{"id":15520,"date":"2010-12-14T11:14:05","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T15:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=15520"},"modified":"2010-12-15T11:30:39","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T15:30:39","slug":"interview-with-%e2%80%98fried-chicken-and-sushi%e2%80%99-cartoonist-khalid-birdsong-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/14\/interview-with-%e2%80%98fried-chicken-and-sushi%e2%80%99-cartoonist-khalid-birdsong-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin\u2019s Japan: Interview with \u2018Fried Chicken and Sushi\u2019 Cartoonist\/JET Alum Khalid Birdsong: Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/em><\/strong> JQ magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Justin Tedaldi<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page <\/strong><\/em>here<\/strong><\/em><\/a> to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Cartoonist\/JET alum Khalid Birdsong. (Courtesy of K. Birdsong)<\/p><\/div>\n

Cartoonist and teacher Khalid Birdsong<\/a> lived in Japan for two years working as an assistant English teacher on the JET Program<\/a>. Last spring he launched the original webcomic Fried Chicken and Sushi<\/a><\/em>, which is published twice a week and based loosely on his real-life experiences in Japan, mining the cross-cultural humor that living abroad provides.<\/p>\n

Birdsong now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, whom he met in Japan, and baby daughter. He plans to visit Japan next year, which he feels will inspire even more stories. I spoke with the artist about his time on JET, life as a teacher, and the future of his creation.<\/p>\n

Where did you grow up, and what is your history with comics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guess I\u2019d call Atlanta, Georgia, home\u2014that\u2019s where I\u2019ve spent most of my life. I\u2019ve traveled quite a bit. I\u2019ve lived in several countries\u2014in Nigeria, Germany, the Bahamas and also Japan. So I\u2019ve kind of had that international view of things. I\u2019ve always enjoyed reading comics no matter where I might be living. I\u2019ve always liked to draw them, but I didn\u2019t really read American comics until I was in middle school. Mainly, I would read Asterix<\/a><\/em> and the European comics, and I\u2019d watch a lot of animation. But I\u2019d still draw my own comics and make up my own characters and do my own comic books and then sell them for a quarter to my friends; people always knew me as the comic book kid. So I just kept it going\u2014even in college, I went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., and I studied graphic design and illustration there. Everything I learned, I tried to bring it back into comics and cartooning. I also did T-shirt designs, and did some freelancing for a couple of years on my own, which meant that I was freelance working, but I was also a security guard, and I was waiting tables, and all the other things that you do. And I just fell into teaching art in elementary school, and I\u2019ve been teaching ever since. I really, really love it. It\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

How did you get hooked on Japanese culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think like most people in high school, at least when I was in high school in the early \u201990s, it was this brand new thing, when trying to look at Japanese animation when you didn\u2019t have a translation and watching stuff you couldn\u2019t understand with friends\u2014and trying to read any certain comics that you could get your hands on\u2014it was something new and exciting. I just always thought, \u201cBoy, it must be interesting to actually live in Japan; that must be something amazing to do.\u201d But I never thought I would really ever do it. I was just interested in the art and language. Even in college, same thing\u2014it became more prevalent. I would enjoy more and more anime and manga, along with American comics. So I think that\u2019s what really started me off. I was drawing comics, but I was still drawing in an American-type cartoony style. I didn\u2019t have that quote-unquote manga style, but that\u2019s what kind of started me into it. And then I started thinking what it would be like to live over there once I started actually teaching art.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when you discovered the JET Program?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, when I was teaching art, I guess I had this feeling\u2014I was in my mid-20s, and I just thought it would be nice. Me and my friend Jason, who\u2019s actually the J in the Fried Chicken and Sushi<\/em> comic\u2014we both talked about going to Japan just to visit just for a couple of weeks. And so we tried to plan a trip, but we didn\u2019t have the money and all this\u2014didn\u2019t quite happen. And then, he actually found out about the JET Program online, and then I looked into it, too, and we said, \u201cWe should try to apply, let\u2019s do it.\u201d I was already teaching [in the U.S.], so we applied, and I went through the, whatever, nine-month span of time that it takes to go through everything, and I made it in and he didn\u2019t, and it really was not cool; it really hurt us both. But he\u2019s a good friend, so he said, \u201cYou need to go on ahead and do it,\u201d and so I did.<\/p>\n

So the relationship between the two characters in the comic is based on real life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is. A lot of what I\u2019m telling in the comic is based on truth in my life, but there are things that I may change or over exaggerate or add on as time goes by, as Karl\u2019s character develops and becomes more of his own character and individual, and the same with J. So there\u2019ll be things that I make up, but I try to keep as much of it as I can based on some of my real experiences\u2014I think people can tell what comes from truth and real experience.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re saying you didn\u2019t<\/em> have a talking tanuki spirit<\/a> haunting you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs<\/em>] That\u2019s great! You know, the thing with that is, in real life I really do have a very overactive imagination. You might have known some Japanese when you went over there, but for me, I really didn\u2019t. I listened to some CDs and studied some basic greetings and everything, so when I was there I had no idea what anyone was saying. I would just get lost in my own imagination, and there were tons of stories going on in my head and all this\u2014I would imagine things moving around that weren\u2019t moving around. So no, I didn\u2019t have a tanuki, but I wanted to have something that would represent that state of craziness I was in, where I\u2019m there but also kind of detached from it all.<\/p>\n

Because of budget woes, there\u2019s been talk of the Japanese government trimming or potentially cutting the JET Program altogether. As a JET alum, what are your thoughts on the value and benefits of the program from your own experiences? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that for me, it was great to be able to travel to another country and to get international experience as a teacher and teach English and be able to travel in a place where I never thought I would and learn a new language, so that is very valuable for me. I think that even though people argue, saying that maybe having a native speaker in the classroom is not that all that important for Japanese people, I think that it\u2019s still great for them to have someone from another country, because I feel that Japanese people don\u2019t really get a chance to really experience or talk to or have someone that\u2019s not Japanese around them typically. So I think it\u2019s a great way for them to not just learn about other cultures and what\u2019s around them, not to mention English, but in terms of international relations I think it\u2019s a really great program for that.<\/p>\n

And the work you\u2019re doing now is an extension of those ideals.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

I totally agree, it\u2019s really great. It challenges stereotypes, and I wish we could have more of it instead of cutting it down.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/strong> for the rest of the interview.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JQ magazine\u2019s\u00a0Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page here to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.\u00a0 Cartoonist and teacher Khalid Birdsong lived in Japan for two years working as an assistant English teacher on the JET Program. Last spring he launched the original webcomic Fried Chicken and Sushi, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,340,304],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviewprofile","category-justins-japan","category-notable-jet-alums"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-42k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15520"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15576,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15520\/revisions\/15576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}