やばい大淀

Heavy...

2009-07-03T00:16:00.001-07:00

I'm studying the adjectives from the JLPT 4 list that I'm not solid on yet. One of them is 重い (omoi) which means "heavy." It's kind of similar to 遅い (osoi) which means "slow" and 面白い (omoshiroi) which means "interesting." There are a lot of adjectives in this list like short, weak, thin, light, etc., and almost all of them end in "~い", which makes them easily confused.

In order to study for the JLPT 3, I've started going through and making sure I understand everything on JLPT 4 (which is included - the lower the number, the higher the level). I found a list of the vocabulary for the test online and I used TextWrangler to strip out the HTML and replace table cell tags with pipes | so I could then import the whole thing into Excel as a spreadsheet. Basically, I created a very simple database. Within Excel, it's pretty easy to sort by column (I have hiragana, kanji, English, part of speech, and number in the list).

I added a column and then spent about an hour or 2 going through and marking all the words I already know from the list. Out of the 728 words on the list, I feel confident about 500 of them, so now I'm going through the remaining 228 words. I made flashcards for about 35 of them today, and I'll continue like this through the rest of the month. I hope to have all the vocab and kanji for JLPT 4 down, cold, by the end of July.

I added 4 more columns to my list of words I don't know. These columns are examples using the word in Japanese and the corresponding English in the next column. I included 2 examples (for the total 4 columns) for each of the words I was struggling to memorize. This has been really helpful for grammar and context, but also just for memorization.

Which brings me back to "heavy." I found a great way to say "He's lazy" in Japanese. Usually, I'd just say "彼は怠け者です。" - He is a lazy person. But this is much more interesting:

彼の尻が重い。

"His ass is heavy."

Sometimes I really love Japanese.

Science Spelled Backwards is C-U-I-S-I-N-E

2009-07-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Japanese lesson for the day:

理科 is "science" and is pronounced "ri ka"
理 means "reason"
科 means "materials" (or "rate" or "fee")

Reverse the kanji, and you get 料理 - "ryou ri"

"cuisine" or "cooking"

I Have a Crush on Mari Arai

2009-03-06T04:15:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I read After Dark by Haruki Murakami

The book sped by pretty quickly and kept my interest well enough. The interspliced chapters involving the TV in a sleeping girl's room, unplugged, but mysteriously on, with a figure in a chair on the screen, masked with a strange filmy substance across his face, watching the girl through the screen, are reminiscent of elements of Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr.

The translation captures SO much about Japan, but I wonder if that's because I've been here. I think so, in many ways. Murakami uses just enough to evoke certain images, and though the book is set in Tokyo, I know the same sorts of places in Osaka and it all comes together in my head very clearly. The setting for this book is very similar to the neighborhood in Osaka where I DJ once a month.

In the end, it's kind of sentimental. That's not unusual with Murakami, who seems to be a sort of nostalgia junkie and has this sense of sappiness that is overwhelmingly Japanese. Some things seem created for the sole purpose of producing the sense of 懐かしい - natsukashii, a sense of melodramatic nostalgia and reminiscence, and Murakami taps into that often in his books.

I read many reviews that really panned this book and trashed it. Since I've only read one of his novels (his first, Hear the Song of the Wind / Listen to the Wind Sing, not available in the USA) and some short stories (from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, I didn't walk in with any expectations - which seems to be a big part of what turned off many readers, especially fans of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The plot is pretty thin, for sure. It's an interesting exercise in changing perspective, and it's really a set of intertwine analogies about the modern urban Japanese condition.

I liked it. But I didn't love it. I did, however, come to really like the main character, Mari Arai.

Japanese Working Poor

2009-02-23T18:09:00.001-08:00

I want to watch this film soon:

Sadly, can't watch the whole thing streaming from the site, ironically, because I'm IN JAPAN.

Seafood

2009-02-06T01:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight's dinner:

あさり - asari, manila clams
sweat onions and garlic in olive oil
add asari and just enough Yellowtail Chardonnay to cover
steam for 5-10 minutes (tops)

鮭甘口 - shake amakuchi, sweet salmon
cut carrots, crush or chop garlic
add several slices of butter
add salmon, wrap all in a foil packet
broil/bake on high
30-90 minutes (depends on the fish and the thickness and amount of carrots)

カニ蒲 - kani kama, imitation crab meat
Ritz crackers, sliced tomato, cream cheese
flake-style fake crab
nice appetizer

白ワイン - shiro wain, white wine
a glass or three of the Yellowtail Chardonnay

If I'd been thinking far enough ahead, I might have added some わかめ - wakame, soft green seaweed to the appetizers

That Postmodernist Condition

2008-12-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day:

"Now the world has changed. Nobody is sure who is good or who is evil. The whole world is becoming borderless and unstable. The manga world's ambiguity has become realistic."

1up

2008-11-18T23:16:00.001-08:00

This is IT!

Birthday Pottery

2008-11-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

My birthday was about a month ago. I turned 37 years old. Sevens always make numbers look bigger, or more significant, or something. I dunno. Anyway, I don't really feel much different, though.

Chiho took the day off work and we went to Nara City. She surprised me by taking me to a pottery shop, where the owner taught us to make clay coil pots and cups. We talked with him for awhile, and then he took our picture and put it on his blog. Really fun and cool!

Afterward, we went to MosBurger for dinner, and then we went to see Eagle Eye. Not very good, but the violence looked very realistic. Eh.

I also picked up a "sound drop keychain" with the 1UP sound from Super Mario Bros. - It has since become my possession most coveted by my friends. It's the green one in the picture:

映画を作ります

2008-09-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

It's the beginning of second term, summer break is over ("break" - ha! for who?) and we're preparing for the 文化祭 (bunkasai) or culture festival. Tomorrow, the students perform skits and music in the gym and sell food they've made. I have tickets for Thai yakisoba, croquette, a frankfurter, tamasen (fried egg on a shrimp cracker with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonaise), and various drinks. On Friday, we'll all head over to Arakashi Hall at the city offices and there will be a talent show with singing, dancing, etc.

So I'm f-ing busy this week (Japanese lesson for today: "クソ忙しい" - kuso isogashii = "f-ing busy") because somehow I ended up 1) juggling at the bunkasai, 2) singing an enka song at the bunkasai, and 3) editing a film I helped shoot and act in for the 3rd year class 4 students. GUH.

So the biggest problem I've encountered thus far - importing layer styles from Photoshop into Final Cut Pro. Thank you, Internet, for helping me solve that problem.

Here's the song I'm singing:

I'm just doing through the first chorus (thank god). I'll be dressed (arguably) like Jero (aka Jerome White, Jr.), the first black American enka singer to take Japan by storm. (@_@)

Tentai Kansoku - Bump of Chicken

2008-08-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

Yes. God, what a song.

Lyrics assembled from various sources and some slight translation work on my own.
Thanks to the following:
Anime Lyrics dot Com
Lyric Wiki
Megchan

天体観測 (Star Gazing)

2 o'clock in the morning at the railroad crossing, telescope on my shoulders
The radio tied to my waist said it wouldn't rain

After two minutes, you came with way too many things
Shall we begin watching the night sky and searching for falling stars?

To avoid being swallowed by the darkness,
I earnestly considered holding your trembling hand that night.

Searching for things we can't see, we looked into the telescope
A number of new voices were born which sliced through the darkness
Tomorrow was calling for us, but we never gave it a proper response
We chased the comet named "the present" together

Before I realized it, I began searching for something
Something like the meaning of happiness, or a place to store sadness

From the day I'm born until the moment I die I'll be searching for it
But for now, lets go watch the night sky and search for falling stars

I still remember all the things we found that day,
and I still remember the pain of not holding your trembling hand

Hoping to know the things we didn't know, we peered into the telescope
Hoping to illuminate the darkness with the faint, twinkling lights
And I still remember the pain we discovered through this
Alone, I still chase the comet named "the present" even now

And as we grow up, the number of things I want to tell you also increase
My unaddressed letters have built up into a pile that's so large it looks like it would crumble

I'm doing well. And my worries are few.
But there's one that I still remember even now.

While the rain the reports didn't predict showered on us, you looked like you were about to cry
That day when I didn't take your quivering hand

Searching for things I can see, a telescope on my shoulders again
I run back through the silence and darkness
And I still hold the pain at bay
Alone, I still chase the comet named "the present" even now

Let's meet again one more time, a telescope on my shoulders
At 2 am at the railroad crossing like before
Shall we start watching the stars? Even if you don't arrive 2 minutes later
We'll chase the comet called "The Present" together

JLPT 3

2008-08-13T21:54:00.001-07:00

On December 7, 2008 I plan to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 3.

Resources:
http://www.jlptstudy.com/ The motherlode of all JLPT study sites. VITAL for levels 2-4.
http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download.htm: free study materials
http://www.jlpt-kanji.com/: Kanji reference and study, vocab study, etc.

がんばります！

Chiho's Neck (3rd version)

2008-07-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

a fragile silver strand
                                laced with black stones
traces the softest,
                          most sensitive
                                    collar bone I've tasted
as she turns,
                  twisting away
                                    while yearning closer
we wind
                  around one another
                             braided, gold and silver, a chain
of limbs
                  and longing
                                    laced with gems
                                                            in black
                                                                     and grey

There are Four Seasons in Japan

2008-07-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

日本には四季があります (Nihon ni wa shiki ga arimasu)

“Do you remember Aki?”

He said it over beers at the izakaya. I nodded quickly before taking a sip from my mug. “Sure.”

His eyes widened. “Get this...”

***

Of course I remembered Aki. We’d only been in town about two months then. He’d been in Japan longer, but I’d just started working here. We were out with a cluster of friends at a hole-in-the-wall bar near the big station. It was dark and narrow, but it was still an actual, honest-to-god bar — a precious rarity in our rural prefecture. We were drinking big fat bottles of Heartland, which seemed to be Canadian beer. Occasionally someone would get a Jack and Coke (which we jokingly called “Jack and Splash” given the heavy hand of the bar’s owner) or a drink my friend had concocted with help from the bartender — a neon green thing they’d named The Incredible Hulk.

Two girls were talking and laughing at the end of the bar, and he’d been chatting them up. I wandered over and they’d introduced themselves: Aki and Natsuko. When you’re a moderately tall, broad, bald American in rural Japan, appearance tends to be an easy topic of conversation. My Japanese was crap, but Natsuko knew some English, and asked about my earrings. By the end of the evening, he and I were waiting for the ramen truck and Natsuko had walked out wearing one of my earrings. I’d gotten her keitai email and planned to contact her the next day... I needed that earring back after all.

***

He sipped his Coke-hai. “So I was at the bar the other day and damned if she wasn’t there!”

I nodded again and drank more beer. My eyes were heavy-lidded. I felt like I knew what he was going to say, like I’d scripted it out months ago, drunk, on the back of a supermarket receipt and then lost it, and found it again by accident when I was cleaning out the pockets of my jacket — surprised, but familiar.

“What was the name of her friend?”

***

Natsuko answered the phone. He and I were at the yakitoriyasan eating chicken on a stick and drinking beers. She laughed as she recognized my voice, then his in the background, coaching me through the Japanese I needed to say to finalize the plans. She and Aki would meet us in two weeks at the sushiya across from the bar.

We’d met the master of the sushi place at the bar, but forgotten him at first. The memories washed back, though — a young guy, face far younger than his actual age. Short, in a black shirt and black jeans. Stylish hair. He could have been a hairdresser or an art student. He’d invited us to eat at his shop after I’d told him of my love for sushi. He knew Aki and Natsuko well, and was eager to get more foreign business.

I thought two weeks was ridiculously distant. He explained that Japanese girls, especially in their mid- to late-20’s and working full time, often had plans lined up two months in advance. I shook my head. I actually did want my earring back, on the one hand, but I thought, through the drunken haze, that I remembered Natsuko as having particularly glistening pink lips and a cute grin. I wanted to see her again to be sure. He’d said he was willing to be the wingman if she wanted to bring Aki, too. A date was made. We decided to meet about three weeks before Christmas, right before he went home for the holidays.

***

I took another long, deep drink from my beer, then set the mug down. I didn’t let go of the handle, but I let out a false sigh of satisfaction, as if at the flavor of the beer. “Ahhhh.” I looked into the glass mug, watching the foam of the head slide down the sides of the glass slowly, collapsing on itself and once again becoming amber. I looked up at him slowly.

“You mean Natsuko?”

***

The sushi dinner went well, but he’d told me on the train that he didn’t plan to contact Aki again. I understood. She was friendly and sweet, but a little stuffy and not particularly cute, though not unattractive. I, on the other hand, was caught. I was hopelessly smitten. I’d been right — her lips glistened with a liquid pearlescence, and her eyes were large and lively. She had a surprisingly deep voice, especially her laugh, which was more like a wry chuckle. Her hair was feathery like something from a 1970’s magazine. She dressed simply but stylishly. Ultimately, she made my teeth hurt.

We made plans to go out together, then, just the two of us, to see a movie. I took the train to the station and she picked me up in her car. On the way to the shopping mall, she’d run a red light and we’d laughed when I called her “abunai-chan” — “Little Miss Dangerous.” The line for the purikura booths were too long, so we didn’t take cute pictures together, though she’d wanted to. We had pizza and I nursed a glass of wine, then we went to the movie theater. The movie we’d wanted was sold out, so instead we got tickets for a Japanese-only political drama. It was somewhat overwhelming and not at all a good date movie, and afterward she apologized. I smiled and told her that I’d look on the Internet and see if I could understand it better later.

When she dropped me off at my apartment, I kissed her. She was surprised, but I asked then if it was ok, and when she said yes I kissed her again. Then I said good night and went inside. In email, she told me that she thought foreign guys thought that “Japanese girls are so easy,” and she had hoped that I wasn’t like that. I tried to assure her that I wasn’t, and apologized if I’d given her that idea.

***

“Natsuko! Yeah, that’s it.” He finished his Coke-hai and flagged the vapid high school kid whose part-time job was waiting tables. After a few attempts, the kid understood that he wanted a wheat shochu with water. “She was the one you were ga-ga over for like six months, right?”

I ordered another beer, even though my mug was still full. “Yeah. That’s her.”

***

I didn’t really hear from her that regularly after that. She’d occasionally email. I’d send a flurry of messages. I ran into her at the bar just after the New Year and she’d been drunk and really friendly. I didn’t hear much else until I’d sent a message asking, very simply, “Are you there?” She responded right away, surprisingly. We met for lunch at the beginning of summer. She was staggeringly gorgeous that day. I’d dated other women, and I held no practical illusions that she was ever going to really stop being flakey, but that day she was the perfectly striking vision I’d built her up to be in my mind. Then silence for weeks. She was looking for a new English teacher and emailed me. At the end of the summer, I stopped by the hospital where she worked and loitered around outside for 40 minutes until she was free again and came downstairs to talk to me for ten minutes. She went to Italy and brought me a wine stopper. Went to Fujisan and brought me the towel I had slung around my neck to mop the sweat off my face.

Finally, she agreed to meet me for a drink one autumn evening. I knew that this was it... I was fed up and I was also far more confident than I’d been for quite some time. We went to the same bar where we’d originally met, and we started talking. I ordered the drinks. The bartender caught on quickly to leave us be, even though we were the only three people in the bar. I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She paused, then said, “Yes” in English. I asked how long she’d been dating him, and she told me that it had been around 11 months or so.

“You mean... around the same time you met me?”

She nodded.

“So... why didn’t you tell me?”

Her eyes grew wide and she suddenly seemed like a little girl caught sneaking candy before dinner. “I didn’t lie,” she said. “You never asked.”

A tsunami of understanding crashed over me with those words. I gave her hell about the kiss, about all the unanswered emails, about the way she seemed to only contact me when it was convenient for her. It was cathartic, as if a huge weight could finally be taken off my back and I could rest and stretch and flex again. We were both drunk by then, but she seemed almost as relieved as I felt. I had to catch the last train, so we left the bar around 11. I told her that if she wanted to be my friend then she’d have to respond to email within a day, and she’d have to try, too. Over the course of the next six months we exchanged messages three or four times. I hadn’t even thought about her for a couple of months.

***

“Dude, get this — she’s getting married!” His eyes were wide and he seemed shocked. “I didn’t even know she’d had a boyfriend that serious!”

I nodded and finished my beer. “Yeah. She’s been seeing him at least a year and a half, I think...”

The dopey high schooler came back with our drinks. I raised my mug. He stopped mid-drink and raised his glass to meet my toast.

“To Natsuko. Omedetou gozaimasu.”

“Omedetou. Indeed.”

I licked the glisten from my lips, smiled with just the corner of my mouth, and took another drink. I looked into my mug and pondered the bubbles in the foam, then wiped the sweat from my face with a towel from Mt. Fuji.

Unsung

2008-06-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

Ogino Takashi

Ling Sosite Shigure

2008-05-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

As Yumi-chan said.... "Damn."

"telecastic fake show" by 凛そして時雨

~~(link updated 7/9/2008)~~
(link updated again 9/6/2008)

The Poetry of T-Shirts

2008-05-25T16:00:00.001-07:00

If you know an iota about current Japanese pop culture, you're aware that t-shirts with English sayings and logos and slogans are everywhere here... but... they're not always quite right, or sometimes they say surprising things.

Today, on the train (which I rarely take in the mornings), I saw ahead of me to the left "To Want and To ACHIEVE." To the right, over a bit, across a rather shapely set of breasts "Are You Gonna ENSLAVE?" and down the way just a bit from her "Without a Doubt."

Somebody's trying to tell me something.

HaiKara followup

2008-04-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

So Justin went with me to the High and Mighty Color show, since, sadly, Patrick from Texas had to miss the show for a work party.

IT WAS AWESOME.

They played a long time, and a lot of great songs. Sadly, they didn't play either "Days" or "Run Run Run," but they did play "Pride" and a bunch of other good songs. They talked to the crowd a lot and really got the crowd into the performance. It was very cool. When they played "Mushroom" they all came out in rainbow clown wigs, which was weird, but cute. Maki was totally adorable during that bit. She seems kind of... stiff... in some of the videos I've seen of them live, but that wasn't the case AT ALL at this show. Her stage presence was excellent - all of the band members were great, really.

Weird piece of trivia - Maki's only 20! That's crazy! She's been in a pretty successful rock band since she was 15 or 16 years old! She's also an actress now - she was in the movie あなたを忘れない (Anata wo Wasurenai - I won't forget you) which is also sometimes called 26 Years Diary (which may be the translation from the Korean title). It's about a Korean student in Tokyo, Lee Su Hyon, who attempts to save a man who falls on some train tracks and dies in the effort.

Here's the Japanese trailer:

スポーツ！

2008-04-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went with about 30 other JETs to the city gym in Uda, near Haibara. We played some games with kids from first through 8th grade, and then we ran competitions - cricket, dodgeball, volleyball, and ultimate frisbee. I ran the Ultimate game with another member of the Shika Fun team, Jarrett. We had a good time and the kids really seemed to like it. It was good to catch up with Jarrett, too. He lives pretty far out in the inaka, so it's rare to get a chance to talk with him.

Here's some video coverage from the local news:

Murakami Haruki

2008-04-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

Just read it.

And be daunted. Like I was.

"Writing stories is work to plunge you into your soul. That is a dark world, and life and death are unclear and chaotic. It is a world with no language, and there is no standard for right and wrong."

Tootles

2008-04-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

some tips from a Tokyo rental car agency:

"When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor."

via Melina

High and Mighty Color

2008-04-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

Some kids from my school played a couple of songs at the Bunkasai (culture festival) and one of them was a cover of a song by a band called High and Mighty Color. It stuck with me and felt sort of familiar. I didn't know why at the time, and I'm still not sure. But it was a catchy tune.

In Japan, there's a video rental chain called Tsutaya. They're sort of the Japanese Blockbuster. Because of the differences in the music industry in Japan, the video shops also rent CDs, including singles. After the rental disks are getting old and no one is renting them anymore, Tsutaya sells them used - cheap. The average CD single in Japan is well over 500yen, and usually gets close to 1000yen, or about $9-$10. Albums are about ¥2500 - ¥3500, depending on the number of disks or if there's a DVD included (a common practice). Imported CD's from America are usually cheaper than domestic CD's. It's crazy. If you ever wondered why you were paying $40 for an import album from Japan, that's why -- they're freakin' expensive.

Anyway...

I was at Tsutaya going thru the used music bin and I found 3 High and Mighty Color singles, along with some singles by Miz (aka Mizrock, aka Watanabe Mizuki) and some Bump of Chicken and Orange Range disks. The singles are ridiculously cheap, like maybe 3 for 100yen or 10 for 500yen. REALLY cheap. So I grabbed 10 disks and took them home.

The singles included the songs "Run*Run*Run" and "Days" (which was the tune my students covered) and I fell in love with those tunes immediately. The b-sides were ok, too, though not as good as the main songs. I picked up some other stuff by them and found their videos on YouTube. They're getting popular in the States because many of their songs have been used in various anime (most notably "Pride" in Gundam Seed Destiny).

HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR - Days
Uploaded by spencer41

Thanks to my friend Patrick (woo! Texas!), I heard about an upcoming concert... so Saturday evening I'm going to Osaka to see High and Mighty Color live! Very excited...

high &mighty color - RUN RUN RUN
Uploaded by futzlecker

If you're into a sort of blend of maybe Linkin Park blending with maybe Kelly Clarkson's better stuff(?) - I dunno, it's Japanese so these genre distinctions blur into all sorts of weirdness - you should check them out. It's power pop with a weird overtone of American rap-rock/post-NuMetal. They're from Okinawa and feature a female vocalist and a male rapper (who tends to use English lyrics).

Oh, and Maki, the singer, is adorable.

凉風

2008-03-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

(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

2008-03-25T17:13:00.001-07:00

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.