Chizu to Tegami to Koi no Uta - 13.05.2007

Hey everyone, I managed to get another radio episode under my belt today in between studying for my Japanese exam tomorrow. As before the italics are Maaya's speech and then I've summarised some parts I had trouble translating exactly into a transcript. The jist of it, I guess you could say. Hopefully it's not too far out. Anyway, Enjoy!

Good evening this is Maaya Sakamoto! For the next 15 minutes please join me for ‘Chizu to Tegami to koi no uta’! Another week has ended, hasn’t it? Everyone were you working? Did you go to school?

As for me, well, the musical Les Miserables premier is in about a month so increasingly it’s coming closer. I’m doing a lot of training, and this year as well I’m playing the role of Eponine. Even though this is the fifth year running I’ve played this role, while I put on an accent I’m really trying my hardest. There’s a practice everyday and of course because I have other work to do every day apart from that, I’m pretty much powerfully working every day at the moment.

Within that, there are a few little breaks from practice and when I have time there so many other things to be stopped by.

Maaya tells a story about going to change her drivers licence. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to make it but she got there just in time. She has just a normal licence but this was her first time to renew it so she was really kind of happy but a little nervous, wondering what kind of thing they were going to do. She didn’t really know what would happen so like that she went to the examination centre.

She talks about what she had to do an exam and how it was kind of boring to wait about two hours of her waiting around before it and being nervous. She describes the test itself about how there is a test of strength where everyone was, in a very business like manner, in a line going one after the other with each having a number. When she finally got there the person she met was sort of staring at her and then asked questions normally until right at the end when he said “I have your cd!!” at the end. That was unexpected. Without thinking, right in the exam room she said ‘EEEHHHH????’ and the people behind were like ‘what’s going on?’. Maaya ponders this man’s work and how he was just going over normal matters had lots of people to see but how he wanted to say ‘I have your cd’ to her. She was really surprised.

Anyway, I managed to get my licence all done normally. “Ah that’s good, that’s good” I thought to myself. Well, after all that is the recent Maaya Sakamoto (laugh).

Well! This program ‘Chizu to Tegami to Koi no Uta’ is to introduce your mails about a theme to do with a certain word and this month I’m introducing mails to do with the keyword theme ‘promises’. This week again we had a lot of mails so now I’d like to introduce them.

Maaya introduces a mail from a man in Tokyo who promised his wife to stop smoking. His wife was against it to the point of divorce! So he stopped and although it was hard it is now his 5th month anniversary and he can think ‘it was bad but promises are good things’.

I see. This seems like it was hard, doesn’t it? I don’t smoke, so although I don’t understand if I had to give up coffee I think it would be really gruelling...it’s hard, isn’t it? As I said earlier I’m in the middle of rehearsals for a musical, and in the point of view of a singer or someone who uses their voice for their work tobacco is definitely not good for your throat so a lot of people decide to quit. But, in my production there is one person who last year smoked a lot, but in order to do difficult songs, this year he said “I’m going to give up” and after that his voice was completely different his oral ability stretched. However, because his lips were lonely he began to eat a lot of sweet things and…got fat (giggle). He even said “I got fat!”. Also, he found that his sense of smell and taste became more intense, his food was delicious and he said how he was often going out to eat.

Of course, giving up smoking seems hard but, you know, I understand your wife’s feelings. I think that she must of course be thinking about her husband’s health and so said ‘Quit!’, but if I was the wife I think ‘I’m breathing in your smoke so stop it’ is kinda strong. But for both of them, I think that this is best for their bodies. If you continue feeling in this spirit and continue your promise of not smoking, it’s good, huh?

Continuing on, I have one more mail to do with promises to introduce! Moomin Mama-san from Chiba prefecture.

Maaya reads out a letter from a mother who promised her son who just went into elementary school to do help him lose his pickiness about food. It seems he hates a lot of food such as peppers and eggs etc. This boy especially hates vegetables! The mother though if she bought them then he would eat a lot and finally come to like them. They’ve promised each other that if he eats them then she will reward him with a toy that he likes! However! The mother has decided to think of something else to reward him with instead.

This is bad!! The promise is being broken from the mother. You said “I will buy you a toy”, didn’t you? You did give this phrase yourself, didn’t you Moomin Mama-san. But a child will probably remember that you did that, if you don’t keep your promise it might be kind of hard. When I was a child, I remember people saying ‘next time I’ll buy you such and such if you get this in your next test’ and replying ‘ok!!’ and such even though I was thinking ‘Not possible!’ (laugh) I had those kind of parents, securing more and more promises.

Well, if he becomes able to eat things then I guess it’s a good thing (laugh) Please do your best to get him the toy!

Now, this program would still like to receive your mail and postcards about promises! There is no problem about the contents of them. Promises you have kept, promises you haven’t, people have lots of different memories so I’m waiting for lots of messages! On that note, the 6th episode of ‘Chizu to tegami to koi no uta’ has now been broadcast and our time has come to an end. It’s already been a month since this show started, we have a long program name but did you begin to get familiar with it everyone? ‘Chizu to tegami to koi no uta’! I’m waiting for letters about promises but also it’s not limited to that theme, opinions about the show and you impressions and normal letters addressed to me, questions and stuff, anything is ok! Things that you would like the show to do are also waited for.

[Contact details read out]

You can also send mails from TBS’s homepage. I’m looking forward to meeting you all next week, for today it’s time to part. See you next week, bye bye!!

This episode was less than 10 minutes and it still took quite a while to do. But I guess I'll get faster soon. Maaya's voice is easy on the ears so let's hope!! See you guys soon!