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Hi everyone, and welcome back to Global Village. 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】.
But this time instead of inviting a new guest speaker to come on the show, we are talking to one of our own regulars. 如果你听过Geek Time或者是来上过酒馆的口语直播课程, 就肯定知道他,资深 geek-Brad, welcome back Brad.
Hey, how's it going, Lulu?
I'm good. I heard that your life has changed quite a bit. You're in Japan now, right?
That's right. I'm in Kyoto.
Oh, one of my favorite cities in the world, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about your experience in Japan because you plan to stay there long term, correct?
Yeah, probably, that's the whole point.
So could you, first of all, give us a little bit of an explanation or idea or ideas of your current life? Like when did you move to japan? What are you doing right now?
Sure. Currently I'm living in Kyoto as I mentioned, I moved here just about a year ago, I think it was about 10 months ago.
I came here on a student visa. I'm studying Japanese. I just passed one of the Japanese language proficiency exams that's gonna help me with my future. But I've just been studying full time and then working part time teaching on the side while I do that.
So in the future, am I to assume that your plan is to get perhaps another degree in Japan and then maybe find a job there and then just settle down?
Yeah, that's pretty much the plan, I've been looking at schools. I'm in engineering, I really like cars and racing, so I kind of wanna combine my engineering and my knowledge of cars, so I have to get some sort of like certification or degree to do that. So I've been trying to apply for engineering schools related to cars or some sort of car related program like motor sports engineering.
I see, that's pretty cool. I mean you do have engineering background anyways, right?
Right. I have a degree in electronics engineering.
Okay. So I thought it would be fun in the next few episodes. Let's make this a series to talk about your experience in Japan, because Brad, you have a quite unique experience. You're born and raised in the States, you are an American, and then you lived in China for, on and off, for a decade.
Yeah, 7 years, the first time; and then 3 years, the second time.
OK.And now you're moving to Japan. There are lots of cultural comparisons, cultural topics that we can explore. But first things first, why Japan, like when did you become interested in Japan? Was it a childhood thing or what was it like?
I kind of became interested in China and Japan at about the same time. I grew up in a really small town in America. There is only about 7,000 people.
So there was no like outside foreign influence there whatsoever; and every now and then I would just see like a kungfu movie with like Jackie Chan or Gordon Lew or like a Japanese Samurai movie with Toshiro Mifune; and I just kind of became like who are these people and where are they from? Like, why don't I see this in the US?
It looks so cool, the kungfu thing, martial arts. So did you actually learn Asian martial arts like kungfu or maybe like karate as a child or as a teenager?
Yeah, after the karate kid movie came out in my childhood, I learned karate for a while.
Then I moved, so I couldn't continue that. But I did start learning like Taekwondo for a while; and then once I found a school for kungfu, I learned kungfu for about half a year or so, but I didn't really have time for it.
I got a job. And then I saw school that did like Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is like a Brazilian form of a Japanese martial art. And then when I moved to China, I did 咏春拳.
So you're just like really into martial arts.
Yeah, I also did kendo when I was in the US and then when I was a student in Japan, I did that as well. So I've done like a variety of different martial arts through the years.
For those of you who don't really know what kendo is, 就是日本的剑道. That just sounds like you have always been interested in the same type o