as well.
>I am impressed that you know what you want to do in the future. When I was freshman, I managed to prepare for English class and didn’t think about myself. I studied and played soft tennis.
I don’t really know what I want to do! Just having fun, I guess..hehe
>In Japan, mobile phone is more familiar than PC, so your (real life) friends may feel a little awkward about posting comments.
They do look at my website. Internet is necessary to be a Waseda student.. But they don’t want to comment in English!
>I think you are very cute;) You looks like one of my friends. Huhu..
Thanks :P
Yuki-san — I should have thought of this much earlier, but anyway: I’ve just turned on comment notification. If it works, you should get an e-mail for every comment that gets posted to this entry.
You’ve been writing a lot about the Japanese school system, and voicing plenty of criticism, which is great. Last year you also had a fairly long entry on university entrance exams, but it looks like you’ve pulled that back into the private section of your LiveJournal account. Did you think that piece was too critical to stay out in the open?
Also, here’s a passage on English education from this entry:
English is one of the exam subjects, and somehow it’s worth more points than Japanese. But the skills you are required to do well in English are just grammar and translation. Nothing that is useful on occasions when you actually might need English in real life. If there were listening comprehensions and oral exams, I would ace so much and everyone else would fail miserably. What people would study for in English subject is, again, memorizing to no end.
This is something I struggle with as a university teacher since the students who come out of high school never seem to expect that English could actually be used as a means of communication — to them, it’s the weirdest thing that somebody should ask them to express a view in English or contribute a perspective to a discussion.
The ministry of education has come to understand that there’s a problem here, and reforms are under way to address it. Yet I wonder how much change these declarations of intention will bring about. After all, the educational system will remain committed to ranking students rather than anything else, and English seems such handy material for the ranking process of choice: rote memorisation. Shiken Eigo (a written dialect of English tested for in Japanese pre-tertiary education — not always the same thing as standard English) is not going to go away all that quickly because teachers are too comfortable with it and resist change.
I wonder, though: international standardised English tests such as TOEIC and TOEFL are becoming increasingly important, and whatever you might say against them, they do test for standard English, including speaking and listening. Are they, therefore, going to put any pressure on shiken eigo at regular high schools, or is the demand for actual communicative English just something that creates an additional source of revenue for the cram schools?
Thank you for the answer to my question, Yuki-san! The study of Anthropology seems interesting, but to me, it also seems difficult because it covers more fields than English education.
Commenting on this entry is closed.
Okay, here is a further question:
Why did you edit out half of your face in the picture included in the interview? Artistic license? At least, she posted a few full face shots on her site recently.
Seriously though, as a regular reader of kissui.net, I just wanted to give Yuki props for her site and this interview. I even learned a few things that I didn’t know before like about the fan sites and such.
Okay, here is a serious question. You mentioned wanting to travel. What are the top 10 countries you would like to visit?