Voice of the Bullet Train

We were invited to a Christmas party at a friend’s house, right before leaving Tokyo to come home for the holidays. At this party, I met Donna Burke, an Australian woman who has lived in Japan for years and acts, sings and does voice work.

I almost left the party, though, without having learned Donna’s biggest secret: she is the English voice of the Tokaido shinkansen—the bullet train line that connects Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

If you’ve ever traveled to Japan, you’ve undoubtedly heard her announcements:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the shinkansen. This is the Nozomi super-express bound for Shin-Osaka…

It was incredibly weird to be standing in someone’s kitchen, drinking eggnog, listening to someone doing the shinkansen announcement, word-for-word and with identical intonation.