凉風

Suzuka is an anime that's recently made it to the States (I guess - or it's coming out soon). I'm watching it with fansubs. The story is a pretty typical high school romance, which is common here in Japan. Suzuka is a girl from Yokohama who moves to Tokyo to go to a school with a noted track and field team. (Yokohama is about an hour or two outside of Tokyo, depending.) She's a high jumper with a lot of potential. She lives in an apartment building that also has a 銭湯 (sento - a public bath).

But the main character of the story is Yamato Akitsuki. He's from Hiroshima (which is a long way from Tokyo, being completely past Osaka and most of the Kansai region - probably around a 3-4 hour bullet-train ride, depending). His aunt runs the apartment building and sento. Akitsuki is sort of rough around the edges. He falls for Suzuka and joins the track team to try to impress her.

The show is engaging. It's 26 episodes, so new characters are added gradually. We meet Akitsuki's aunt and cousin, a childhood friend who goes to the same school, another classmate whose family has a shrine that Akitsuki spent time at as a child, and the neighbor college girls who drink too much. In episodes 7 and 8 we start to meet the other members of the track team, too.

It's the kind of show that completely grabs a sucker like me. And it's infuriating that the thing that grabs me is also the aspect I find most annoying - the source of the drama is a love/hate relationship between two immature people who grow closer as they grow up and become more mature. It's the same motif as Ranma 1/2, Love Hina, Kare Kano, Escaflowne, etc.

So I'm hooked. I'll probably finish it by the weekend... and I'm only on episode 9.

Caper Beans

The guitarist for the band Caper Beans graduated from Oyodo High School, and he was here to visit some teachers earlier today. Gambatte kudasai!

(and no, I have no clue where the hell they came up with the name)

Old Men on the Way to Yoshino

(being fiction, or something like it, that echoes reality - written months ago)

I see them looking in at me, through the windows. Really, only one looks. The others are drowsing, nodding - not bowing - and scratching or talking. Lines collapse their once wide, flat, round faces into rugged landscapes, river valleys, fissures and ravines. I will never be one of these old men. I don't know that I want to be. When I think of being old, I'm on a porch in a swing, not on a train. I already have the hat. I already feel some aches. Some days, I am already shindoi, like the lines on the old mens' faces betray them to be.

There is a girl. (Truly, there are many girls. But I mean particularly one whom I wish to know. More.) She has gloss-glistening lips and kakkoi megane (red with black temples, half-lenses), works in a hospital, emails occasionally. I think some days of how we'd raise a child, where we'd make a home, how we'd survive one another. I am not afraid. This courage -- no. Courage is to strive when every impulse is to tremble. This calm -- yes, far more appropriate -- is new, and perhaps it's even näive. C'est la vie (since we're speaking French). I think of sleeping next to her, and it feels wholly foreign. I have slept in foreign arms, but it's not the ethnically alien that I sense -- she is of another ethic. She is cut not only from silk (to my flannel), but in a different pattern, with a different tool. She is the product of pinking shears, and me a razor blade.

The train shuffles on, a great beast dragging its lonely carcass through the tunnels, across bridges, gasping in relief at every station, sighing before starting up again.

It's an old man, too, on its way to Yoshino.

The Power of the Visual - A Cultural Thing

Google has changed the design of their Japanese entry page to include more graphics.


This is a smart move, I think. Japanese culture is highly visual, and I'm convinced this is related to the use of kanji. I also think it's why manga is so popular here and why it's also not dismissed outright as childish. Though there is a definite association of manga with young people and teenagers, it's not exclusive and it's not dismissive in most cases.

The Japanese also use many icons and emoticons in email messages. Many people (especially girls and women) use tons of animations in their emails, too. The phones have added these features across the board, regardless of provider.

I'm particularly sensitive to this because I think tone in a text message can cause massive misunderstandings. Icons help inflect and convey the tone or intent behind a message, especially if it's a joke that is slightly sarcastic.

I also have had to defend visual media within the academy more than once. It's appalling that open-minded academics reinscribe the prejudices they have faced when dealing with other media.

Anyway... one more thing to keep in mind about visual culture.

J-Rock Glossary

http://www.jrocksaga.com/site/content/glossary.php

めちゃべんりだよ。(Really freakin' useful.)

Music in Japan

Namba Hatch, Osaka

Club Zion, Nagoya

Zepp Osaka

Club Quattro, Osaka

Fandango, Osaka

Coolest Thing

Wow. Saki just came to the office and asked to talk to me. She said "Mae ni... you told us... English... jobs?" So after we figured out together what she was really asking, I learned that she wants a job in the future where she will use English. She doesn't know what kind of job she wants, but she knows she wants to use English in her job.

Cool.

Exam Day!

I gave an exam to the 2nd Year students today. In America, they would be Juniors. Part of the test asked them to write sentences using words in a list.

Wow.

Some of my favorite, somewhat goofy answers:

I have headache because I drink full of soy sauce in soup bowl.
Did you in my class last year?
Was she on my class last year?
Please you are wait because it is danger medicine.
Ayaka eats food paste.
You don't waste of money. If you forgot it is problem.
Japanese culture and traditional is useing chopstick. And they likes a soy sauce, too.
I necessary to eat noodle.
Bob and Miki are difference tradition.
I like Japanese culture. It is difference China.
Chopsticks is necessary eat food.

The ones that are either really too close to home, or just a little bit inappropriate:

I am headache. (written by the girl who never pays attention during class)
This noodle is danger.
My private is hardly.
I like to shy boy. (You like to WHAT the shy boy? Huh?)

Some of the sentences were actually pretty good:

Mr. Utamaru said, "The kikuzou noodle is very bad."
Can't you wait until this soup is cooked?
I'm not sure he can keep a secret.
I have my soup bowl and chopstick.
She studies Japanese culture.
He doesn't like soy sauce.
We are full so please wait.
I hardly take medicine.

And some are almost there, but just impress me anyway:

I study necessary matter.
I like Japanese tradition and culture. Because it is necessary for me.
I hate Shizuka because her personalities bad.
I have a headache because I drink soy sause too much.

Hisashiburi

So... it's been a long time.

Lots going on, in a way, and most of it vaguely "Japan-related" but some of it more stupid-naivete-related or something. Guh. So... more stuff is on the way. And there's a lot of new pix at my Flickr page, so I'll try to tell some of those stories, too.

Also, I now know how to make tortillas from scratch. This changes everything.

Seriously.