Among many things, Deas Richardson is an English teacher on the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) programme. That alone makes his blog essential reading for any prospective Japan-bound JET participant, and there’s plenty more to satisfy anyone with a keen interest in Japan.
The man behind the blog
Describing Deas is best left to his students who had this to say:
Deas seems smart, which surprises me.
Deas is 22 years old. Deas is very very fun. Deas is verry verry cool!!!â€
He’s a little older than that now, but is no less fun. Hailing from South Carolina in the U.S, this supposed Harry Potter lookalike invites you to read his blog because,
It could be quite entertaining. (Then again, it could be so bad that it makes you want to put your finger through your eye, into your brain, and swirl it around. Ahem. I hope that that is not the case.)
Do foreign men speak like Japanese girls?
According to some fancy blog metrics, Deas’ most popular article is about foreign men speaking girly Japanese. It’s a good read and probably applies to me, too, as I’m always speaking Japanese with my wife, and learned the language from female teachers. On the subject of language, judging by his popular Japanese translation of “Santa Claus: An Engineer’s Perspective“, Deas has a very impressive grasp of Japanese, which adds a lot of credibility to his articles about Japan.
Japanese in the TV show, Heroes
The most popular series of articles on Rocking in Hakata is not surprisingly Deas’ breakdown of the US drama Heroes. I haven’t seen it myself, but I do remember hearing that one of the stars is wanted by Japanese police for trying to stop fisherman here catch dolphins. In his series, Deas analyzes the Japanese spoken during the first season, and we get to see videos of what the man in Hakata actually looks like!
Start Rocking in Hakata
I’m actually quite new to Rocking in Hakata but I have enjoyed what I’ve read so far. There’s a good balance between teaching, Japan and other things on Deas’ mind, and it’s clear that he puts a great deal of effort into writing quality content. Recommended reading!
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
Hey – thanks for the review! (But I’m on Hakatajima, in Ehime Prefecture…not in Fukuoka… It’s one of the reasons I’m thinking of changing domains…haha.) I’m humbled by your glowing comments. Ha ha. 🙂
Heh – here’s my About Deas page. Sorry it’s not more prominent on the page.
Whoops! Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve changed the title, but the url will stay the same… 😕
Speaking Japanese like a girl? Yeah … I think I’m guilty of that, too. I blame it on all the female-characters in anime and manga. Perhaps I should read more male stuff ….
Thanks for letting us know more about some of the Japan-based bloggers, Nick. I’ve enoyed learning about some other sites and even subscribed to a few 🙂
That’s the last of the reviews for people who took up the offer on my Questions for JapanSoc Users #1 post. It’s been fun, much like when I was “Spud Oregon” on Nice4Rice.com. Maybe I’ll offer more reviews with the next round of questions. Thanks for reading!
As for squeaky voices and feminine Japanese, I just find it hard to impersonate the deep voices Japanese men use and expect people to take me seriously! 😯
Yeah … hearing a non-Japanese guy use a deep voice is kinda weird. It’s almost like a mockery of the language 😕
Hopefully one day we’ll have that perfect voice and inflection, though.
@Deas,What happened to your old template? The one with the clear edges and rounded corners?
Why did you drop it?
Hey buddy –
I dropped it at the request of my visitors! There were admittedly some really laggy load times. This streamlines things while I hunt around for something more appropriate. (I’ve been asked where the “Japan” is in this temporary design – gotta admit – it’s simply not there…) Suggestions are welcome, by the way!
Damn,
That was one of my all time fave templates!
If I see any you might like I’ll point you in it’s direction!
I used to teach on JET and man I wished I’d been blogging when I was on the site.. If only I could back! What could have been, tsk tsk, what could have been!!!
Hi Nick,
I read that you always speaking Japanese with your wife. Does she speaks English too? What about Rikuto? Do you talk to him in English and Japanese? I think it’s very good if he is able to speak both language as both languages are oftenly used in international communication.
No, my wife doesn’t speak English although recently she has been more serious about learning the language. Rikuto’s only a baby, but I speak to him in English. It’s his only hope!
Deas has a lot of great original content. My favourite posts are when he translates comical things into Japanese (like jokes and lolcats), those are great!
Yep, the template isn’t very Japanese but at least it isn’t stuffed full of ads. That’s another thing I love about the site
Awww, thanks Tori!