A Quote by Janis Ian

I know just enough Japanese to get by if I get lost and greet an audience properly, just from having a lot of Japanese friends and being there over the years. — © Janis Ian
I know just enough Japanese to get by if I get lost and greet an audience properly, just from having a lot of Japanese friends and being there over the years.
I have a lot of friends who were stand-ups, and they just stopped after a while, because they didn't like that battle, or they just couldn't do it. And then they would get on a sitcom and get visible and get back into it, because the audience was just way easier on them. But they lost those crucial years of learning to turn any audience into your audience.
I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there's this huge Japanese population over there.
They got word that the Japanese planes were coming back, so we sunk her ourselves so the Japanese wouldn't get it. We didn't want the Japanese to get it intact.
Playing Japanese characters and being in environments that are Japanese, like a character's apartment or whatever, if you have directors or art directors who just don't know what' s what with Japanese culture, then pretty soon something's just passed through. I've been through many times where I've pointed out the incorrectness of so much of what's been done to a set.
Well, Japanese fans braced me since 1991 that was my first time I have been to Japan. So I know that Japanese fans has supported me over the years. So it just a lot of love and Wayne Wonder will release more music, more music and more music!
I'm grateful that I had that uphill battle for 10 years of going onstage and having nobody know who I was, because you have to win them over. I have a lot of friends who were stand-ups, and they just stopped after a while, because they didn't like that battle. And then they would get on a sitcom and get visible and get back into it, because the audience was just way easier on them. That's why they're okay stand-ups, but they're never going to be great, because they don't have that presence. They never built those muscles up.
My personal fave is 'The Japanese Wife', because I think I achieved a lot of what I wanted to do. I wanted that Japanese minimalism in the film, which I managed to get somewhat.
Japanese train signs, station signs, are really representative of the Japanese mind to me, because it always has the station where you are, the station you were previously at, and the station that is the next station. When I came to New York, I was very confused. It just doesn't say where I was and where I was going. But I realized after a while probably most people don't need to know what station you were previously at. But I think it's just some weird Japanese mentality that we need to know, we need to connect the plot.
I just happened to have my camera and be photographing my friends. It was totally innocent; there was no purpose to the photographs. There was a purity to them that wasn't planned; it was realism. Over the years, the work has changed for me. I know that I have wanted to repeat myself, but I can't. I've been lost a lot of times, but then I'd just get an idea and photograph it. Once I'd started, I'd know exactly what would go down and how it would end. So I just quit doing it, because it loses all interest for me when you know what's going to happen.
I dreamed of having a Gibson. I had a cheap Kent - you know, a Japanese guitar - and then a Kanora, a Japanese guitar. I borrowed a friend's Harmony for years. To have a Gibson was really, really my dream as a kid.
Being in front of the audience, letting my audience see me in person - it is real intimate, you get to make them laugh and cry, they get to feel you. And then afterward, we go out and do a meet-and-greet session with the fans. It was just a wonderful experience. I really, really enjoyed it.
The method (of learning Japanese) recommended by experts is to be born as a Japanese baby and raised by a Japanese family, in Japan. And even then it's not easy.
The power and depth of Japanese acting certainly inspired me, so I was determined that Hollywood was going to get a taste of that, that Americans were going to get a taste of Japanese action.
I travel a lot. Japanese culture is very ancient and very strong. That's why most people who commission work from Japanese architects expect them to create works that have an element of exoticism, the kind typical of Japanese culture. I don't do that.
In the early stages of Internet in Japan, many said that Japanese and Americans are different. There are 10 reasons why Japanese Internet is not taking off. I said none of them are right; it's just a time lag. And, of course, Japanese Internet took off.
The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.
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