My professor doesn't know who Ayu is. ;___;
 

I gave a speech in my Japanese class today on Ayumi Hamasaki (hehe), and when I finished, my professor, who's Japanese herself, didn't know much about music and has not heard of Ayu!?! ;~;
It made me so sad...
Maybe she was busy here in America when Ayu came around... Sigh. Q_Q

So, uh, anyone ever run into a Japanese person that doesn't know who Ayu is? xD
I mean, I'm sure there's some, but I thought my professor would know... D;

Edit: Oh balls, I made a typo in the title of the thread. Dx

That is weird, hah. Was she born in Japan? And if so, has she been living in the US for about a decade now, at least? If not....that's really weird, lol. You have to have at least heard the name Ayumi Hamasaki before. >_<

It happens all the time. My friends don't know who she is, their like erm is she new?

lol the Japanese professeur at my old university didn't know who Ayu was either. And she was born in Japan.

And then they liked to watch anime in the Japan club, and the professeur didn't know any of the anime either lol

My other Japanese friend knew of her...but uh...kinda in the way people know of just popular people I guess. She said she'd heard of her, but had never heard anything actually by her.

Most of my Korean friends know who she is though lol

@Crystal - I think so, I mean, I know her family lives there... And I think if she were born here, she'd be perfect at English (although her English is probably the best I've witnessed from a Japanese person).

@fantasma - Really? I guess I just wrongly assumed that Ayu was popular to the extreme at some point or another. ;.;

@emiko - xD Maybe it's a professor thing, lol. My high school Japanese teacher was also Japanese and knew plenty about Ayu!

lol wow, that's kinda like an American not knowing of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, etc. :laugh

lol one of my Japanese teachers didn't know her too xD


I think they fake it cause they love other singer better lolol I dunno, but in my teacher's case seems like that.

It's probably just because they're living in the US, then. :\

My professor wasn't too familiar with her either. But I made sure she knew everything about her by the time I finished the class :cool

I have run into some older Japanese that don't know her. Not knowing her though is pretty rare for a Japanese, even if they have been living in America.

I noticed that many japanese living abroad have a sort of refuse of everything concerns japanese culture and lifestyle..

a japanese girl who owns a bar in my city and is 25 years old living just from 1 year in taly knows Ayu approsimatively and doesn't like to talk about her so much.

Well that sometimes happened. This year, in 2009, some singer died. Supposively he was famous. But I think they're just that saying that. His name was.. Michael ....something... Well I don't know. I doubt he's famous anyway. Maybe just some people know him

I start Japanese classes on the 19th...I wonder if my professor knows about J.Pop....or the others in class

All my japanese teachers knew about ayu.
But they don't like her. LOL jealous bishes I swear.

Other than that, there would be few ppl who like ayu in any japanese class, I bet most of them are anime/manga fans. But I know most will dislike ayu. Haha jealous bishes again!

gonna kill them if they say somethin' bad about her or namie!

That's not so strange if she's not into music...maybe she heard her name a few times but living outside of Japan and in the US I guess it's pretty easy to have not heard of her. I didn't hear about Lady Gaga til about June this year! o_O




Well I'm pretty sure it was Michael Jordan.... :yes


:innocent

My previous japanaese teacher, who went to japan and return to singapore to teach, knows Ayu.
Not sure about my current sensei though[she's born in japan].

My sensei knows Ayu. He's definitely not a fan, but he's too nice to say anything bad I think, especially when I said she's my favorite artist.

My Chinese teacher knows her too, by her Mandarin name. I don't think she knows much about her though, she just said, "she looks like a doll." :laugh

Yes that's true :laugh
It's weird whe you think about that. :/

LOL.
xD

My professor doesn't seem like the type to show a lot of dislike for anything, but she will tell us when she doesn't have much of an interest for something, lol. x3
I hope she wouldn't hate Ayu if she knew about her. ;.;

no, i have never met japanese person who doesnt know who ayu is, but the true has to be told, ive never met someone older :)

I'm surprised your teacher never heard of her. Not uncommon to say the least.


Back in college, I took many Japanese courses, and of course all of my professors knew who ayu was. Despite knowing of her, they did not like her approach to younger women. They viewed her as "the poster child" for everything artificial and materialistic in every sense.

Moral of my college memories, never judge a book by its cover.:yes

^ I second that.

Well usually professors are a little different...it's not just because they're japanese...it's just that, as professors, they usually know their japanese culture better, and have lived there, and lived here...so it's a little odd that...they wouldn't know about Ayu.

huh,.. I think that's kinda impossible. Given tat Ayu is so popular in Japan, usually the Japanese shld know who is she.
Unless that person totally didn't care about wat's going on in her country. Otherwise I couldn't think of any other reason. lolz.

I don't know, I guess she's not a music fan or something, haha.
She knew who SMAP was, lol.

My Japanese friend didn't know who she was and she lives in Japan and is about..20? :P
She only knew when I told her she sung songs like SEASONS, Dearest, M.

^ O.o

:roflmao Dunno if you meant that the way I took it, but I found that funny...

Well if she wasn't born in Japan and spent most of her life overseas, I can see how she doesn't know Ayu

I know some friends that are Chinese, but since they grew up in US or moved when they were little, they know very....very little about Asian music

Even my English teacher who taught in Japan for a couple of years didn't know who Namie was...

So I wouldn't assume that just because they're Japanese, then they must know Ayu or any other popular artist~

I'm sure you imagine this professor to only eat sushi and read manga and watch anime too, right?

^This...
xD

neither my previous japanese teacher, who was born in Japan and knew about Namie, Utada, B'z, etc, etc, even alan, but not ayu @_@

^ lol wow....even alan...:thud i would love to talk with your japanese teacher lol XD

Yeah, specially because she gives copies of Gunjou no Tani as birthday presents to students... just to support alan :lech

^ :thud omg you have such an amazing teacher!!!!! i want a teacher like that too :bawl lol

but i am really surprised...for your teacher to know alan, but not ayu :thud

LMAO

...
I was not trying to imply that.
Sure, I was wrong to assume that maybe she'd know some things on Japanese music, especially Ayu, but that doesn't mean I assume her to be the 'stereotypical' Japanese person.
Please don't make the same mistake I did and assume something about someone or what they said, like you did with me.

I met a Japanese who make and sell Taiyaki far in my place.

I asked him in Japanese "Do you know Hamasaki Ayumi"?
He replied with "no, but I heard her songs everywhere"
And he said that he left Japan since 2001 and he didn't know much about Ayu.

Too bad but that's okay... :)

I don't think she's implying that they need to be fan of hers and know every songs. But if they're professors at an University teaching Japanese, shouldn't they have some credentials in the Japanese culture?

Although the professor might not eat sushi, read mangas, nor watch anime, if they didn't know what sushi, mangas, nor animes are, then would you trust them teaching you Japanese and it's culture?

They don't need to know every aspects of the Japanese culture, but they should be able to recognize her name or at least a few of her songs if they really came from/care about Japan Current/Recent Culture. Same applies to Bz and Mr Children and a few artists.

People who live in Japan and say they don't know who Ayu is are most likely pretending they don't know her as even I know the names of Serbian singers (at times I might not know what they look like nor the names of their songs, cuz I don't watch TV) but if you actually socialize with people you have to at least hear a name of someone who at least used to be THAT popular and is still very active on the music scene. So far all the Japanese and Chinese people I've met knew who she is.

Huuh....LOOOL....My professors don't know any japanese person....xd...

LOL XD

for a japanese to not know who ayu is, i think that person failed as a japanese =x.

^ Lol. XD

Lol, my sensei's face lit up when I asked her about Ayumi XD

She's Japanese and was born in Japan, but she's living here now, so she probably stays up to date on stuff that goes on in Japan from her friends or somewhere XD