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I felt shocked and devastated after the horrible events of March 11 in Japan…and even more so when I saw the reactions of numerous people (some anonymous, some not) on the Internet. I felt compelled to apologize to the Japanese people because of this.
My second video where you can hear me speaking Japanese.
xoxox
Carly
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I’ll vouch for that!
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Why would anybody have something nasty to say? Ridiculous.
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Despite the beautiful words and the message, I can’t belive you are American. Your voice and accent is incredible…wow…
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Awww, thank you Sandy! Yes, I am an American – I started learning Japanese when I was almost 12. So I’ll always have little turns of speech, slight imperfections in my pronunciations, and phrases that give me away as a non-native speaker when heard by native speakers. (Well, if the blond hair isn’t the first giveaway…;-) Apparently if one starts learning a language before the age of about 9 years old, the neural pathways are still forming, and one can completely adopt the foreign language and learn it, becoming fluent and eventually indistinguishable from native speakers. (Little linguistics trivia;-) Much older than that, and one has to work twice as hard if not more to just mimic the accent, tones, and rhythms of speech – and even if they memorize enough vocabulary to be fluent eventually, there’ll always be those tiny giveaways that mark that person’s speech as non-native. I always found that really interesting…
This is a great idea Carly! And congratulations to you for saying it in Japanese. My heart goes out to the people of Japan – no-one deserves to suffer.
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Thank you Jules:-) I felt really bad because I remember Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that New Orleans suffered a few years back, and at the time I certainly don’t remember Japanese people posting videos online of individuals ridiculing or thanking the lord for the damage and deaths, or Japanese comedians making jokes about the natural disaster, or articles by the major newspapers there saying “Don’t Donate to the U.S.” Now that the shoe’s on the other foot it surprised me that some few people here in the States felt compelled to share insensitive and offensive things – and whether any Japanese people saw these things or not, I felt insulted to even be of the same nationality as the people saying those things. I was also annoyed that the sources of that insensitivity did not officially apologize to Japan for what they said (Gilbert Gottfried? 50Cent? Reuters? anyone?) or try to make amends.
You spoke so beautifully!! I too am ashamed at the insensitive people we have in our country. I live in Louisiana and during hurricanes Katrina and Rita we faced the same harsh media and comments. So, I feel your pain too well! I’m glad you posted this video and I hope more people see this. I will tweet this and facebook it too.
Thank your, Valencia – and for sharing:-) I hope you and your loved ones and community were able to rebuild and grow all the more stronger after the disasters you faced.:-)