This is America, speak English or go back to your own country!!  How many Karens and Chads have you seen on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, all harassing some poor bloke they overheard speaking Chinese, Spanish, Tagalog, Farsi, Arabic, Swahili, or Japanese at a Starbucks, a grocery store checkout line, a bank, or a McDonald’s restaurant as if the first language to reach the shores of the United States wasn’t actually French in 1535 before the Spanish got to our North American shores in 1565?  All that Christopher Columbus mumbo jumbo aside, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen or heard someone talk that trash I would have a jet with a pilot on 24 hour standby.  But I’m living in Japan, and this isn’t about back home at this particular moment.  I’ve been here for three years now and my Japanese still isn’t very good at all.  I can read and write a lot better than I can speak, but I understand a lot more than I realize sometimes.  In many ways, the Japanese are very different from us but in a lot of ways they’re a lot like us.  One thing that struck me was that although they’re taught English in the school systems here, they don’t speak it and think they don’t understand it.  They understand more than they’ll let on oftentimes. But try not to take that as a form of disrespect.  They’re afraid to make mistakes or perhaps sound stupid or ignorant.  I let them know that it’s okay to make mistakes, because that’s how you learn.  They too have the same opinion about us “Gaijin” making mistakes.  I’ve noticed that with the Japanese people, you don’t have to sound good.  The very fact that you put forth any effort to try speaking the language, and I mean any effort whatsoever.  They’ll love you for it and take it as a high form of respect for them, for their culture, and for their language.  Interestingly enough, and you’ll find this odd because I just got done telling you that they’re a lot like us right after starting this whole yammering diatribe by complaining about Karens and Chads who demand everyone in America speak English or take a long walk off a short plank in shark infested waters.  But the more fluent in Japanese you become, the less adorably cute you’ll find yourself to be here.  But if there is one thing that I know about the Japanese people, it’s this. The fact that they appear to be quite shy might be the understatement of the millennium.  But if you pass a Japanese man a microphone, you just might find yourself one heck of a ham who loves to sing.  Song and drinks are a somewhat common way that folks bond together over here.  If you’re anything like me, the most hammy ham pork rind in the bag, they’re going to love it.  If you’re a good singer, all the better.  You don’t have to be Freddie Mercury to make friends, but let me give you a slice of advice.  If you learn even one Japanese song, you’d be surprised just how many new friends you will earn, all of them eager to buy you the next round.

When COVID first began, before anyone was taking it seriously in either Japan or the United States just yet, of course.  They were holding auditions in Omihachiman for an NHK television show that had a professional band who could literally play any song you could pull out your bum and your job is to sing it before a live audience and panel of judges.  If you managed to make it through the whole song without being cut off, you could win.  At the very least you could win some local celebrity.  I auditioned for the show in front of an audience of over 500 people with a well known Japanese song, Jidai Okure.  I had them eating out of my hand.  But Mrs S told me I screwed the pooch when after my audition, when they asked me where I was from, like an idiot I answered, “Los Angeles.’  Apparently I was supposed to say the town that I actually hold Japanese residence.  They dismissed me as just a lowly tourist, and I lost my chance.  However, although all I got out of that audition was a t-shirt.  I get approached by men and women of all ages, asking me, “why do you have this shirt?”  When I tell them about the audition attempt, somehow they find it impressive that I even had the nerve to try.  Anytime a Gaijin tries over here, it’ll at the very least get you some kind of praise or conversation.  I’m quite popular when I sing at the Pig and Whistle from time to time or at various karaoke joints.  Learning the language here can get you far, earn you friends and connections that could lead you in directions that you never thought yourself headed.  But learning a Japanese song will send them to the moon and just might land you in the good graces of someone who just might want to introduce you to his or her friends.  I’m not saying that you’ll get sucked off over the Sukiyaki Song or that anyone is going to be your Papa Katsu (sugar daddy) for learning a pop song.  But you do realize, fellow L.A. Brass Monkey Karaoke Kings, that Karaoke originated in Japan, right??