Hey everyone, Kai's dad here, Let's see now...how did Kai get the last name "Kojimoto"? 10:40 Well, Kai's mother doesn't have any brothers. And his grandfather didn't have any brothers. And his great grandfather didn't have any brothers. So the surname "Kojimoto" is at the end of the line. It's an uncommon family name, even in Japan. So in order to keep his mother's family name alive, we agreed to name both of our sons "Kojimoto." In all of Japan there are only about 20 people with the family name "Kojimoto." In the United States parents sometimes use both family names and use a hyphen between them. This could possibly get more complicated in the next couple of generations. In Japan, under similar circumstances when the wife's family name could die out, it is not uncommon for the husband to change his name to his wife's family name. But in our family's case, it was important to pass the family name on to the future generations. It wasn't important for me to change my name too. Recently I read "The Godfather." There's a lot in it that isn't in the movies. For instance, the Godfather's family adopted a friend of one of the sons. When asked why he had never taken the Godfather's family name, which was Corleone, the Godfather said that he thought it would be disrespectful to the boy's parents if he changed his name. -Pops
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I can relate to Kai a lot. I'm Japanese-American, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii but have been living in Japan for almost 7 years. I got accepted into JET as well but decided to take a different teaching route, which I'm glad I did, otherwise I probably would have ended up in the middle of nowhere... I was also lucky enough to have someone at the time to stay with to look for jobs and an apartment... I've actually seen Kai on my commute to work once, getting on the train in Shibuya🤭
were you able to keep your citizenship? I'm also hafu USA/JP and still hold both citizenships/passports. I wouldn't give either up for the world. No JET for me lol
@@Giminy I’m Japanese-American. Not “hafu” unfortunately…. Japanese by descent, 3rd generation… so no duel citizenship for me🥲 best i could get is a “nikkei” visa if I really wanted to.
My wife and I are having a half-Japanese, half-American baby boy soon here. We live in west side Oahu but will be moving to windward side again soon here. We actually wanted to move to Manoa a couple years ago but it’s so expensive. We love the park there. Everything Kai is mentioning is something our son will probably go through… I speak Japanese, which helps we think. I studied at 東工大 through exchange with UW. We also go to Japan a lot to visit her family. But the name thing and other points are really helpful stuff to think about 😊 大切に育ちます！
Bro! Noelani & Roosevelt alum here! 😂 As a Hawaiian kid, most of my friends were Japanese also and went to the Japanese language school up the road. ANIME WAS ALWAYS COOL IN MY GROUP! 😂 This was a great episode. Proud of you Koji. It's nice to see a local boy become famous. God Bless & Aloha 😊🎉🤙
55:36. Taylor Swift also loves Japan, maybe that's why she's that popular here. She has appeared in some Japanese TV shows saying some words in Japanese and playing games for that TV shows.
