[YuriTokoro]

Originally Posted by Koir

Quite an informative post, Yuri. It's interesting to see how aspects of culture other people find exotic are just everyday occurances to those living the culture, only done for tourism reasons. I tend to place some of the blame on how small the globe has become due to the internet and other easy ways of communicating for people preferring whatever new "music" comes out. Myself, I find that the music I listen to is old enough to graduate from high school. Right now, I'm listening to songs from an album released in 1997!

Koir, hi. Thanks as always.

Sorry, I don’t understand this : “Myself, I find that the music I listen to is old enough to graduate from high school.”
The music is old enough to graduate from high school?
Do you mean that the music was first released about 18 years ago?

On to the revisions:

"So these songs are very cool that I thought most Okinawa people love and sing their songs."

was changed to

"Since I believe these songs are very cool, I thought most Okinawan people would love to sing their songs."

This was done to create a framework of your preconceptions in order to contrast them with Okinawan individuals' opinions in the rest of the paragraph.

I see.
Is this sentence correct in grammar?
“Since I’m very busy dancing every day, I have no time to do housework.”

By the way, I’ve never heard the way of saying “Okinawan”.
I live in Kanagawa prefecture. So, I’m “Kanagawan” !! Is this right??

"I knew most young Japanese prefer hit songs, again in Okinawa, the state seems to be the same."

was changed to

"I knew most young Japanese prefer hit songs, and in Okinawa it appears no different."

This was done, again, to illustrate your preconceptions based on knowledge of young Japanese people's music preferences. In this case, your preconceptions proved correct in showing music preferences of young Okinawan people. I'm surmising you are comparing young people's preferences between areas, though if that is not the case, the sentence still functions well as revised.

“This was done, again, to illustrate your preconceptions based on knowledge of young Japanese people's music preferences.” ???
There might be some misunderstandings.
I thought that young Okinawan people would like singing their folk songs before I went there, but it turned out that most young Okinawan people seemed to prefer hit tunes than their traditional songs.

I think this misunderstanding might be from the word “folk songs”. In Japanese I would say it “minyou”, and they don’t become a hit nowadays. (And yet, an Okinawan song became a hit several years ago.) Most minyou songs are very old. And, Okinawan minyou is not like Japansese minyou, because that prefecture was “the Ryukyu Kingdom” till 1871.
Should I write this in my composition?


Wikipedia says : Min'yō (民謡) is a genre of traditional Japanese music. The term is a translation of the German word "Volkslied"[1] (folk song) and has only been in use during the twentieth century. Japanese traditional designations referring to more or less the same genre include "inaka bushi" ("country song") "inaka buri" ("country tune"), "hina uta" ("rural song") and the like, but for most of the people who sang such songs they were simply "uta" (song). Many min'yō are connected to forms of work or to specific trades and were originally sung between work or for specific jobs. Other min'yō function simply as entertainment, as dance accompaniment, or as a components of religious rituals.

When you look up the word “minyou” in dictionary, you would find it “folk song”. So I wrote “folk songs”. However, I should have written “country song” or “country tune” instead.

I wanted to listen Okinawan music. They only played them in a few restaurants, I didn't know it.
I entered a wrong restaurant, and they played “not Okinawan music” there. I was really disappointed.

Also, the above revision is somewhat of an English saying to my thinking. "Appears no different" can be seen as somewhat difficult to understand as written, but it carries the same meaning that two or more things are identical when examined under certain criteria.

I see. “Appears no different” means “two or more things are identical”.
“Appears identical” is less common. OK.

"Years ago, when I planned to go to Ireland, I was asked one of my English teachers from there why I wanted to go her hometown."

The bolded revision was done to streamline the readability of the sentence while still referring clearly back to the English teacher's country of origin.

“my English teachers who was from the country” should be “my English teacher from there”. OK!

Also, the revision in the sentence explaining your reasons for not continue traditional singing and dancing was done for the same reason. "Few other young people did so" both reference the group you identify with and the activities explained earlier in the sentence.

“few young people played them” should be “few other young people did so.”.
I always forget “other”.

My family doesn't have any traditional dances, and little traditional songs beyond Christian songs. Personally though, I have many Canadian singing groups I listen to frequently, and I suppose they could be called my traditional songs. I don't sing myself as I don't have that good a singing voice.

I’m sure that one of the greatest singers is Janis Joplin,(actually, she died many years ago) and her voice was not that good. So, you must be a soulful singer!


“However, it turned out that the folk songs were sung only in restaurants or on the street for tourists.”
Can I change this sentence to this?
“However, it turned out that the folk songs were sung only in restaurants on Kokusai Street, the most popular street in Okinawa, for tourists.”

Koir, thanks as always!!