How to Acquire a Foreign Langugage through music in 5 steps. (I used K-pop)

Greetings all.

So, not too long ago, my wife's best friend (who is Korean) got her into K-pop, and consequently K-pop music videos. Since then, they were playing on our TV all the time, but as I had studied Korean forever ago, it was fun for me too because every now and again, I could hear words that I recognized. Eventually, after watching the same videos so often the music grew on me, and I downloaded it to listen to it during my commutes as well.

How it started:
While I was watching the videos the videos, the visuals made it fun enough that I didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics; but when I only had the music to listen to, understanding a word or two wasn't enough. As I was hearing the same phrases over and over (to the point that I recognized them) curiosity got the best of me, and I wanted to know they meant.

The first song I tried to figure out was the first K-pop song I ever downloaded- "Likey" by Twice. Originally, I looked up the lyrics in Korean and English, and wrote them all down. I tried to look up words with google translate, but a lot of them were colloquial (ie slang), others were conjugated (sought vs. seek) and some were just nonsense sounds to make the song flow. As such, as much as I liked the song, this proved to be too difficult, so eventually I just stopped working on it. This lead me to step 1 of this process.

STEP 1: Choose the right song. 
A month or so later, (and 4 or five songs later) my wife was listening to another Twice song, Signal, that grew on me, so again, I downloaded it. Compared to the other ones, the speech in this one was unusually clear, the theme was easy to understand, (A girl trying to get through to a guy she liked), and the lyrics were repetitive (meaning that there would be way less to try and figure out). This was how I stumbled onto the first step: Choose a song that:
- you like enough that you can listen to it over and over
- is really clear
- is relatively simple
- has a clear theme you can understand

STEP 2: Get a good translation site
The next step in this process was finding a better way to see the lyrics. The last one I used was a video so if I wanted to see a certain lyric again, I need to rewind and fast forward to find it, which was a pain. This time, I found another one called www.LyricsTranslate.com and I preferred it for three reasons:

1) Because you can see both the English and Korean lyrics 

2) The lyrics are shown statically (ie all of them at once and not just line by line) and

3) You can watch the video on the site.






STEP 3: Get help from a Native 
In contrast with my first attempt with Likey, for Signal, this time I also decided to enlist the help of a native. My wife had used the app, Flamingo to find herself a Korean teacher who spoke both English and Japanese, and as I thought it was easier to translate from Korean to Japanese (because they are similar like English and Spanish) I enlisted his help as well. Going one verse per lesson, I would write down any words, phrases or expressions, that I couldn't find on google translate. Then during the lesson, I would ask him what they meant and the subtle nuances of how they are used.

Flamingo- a language app that can be used to find
local teachers of languages you want to learn. 

Concentrating one lesson on one verse this way, I could extrapolate 2 or 3 grammar forms, 5 or 6 new words, and at least one expression or two per verse. Then I would give myself the homework of trying to apply the new language in making sentences.

Use music lyrics to extrapolate grammar forms, vocabulary, and colloquial expressions,
then have the teacher check your usage. 

After pulling out the vocab, grammar, etc from the lyrics and having the teacher explain them, I would write write sentences utilizing the new language for homework. 

STEP 4: Hello Talk
While this was great and tremendously helpful, another problem was that I could only meet with him once a week... so if I had a question while trying to do the homework, I would get stuck. To solve this problem, I enlisted another app called Hello Talk, which connects native speakers of various languages from all over the world to each other. You can post a question like "Hey, how do you use this word?" Or "What exactly does ______ mean?" and usually someone will answer you in a minute or two. Doing the same for other Korean speakers with their English, I could also make Korean speaking friends in Korea as well.

STEP 5: Go back and enjoy the song as usual
So the last step in this process was to go back and listen to the song as usual. After 2 or 3 weeks, I had a complete understanding of all of the words, expressions, and grammar forms used in the song, but there was still the fact that they were singing faster than I could think and translate in my head. As such, the solution was just to go back to listening to the song as usual. If I was riding a train I would would pull up LyricsTranslate.com again and read along as I was listening until I could clearly hear everything. Otherwise, I would just listen while I was doing dishes, riding my bike, etc. Low and behold, every time I listened I could understand a bit more (without having to think about it) than I could the previous time. Now (about a month later) when I listen to the song, I have more or less 100% listening comprehension.... which makes it way more fun to listen to.

The Benefits of Learning this Way
While I originally never set out to develop this as a system, I have figured out that there's two massive benefits to it in contrast to regular language study methods: Retention & Listening Comprehension.

Usually, when you are learning a foreign language, you can only retain the words or phrases that you can apply to your daily life, and no matter how hard you try, the rest simply slips from your mind. Learning this way however, you are continually reinforcing all the new language that you learn by regularly listening to it. Add on top of that the fact that for most people musical memories naturally have a retention rate of 91+% (compared to all other forms of memory) and you have an incredible method for language acquision. (Think of the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air- literally an American in their 40s now can sing that and none of us have seen the show in decades).

I think the only downside of this technique is that outside of meeting with the teacher once a week, and asking questions on Hello Talk, the amount of time I spend speaking is relatively low; and I think in order to really master a foreign language, you have to spend as much time producing it as you do taking it in. Beyond that, it also takes a basic working vocab and understanding of the language you are trying to learn. As such, I might not try this with a language I had never studied before (unless it's similar to your native language like Spanish is to English) But doing this alongside traditional language study, I think it could be a really powerful too. And it's fun. Anyway, onto the next song, Alone by Sistar, haha.


#languagelearning #K-pop #Twice #Sistar #foreignlanguage #learnkorean

Updates on the Corona Virus in Japan

Greetings all.

So for the sake of trying to give people an honest and fair assessment of what is happening in Japan with the Corona virus situation, I thought I would share information from conversations I had with a friend who works directly under Japan’s Minister of the Environment. (環境省)

While the information he shared is nothing top-secret, it is a current and objective assessment of the situation from a governmental position. He is also the father of a young child who takes his child’s safety as seriously as I do my own. Over the years I have gone to him for situational assessments on everything from Fukushima Nuclear Crisis to the last super typhoon. I’ve found I can always trust him to just be honest, straight-forward and objective.

In this blog, I'll talk about the current state of the Corona virus here. In the next blog I’ll get into the current thinking on what is going to happen with the Olympics.

The Current Situation: 

While Japan started off with a higher number of cases than other places (which personally I think is from how the Diamond Princess situation was handled), as you can see from the graph, the rate of infection here is actually way slower than most other places (which may in part be due to the fact that that situation made everyone wary from get-go). We still haven’t hit the peak of the curve here yet, but compared to most other places Japan still has one of the lowest rates of infection. It’s thought to be for the following reasons. Most of them are cultural. 

• Even before the virus, as Japanese people are used to living in extremely tight quarters, they already had a culture of avoiding physical contact. Generally even within families people rarely hug, kiss, or touch each other or even get in close proximity (in compared to other places like Italy where people hug and kiss to say hello)
• Additionally, along the same lines people also already have a culture of wearing masks on a daily basis to protect others from catching infectious diseases. Masks don’t do much for protecting you; but they do actually work for protecting everyone else from you.
• Central Air conditioning systems are generally not widely used here. (Instead Japanese people usually use stand-alone one room units) Central Air Conditioning is how they think it spread through hospitals in Italy so quickly. For example, an infected person in one room sneezes, it gets into the system, and is spread through the air conditioning system. (Japan has already taken steps to stop using air con on the trains and is using an alternate back-up system of cooling them with air from outside.
• People here usually keep the windows open all the time. (Even in the winter). While this particular behavior stemmed from the fact that it’s extremely humid and everything molds quickly, in this case, it is also thought that proper open-air ventilation makes a big difference in slowing the spread of the virus.
• In general, contrasting with westerners, Japanese people tend to be more pessimistic and worry-prone. Particularly when it comes to health and disease because, again, everyone lives so close to each other. As such, even if the government response was slow, the response of the people was fast compared with the west. 

In effect, while a lot of these things have always been difficult to deal with as a foreigner living here (the fact that no one likes to hug; the windows are always open even when it’s cold, the fact that people seem excessively risk-averse, etc) in this case they have all created a culture that is well prepared for dealing with this kind of thing.

How safe is it to go out?

Right now the government has classified the country into 3 likes of areas: 

• High-risk 
• Medium-risk
• Low-risk

Low-Risk Areas
In the current thinking, because the national contraction rate is so low, it’s basically okay to get back to business as usual... but provided that everyone remains careful and cognizant of the fact that the threat is still there.

Medium-Risk Areas

This is where Tokyo falls. Insomuch as I know, Hokkaido currently has the highest rate of infection. As such, it is thought that people can return to going about their business, but they need to proceed very very carefully, avoid excessive time with other people or lots of personal contact, and follow protocols of regular hand-washing, keeping windows opens, keeping a bit of distance and trying not to touch others or one’s face.

High-Risk Areas
It’s still best to practice social distancing as much as humanly possible.

All that being said, as aforementioned, it also important to remember that we still haven’t hit the top of the curve yet, so if people relax too much, that can change at any moment. Basically we can carefully proceed to getting back to life as usual, but if things take a turn for the worse, its important that to remember that we could go right back to having to be on lock-down. In general, the fastest way to spread infection is still travel however, so it's still best to avoid international travel and/or traveling between cities, being on rush-hour trains, etc as much as possible.

Also, just for everyone's information, here are the sites that I am getting the charts from. They offer current updates on the situation in both Japanese and English for anyone that wants to check regularly.

https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/country_count.html
https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/pdf/graph_suii1_E.JPG
 https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/pdf/graph_suii2_E.JPG
https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/pdf/graph_suii3_E.JPG https://www.anzen.mofa.go.jp/covid19/pdf/graph_suii4.JPG

Hope this helps!

Thoughts on my First Samurai Musical

Naka-san & Taka-san (myself) and Suke-san and Kaku-san:
In the show, we were comedic pairs and represented a lot of the show's comic relief. 

Just wrapped on the Samurai theatre show I was doing, Tange Sazen. It took me to the final show to feel like I finally nailed all the dialog, dancing, blocking, timing and humor, but I got it. What a fantastic experience. No doubt it was hard... but anything worth doing always is. When I first got the call for this, I had thought I was simply going to be a masked background ninja or something. I was shocked the first time I was saw the script and saw how prominent of a character I was playing; but after I understood the nature of the show, I got it. A lot of the humor was slapstick, and what could be funnier than an American black dude playing a Japanese person from 200 years ago. It would be like if someone in the states decided to make a comedy version of Shaft and then cast a Japanese guy who didn't speak English to play a pimp from the hood named "Honey Dip" or something. It was a pretty risky move for the director/producer, but it seemed to work well, and people absolutely loved it; and truth be told, so did I. 

I found out that one of the people I was acting alongside of was Ryosuke Sakamoto; the original Japanese "Red One" power ranger. Super honored. 

As strange as it may seem, the thing that I’m the most thankful for is the fact that I wasn’t treated any differently than any other cast or crew member. Generally, as a foreigner working here in Japan, you get used to always having additional assistance. There is always someone translating for you, or going the extra mile to help you to understand. Since 99% of us are working with a language barrier, I do think that attitude is actually a good thing- because quite frankly you do miss a lot. At the same time however, in this case, it was really refreshing that the director and cast just generally took the attitude “Meh, Chuck is fine. He’ll figure it out.” For myself that shows a large degree of trust, and it made me determined not to disappoint.

Among other things like caring for my wig and Kimono costume pieces, another challenge was having to learn how to wear a fundoshi. (Traditional Japanese men's underwear). This was easily the hardest thing to ask for help with, haha. 

There were times were I had to ask for extra help; needed extra repetitions, or had extra explanations, but more often than not, I was left to just figure it out...and I usually did. 

I’m not sure if this kind of work will continue beyond this... but I hope so. As an actor, it was an intense experience, but also a massive opportunity for personal and professional growth. In addition to having to learn the script, I also had to learn how to wear all the costumes, (which seriously upped my Kimono game), learn a ton about Japanese history and also learn a lot about how theatre in Japan works. 

Beyond that, I honestly could not have asked for a more wonderful, honest and hardworking cast and crew to do this with. I feel like I made a lot of good friendships that will last a long time. My only regret of the whole thing is that there’s no video of any of it, so the only people who got to see it are those that took the time to come. This show happens yearly however, so hopefully this or other opportunities like it will come around. Even if film and television pay better, I have always believed that the actor’s truest training ground is theatre, and this show certainly was just that.

The entire cast of 45 wonderful, talented and super-hardworking people.
Didn't get to know everyone, but I will miss them all.  

Getting back to Method

So after a 10 year gap, I just completed my second course on Method acting. My actor’s journey actually began with Method in about 2009. At the time, I had gotten the co-lead in a high budget short film, and thought that that was a good reason to officially begin training. As there was no way to study acting in English in Tokyo at that time (at least insomuch as I knew) I took what little cash I had and hired what seemed like a reputable Method acting coach from the Bay Area who said that she could work with actors abroad through Skype.

 Looking back on it now, I could see that she was probably just bitter for personal reasons (or maybe she was just in a bad point in life), but whatever the reason, she wasn’t strict, she was just plain mean. Case in point, in the very first lesson,I told her “I was recently cast in the co-lead for a short film, and I don’t want to go into this with no formal training.” to which she replied, “Why in the f*ck would you take a lead role if you aren’t a trained actor?!” She seemed downright angry about it.

Having already paid for it and no previous experience of studying acting, I decided to see it through to the end, (although she never bothered to show up for the last lesson) but it was just a painful experience all around. Especially because Method involves deep exploration of inner feelings, past trauma and your own deep

psyche.

After that, over the course of the next ten years I put all of my energy into the physical side of acting; action, stunts, stage combat, etc. but it wasn’t until I signed up for this course that I realized how much dread and apprehension I had developed about formally studying acting. Despite that though, the draw and the desire to act never faded. I had done my first actor’s audition when I was 15, (I auditioned for Saved by the Bell) at the same time I started Taekwondo, and I had always wanted more... despite my continual branding myself on the action and stunt side of things, since then, I had always always continued to get and do acting work. So much in fact that if you look at my IMDB page, to this day I have more acting credits than stunts, and among Tokyo agencies I developed a reputation as “a good actor” even though I generally labeled myself as a stunt guy.

Not too long ago though, while playing one of the main characters on a reinactment drama, I met a fantastically talent method actress and asked where she had studied. Through her, I was introduced to a coach based out of NY. Despite my dread, I knew that the only way to progress was through proper training and I signed up, while she was here in Tokyo. Over the course of 9 hours of concentrated study with her, I felt more evolution as an actor than I had in years of reading books and studying on my own. I immediately booked her again before she left the country. After the course, I came to the conclusion that studying acting through books and then trying to work on set is like trying to learn a martial art through a book and then just stepping into the ring. Yes, you are better off reading than not; but the different between having a proper coach or not is just night and day. As she comes to Tokyo fairly regularly, she has agreed to keep an ongoing relationship with me which is awesome... and it means for the first time ever, I am finally stepping into this ring with a regular coach.

Before she left Tokyo, I told her that I regretted losing the past ten years because I hadn’t sought out proper training; and she replied “You didn’t lose anything. In this time you have become a master of the physical side of the equation; now you have the opportunity to master acting and integrate them.”

This year, I already did a major stunt for the most anticipated Japanese movie of the year, and now after her coaching, I just landed a dramatic speaking role in a different film of the same scale. Whether I set out to be or not, I’ve always been both an actor and a stuntman, and not it finally feels like I am fully walking both paths. 

Castle Hunting: The Ruins of Sumpu & Fukuoka Castle

A shot from the outside of the Fukuoka castle ruins. 

So one of the great pleasures of last year’s dinosaur zoo tour was that I could visit so many of Japan’s traditional castles all over the country. Unfortunately however, soon after that, my phone fell out of my pocket while I was on my bike and was destroyed before I could back it up. As such all of the pics I had of those places are now gone :(  Now that I am back on tour around the country again this year, the first thing I wanted to do was start castle hunting again. 

The outside corner of the Sumpu castle ruins in Shizuoka. While the castle itself is gone; some of the
towers and structures still remain. 

A lot of Japanese castles utilized narrow passageways to create bottlenecks where would be attackers/invaders could be picked off. 

Thus far I have had a chance to visit two of them; The Sumpu castle ruins in Shizuoka and the Fukuoka castle ruins. While a lot of Japan’s castles are in excellent condition, castle ruins are not uncommon as well. I think this is because when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified the country, he also commanded that a great deal of the smaller warlord's castles be burned to the ground to limit their power, resources and ability to fight back.

Coincidentally, another interesting thing he did was insisting that all local warlords move (with their entire entourage) to Tokyo (then Edo) every other year. In doing so, he could not only keep a close eye on their activities, but by forcing them to move their estate so often, he could also continually wipe out their financial power base, making them easier to control. 

As these massive entourages of thousands of people were constantly traveling back and forth to Edo, this also turned Osaka into a massive trade hub, made it Japan's second biggest city, and also embued it with the outgoing, friendly, (but often brash), and barter-oriented culture that it is still known for today.

While the towers and some structures remain, the palaces of Sumpu and Fukuoka castles are long gone, and nothing but pathways and empty fields remain. 

In any event, in the case of both castles, the main palaces were gone and all that was really there was the outskirts and/or some of the towers. In both cases, the main area was more or less turned into a park where events and things are held, but in the Fukuoka ruins, a lot of the interesting aspects of the architecture were also still intact- even if the main palace itself was completely gone.Still super cool to visit though. With only two weeks left on the tour, I am still hoping to get to at least a few more before we are done. 

Japanese castles (seemingly like modern Japanese homes) usually have mega-steep stairs. Having to do a fall on stairs like these would be a stuntman's worst nightmare, lol. 

These small windows along this corner tower were on both sides of the structure. Back in the day, they were used to load and drop massive rocks onto anyone who was trying to scale the castle walls. Not a very pleasant way to go. 

Moats and canals everywhere

Obviously, the fish weren't left to starve, haha

Rebuilding from the Ground Up

A shot of me at 88kg, 5 years ago, before my son was born
and injuries had gotten the best of me. 

So, after dropping the first YT vid of this year, 36 Weapons of the Human Body, I was really happy to discover that I still actually had a few fans out there. A few people had made comments like "Welcome back!" and "Finally! I've been waiting for forever for your next video!". These kinds of things (and honestly these people) are the ones that have motivated me to get back to it, and it was incredibly refreshing and energizing to hear.

Taking stock of the past 5 years in general, it occurred to me just how much I had really lost. I lost my kidney function, my white blood cell count, my shoulder, my knee, both parents, my dog, and my home in the states... and that's just the things I am willing to talk about publicly. In short, I've been a mess. Add in trying to take care of a toddler, and a company in its infancy in a foreign country, and the mess gets even messier. To be honest, the past few years felt like I was trying to drive a 4-cylinder car with only 2 cylinders firing and a wheel missing.  It occurred to me that I'm not doing anyone any good- my son, my company or myself- if I'm performing or operating at less than my best.

The things that are gone, are gone, and I can't get them back; but there are also plenty of positives on the horizon as well. I went to the doctor last week for a physical, and he said my kidneys are back to full function. Thanks to getting my IHP cert, and discovering functional fitness training, I feel the strongest I have been in a decade. We were also finally able to get my son into a government backed nursery school and that will drastically cut the family bills. The private one he is in now has been like paying for a second apartment, and with that and concern expense now gone, and I have a lot more leeway (mentally and financially) to focus on driving forward.

All that being the case, it's time to rebuild. Rebuilding my YT channel and fanbase is one goal of this year. Rebuilding my body, getting back to how I used to look, and getting all my physical skills back is another. As far as the company itself goes, the next goal will be rebuilding and redesigning the action training program. We are supposed to have 3 areas of operation: Film, Stunts and Martial Arts. The martial arts program (ie Taekwondo) is still going, and has basically been carrying the company; but with everything happening in the past few years, the film action program has suffered the most. Despite that, it's something that I still believe in and it's time to make it work the way it should. Going off of the relative success of the TKD program, much like my YT channel and my body, I feel like it's time to rebuild it from the ground up. The next step after that will be getting the film production side off the ground, so that hopefully myself and this company will be firing on all cylinders, by the end of this year.

When I was in my early teens, my Dad gave me an old framed copy of the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, that his Dad had given to him. He said if he ever wasn't around, and I felt lost, to refer to it, and use it to find my way. In this case, I am channelling the second verse:

If you can dream- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you have spoken,
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; 

This is me now rolling up my sleeves and picking up my worn-out tools. Onwards and forwards.

Re-launching my Youtube Channel

So, with my son's 4th birthday fast approaching, I thought now would be as good a time as ever to Re-launch my Youtube channel, and to do so in a major way. I say so because the last major thing I did for YT was Fists of Absinthe, which was produced and released right when my son Ty was born. (My wife was literally securing locations for us, handling insurance, etc while she was in the hospital). Around that same time (largely because of the production of the film), I also started Quiet Flame Productions and the Quiet Flame Stunt Team, and between all of these things, my Youtube channel, (as well as my own film career) pretty much just fell off.

While I don't regret any part of any of that, and I'm generally happy with where everything is, in recent months I've really come to realize just how much of the process of building out these things and taking care of family has cost me personally. In getting my functional fitness certification from IHP, and redeveloping my core, I realized just how much strength I had lost (and how generally out of shape I had gotten), and it made me stop and reflect on a lot of other things as well. I think at the end of the day, there always has to be a certain balance to everything and one way that I had gotten out of balance was in taking care of myself. Both of my parents basically lived their lives in the service of others, and while I agree on it's importance, I also think you have to do for you too. When I was training in Taekwondo in Korea, I was good friends with a member of the Canadian national Olympic team, and one of the things he told me that always stuck with me was "If you wanna win, sometimes you just have to be selfish." As long as it's in under the auspices of balance, I agree with him and think he's right.

In any event, when I was going hard on Youtube 4 years ago, I was getting about 30,000 hits a month, and had around 17,000 subscribers. Now, I'm at about 14,500 subscribers and about 15,000 hits a month. You are officially a "social media influencer" at 5000 subscribers, so I am still well in that range, although nowadays you aren't something serious until you have about a million or so.

In any event, in order to re-launch the channel, I am filming all new episodes of "How to Defeat Dudes" (my flagship show) and launching 2 other new shows: "Martial Strengthening" and "Inside the Stunt Actor's Studio". The first, as the title would imply is a show dedicated to showing people how to strengthen their bodies specifically for martial arts. The second runs along the lines of How to Defeat Dudes, and is also comical in nature, but centers around teaching fight choreography techniques as opposed to self defense techniques.

Beyond this, the one video that I'm the most proud of right now is the Re-launch video itself- 36 Weapons of the Human Body. This video represents the culmination of a 20+ year career of martial arts and I couldn't think of something more appropriate to Re-launch with. It's something that I have had bouncing around in my head for forever and I feel super happy to have finally shot it and edited it...and can't wait to share it.  Interestingly enough, I can also see a big jump in my maturity as a producer/editor as well because the quality of this vid is well above things I have made before. In any event, lots of good of stuff on the way, and this is just the beginning. At 15K now. My goal is to have 100K of followers by the end of this year. Lofty, but certainly not impossible.  To put it ebonically, Ain't nothin to it, but to do it! YOSH!!