The Background
Near the end of my first semester at MIIS (Fall 2023), I had the opportunity to be a part of the 31st Mini-Monterey Model Event. To summarize, the event functions as a chance for language studies students (like myself) and interpreters to practice their respective crafts. Language students students give presentations on self-selected topics in their languages of choice, and interpreters in booths interpret the presentations into English real-time for those who don’t speak that language. It’s a beautiful symbiotic event. If you’re curious as to what kind of presentations were given at the event I was a part of, here’s a flier.
And if you’re wondering why my name is up there twice, it’s because I also volunteered to co-MC the event. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make jokes and also give a serious presentation all at the same event. It was absolutely worth it.
The Sad News
Despite my efforts, I have been unsuccessful in acquiring a video recording of the event. If I ever do get a copy, this part will be replaced with the video. However, for the time being, you’ll have to just read my ramblings on the event and get by with my presentation materials. Sorry about that…
The MC Part
The MCing was by far the simpler of the two. I got together to write a script with my fellow MC, Ian Driscoll, and our senses of humor aligned well enough that script came along quickly and easily. Mostly, we wanted to make the audience laugh or at least smile. An amused audience is an engaged audience after all.
Then, Ian and I came up with an idea. I don’t speak any Chinese, and he doesn’t speak any Japanese, so we thought it would be very entertaining if he spoke only in Chinese, and I only spoke in Japanese. We would be responding correctly to each other because the script that we both based our parts on was in English. Both on board to try this out, we wrote up this script.
But in the end we were perhaps overly excited about our cross language jokes. Our interpreters were very well prepared for the presentations, but our fast-paced, multilingual jokes were too complicated to coordinate. They still did a fantastic job on some of the bits, but a lot of the jokes slipped through the cracks or were only halfway translated, which led to a lot of awkward silences from the crowd. What is more, Ian and I hadn’t considered that the interpreters might want a second to rest and prepare between presentation, and our bits were forcing them to be active the entire event. At intermission, we made the call to do the MCing in English instead, and the transitions and jokes flowed more smoothly. At least we have the script to remember what could have been.
The Presentation Part
Now we get into the deeper stuff: my presentation. I knew that I wanted to cover a topic that I personally had fun with and was interested. Eveyone who has ever done anything ever knows that if you like what you’re doing, it goes much faster and ends up much better.
Naturally, due to it being my hobby, I chose video games. Plus, I was going to be speaking in Japanese and Japan has a huge connection to the gaming industry. Horror games are another interest of mine and that narrowed it down further until I settled on doing a presentation about Resident Evil and Silent Hill, some of the most popular, if not the most popular, horror game franchises. Both are Japanese, and both feature settings and characters that are decidedly American and seemingly have no connection in-story to Japan. I wanted to ask why no such characters were included, and whether that had any impact on the success of the series.
If that short description entices you enough, check out my script and slides below! Again, I wish I had a video to show but you should be able to get the jist if you read along and look at the slides. Oh, and if you don’t speak Japanese, you might need to throw it in a translator.
Slides
Script
Final Thoughts
Overall this was a fantastic experience. The research, the presenting, all of it being in Japanese; it all made for an incredibly memorable learning experience. I thought it went very well; however, if I had the chance to do it again, I would probably look for more concrete data.
In the end though, the best part of it all was being able to connect with my fellow presenters and the interpreters. The real 31st Mini-Monterey Model Event was the friends we made along the way.