It happened in...
Atop Kinpo Zan
TUES 28 FEBRUARY
Travelling into the centre of Kumamoto, above the tops of even the tallest buildings, you can see Mt. Kinpo (Kinpozan) with its indistinct spikes of tv masts at the top, dominating the surrounding forested peaks. For two years I've wondered about the view from up there but haven't made the trip. Or at least the right trip - the right road is hard to find.Once you get to the summit, you can see across the city in one direction, and out across the Ariake Sea in the other, with Shimabara and Mt. Unzen to the north-west and the islands of Amakusa south-west. Under the cover of darkness, the city puts on quite a light show.
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Breaking news
MON 27 FEBRUARY
King of the Castle spotted in cupboard. Reportedly quoted as saying "You're the dirty rascal".;){kind=link}
R.I.P. old friend
MON 27 FEBRUARY
As a variation on a theme, the sky's blue and the sun's shining, but it's raining in my heart. Today the beer fridge, which died recently, made its final journey to the recycle centre. Join me then in a day of mourning.I'm putting a brave face on it of course. All the appropriate paperwork had to be undertaken first - the visit to the Post Office to collect and pay for a 'recycle ticket' (riisaikuru chiketto - some free 'Japanese' for you) and then off on the emotional last leg.
I'm choosing to remember the good times - the summers the fridge was constantly packed with cold cans of Kirin, later with imported bottles of Hefeweizen, the cakes, the chocolate, oh they were great times. But we must move on.
Now instead we have an oven. And while the future might hold lasagnes and roasts and the like, I won't forget my old friend. Cheers. *sniff*
Knob twiddling
SUN 26 FEBRUARY
After farting around with the settings on the camera, which rivals an air traffic control centre for complexity, and fixing the new tripod to it, I finally managed to get a single decent shot of the couple of dozen that I took. So I give you... (drum roll if you please)... Night-time over Mashiki Town.;){kind=link}
Product targeting
SUN 26 FEBRUARY
I've found a coffee that's specifically aimed at the 'seasoned connoisseur' like myself.;){kind=link}
The medals with the hole in the middle
FRI 24 FEBRUARY
Just a quick note on the Olympic medals. A little out of the ordinary this time, aren't they. They were designed by
Ottaviani International and according to their website (where the picture on the right is from) the medals symbolise the
Italian piazza. "The piazza as a great symbol image of Italy: a historical icon, a physical and social space that hosts and accompanies great events. In the piazza Italians celebrate triumphs, but also dissolve the tension of the challenge. It is the place where passion lives. Round like the Olympic Rings and like a symbolic victory ring, the medal, with its empty space at the centre, reveals also the area of the chest under which the heart and life beat and, above all, passion for the great Olympic event."Quite so. And while they carved all the medals with pictograms of their respective events, they didn't, it seems, record any music on them.
Reasons to be cheerful
FRI 24 FEBRUARY
Japan has a new
sporting heroine this morning in Shizuka Arakawa. After taking 3rd in the national championship in Tokyo in December
(behind champion Fumie Suguri, who narrowly missed out on a Turin bronze, and Mao Asada who took 2nd in Tokyo but was
excluded from Olympic qualification due to her age - she's only 15), she took the Olympic figure-skating gold last night in
Turin. She's also gone some way to rescuing some of her home country's national pride after the poor performance of Team
Japan generally.After placing third in the short programme, Arakawa skated a flawless free while her rivals, Russian Slutskaya and American Cohen, both suffered falls, and she took top place by 8 points.
What this will mean for the domestic
ice-skating scene is that the current media darling, Miki Ando, will almost certainly be pushed aside after a string of
ordinary performances, and a 16th place finish in Turin.For commercial endorsements, Japanese companies are also likely to shift their attention. Ando, who currently endorses, among other things, Ghana chocolate and Toyota cars, may find further jobs hard to come by at the moment. But she's only 18, so it's unlikely she'll drop out of the public eye altogether.
Meanwhile, Arakawa will be enjoying a lot of attention for some time to come as she brings home perhaps Japan's only medal from Italy.
Don't call me, I'll call you
THURS 23 FEBRUARY
I'm as surprised by some people's attitude to telephones as they are by mine. Some people, get this, automatically answer
the phone when it rings. I know. Extraordinary.I got into a conversation with a student yesterday about how I almost never answer the phone at home. The main reason for this is that a large local company seems to have misprinted its advertising about a year ago and put our phone number instead. So I generally ignore a phone ringing during the day and wait to see if it's a 'real person' when it kicks through to the answerphone. It never is. But having taken a few of these calls, I'm now quite the adept at dealing with wrong numbers in Japanese ("Iiiiiiieeeee, chigaimaaaasu...").
So in the lesson, we got onto discussing mobile phones and the part they play in our lives. The fact that I don't answer unknown numbers raised eyebrows. When I underlined that it's for my own convenience, not other people's, it was assumed I was kidding. One student complained about people who call late at night and wake her up as her phone is usually next to her bed. So when I asked why she doesn't simply switch it off, I knew she understood the language, it was the concept she was having problems with. Switch it off?
Just doing my bit to confirm that foreigners are weird.
Last chance
WEDS 22 FEBRUARY
Seems I'm not the only one not watching the Olympics. According to the papers, Japan is turning off en masse. After the huge build up the media gave the Games, there are two very basic problems for the TV networks. First, the live action is on in the middle of the night. And second, check out that medal table and you won't find Japan on it. There's a limit to how many late nights viewers will endure without reward, and they've just about reached their limit, it appears.Now, being English, I can view the Games almost as an outsider, as Britain has no great pedigree in winter sports so we go into this with no expectations whatsoever. Despite this, we've picked up a medal! (Skeleton?! When was this invented? Last week? It's head-first luge, isn't it.) But the Japanese, who have after all hosted the Games, are bitterly disappointed not to have picked up any medals so far.
The last realistic hope lies with the figure-skater Shizuka Arakawa, who currently lies in third with the action being wrapped up in the early hours of Friday. And if she drops off the leaderboard, don't reckon on many households tuning in for the closing ceremony.
The Law will get you (unless it's scared of you)
TUES 21 FEBRUARY
With freedom of speech being the European topic du jour, it was interesting that a man should be sent to prison for three years yesterday by an Austrian court for voicing his opinion. Most Europeans know about the specific laws on holocaust denial in many European countries, but most will also agree that a 3-year prison sentence for stating your opinion (no matter that it's distasteful, deluded and flies in the face of all empirical evidence) is surprisingly harsh, particularly for a man who has admitted his wrong (of some 16 years ago) and pleaded guilty.Many felt that, in terms of laws enshrining freedom of speech, making holocaust denial illegal was perhaps a step too far at the time, but there you have it, it's now on those countries' statute books. And perhaps Austria wishes to show it means business with regard to this particular law, but viewed from another perspective, this is exactly the behaviour of the despicable political system they so wholeheartedly embraced some seven decades ago and never fully shrugged off post-war, and at its very basis, this action is reminiscent of modern regimes of political repression.
I couldn't disagree with David Irving more. He's been labelled alternately as a racist, revisionist, anti-Semite among many other things. But there are already laws on incitement to hatred, which this was not. And he has admitted he was wrong. What purpose, then, making him serve a custodial sentence? Meanwhile in Britain, crowds gather wavering banners calling for mass murder and destruction of property, and while they are condemned, not one arrest is reported. Why? For fear of 'stirring up more trouble'? What we have developing is a European oversensitivity to certain aspects of race, culture and religion, and the law is inconsistent and being inconsistently applied. We are in danger of dealing legally with people based on their 'culture', rather than the letter of the law, in which case those who operate outside the law to achieve their aims will be allowed to succeed.
David Irving is British and holocaust denial is not (specifically) illegal in Britain, but his crime was committed in Austria and he was thusly punished. Incitement to racial hatred, however, certainly is illegal in Britain, although not in many countries, so Britain should punish all those guilty of it, irrespective of their origins, or what the wider reaction to that punishment might be.
I'm h-a-p-p-y
SAT 18 FEBRUARY
FA Cup, fifth round - Liverpool 1 Man Utd 0When something's 85 years in the making, you know it's worth it.
Not watching the Winter Olympics
SAT 18 FEBRUARY
"It's not the winning that's important, it's the taking part." Well yes, but I would be quite interested to know who won.TV sports producers the world over understand their public and are correspondingly partisan, I'm sure. But you probably get to see the top performers too, even if your countrymen don't register a blip. With most of the Olympic events happening while we're asleep, we're only getting to see a round-up the next morning, or as it's now known "The Japanese people not winning very much Highlights Show". For instance, there was the ski-jumping, one of my favourite winter Olympic events, just for its sheer WTF quality. But those JTV folk felt we were best served by replaying the not-very-good jump of a Japanese bloke who barely cleared 100m, while there was evidently some winged Scandinavian who soared over 120m. We didn't get to see him though, or at least if we did it was only fleetingly, because there were far more important considerations, like interviews with non-entities to loop over and over. Never saw repeats of the medal winners. And the Japanese fella was disqualified in the end anyway for having his skis the wrong length.
I'm just glad Japan qualified for the World Cup this summer, or they probably wouldn't bother showing it at all.
A pox on February
SAT 18 FEBRUARY
If hibernation were humanly possible, I'd hibernate through February. It's got nothing going for it, has it, February. By February you're heartily sick of the winter, just waiting for spring to come. January at least has some New Year novelty value. And December has Christmas. And in November there's the run up to Christmas. February has none of that, and crap weather. Look out of your window, right now. What's happening? That's right. Nothing.Good news, Monkey fans
THURS 16 FEBRUARY
The remake of Saiyuki (Monkey) starring Shingo Katori that's currently showing on Fuji TV is making waves abroad too. As well as being popular all over east Asia, the BBC reports that "an undisclosed British TV company has secured the rights to the new 11-episode remake and will broadcast the show later this year". You lucky people! And you'll have the advantage over me, as presumably the series will either be dubbed or subtitled, so you'll actually understand what's going on, rather than rely on guesswork as I do.You can't polish a turd
MON 13 FEBRUARY
Right? Wrong. When your turd is golden, you can polish it to your heart's content and this of course (of COURSE) will bring you good luck in the land where anything can bring you good luck if someone says it does.;){kind=link}
For your browsing pleasure, more turds here.
Care in the Community, Olympic-style
SAT 11 FEBRUARY
I'm so happy the Winter Olympics have started. While the Summer Olympics generally wash over me leaving nothing but a recognition of Britain not winning very much at all, the Winter Olympics are an entirely different spectacle.The summer ones seem (to me at least) dreadfully serious and dull affairs, whereas there's an edge to the winter games, an element of not-so-subtle humour - where else can you see countries compete against each other by hurling themselves at high speed down snow-covered mountains, or laying on a crate as it hurtles down an ice chute faster than most cars, with no more protection than a rubber catsuit? Make no mistake, the competitors in Turin are every bit as much serious sportspeople as their summer counterparts, but a fair number of them are also certifiable. And for a couple of weeks, they are let out and allowed to compete in their country's colours. And I think that's a marvellously enlightened healthcare policy.
It's a boy! Or a girl!
SAT 11 FEBRUARY
So it was announced this week that Princess Kiko (the wife of the Emperor's younger son and only living moustache in Japan,
Akishino) is pregnant. The country would be abuzz about this at any time, but with the succession 'crisis' rumbling in the
background, everyone's talking about it. Despite the fact that she's only 6 weeks pregnant, some are speculating that they already know (by some experimental new technique) that it's a boy (colour me a light shade of sceptical), and hence the behaviour of the court and the timing of the announcement to scupper Koizumi's planned change to the succession law. I would argue that just the fact of the announcement has done enough for Koizumi's opponents in parliament and the Royal court. Calls for caution will delay the bill just long enough that it will never get enough support before the June deadline for this parliamentary session, and will have to be quietly dropped.
All of which of course just delays the inevitable - that Japan desperately needs to sort this out. But why do today what you can put off until tomorrow! Any time anyone approaches this problem, they will be warned off by those who fear change in Japan, who will repeat that there's no hurry, no need for drastic action. And people wonder how a recession can last a decade.
Some background and other bits in Newsround.
Bless you
TUES 7 FEBRUARY
Living or working in a Japanese city means never having to buy tissues. They're giving 'em away, they are. There are gangs
of people in shopping streets with basketfuls of these things, handing them out to all passers by.Outside the department store, Tsuruya, works an unusually aggressive woman who simply won't let you pass until you've taken some. Stone-faced, she sizes you up from a few yards away, then makes a bee-line for your personal space. You will take the tissues. There's simply no refusing. Neither she nor I have considered this eventuality. I have encountered this woman twice a week for nearly two years, and have yet to put together a strategy for saying no thank you to someone who's virtually stuffing the things into your pockets.
Not that I have anything against a free gift, far from it, but precisely because of her doggedness, I've taken it on myself to see if she can be beaten. From the bus stop maybe 50 yards away, I size up my opportunities for using unsuspecting human shields and who they might be. I think about timing my run perfectly to be able to dodge past undetected. No eye contact. Don't make eye contact.
This morning my strategy worked as well as it normally does and I walked to work with another packet of free tissues in my pocket.
Dedication's all you need
MON 6 FEBRUARY
There are going to be local elections here soon. Usually local elections (some would say national too) are pretty uninspiring affairs, aren't they. And of course, as a foreign national, I can't vote in Japan. But if I could, I would vote for the young suited gentleman who this morning stood next to the main road into the city, in the rain, bowing, as far as was possible, to every passing car.Now this sort of dedication to his public might vaporise the moment he gets a sniff of public office, but at least you'd be able to stay he started well.
Dokonjo Daikon revisited
SAT 4 FEBRUARY
Remember the gutsy radish from last November?It seems to have hit the international headlines again. I'd not read or seen anything, but when the number of visitors to this site increased by nearly 600% in 9 hours, all being referred by Google and MSN searches for 'dokonjo daikon', I figured it wasn't some international telepathic interest. Though I've not been able to find any trace of the story from Brazil (where 90% of the searches originated), there's a story on the BBC telling of the giant radish making the Japanese evening news after it was rushed into intensive care in an agricultural research centre.
The daikon, you'll remember, "became an unlikely object of public admiration" (says the BBC - substitute this for "was on the news") when it started growing through a pavement last year. It was then attacked by persons unknown and had its head lopped off.
Apparently the local town council has since been trying to re-grow the radish from its severed top and "it now hopes to extract its seeds or DNA." I missed the news showing the radish, "carefully packed in a cool box and accompanied by a throng of reporters and cameramen," being taken to the research centre. What on earth could I have been doing that was more important?!
China bans "Memoirs of a Geisha"
SAT 4 FEBRUARY
So after waiting for official clearance for months and months, the makers of "Memoirs of a Geisha" have been told that their film will not be shown at all in China.The very existence of the film caused huge controversy in east Asia last year. The Chinese were up in arms mainly because the stars were predominantly Chinese, playing Japanese characters - which affronts a 'victim complex' which is being expertly played up by the government and media any time it's needed. Critics of the film claimed it is insensitive because of Japan's atrocities during their occupation of China in the 1930s - the usual criticism laid against almost any aspect of modern Japanese culture. Just being Japanese, it seems, is hurtful to the poor, sensitive Chinese.
Sony Columbia Tristar Pictures says that the film was initially received well at screenings in November, but that was before the predictable nationalist row was stoked up in the media, which was to sound the death knell for the movie, even though it had received official clearance to begin showing on February 9th.
No official reason has been announced, although there is speculation that it's over the authorities' fears of a public backlash. And whose fault is that...
In a froth over cartoons
SAT 4 FEBRUARY
In today's world, there are groups of people who seem to take offence so very easily, lacking any proper sense of perspective whatsoever. And after the printing of 'those cartoons' in a Danish newspaper, the Muslim world is up in arms about 'the message of hate from Western countries'. These are the same people who will complain about all Muslims being tarred with the same brush as Muslim terrorists, yet think it is fine to take to the streets, burn flags and condemn the entire western world on the strength of the actions of a single cartoonist and newspaper editor.There have been claims that 'the Western World doesn't understand Islamic sensitivities'. Perhaps, but at the same time there seems little understanding in Islam for western culture. For one thing, last time I checked, Denmark, irrespective of what percentage of its citizens may be Muslim, is not an Islamic state, so the government does not silence opposition to Islam, or any other religious or political doctrine. This is what we call freedom of speech, and it means dealing with things you find distasteful in a reasonable manner (as opposed to closing your embassy and insisting the foreign government 'do something about it'). Taking offence should be a reaction rather than a decision.
On the one hand, Islam demands that the West respects its culture. On the other hand, its adherents threaten to kill us all for exercising one of the central pillars of ours. Do those protesters not see this contradiction? Whilst we realise that Muslims believe Islam is 'more than just a religion', they have to realise that this makes no difference to 'non-believers' in other cultures, but this leap of perspective seems to be largely impossible.
Setsubun
FRI 3 FEBRUARY
Setsubun is a turning point of the seasons, so officially, winter finishes today, although in fact this has coincided with a decidedly cold spell. It's also a chance for the tremendously superstitious Japanese to indulge notions of good luck versus evil.On February 3rd, people around Japan traditionally throw fukumame (lucky beans, roasted soybeans in fact) out of the door, calling "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! ("Out with demons, in with good luck!"). This ceremony is followed later by eating the number of beans corresponding to your age. So another 21 beans for me this year.
I'm not entirely sure why there's a need to drive demons out of your house at the end of winter, particularly as these are the same superstitious folks who have twin pillars of salt outside their front door to prevent anything evil getting in in the first place. Perhaps they're just making doubly sure. Because you can never be too careful with demons.
Milk does impressions of onigiri
THURS 2 FEBRUARY
The truth is out there
THURS 2 FEBRUARY
Courtesy of BoingBoing, here's confirmation of something I've always suspected.Does the air-con on a plane always leave you a little messed up when you fly? Do you, like me, end up sniffling for days after, or even get a cold very soon after each flight? The Citizen Scientist explains why.
Don't look at me
THURS 2 FEBRUARY
My boss excitedly told me yesterday that adverts for the school have gone up in half a dozen of the city's trams. These consist of large banners with our name splashed across them and, more pointedly, a sizeable photo of me tucked away in the corner.Part of me thinks this is as cool as my boss does. But a much larger part (the 'being English' part) cringes inwardly at the prospect of the only seat available at the end of a long and tiring day being right under one of these banners. In which case I might choose to stand for that journey.
Back to January?