Since I haven't posted in like a month, let's go back in time a bit. In December, I made my first appearance with the Shinto priest's* jazz combo, the Cool Cats (クールキャッツ.)
Now, usually when I hear the name Cool Cats, I think of slick-looking men in zoot suits and sunglasses strolling down moonlit alleys. Or maybe those dudes in dark, smoky bars who recite poetry that doesn't rhyme. You know, finger snapping and bongos and stuff.
The Shinto priest's Cool Cats, on the other hand, are a tad bit different -- they're a group of old Japanese men. (Ok, so I'm not saying that old Japanese men can't be cool. I'm sure that there are scads of cool old Japanese men out there somewhere. It's just that you're never going to see any of these particular Cool Cats wearing zoot suits or playing bongos. They are very cute, though.)
Anyway, thanks to the Cool Cats and the Band Mastaa of the Crash Jazz Orchestra (the amateur big band from a previous post,) I've been exposed to quite a bit of Matsuyama's jazz scene. Naturally, I've noticed a few strange and wonderful things which I shall recount here.
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In Japan, people who speak English are thought to be quite cool. Since most of the famous jazz standards have English lyrics, all of the jazz vocalists here sing in English, and hence the singers are the height of coolness.
One of the singers who performed with Crash for our Christmas concert is known around Matsuyama by his first name all in caps: YAMATO. I suppose that puts him up there somewhere in between Ichiro, Pele and Madonna. He really has a nice voice, kind of Frank Sinatra-ish, but there's one small problem -- he has a bit of an accent.
Actually, out of all the Japanese accents I've heard while I've been here, Japanese-Frank-Sinatra's is not so bad, but unfortunately for him, just one little slip up and he ends up singing things like Fry me to the Moon and Someday my Price Will Come. On the bright side, there are probably only about thirty people in the whole city who would actually be able to pick out his pronunciation issues, so I guess he's pretty safe.** But still, it seems such a shame to me that his musical talents have to be overshadowed by all those awkward r's and l's. (By the way, does anyone have any theories about why Italian and French accents are considered cool and exotic but Asian accents just aren't?)
Anyway, since my debut in December, my singing career has truly been blossoming. I've already sung at two more clubs and even received dinner invitations from adoring fans. :) Only one thing stands in the way of my quest to achieve the same one-name status as YAMATO, Ichiro, Pele and Madonna -- my first name is impossible to spell. I've been listed as Linzie, Miss Rinji, LINJI...just about anything you can think of. I guess it's sort of impossible for people with L-names to reach idol status in Japan. :)
* You'll recall from a previous post that I met my neighborhood shrine's Shinto priest at a festival in October. He plays the piano.
** Man, it's a strange feeling to sit in a room full of people knowing that you're the only one who can hear the weird accent. It's like going crazy and hearing voices or something -- even if you tried to tell someone what you heard, they would never understand. So I chill in a corner feeling strangely alone while everyone else in the club sits in bilssful ignorance. And Japanese-Frank-Sinatra steps into the spotlight looking quite debonair and starts crooning, "Start spleading za news, I'm reaving todaaay...."
4 comments:
though I personally do not find Italian and French accents sexy, my theory is that it is because people with those accents are generally fluent in English and are much easier to understand, whereas the horrendous Asian accent marks a distinctive lack of fluency and is impossible to understand. (And generally comes from sketchy Asian males). One is like, ooh you are foreign, how sexy! and the other is like, augh stop speaking you're hurting my ears!
yeah, i suppose that's true. it's easier to think an accent is attractive if you can actually understand it. :)
also, i think all of those extra syllables from Japanese make things awkward, especially in a song. like "mai haato uiru go on ando ooonnnn"....lol
while i dont personally fawn over french or italian accents myself, i theorize that it's comfort level that we detect in those non-american accents. since french and italian have similar sounds in the language, and since quite a few english words derive from french and italian, we sorta go, "ohh... THAT'S how you say it eh..." in the case of the asian person, the sounds shared between our language and theirs is a lot less, and when asian people speak english, the majority of them will speak with very little confidence, hence kinda setting themselves to seem less-cool with their awkward accents.
again, this is all just a theory. i'm sure chris, the in-house linguist, will argue that there are many shared sounds, etc.
mmm, that's probably true too. I wonder how our accents sound when we speak Japanese...
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