A Quote by Robyn Davidson
At the age of 25, I gave up my study of Japanese language and culture at university in Brisbane and moved to the town of Alice Springs.
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I was born in Japan and moved to L.A. when I was six, and I grew up with Japanese culture. I was reading manga, and I read 'Death Note' in real time in Japanese.
I don't speak Japanese, I don't know anything about Japanese business or Japanese culture. Apart from sushi. But I can't exactly go up to him and say "Sushi!" out of the blue. It would be like going up to a top American businessman and saying, "T-bone steak!
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.
Sound words can't be understood through formal study of the language alone. They're felt when you immerse yourself in the culture or lifestyle that becomes a part of you. The Japanese language is abundant with onomatopoeia. Even though I've lived in Japan a long time, sound words are still an uncertain territory. And I think new words are being created every day. Even when I don't know a word I can sometimes connect it to a meaning using the sensations produced by the sounds, which feels like I'm playing with words.
Keanu Reeves learned a lot, respecting the culture. I was surprised when I first met him. He knew a lot already and he learned a lot. And also he learned Japanese. It's incredible. On the set, switching between the Japanese and English, even for us, is very hard. It's complicated. But the first time Keanu spoke in Japanese it was a very important scene between us, and more than the dialogue's meaning, I was moved. His energy for the film, completely perfect Japanese pronunciation. It was moving, surprising, respecting.
Here's the American situation - we have moved from a culture of independence to a culture of dependence. We have moved from capitalism into the direction of socialism. We have moved from being a beacon of strength internationally to a position of weakness.
I moved from New Zealand to Melbourne when I was 17. I'd planned to go to university to study French, but I was offered a contract to write and record an album that was too good to pass up. Looking back now I think that was pretty young but, at the time, I was ready to have an adventure.
Musicals are written in English, and then we import them to Japan. When we translate them into Japanese, the sounds of the language are completely different. The Japanese language is not the best for singing, in terms of sound.
Australia's arid western region, from the town of Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean coast, is a beautiful, haunting, but largely empty land. Dominated by the harsh, almost uninhabited Great Sandy and Gibson deserts, the region is known only to Australian Aborigines, a handful of white settlers, and the few travelers who motor across it.
I suppose I do the Japanese because I just don't know China. Chinese popular culture has never evoked that instant of, "Whoah! What's that?" that I have with Japanese popular culture.
I took Japanese in high school. I'm Chinese, though, and I just fell in love with the language and the culture.
Columbia University, where I went to study in 1993, insisted its undergraduates learn a foreign language, so I discovered French.
I've been working with Spanish, French, some more American, and Japanese directors. And then I realized I have to study English, and that's why I moved to New York two years ago.
I was born and grew up in Palm Springs. It's a great place to grow up, a real small town.
As a young artist in New York, I thought about postwar Japan - the consumer culture and the loose, deboned feeling prevalent in the character and animation culture. Mixing all those up in order to portray Japanese culture and society was my work.
I was really grateful to have a chance to have some really in-depth study about the power of language using a philosopher who taught at the University of Chicago by the name of Paul Ricoeur. I'm really happy to be in Chicago because a lot of what I do is rooted in his approach to language.
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