maxiewawa

On my final day before leaving Tokyo the week before last, I stood in the corner of the office and took these photos of everyone that was in the office that day. Some of the people you can see are featured on-air, and if you listen to as many language learning podcasts as I do, you’d recognise most of them.

I won’t list everyone by name, since that would ruin the surprise if you actually get to meet anyone yourself. It’s much more fun when you meet them in real life.

It’s so strange hearing those voices “in the flesh”. I remember an Actor’s Workshop interview with the cast of the Simpsons; it was pretty crappy, basically the guy interviewing them just got everyone to do the voices, but I sat there enthralled. Hearing those voices which are attached so strongly to characters that I’m so familiar with come out of real peoples’ mouths was really strange. Meeting famous voices from Innovative Languages was a similar feeling.

By coincidence today I met another famous podcaster, Jenny Zhu from ChinesePod.com . I was quite flattered that she recognised me, and remembered my online name (maxiewawa) immediately! I was waiting in line at a foreign supermarket on 淮海路 and spotted Hank, also from Praxis Languages. I recognised him from a Youtube video. He smiled after I introduced myself, and after I made it clear that I was a listener, without saying anything, he pointed to Jenny. We had a nervous conversation (well I was nervous, she wasn’t) where I uncomfortably admitted that I worked for a ライバル会社 and kept saying 哇，两个名人，太紧张 but it was great to have a brush with celebrity.