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NHK World: Kazuo Ishiguro
I recently watched a fascinating program on author Kazuo Ishiguro on the NHK World program First Class, in which he gives a lecture to students studying English literature in Japan (a mixture of both foreign and Japanese students). Part 1 aired on May 28th, and unfortunately is not included in the "On Demand" videos streamed on the NHK World website. However, if you're a fan of Ishiguro, you still have a chance to catch Part 2 on June 3rd and 4th: check your local TV listings for the exact time(s), or you can download the NHK World app to watch shows live. (The latter comes in very handy for me, since the local PBS station only airs a limited selection of NHK shows.)
To be honest, I've never read any of Ishiguro's books, but definitely want to give them a try now after watching his lecture and Q&A with the students, because he really is a compelling and interesting speaker, and I'm sure I'd enjoy his books if they are even half as interesting. He spoke about his background: born in Japan, but moved to England with his parents at the age of five, and has lived there ever since. So he considers himself mostly British, but at the same time, was raised by Japanese parents who brought him up in a traditionally Japanese manner. He said that from the ages of five to fifteen, he assumed that he would eventually return to Japan (which was his parents' original plan), but as he got older, he realized that the image of Japan he had created in his mind was a mixture of childhood memories and idealized imaginings of what it would be like rather than the actual country itself. He originally started writing not so much because he wanted to become a novelist, but because he wanted to preserve the "Japan" that existed in his mind so that he wouldn't forget it: the colors, the landscape, the sights and smells. (I thought that was a very interesting and unique reason for getting into writing.)
Related to that, one of the students asked if it was difficult for him to put such personal feelings out there for the world to see, and Ishiguro replied that it wasn't difficult, because while he was describing his personal Japan, the story wasn't an autobiography. The main character and the story were completely fictional and "his" Japan was merely the setting of the story.
Another interesting question was if Ishiguro felt that debates about moral issues (by readers and critics) in his novels sometimes overshadowed the story itself. Ishiguro said that he sometimes had to address social or moral issues due to the time/setting (as in Remains of the Day) or the plot (Never Let Me Go). However, he said that he felt a bit guilty because he was merely using the moral debate as vehicle for the story, rather than morality being the main issue itself. (Paraphrasing a bit because I don't remember his exact words, but that was essentially what he said.)
The entire lecture and most of the questions were all in English without any need for a translator--all the students presumably being bilingual (and probably trilingual for some of the foreign students from Europe and Asia), which makes sense for an English literature class. In a clip from an old interview in the 80s, Ishiguro said that he still speaks Japanese to his parents, but jokingly said that it was bad Japanese at the level of a 5-year-old child. (Reminds me a bit of one of my friends, who is second generation Japanese-American and can't really speak Japanese well, but understands it because his parents spoke it at home, though he would reply to them in English.) However, Ishiguro didn't seem to have any problems understanding a question that one of the students asked in Japanese, immediately replying in English.
I mention this because although he seems comfortable with his identity (at least now), the stories he shared about his childhood and young adulthood reminded me of the experiences of many Japanese Americans (and other immigrants and their children/grandchildren) of belonging to two worlds: being the citizen of one country and identifying as such, while at the same time feeling (and looking) different from your classmates and friends. He immediately addressed this issue at the start of the lecture by explaining that although he looks Japanese and has a Japanese name, he has lived in England since he was five, and told the story about his family moving there when he was a child. (I think most, if not all of the students must have been familiar with his background, but I get the impression that this is a question that comes up frequently enough that he addresses it at the start to clear things up and get it out of the way.)
To be honest, I've never read any of Ishiguro's books, but definitely want to give them a try now after watching his lecture and Q&A with the students, because he really is a compelling and interesting speaker, and I'm sure I'd enjoy his books if they are even half as interesting. He spoke about his background: born in Japan, but moved to England with his parents at the age of five, and has lived there ever since. So he considers himself mostly British, but at the same time, was raised by Japanese parents who brought him up in a traditionally Japanese manner. He said that from the ages of five to fifteen, he assumed that he would eventually return to Japan (which was his parents' original plan), but as he got older, he realized that the image of Japan he had created in his mind was a mixture of childhood memories and idealized imaginings of what it would be like rather than the actual country itself. He originally started writing not so much because he wanted to become a novelist, but because he wanted to preserve the "Japan" that existed in his mind so that he wouldn't forget it: the colors, the landscape, the sights and smells. (I thought that was a very interesting and unique reason for getting into writing.)
Related to that, one of the students asked if it was difficult for him to put such personal feelings out there for the world to see, and Ishiguro replied that it wasn't difficult, because while he was describing his personal Japan, the story wasn't an autobiography. The main character and the story were completely fictional and "his" Japan was merely the setting of the story.
Another interesting question was if Ishiguro felt that debates about moral issues (by readers and critics) in his novels sometimes overshadowed the story itself. Ishiguro said that he sometimes had to address social or moral issues due to the time/setting (as in Remains of the Day) or the plot (Never Let Me Go). However, he said that he felt a bit guilty because he was merely using the moral debate as vehicle for the story, rather than morality being the main issue itself. (Paraphrasing a bit because I don't remember his exact words, but that was essentially what he said.)
The entire lecture and most of the questions were all in English without any need for a translator--all the students presumably being bilingual (and probably trilingual for some of the foreign students from Europe and Asia), which makes sense for an English literature class. In a clip from an old interview in the 80s, Ishiguro said that he still speaks Japanese to his parents, but jokingly said that it was bad Japanese at the level of a 5-year-old child. (Reminds me a bit of one of my friends, who is second generation Japanese-American and can't really speak Japanese well, but understands it because his parents spoke it at home, though he would reply to them in English.) However, Ishiguro didn't seem to have any problems understanding a question that one of the students asked in Japanese, immediately replying in English.
I mention this because although he seems comfortable with his identity (at least now), the stories he shared about his childhood and young adulthood reminded me of the experiences of many Japanese Americans (and other immigrants and their children/grandchildren) of belonging to two worlds: being the citizen of one country and identifying as such, while at the same time feeling (and looking) different from your classmates and friends. He immediately addressed this issue at the start of the lecture by explaining that although he looks Japanese and has a Japanese name, he has lived in England since he was five, and told the story about his family moving there when he was a child. (I think most, if not all of the students must have been familiar with his background, but I get the impression that this is a question that comes up frequently enough that he addresses it at the start to clear things up and get it out of the way.)