Fumika Hideshima: Winning the Agency for Cultural Affairs National Arts Festival Award through a Lifelong Dedication to Radio

Thank you. This was a recitation program broadcast on Nippon Broadcasting System last year. It featured me reading Kenji Miyazawa's "The Restaurant of Many Orders" and "The Nighthawk Star" in a one-hour program, based on the slightly unusual concept of "reading aloud to keep you awake."

As adults, we lose the opportunity to be read to, but the unique characteristic of radio is that because you cannot see, the listeners themselves have the pleasure of letting their imaginations expand in their own heads. Furthermore, this experiment was about seeing what kind of interesting chemical reaction would occur if we fused rock music with the reading, rather than just simply reciting the text.

I was truly happy to receive the award and have my recitation recognized. However, although it is called an "Individual Award," I personally feel it is an award received by the whole team. The program would not have been possible without the production staff, everyone involved, and above all, the listeners who tune in to the radio. I am simply full of gratitude.

Rock music inherently has a strong message. For example, whether it's John Lennon or U2, there is a desire to change society. I felt that such a stance and the feelings embedded in their works overlap with Kenji Miyazawa.

Kenji's works are often in the form of children's stories or for young audiences, but I think there are things that resonate more as you get older. For instance, "The Restaurant of Many Orders" depicts human selfishness and tyranny toward nature. The story begins with a conversation between two men who have come to hunt, saying, "I don't care what it is, I just want to go 'bang-bang' at something soon," but from there the positions are reversed, and it becomes a structure where they are terrified that they might end up being eaten themselves.

It's a warning to humans that we should not forget our respect for nature and should be more humble—a message not to get ahead of ourselves. I think there are things in it that strike a deeper chord precisely because of the times we live in now.

The director, Hiroshi Omura, who I have worked with on recitation programs before, is wonderful. In the recording, he directed me freely, saying, "First, please try it however you like," and after that, we fused the rock songs into it.

It was a continuous series of fun trial and error. For example, even for a single line, we would try things like "increase the spitefulness by 50%" or conversely, "let's try reading it a bit more flatly," and we'd get excited saying "That's it!" or go back saying "That wasn't right." It wasn't just me alone; it was like a process of fitting pieces together while searching for the right fit through many exchanges on-site.

I moved to America with my family when I was in the 6th grade of elementary school due to my father's work. I got my own room for the first time there, and since I didn't understand English at all at first, I started turning on the radio in my room because I wanted to get my ears used to the speed of English. That was my first encounter with radio.

Especially at night, when I felt lonely in my room and couldn't sleep, thinking, "I have school tomorrow. I don't understand English. I have so much homework and I'm not finished at all," I would turn on the radio.

At that time, I never dreamed I would become a radio DJ. However, when I was lonely, I felt, "Human voices are so warm." I think that feeling of warmth I felt then is the formative experience that has allowed me to continue my work in radio until now.

It's gone now, but there was a radio station called WQCD that specialized in jazz, and I really admired a woman named Maria, the DJ who hosted the night program on that station. She had a wonderfully deep voice. At first, I couldn't understand the English, but gradually my ears got used to it, and I began to understand things like "Sunny, partly cloudy" or "Yankees won."

The voice of a person heard right by my ear was something that provided a sense of security and comfort, even if I had never seen their face. At that time, there was no internet or SNS, and even if I was alone in my room and not connected to anyone, I felt that "radio is different." Hearing a voice on a live broadcast made me feel that even if the location was different, a real person was there at this same time, sharing the same moment, and it put my heart at ease.

Yes. Since the music was jazz, it was a very urban and stylish radio station. I also admired mature women and thought that someday I wanted to become a person with that kind of atmosphere. However, I was just listening as a single listener, and it wasn't at all that I wanted to do radio myself.

When my father's term ended and it was time to return to Japan, I was just at the timing of entering high school, and Keio Academy of New York had just opened. So my family returned first, and I entered the Academy, which had a dormitory.

Every day was fun. Since I was in the second graduating class, there was an exciting atmosphere among both teachers and students of "Let's build this school ourselves from now on!" Students gathered from all over the world. There were kids raised in France, Abu Dhabi (UAE), and Brazil. Each had a very strong personality, and I received a lot of stimulation.

I think the time I studied the most in my life was during my years at Keio Academy of New York. It was tough. The curriculum allowed me to obtain a New York State high school diploma and a Japanese high school diploma at the same time, so I studied so hard during exam periods that I ran a fever. It might have been a "wisdom fever" (laughs).

It sounds like a joke now, but when I was a high school student, I wanted to be a diplomat. I imagined a job flying around the world and chose the Department of Political Science. However, after entering, I became interested in the media industry and was drawn to the then-Newspaper Research Institute (now the Institute for Journalism, Media & Communication Studies). Within that, I began to remember how much I really loved radio.

The reason I wanted to join your seminar was out of curiosity about how the media industry could be studied as an academic discipline. After actually joining, I thought, "I see, this is how media like television and newspapers influence each other." The internet was also starting to enter the scene, and it was a stimulating time where I felt the world was going to change significantly.

You once took me to the site of a news program, didn't you?

I was moved, thinking, "Wow! Is this being broadcast nationwide from here right now?" I think that was my first experience at a television station.

The first time I was able to have my own regular program on a radio station was when I was a student in your seminar. You were very helpful to me then as well.

FM802, a very popular station in Osaka, holds DJ auditions every year. I was lucky enough to pass, and I debuted with a late-night program as one of the "four new DJs for this year." Being able to see the actual workplace there made me realize that if such an interesting world existed, I wanted to commit myself to working hard in it.

Unfortunately, the program in Osaka ended after one year, but fortunately, I later received an offer for a regular program from J-WAVE in Tokyo. That coincided with my graduation from university, and I began to hold the title of radio DJ. From there, I started with the mindset of "Okay, I'm going to work hard as a full-time DJ." I made many mistakes. There was no particular training, so they just said, "Now, sit in front of the microphone and please talk about whatever you like." In that sense, they let me do it very freely.

I was involved for 10 years. Mr. Nishizawa taught me many things. J-WAVE had a satellite studio inside the HMV that used to be in Shibuya Center-gai, and it was a broadcast from a glass-walled public studio. It was a style where people could watch us talking, and we invited various guests.

I was so happy when we welcomed Janet Jackson, whom I had admired since my time in America. A superstar I had been listening to since I was a child was actually sitting next to me. Seeing her nodding and laughing at my questions felt almost like it wasn't real.

If I look back on those 10 years and ask what supported me, it was definitely the listeners. Even now, I receive comments like "I used to listen to you" at various work sites, and some people tell me, "I once went to see you at HMV Shibuya." Radio is a medium based on the premise that you cannot see the other person, but "GROOVE LINE" was a place where that wasn't the case.

Even my former classmates from Keio would come by on a date after work and say "Long time no see." It was an experience where I could truly feel that I was being supported by everyone.

This too was only possible because of radio; I received various offers from people who had heard the program.

I learned that there is such a demand for voice work in the world—commercials, voice acting, audio guides for museums and planetariums, lectures—and I learned the methodologies and ways of interacting with people at each site. The experience of working across genres was something I brought back to my home ground of radio, and it all became my bone, blood, and flesh.

New forms of media are constantly emerging, but I think radio has a strength precisely because it is simply "sound only." You can listen while doing something else, and as is often said, "only the ears are free." For example, the compatibility between SNS and radio is very good and they don't compete. It's not just a vertical connection between us as broadcasters and the listeners; listeners often connect horizontally with each other on Twitter and elsewhere while listening to the same program.

I think there is still a lot of "blank space" in radio. In other words, each individual recipient can freely do what they want to do along with the radio. Students have long studied while listening to late-night broadcasts, and now there is also the enjoyment of listening to the radio while checking SNS. We on the radio side are also exploring ways to exist as audio content that is "more fun when listened to with something else."

In addition to the high degree of freedom in collaboration with other media, there is also the pure enjoyment of radio alone. People can enjoy imagining various things through their imagination. Even if everything becomes "visualized," I believe the enjoyment of imagining things precisely because they cannot be seen will not be lost.

Especially now, with the influence of the new coronavirus, there are times when we feel more anxious than necessary about things we cannot see. But precisely because we cannot see, we can also feel positive or expand our imagination through a single bright voice.

For example, I myself feel every day as a listener how much lighter my heart becomes just from someone's voice saying "Good morning." I believe that power of imagination will absolutely never disappear as long as we are human.

The reason I first thought radio was good and human voices were good was the presence of someone being there, even though they couldn't be seen. That raw presence is something that only occurs if a person is definitely there. Technology will continue to advance, but I believe this is the vital heart of radio.

So, this is starting to sound like a program's ending greeting (laughs), but there is now also "radiko," a free service where you can listen to the radio on your smartphone or computer. When you are tired or lonely, please try switching it on. I would be happy if we could continue to share bright imaginations and moments of relief together.