#188: Happy New Year and Meeting Yoko K. in DC!
Events, Music, Translating/Interpreting, WIT Life, Writers 
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
ちょっと遅くなりましたが、明けましておめでとうございます！ I hope that your 2012 has gotten off to a good start, and that the year of the dragon is a fortuitous one for everyone.
I’m down in DC with a new group of International Visitors invited by the State Department to study U.S. energy policy. In light of the Fukushima accident nuclear is obviously a big focus, but we are also looking at renewable energy options like solar and wind (as well as geothermal which will take us to a plant on the Big Island of Hawaii!). As part of our cultural activities outside of the professional program, the other night we attended Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center where a Japanese artist was featured.
Her name is Yoko K. and she hails from Nagano, and she is an electronic musician, producer, engineer and vocalist. I was not very familiar with that genre of music, but her performance kept me entertained throughout. She incorporates various tools in her sound creation, and you can see the basis of her classical training in piano from the age of 3. I particularly liked her bilingual and often humorous lyrics, especially from the song “Laptop on Top of Your Lap” (“I want to be a laptop on top of your lap”).
This song was from her 2nd album “Heaven’s Library”, which is available on iTunes and worth a listen if you are a fan of electronic music or looking to be introduced to it. We got to chat with Yoko after the concert, and she was super personable and eager to discuss her music. I look forward to following her continued success!
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