■ 2004年2月19日(木)
My Favorites in Kawagoe (その2)
Reference: Dr. Tobin's Interview (July. '03, Business English from NHK radio)
Tobin: I know you're a writer, a speaker, a consultant and a coach on cross-cultural issues. How did you interest in this field develop?
Karen Hill Anton: I would say it was really just the natural transition from my writing about culture to being invited to speak and then from speaking in various venues, also being asked to…I would say to conduct interventions sometimes…cross-cultural interventions or workshops. And it really evolved pretty much without seams.
Tobin: I remember the writing very well in The Japan Times. You wrote about your personal experiences in Japan. And were you surprised that the column was such a hit and people were so interested in what you were doing?
Anton: Actually, I don't think surprised because before I suggested the idea to The Japan Times, I just thought about life in Japan and what we were doing, and thought people would be curious about it. In fact, I knew people were curious about it because I was asked all the time. What are you doing in Japan, what are you doing in Tenryu, how did you make the transition from the western culture to the eastern culture, what about your children, what about raising them. There were just so many things people in Japan, outside of Japan, were curious to know. In fact, I used to keep a list of ideas as they came to me. I'd give titles to them. I never had any trouble and I always kept a list of at least 25 or 30 columns that I was prepared to write about. And as I crossed them off when I wrote about them, I was always adding more so it was never less than, I think, 25 or 30.
(See page 56 on the textbook)
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