Tag: Discovering Yamaguchi Sake

My First Japanese Talk

I’m using that term “talk” cautiously, because I’ve had public effects and appeared on TV in Japanese before, but in terms of “standing at a podium giving a prepared presentation in Japanese,” my first time was October 21st, 2025.

A small audience of older Japanese people sitting on folding chairs in a gymnasium-style hall.
The Crowd

The Hikari Community Development Support Center, which hosts local clubs and plans public events, invited me to be part of their annual local seminar series. I think my book and city newspaper column caught their eye, but it might also be that two former students from my business English days are on staff.

Whatever the case, I was scheduled to speak from 10 to 11:30, with a short break in the middle. I prepared a two-part talk, “Rediscovering Yamaguchi Prefecture.” The name is a play on my old TV segment, and featured since if the things I love most about this place.

Mostly, it was some of my favorite pictures taken here. Most of them are on this site somewhere.

I also included a segment on local sake, of course.

I’d say it went pretty well, but my Q&A segment ended up being way too long because I was just too damned tired to keep talking. And no one wanted to ask questions.

Anyway, they took a survey of the audience afterwards and the reaction was really good.

A Japanese language survey.
Survey response rate 96% (50/52 people)
Seminar rating: 42% Very Good, 54% Good, 2% Average.

I had a bunch of 2L sized prints left over from photo club meetings that I put out for people to take home and almost all were give afterwards, so that’s felt good, too.

It was a lot of fun, but lord, how draining…

Discovering Yamaguchi Sake – Errata

Despite my best efforts, I am still merely human, and I made mistakes in my book. Some are simple typographical errors, while others are the results of misunderstanding and miscommunication. I am keeping in touch with the publisher about hopefully getting these fixed in future editions (fingers crossed) but for now, here is a list of errors in Discovering Yamaguchi Sake.

  • Page 63 – Typo
    • Error: “with only the toji, Harada, and his hashira
    • Correction: with only the toji, Harada, and his kashira
  • Pp 100, 102, 103, 104 – Miscommunication
    • Error: Ikuyamakawa
    • Correction: Ikusanga
      • I feel like this one warrants explanation. The name of this sake label 幾山河 is both used in a famous poem and as a traditional kind of aphorism, both meaning “all the mountains and rivers of Japan.” In the poem, it is read “Ikuyamakawa,” while in the traditional phrase it is “Ikusanga.” The sake shop where I buy it uses the first, but I just found out that the brewery prefers the second.
  • Page 135 – Miscommunication
    • Error: “I actually went to university with Nagayama Takahiro…”
    • Correction: “I’m actually the same age as Nagayama Takahiro…”