About 20 years ago I borrowed a camcorder and recorded interviews in English with Fukui-ken friends about several facets of social life. After Youtube became easy to use by so many people, I digitized the recordings to share online (see below). Then during my 2017 year in Japan I made a few more clips, mostly 2-3 minutes observations of events, rather than conversations. But a few weeks ago I made a short visit to see some of the same 1998 people whom I talked with. After 20 years we see things from a different perspective. Most clips are in English, but still have value to learners of Japanese, since social proficiency and cultural literacy are just as important as linguistic fluency and accuracy.
One recording is with a former workmate in Fukui who has actively protested nuclear power each week at the kencho. That conversation is in Japanese.
And as a curious experiment, one conversation illustrates Code Switching: we jump back and forth between Japanese and English. In my early days of learning Japanese it felt confusing to switch so freely, but now there feels like almost no boundary between the languages anymore. Maybe other non-native speakers have a similar experience, too.
I will send this link to my social studies colleagues, too, but first I want to share the clips with students of Japanese life and language.
-- W
