The other side of Japan
So as mentioned in the last post, I was off on a business trip this week, down to Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. The Guru and I have been down to this neck of the woods before, in 1999 I think, when we flew to Fukuoka and went on a bus tour around the whole island (never again, by the way, for a Japanese bus tour - it was an experience that everyone should try once, but never again). Anyway that time I never went into Fukuoka, so it was virgin territory.
Getting to Haneda airport I was able to take the Tokyo Monorail. I thought this would be crap, but it was one of the best things about the whole trip! It runs from Hammamatsucho on Tokyo Bay and sort of follows the bay round to Haneda, which sticks into the Bay around the bottom of Tokyo where it joins Kawasaki. The route is great as it goes through Shimbashi and Tennozu waterfront areas, past OKeibajo, which is bloody great horse racing stadium in the middle of the city, and then down past the industrial/petrochemical bits that make Middlesbrough look like an advertisement for clean air. The best thing is the monorail runs about 20m off the ground so you get this great view of the whole area. It doesn't sound like much, but if you live in Tokyo and you see is grey concrete everywhere you go, it was a real eye-opener to see colours and contours and, well, life. Hmm, waxing lyrical there, better get to a rant.
Planes
During one of my visits to BA recently, we discussed the fact that the skies over Japan aren't deregulated like they are over Europe. So where in the UK, fo example, it can work out cheaper to fly from London to Liverpool via Frankfurt than to use the trains, here the same isn't true. No EasyJet or RyanAir to bring the prices down so my return flight to from Tokyo Haneda to Fukuoka cost over 60,000yen - that is 300 quid! This was with ANA with whom, last month, a colleague flew return to the UK for 62,000yen! OK, I wasn't paying so Iwasn't too bothered to be honest, but then this really got me - 300 pound flight and if I wanted a beer on the plane, I had to pay for it! I found this totally shocking. And even worse, when ANA tried to set up a budget style airline called Skymark, no-one used it. Weird, these Japanese. Anyway, I showed my absolute displeasure over the paying-for-a-beer issue by maliciously not buying one. That, I think you'll agree, showed them!
Fukuoka
Is a most pleasant and compact little city. So much so that I was rather taken with the place and had a short but nevertheless strong desire to move down there. The nicest thing about it was, I suppose, that it is walkable. Actually thinking about it, this is more a shortcoming of Tokyo, though shortcoming seems the wrong word as, if you are going to walk anywhere, it is more of a longcoming. Anyway it was nice to be in a place where you could walk around the city, where the interesting little side streets held interesting little shops and restaurants and bars and where they still have trees on the pavements which must make the summers a little more bearable. They also have two small emporia that made my stay much more enjoyable. First, on the way back to the hotel was a cracking little yakitori shop that was perfectly placed for me to stop and have a beer with yakitori whilst writing up my notes from the day. There is nothing quite like a really cold beer with some barbequed chicken at the end of a long day. Anyone who bangs on about sushi and sashimi as the height of Japanese cuisine is talking rot, give me beer and yakitori any day. They also served, free of charge, a dish of raw cabbage with the beer. Now this sounds odd, and if you had told me before I would have politely declined. But no, it is a really good little combination, and much healthier than crisps or peanuts. Sounds strange but no, beer, yakitori and raw cabbage - winning combination.
The other place was a little bar just round the corner from the hotel. Normally you take you wallet in your hands when you enter an unknown Japanese pub as it can easily turn out to be a hostess bar, which will charge you anything from a small fortune to a very large one just to sit down, let alone have a beer or, even worse, a bowl of peanuts. Anyway this one looked ok as it had a sign for Abbot's Ale outside. No really, first time I have seen anything like it in Japan (Guiness, Kilkenny and Bass are about the best you can usually get). In the end I only got one opportunity to go in to this place, and the night I was in there was absolutely dead, no-one else at all. But this was great as I got to chat to the bar owner chap. He was really into all things English and was in love with Abbot's Ale, hence being the only place in Japan to regularly stock it. But even thought this chap was into Englishness, he couldn't speak a word and has never been there, so our long chat was conducted all in Japanese, which made me happy, if confused at times. But the best thing was he kept giving me free samples of beer to try! What a nice chap, but I think he was lonely. Anyway I got to try a whole load of beers made by local micro breweries on Kyushu, which was great as it really difficult to find a beer in Japan that isn't made by one of the big 5 breweries. The best one was made by a brewery called Suginoya and recently won first prize at some international beer competition thing. The worst was a strawberry beer that was very similar to cough mixture. So we chatted away and he kept *forcing* me to try all these different beers and we were getting on famously. Then three middle-aged Japanese men came into the bar and, with all these glorious beers on offer, ordered asahi superdry. Oh well, the spell was broken and I wandered back tothe hotel, gently bumping into things as I went. But I really hope this guy and his bar succeed, mainly so I can go back and ask his name.
But that was about it. The work was worky, the people very nice and a good bunch of trainees to boot. The hotel room was small and to say the most, functional. Anyone who has lived or stayed in Japan will know all about breakfasts in hotels here and, rest assured, this one was up to the usual high standards. I don't know what it is about breakfast here, but the Japanese really can't do a 'western' style one and a Japanese style one just seems to be the leftovers from last night. Economical? Yes. Tempting at 7:30 with a hangover...?
Monday, 29 March 2004
Monday, 22 March 2004
Innovations
The Guru and I had a lively discussion this week and it all started with sellotape.
Or Scotch tape, for those of you who know it by that nomenclature. The Guru subscibes to a weekly email newsletter from a Japanese woman who lives in England. She has been living there for years and so offers sage and timely advice for those Japanese women who, or who want to, live in the UK. One of her many valuable contributions to the sum of Japanese housewife knowledge of the world is to point out, in no uncetain terms, that English people do not all have a full afternoon cream tea at 4pm everyday, and for this she has earned my undying admiration (as well, I suspect, the vitriol of Japanese tourist agencies trying to flog over priced cream tea holidays to the Cotswolds).
Anyway, in her last missive she started having a go at British sellotape. It is crap quality, you see, always breaking in the wrong place, twisting, difficult to handle and generally a bane in her life. The Guru nodded along with wholehearted agreement. "Useless" she laughed, casting amused looks in my direction (as I had anything to do with it! (But at 1 pound for 5 rolls in Brixton market, what did she expect?)). But the crowning turd, as it were, was the fact that the rolls of tape don't come with a built in cutter. In Japan, apparently, rolls of sellotape come with a small metal clip type thing that is actually a cutter and means you save valuable nanoseconds when wrapping your presents (not that Japanese ever wrap presents, the department does it for you!).
Now I have tried to use these little cutters and cannot get the hang of them, and nor has a friend in Japan Steve, so we prefer the 'biting with your teeth' method favoured by, I think, most English. So the argu.. discussion started on the relative merits of Japanese vs English sellotape and then progressed, through a series of logical bounds, to the Guru stating the opinion that the English never innovate. When they have invented something that is useful, apparently, they never try to improve it whilst the Japanese are always doing this, hence the little metal clip/cutter on sellotape here. My point was that firstly, it isn't an improvement and, if it was, it would catch on in England as well, and that, secondly, the Japanese are respnsible for a whole lot of unnecessary crap in the world mainly because they try and improve on things that don't need improving. And here we reached impasse as neither was willing to concede to the other. Then we went out on Saturday evening and met up with Steve and Yasuko, had the same discussion and came to the same conclusions, only double the numbers.
This is one that could run and run, I fear, as now anything useless or unnecessary that I see in this country I point out, whilst the Guru, when she remembers things that used to drive her crazy in London, doesn't shirk from reminding me. I am willing to concede her views on occasional, small things, like the London Underground, but she will not budge from her view. This made me happy the other night, though. She was washing rice in it's cooking pot when I mentioned that it was easier to wash rice in a seive under running water. "This is the way it's been done for thousands of years" said she.
I don't like to keep score, but that one went on the fridge door.
(The Japanese woman who started all this off, by the by, lives in Margate. Enough said.)
Fukuoka, Kyushu.
I'm off on a business trip!
That's right. Tomorrow I have to troop off to Haneda airport and fly down to Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. We have a new franchise set up there so I have to go down to do some interviews/orientation for a bunch of new teachers who have been 'selected' by the franchisee, and then do a couple of days of training with them as well. Get to stay in a hotel that I don't have to pay for and get extra money for doing my job. Marvellous.
I am looking forward to this as it is a chance to see a new city, meet some new people and generally not be in the office for four days. Sounds like a great deal and should all be smooth as silk as luckily the franchise department isn't one of those where all the staff received, and used, DIY lobotomy kits for christmas last year. Oh hang on...
Full report next week.
The Guru and I had a lively discussion this week and it all started with sellotape.
Or Scotch tape, for those of you who know it by that nomenclature. The Guru subscibes to a weekly email newsletter from a Japanese woman who lives in England. She has been living there for years and so offers sage and timely advice for those Japanese women who, or who want to, live in the UK. One of her many valuable contributions to the sum of Japanese housewife knowledge of the world is to point out, in no uncetain terms, that English people do not all have a full afternoon cream tea at 4pm everyday, and for this she has earned my undying admiration (as well, I suspect, the vitriol of Japanese tourist agencies trying to flog over priced cream tea holidays to the Cotswolds).
Anyway, in her last missive she started having a go at British sellotape. It is crap quality, you see, always breaking in the wrong place, twisting, difficult to handle and generally a bane in her life. The Guru nodded along with wholehearted agreement. "Useless" she laughed, casting amused looks in my direction (as I had anything to do with it! (But at 1 pound for 5 rolls in Brixton market, what did she expect?)). But the crowning turd, as it were, was the fact that the rolls of tape don't come with a built in cutter. In Japan, apparently, rolls of sellotape come with a small metal clip type thing that is actually a cutter and means you save valuable nanoseconds when wrapping your presents (not that Japanese ever wrap presents, the department does it for you!).
Now I have tried to use these little cutters and cannot get the hang of them, and nor has a friend in Japan Steve, so we prefer the 'biting with your teeth' method favoured by, I think, most English. So the argu.. discussion started on the relative merits of Japanese vs English sellotape and then progressed, through a series of logical bounds, to the Guru stating the opinion that the English never innovate. When they have invented something that is useful, apparently, they never try to improve it whilst the Japanese are always doing this, hence the little metal clip/cutter on sellotape here. My point was that firstly, it isn't an improvement and, if it was, it would catch on in England as well, and that, secondly, the Japanese are respnsible for a whole lot of unnecessary crap in the world mainly because they try and improve on things that don't need improving. And here we reached impasse as neither was willing to concede to the other. Then we went out on Saturday evening and met up with Steve and Yasuko, had the same discussion and came to the same conclusions, only double the numbers.
This is one that could run and run, I fear, as now anything useless or unnecessary that I see in this country I point out, whilst the Guru, when she remembers things that used to drive her crazy in London, doesn't shirk from reminding me. I am willing to concede her views on occasional, small things, like the London Underground, but she will not budge from her view. This made me happy the other night, though. She was washing rice in it's cooking pot when I mentioned that it was easier to wash rice in a seive under running water. "This is the way it's been done for thousands of years" said she.
I don't like to keep score, but that one went on the fridge door.
(The Japanese woman who started all this off, by the by, lives in Margate. Enough said.)
Fukuoka, Kyushu.
I'm off on a business trip!
That's right. Tomorrow I have to troop off to Haneda airport and fly down to Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. We have a new franchise set up there so I have to go down to do some interviews/orientation for a bunch of new teachers who have been 'selected' by the franchisee, and then do a couple of days of training with them as well. Get to stay in a hotel that I don't have to pay for and get extra money for doing my job. Marvellous.
I am looking forward to this as it is a chance to see a new city, meet some new people and generally not be in the office for four days. Sounds like a great deal and should all be smooth as silk as luckily the franchise department isn't one of those where all the staff received, and used, DIY lobotomy kits for christmas last year. Oh hang on...
Full report next week.
Friday, 19 March 2004
and in this week's friday five
If you...
1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve? often thought about this, but never really settled on a definitive style, so probably a bit of everything that I like, so a bit of Japanese, some Thai, a touch of Mexican and your usual Euro/French/Italian stuff. I hate the word 'fusion' in cooking, so better to be pick n' mix.
2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell? often thought about this as well. Definitely a combination deli/coffee/book shop. (This one, one day, will happen).
3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be? i'd like to think a series of wry, occasionally humourous articles on the oddities and strangeness of living in Japan. But probably a fantasy novel.
4. ...ran a school, what would you teach? I work for a school, we teach English. So anything but that.
5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it? have never thought about this as I am so totally unmusical, a bit like Steve Martin's character in 'the jerk'.Although having said that, I love music. But the choice would change depending on the day, week, month, hour etc. Listening to lots of led zep/stones/ black crowes right now, so if i recorded an album this weekend, it would probably sound like them.
If you...
1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve? often thought about this, but never really settled on a definitive style, so probably a bit of everything that I like, so a bit of Japanese, some Thai, a touch of Mexican and your usual Euro/French/Italian stuff. I hate the word 'fusion' in cooking, so better to be pick n' mix.
2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell? often thought about this as well. Definitely a combination deli/coffee/book shop. (This one, one day, will happen).
3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be? i'd like to think a series of wry, occasionally humourous articles on the oddities and strangeness of living in Japan. But probably a fantasy novel.
4. ...ran a school, what would you teach? I work for a school, we teach English. So anything but that.
5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it? have never thought about this as I am so totally unmusical, a bit like Steve Martin's character in 'the jerk'.Although having said that, I love music. But the choice would change depending on the day, week, month, hour etc. Listening to lots of led zep/stones/ black crowes right now, so if i recorded an album this weekend, it would probably sound like them.
Wednesday, 17 March 2004
Musical differences
Here's a strange thing. The Guru and I were having a spot of dinner the other night and a piece of music started up on the old cd player. It was a classical piece and as it started the Guru slowly got a wistful, faraway look in her eye and murmured natsukashi. At the same time my thoughts wandered off, stimulated by the music and slowly an amused smirk spread across my face. The music, I'm sure you're dying to know, was the bit from the old Hamlet cigar ads (the name escapes me just now, and the cd has been replaced on the shelf). I was thinking of the ads, specifically the one in the restaurant where I think the waiter knocks the chap's toupee off, much to the amusement of his younger date, whence the waiter gives him the cigar and strikes a match on the back of his head. So like most English people my connection with the song is wryly amusing.
Natsukashi, for those who don't know, doesn't really translate well into English but is a sort of wistful nostalgia, "that takes me back" sort of idea. The reason being, you see, is that the same piece of music is the one played at all Japanese graduation ceremonies, so as soon as a Japanese adult hears it, they are suddenly transported back to school/college/university and those halcyon days. I just smirked. This could, of course, prove embarrassing in the future when, at my childrens' very solemn kindergarten graduation ceremony, when I should be crying with pride or something, I will be happily smirking to myself thinking of Hamlet cigar adverts. Must learn self control.
But of course there are many more examples of this sort of wholly different cultural reaction to music. For example whilst we in the west are somewhat pissed and spluttering "I love you, yur my besht mate, no really" at new year to the tune of Auld Lang Syne (or whatever the spelling is), here in Japan it is known as the 'Firefly' and is played to tell you that the supermarket or department store you are in is about to close. Curiously, the image I have for Vaugh-Williams' new world symphony is the Hovis kid walking with his bike up a steep hill on his way home in Yorkshire or the Cotswolds, which is spooky as it is the music they play over tannoys at around 5pm in towns all over Japan (well in Kawaguchi at any rate) telling kids it is time to go home. Maybe it has a deep psychological resonance about returning to the bosom of ones family. Or something.
Here's a strange thing. The Guru and I were having a spot of dinner the other night and a piece of music started up on the old cd player. It was a classical piece and as it started the Guru slowly got a wistful, faraway look in her eye and murmured natsukashi. At the same time my thoughts wandered off, stimulated by the music and slowly an amused smirk spread across my face. The music, I'm sure you're dying to know, was the bit from the old Hamlet cigar ads (the name escapes me just now, and the cd has been replaced on the shelf). I was thinking of the ads, specifically the one in the restaurant where I think the waiter knocks the chap's toupee off, much to the amusement of his younger date, whence the waiter gives him the cigar and strikes a match on the back of his head. So like most English people my connection with the song is wryly amusing.
Natsukashi, for those who don't know, doesn't really translate well into English but is a sort of wistful nostalgia, "that takes me back" sort of idea. The reason being, you see, is that the same piece of music is the one played at all Japanese graduation ceremonies, so as soon as a Japanese adult hears it, they are suddenly transported back to school/college/university and those halcyon days. I just smirked. This could, of course, prove embarrassing in the future when, at my childrens' very solemn kindergarten graduation ceremony, when I should be crying with pride or something, I will be happily smirking to myself thinking of Hamlet cigar adverts. Must learn self control.
But of course there are many more examples of this sort of wholly different cultural reaction to music. For example whilst we in the west are somewhat pissed and spluttering "I love you, yur my besht mate, no really" at new year to the tune of Auld Lang Syne (or whatever the spelling is), here in Japan it is known as the 'Firefly' and is played to tell you that the supermarket or department store you are in is about to close. Curiously, the image I have for Vaugh-Williams' new world symphony is the Hovis kid walking with his bike up a steep hill on his way home in Yorkshire or the Cotswolds, which is spooky as it is the music they play over tannoys at around 5pm in towns all over Japan (well in Kawaguchi at any rate) telling kids it is time to go home. Maybe it has a deep psychological resonance about returning to the bosom of ones family. Or something.
Sunday, 14 March 2004
Saturday, 13 March 2004
and on this week's friday five
1. What was the last song you heard? haven't been listening to a lot of music this week, the md player has remained at home, but I think it would be 'when the levee breaks' by Led Zeppelin
2. What were the last two movies you saw? that would be Love, Actually and Lord of the Rings pt 3. (and surprisingly love, actually wasn't as awful as I thought it would be)
3. What were the last three things you purchased? apart from lunches, a load of Harvey Nicholls toffee (going cheap at Sogo dept store which was given to the ladies in the office for White Day), 4 books at Bondibooks over in Kichijouji (thanks Josh) and a lot of beer last night.
4. What four things do you need to do this weekend? haircut, study, recover from hangover and study.
5. Who are the last five people you talked to? The good Guru (in a drunken state last night and a hungover state this morning) and then 4 others from the office - Dave, Helen, Sally and Simon - with whom I drank too much beer and probably put the world to rights (lucky old world!).
1. What was the last song you heard? haven't been listening to a lot of music this week, the md player has remained at home, but I think it would be 'when the levee breaks' by Led Zeppelin
2. What were the last two movies you saw? that would be Love, Actually and Lord of the Rings pt 3. (and surprisingly love, actually wasn't as awful as I thought it would be)
3. What were the last three things you purchased? apart from lunches, a load of Harvey Nicholls toffee (going cheap at Sogo dept store which was given to the ladies in the office for White Day), 4 books at Bondibooks over in Kichijouji (thanks Josh) and a lot of beer last night.
4. What four things do you need to do this weekend? haircut, study, recover from hangover and study.
5. Who are the last five people you talked to? The good Guru (in a drunken state last night and a hungover state this morning) and then 4 others from the office - Dave, Helen, Sally and Simon - with whom I drank too much beer and probably put the world to rights (lucky old world!).
Tuesday, 9 March 2004
It 's the new War
Dave, once of Tokyo and now of Bangkok has a new blog, The Hundred Day's War, detailing his new offensive against complacency. Please pop over here to see it and support him in his endeavours.
Dave, once of Tokyo and now of Bangkok has a new blog, The Hundred Day's War, detailing his new offensive against complacency. Please pop over here to see it and support him in his endeavours.
Sunday, 7 March 2004
What's in a name?
Quite a lot really, if you are Japanese....actually quite a lot for anyone really, but as this blog is all about Japan we're going to go with this theme.
I saw an article in a magazine this week that was all about naming children and the fun you have to go through in Japanese. I had never really thought about it before, but as this is something I will be doing for real (hopefully) soon, I read the article with gusto, and it turns out that it is not simply about choosing a name you like for your offspring. Oh no, that would be far too easy. There is a lot more to it than that. A lot. But before we begin this I think I should give you all a brief guide to the complexities of the Japanese language (for those of you in Japan and who know all this, you may want to wander further ahead. Or you may not, up to you really).
Kanji and all that
So Japanese, in a nutshell, is this - why use one alphabet when you can use four? That's what someone over here said a few centuries ago and everyone thought it to be a jolly wizard idea. So for starters there is kanji which a lot of can be seen at the Kanji Site link on the right. Kanji is the writing that came over from China a few millenia ago and is the one with the pictographs (or maybe pictograms) and pretty much everything old or major has a kanji. Some of these are quite literal and you can see how they developed - for example Kawaguchi, where we live, is made up from a square (meaning guchi, or mouth as it is in the shape of an open mouth) and three vertical parallel lines (meaning kawa or river, from the banks of the river with water in between). Put them together and you have Rivermouth, and there is a river mouth here, so it all makes sense. Unfortunately this is an isolated case and most kanji bear no resemblance to the thing they are meant to repesent. Kanji are not phoenetic, so you can't really try to work out what they mean, especially as you can put two together and the sum of the parts bear no relation to the original bits.
Because Kanji came from China so long ago, they have also become Japanized, so each kanji will have at least two different ways of being read - two if you're lucky. So if you see a kanji you can never be sure how it is read and therefore what it means, which creates a lot of scope for confusion. This is especially true with names - if you find a random business card you won't know who it belongs to as you won't be able to read their name until they tell you. And place names, like nishi kasai, where I work, is made from 2 kanji, the first, 'nishi' and the last, '-sai' are the same kanji, but pronounced differently. Sound a bit silly? You bet.
Even the Japanese realised this, so about 500 years ago hiragana was developed (actually it was developed by a noblewoman at the Emperor's court to send secret messages to someone, somewhere - I forget). So anyway hiragana is phoenetic, unlike kanji, so it was jolly useful for writing under kanji to show what they meant. Now it is used for particles and articles, defining tenses and the like. So that is two alphabets.
The third is katakana, which was developed more recently, in the last hundred years or so when lots of new foreign words started appearing in the Japanese language. This was a problem because, unlike English, there are no spaces in between the words in written Japanese, so if there suddenly appeared a foreign word spelt out in hiragana, the reader would not know where the word started or what it meant. So katakana is essentially the same as hiragana, except that where hiragana is soft and curvy, katakana is angular and sharp, so when reading a sentence you can see where the words change. This is quite a sensible idea really, but confusing for the average foreigner as katakana takes no account of where the foreign word comes from - so lots of English speakers have been very confused by their studebts saying 'I have arlbeit' - they mean, of course, they have a part-time job, from the German, but no-one told the Japanese that, they just think of Japanese and 'foreign'.
So that's three. The last alphabet the Japanese use is this one, the roman alphabet, called romaji in Japan and not really used very much, except in train stations which is very useful if you are going somewhere new.
So back to names
So first you have to choose the name you want for your kid. This is the easy part as there are lots to choose from. So far so good.
But then you have to decide how you want to write it. Now we can assume that the surname is going to be the same as the rest of the family, but what of the first name? Well, you could write it in hiragana, the curvy phoenetic script above, but where is the fun in that? Now in English, if you want your kid to be called John, you have little choice but to choose one 'o', one 'n', one 'j' and one 'h', out them in the right order and hey presto, you have John. But with a name like Akira, for example, reasonably popular especially after the post-apocalyptic dude, you will have at least 25 different ways of writing it in Kanji. 25!
So just pick a nice looking kanji that means something nice like 'strong-warrior-salary-man', yes? No. You've forgotten the strokes! and we're not talking noveau rock pop here. All kanji have a set number of strokes and an order in which to write them, and woe betide you if you get either wrong. This is important because you have to add up the number of strokes and see if you get good numbers or bad numbers - but not just the total number of strokes, that would be too easy, you have to look at:
Jinkaku - the number of strokes in the last character of the last name and the first character of the frst name. This will tell you the child's talent or character.
Tenkaku - all the strokes in the last name. This will tell you about destiny and the influence from your ancestors (surely the same for everyone in the family?)
Chikaku - all the strokes in the first name. This will tell you about the kids life up to middle age, including marriage and health, but not after middle age, that is from...
Sokaku - which is all the strokes in both names.
With it so far, well then
Get your number of strokes in the sokaku and deduct the jinkaku, this will give you the gaikaku, which will tell you how society will perceive your child, his or her sincerity and self-confidence. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.
So what does it all mean. Well, if your sokaku (that's all the strokes in both names) adds up to 19, your kid will be artistic but rebellious and tempramental. In Japan this is not a good combination so it is to be avoided at all costs apparently. You can just see it...
Dad: what about Leonardo?
Mum: hmm, what does it say in the book?
Dad: Artistic but might get a bit angry.
Mum: Ooh I dont like that, how about Kevin?
Dad: happy go lucky, bit of a dreamer, steady.
Mum: that's nice, Kevin da Vinci, has a nice ring to it and none of that rebelliousness...
I digress. So you have to employ the services of a fortune teller to make sure that the name you have decided upon is going to be an auspicious one for your progeny. And you have to be careful as the number of strokes can change unexpectedly when you use a kanji for a name rather than its normal usage, for no good reason whatsoever, except, as with all of this, to confuse foreigners (although it is pretty good at confusing the Japanese as well. When the guru and I wed at the local ward office, the desk bound chappie admonished the Guru for spelling her name wrong, something she had been doing for thirty odd years as her father had chosen an alternative kanji that changed in name usage but then he had basically forgotten to tell her!).
And then, of course, there are the forbidden kanji. There are only 2230 kanji that can be used for naming your kids, out of a total of many tens of thousands that are out there, the 1945 Joyo kanji, which are the sort of everyday ones that everyone can read (yours truly excepted) plus 285 special kanji for names. That is it. Back in the nineties a rather deranged chap wanted to name his son Akuma, which means evil or devil (using the kanji he wanted to use). Now he was a silly chap, but his local authorities actually took him to court and won, meaning that he was legally not allowed to name his son what he wanted! Now although I think this chap was being a bit of a prat, I am shocked at the principle that you can't name you kids what you want to. And who chose the 2230 kanji? No one seems to know.
But there you have it. Seems to me that if you eant to do this sort of thing properly you need an advanced degree in calculus to work out the stroke permutations and then a direct line to Russel Grant to chack everything is sweet in the heavens.
Think I'll be giving my kids English names...
Quite a lot really, if you are Japanese....actually quite a lot for anyone really, but as this blog is all about Japan we're going to go with this theme.
I saw an article in a magazine this week that was all about naming children and the fun you have to go through in Japanese. I had never really thought about it before, but as this is something I will be doing for real (hopefully) soon, I read the article with gusto, and it turns out that it is not simply about choosing a name you like for your offspring. Oh no, that would be far too easy. There is a lot more to it than that. A lot. But before we begin this I think I should give you all a brief guide to the complexities of the Japanese language (for those of you in Japan and who know all this, you may want to wander further ahead. Or you may not, up to you really).
Kanji and all that
So Japanese, in a nutshell, is this - why use one alphabet when you can use four? That's what someone over here said a few centuries ago and everyone thought it to be a jolly wizard idea. So for starters there is kanji which a lot of can be seen at the Kanji Site link on the right. Kanji is the writing that came over from China a few millenia ago and is the one with the pictographs (or maybe pictograms) and pretty much everything old or major has a kanji. Some of these are quite literal and you can see how they developed - for example Kawaguchi, where we live, is made up from a square (meaning guchi, or mouth as it is in the shape of an open mouth) and three vertical parallel lines (meaning kawa or river, from the banks of the river with water in between). Put them together and you have Rivermouth, and there is a river mouth here, so it all makes sense. Unfortunately this is an isolated case and most kanji bear no resemblance to the thing they are meant to repesent. Kanji are not phoenetic, so you can't really try to work out what they mean, especially as you can put two together and the sum of the parts bear no relation to the original bits.
Because Kanji came from China so long ago, they have also become Japanized, so each kanji will have at least two different ways of being read - two if you're lucky. So if you see a kanji you can never be sure how it is read and therefore what it means, which creates a lot of scope for confusion. This is especially true with names - if you find a random business card you won't know who it belongs to as you won't be able to read their name until they tell you. And place names, like nishi kasai, where I work, is made from 2 kanji, the first, 'nishi' and the last, '-sai' are the same kanji, but pronounced differently. Sound a bit silly? You bet.
Even the Japanese realised this, so about 500 years ago hiragana was developed (actually it was developed by a noblewoman at the Emperor's court to send secret messages to someone, somewhere - I forget). So anyway hiragana is phoenetic, unlike kanji, so it was jolly useful for writing under kanji to show what they meant. Now it is used for particles and articles, defining tenses and the like. So that is two alphabets.
The third is katakana, which was developed more recently, in the last hundred years or so when lots of new foreign words started appearing in the Japanese language. This was a problem because, unlike English, there are no spaces in between the words in written Japanese, so if there suddenly appeared a foreign word spelt out in hiragana, the reader would not know where the word started or what it meant. So katakana is essentially the same as hiragana, except that where hiragana is soft and curvy, katakana is angular and sharp, so when reading a sentence you can see where the words change. This is quite a sensible idea really, but confusing for the average foreigner as katakana takes no account of where the foreign word comes from - so lots of English speakers have been very confused by their studebts saying 'I have arlbeit' - they mean, of course, they have a part-time job, from the German, but no-one told the Japanese that, they just think of Japanese and 'foreign'.
So that's three. The last alphabet the Japanese use is this one, the roman alphabet, called romaji in Japan and not really used very much, except in train stations which is very useful if you are going somewhere new.
So back to names
So first you have to choose the name you want for your kid. This is the easy part as there are lots to choose from. So far so good.
But then you have to decide how you want to write it. Now we can assume that the surname is going to be the same as the rest of the family, but what of the first name? Well, you could write it in hiragana, the curvy phoenetic script above, but where is the fun in that? Now in English, if you want your kid to be called John, you have little choice but to choose one 'o', one 'n', one 'j' and one 'h', out them in the right order and hey presto, you have John. But with a name like Akira, for example, reasonably popular especially after the post-apocalyptic dude, you will have at least 25 different ways of writing it in Kanji. 25!
So just pick a nice looking kanji that means something nice like 'strong-warrior-salary-man', yes? No. You've forgotten the strokes! and we're not talking noveau rock pop here. All kanji have a set number of strokes and an order in which to write them, and woe betide you if you get either wrong. This is important because you have to add up the number of strokes and see if you get good numbers or bad numbers - but not just the total number of strokes, that would be too easy, you have to look at:
Jinkaku - the number of strokes in the last character of the last name and the first character of the frst name. This will tell you the child's talent or character.
Tenkaku - all the strokes in the last name. This will tell you about destiny and the influence from your ancestors (surely the same for everyone in the family?)
Chikaku - all the strokes in the first name. This will tell you about the kids life up to middle age, including marriage and health, but not after middle age, that is from...
Sokaku - which is all the strokes in both names.
With it so far, well then
Get your number of strokes in the sokaku and deduct the jinkaku, this will give you the gaikaku, which will tell you how society will perceive your child, his or her sincerity and self-confidence. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.
So what does it all mean. Well, if your sokaku (that's all the strokes in both names) adds up to 19, your kid will be artistic but rebellious and tempramental. In Japan this is not a good combination so it is to be avoided at all costs apparently. You can just see it...
Dad: what about Leonardo?
Mum: hmm, what does it say in the book?
Dad: Artistic but might get a bit angry.
Mum: Ooh I dont like that, how about Kevin?
Dad: happy go lucky, bit of a dreamer, steady.
Mum: that's nice, Kevin da Vinci, has a nice ring to it and none of that rebelliousness...
I digress. So you have to employ the services of a fortune teller to make sure that the name you have decided upon is going to be an auspicious one for your progeny. And you have to be careful as the number of strokes can change unexpectedly when you use a kanji for a name rather than its normal usage, for no good reason whatsoever, except, as with all of this, to confuse foreigners (although it is pretty good at confusing the Japanese as well. When the guru and I wed at the local ward office, the desk bound chappie admonished the Guru for spelling her name wrong, something she had been doing for thirty odd years as her father had chosen an alternative kanji that changed in name usage but then he had basically forgotten to tell her!).
And then, of course, there are the forbidden kanji. There are only 2230 kanji that can be used for naming your kids, out of a total of many tens of thousands that are out there, the 1945 Joyo kanji, which are the sort of everyday ones that everyone can read (yours truly excepted) plus 285 special kanji for names. That is it. Back in the nineties a rather deranged chap wanted to name his son Akuma, which means evil or devil (using the kanji he wanted to use). Now he was a silly chap, but his local authorities actually took him to court and won, meaning that he was legally not allowed to name his son what he wanted! Now although I think this chap was being a bit of a prat, I am shocked at the principle that you can't name you kids what you want to. And who chose the 2230 kanji? No one seems to know.
But there you have it. Seems to me that if you eant to do this sort of thing properly you need an advanced degree in calculus to work out the stroke permutations and then a direct line to Russel Grant to chack everything is sweet in the heavens.
Think I'll be giving my kids English names...
Friday, 5 March 2004
and this week's friday five
What was...
1. ...your first grade teacher's name? Not sure about first grade as we don't have them in the UK, but the first teacher's name that I can remember is Mrs Kenyon - old, pinched face, bit of a harridan sometimes but basically ok.
2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon? Battle of the Planets with G-Force, and their spaceship called the Phoenix that, cunningly, went all fiery in times of need, which was actually 'Gatchaman' here in Japan, for Japanese it was. (After asking the Guru what the Japanese name was, she has just sung me the theme song - bless her!)
3. ...the name of your very first best friend? James Milne - whatever happened to him...?
4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal? As a kid I have a very vague recollection of Golden Nuggets, which I suspect where lumps of sugar with yellow food colouring (which luckily covered all the major food groups for a four year old). If not, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.
5. ...your favorite thing to do after school? Too many to write down but 'bugger all' and 'not doing homework' come close to the top.
What was...
1. ...your first grade teacher's name? Not sure about first grade as we don't have them in the UK, but the first teacher's name that I can remember is Mrs Kenyon - old, pinched face, bit of a harridan sometimes but basically ok.
2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon? Battle of the Planets with G-Force, and their spaceship called the Phoenix that, cunningly, went all fiery in times of need, which was actually 'Gatchaman' here in Japan, for Japanese it was. (After asking the Guru what the Japanese name was, she has just sung me the theme song - bless her!)
3. ...the name of your very first best friend? James Milne - whatever happened to him...?
4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal? As a kid I have a very vague recollection of Golden Nuggets, which I suspect where lumps of sugar with yellow food colouring (which luckily covered all the major food groups for a four year old). If not, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.
5. ...your favorite thing to do after school? Too many to write down but 'bugger all' and 'not doing homework' come close to the top.
Monday, 1 March 2004
The Police State
Interesting story in this week's news about the police, which I thought I would share. Now personally I have a lot of time for the police in the UK, they seem to be a hard working lot, over stressed, criticised from all quarters, that sort of thing. I haven't had to much to do with them, to be honest, and long may that continue, but they seem to be trying to be doing a good job. And before anyone gets too irate in the comments section, I am looking at them from 5,000 miles away with little in the way of domestic UK news, so I may be wrong about that. I am also looking at them in comparison with the Japanese police, who are, I think, pretty shite.
I mean sh*te in a sort of useless way. Not bumbling incompetence, like the jolly laughing policeman, but a kind of arrogant, don't mess with me but if you do mess with me I won't really know what to do about it sort of way. If you take my meaning.
Anyway what got me thinking was a story in the paper. Apparently a week or so ago, a woman was out and about when suddenly she started screaming at the top of her lungs, someone had snatched her bag, you see. Now the police, far from their usual policy of waiting for two weeks before checking anything out, actually arrived at the scene as the woman was still a-screaming. (Perhaps she was near a koban or police box, which is not, as the name might suggest, a law enforcement protective, rather it is a little box-like shed found next to most railway staions where the police can relax after a long morning's doing nothing by drinking coffee). I digress, so the local coppers turn up, at which point the woman stops her screaming and, pointing, shouts 'it was him'. Keystone Cops-like our intrepid heroes turn and apprehend the larcenous individual. This proves to be a 68 year old gentleman laden with shopping bags in both hands - hardly the type to have just snatched a ladies handbag, seeing as he doesn't have a ladies handbag on his person and couldn't carry anything more anyway, let alone run, the favoured modus operandi of bag snatchers, or so I am led to believe.
Pleased with themselves, the coppers drag the bewildered shopper back to the screaming woman, only to find her gone, with out so much as a by your leave and leaving not a trace. 'Oh well', think they, 'but at least we got our man'. So they drag said man back to the koban, on, you remember, a hysterical accusation by a now disappeared woman. Unfortunately the chap, obviously not used to this sort of thing, is now bewildered and extremely stressed which, I'm afraid to say, pushes his dicky ticker into overdrive, giving him a massive coronary and leading, very shortly, to his untimely death.
All very sad, but what makes it worse is the fact that the police refuse to apologise for anything. Apparently they had a suspect who had been identified and accused by a victim and that, sadly, is good enough for them. Doesn't matter that the 'victim' has disappeared, or the chap was an elderly gent laden down with shopping, or most importantly, for the chap at least, that he died in police custody. Nope, he was obviously guilty, so they got him.
Hmm.
I think it is because the police, when faced with a potential crime against a person, aren't really sure what to do. Most of the crime in Japan is of the white collar kind, as reported in these pages in the past, somewhere, so most police really do sit around in their koban's all day, drinking coffee and giving directions to lost people. Now much of this is because Japan is a safe country, much safer than, say, the UK. Having lived in both I feel I can say this with some knowledge, although anywhere feels safe after living in Brixton. Japan is becomming less safe, mostly through socially maladjusted kids losing it and murdering their peers, or parents, and also Japan has always been a place where sexual harrassment goes uncommented upon - for example men groping women in trains, which has become such a problem that there are now Women Only carriages on trains in central Tokyo of an evening. But Japan is still, I feel, much safer physically than the UK.
So when the police come up against this sort of incident, they don't really know what to do, so they either go a little over the top, as with the chap above, or do nothing. In Nagasaki last year there were numerous assaults on kids around a kindergarten but the police didn't tell anyone, so the attacks continued for quite a while until the police finally thought they'd better do something about it - they did catch the guy, in the end, but a word of warning might have helped. An argument against this, I realise, is that they don't want to cause a panic. Fair enough. But how about this.
This week Shoko Asahara, the Aum Shinrikyu chap was sentenced this week. It was the death penalty for him for the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway (and a lot of other murders, going back about 6 years, some of them using Sarin gas - was he investigated? Have a guess...). Anyway because of this there have been lots of TV news features about ex-cult members and what they are doing now. Most of them are trying to live new lives, leave the past behind, but they can't as wherever they move they have to register with the local police who then tell all their neighbours, everyone in the town, who they are and where they live, so they and their kids are attacked, threats made and houses defaced. All nasty stuff that need not happen but is basically encouraged by the local boys in blue.
Seems to have turned into quite a polemic, this one. But they are pretty useless, in my opinion. Pick on the small guys whilst letting the big fish, the yakuza, swim freely about.
But on a happier note
Let's all cheer for Middlesbrough, who finally won something for the first time in 128 years by beating Bolton in the Tin Pot Cup. Yay!
And also
Saw a very strange thing on Friday. I was on the train - clean, cheap, on time (pogo take note) - and sitting a few yards down the aisle was a girl in suspenders. I had to stop and stare. I could hardly help myself, such was the scene. Now lest you think I am one of the dirty old men mentioned above, this young lady was wearing gentlemans' suspenders, the old fashioned type that go around one leg at about calf height and are attached to the sock by a single clip. Otherwise she was quite normally attired - coat, scarf, skirt, socks and shoes. Most very odd indeed, although it is indicative of the strangeness of the fashion of young women in this country. I mean for heaven's sake, leg warmers are back in fashion right now...
Interesting story in this week's news about the police, which I thought I would share. Now personally I have a lot of time for the police in the UK, they seem to be a hard working lot, over stressed, criticised from all quarters, that sort of thing. I haven't had to much to do with them, to be honest, and long may that continue, but they seem to be trying to be doing a good job. And before anyone gets too irate in the comments section, I am looking at them from 5,000 miles away with little in the way of domestic UK news, so I may be wrong about that. I am also looking at them in comparison with the Japanese police, who are, I think, pretty shite.
I mean sh*te in a sort of useless way. Not bumbling incompetence, like the jolly laughing policeman, but a kind of arrogant, don't mess with me but if you do mess with me I won't really know what to do about it sort of way. If you take my meaning.
Anyway what got me thinking was a story in the paper. Apparently a week or so ago, a woman was out and about when suddenly she started screaming at the top of her lungs, someone had snatched her bag, you see. Now the police, far from their usual policy of waiting for two weeks before checking anything out, actually arrived at the scene as the woman was still a-screaming. (Perhaps she was near a koban or police box, which is not, as the name might suggest, a law enforcement protective, rather it is a little box-like shed found next to most railway staions where the police can relax after a long morning's doing nothing by drinking coffee). I digress, so the local coppers turn up, at which point the woman stops her screaming and, pointing, shouts 'it was him'. Keystone Cops-like our intrepid heroes turn and apprehend the larcenous individual. This proves to be a 68 year old gentleman laden with shopping bags in both hands - hardly the type to have just snatched a ladies handbag, seeing as he doesn't have a ladies handbag on his person and couldn't carry anything more anyway, let alone run, the favoured modus operandi of bag snatchers, or so I am led to believe.
Pleased with themselves, the coppers drag the bewildered shopper back to the screaming woman, only to find her gone, with out so much as a by your leave and leaving not a trace. 'Oh well', think they, 'but at least we got our man'. So they drag said man back to the koban, on, you remember, a hysterical accusation by a now disappeared woman. Unfortunately the chap, obviously not used to this sort of thing, is now bewildered and extremely stressed which, I'm afraid to say, pushes his dicky ticker into overdrive, giving him a massive coronary and leading, very shortly, to his untimely death.
All very sad, but what makes it worse is the fact that the police refuse to apologise for anything. Apparently they had a suspect who had been identified and accused by a victim and that, sadly, is good enough for them. Doesn't matter that the 'victim' has disappeared, or the chap was an elderly gent laden down with shopping, or most importantly, for the chap at least, that he died in police custody. Nope, he was obviously guilty, so they got him.
Hmm.
I think it is because the police, when faced with a potential crime against a person, aren't really sure what to do. Most of the crime in Japan is of the white collar kind, as reported in these pages in the past, somewhere, so most police really do sit around in their koban's all day, drinking coffee and giving directions to lost people. Now much of this is because Japan is a safe country, much safer than, say, the UK. Having lived in both I feel I can say this with some knowledge, although anywhere feels safe after living in Brixton. Japan is becomming less safe, mostly through socially maladjusted kids losing it and murdering their peers, or parents, and also Japan has always been a place where sexual harrassment goes uncommented upon - for example men groping women in trains, which has become such a problem that there are now Women Only carriages on trains in central Tokyo of an evening. But Japan is still, I feel, much safer physically than the UK.
So when the police come up against this sort of incident, they don't really know what to do, so they either go a little over the top, as with the chap above, or do nothing. In Nagasaki last year there were numerous assaults on kids around a kindergarten but the police didn't tell anyone, so the attacks continued for quite a while until the police finally thought they'd better do something about it - they did catch the guy, in the end, but a word of warning might have helped. An argument against this, I realise, is that they don't want to cause a panic. Fair enough. But how about this.
This week Shoko Asahara, the Aum Shinrikyu chap was sentenced this week. It was the death penalty for him for the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway (and a lot of other murders, going back about 6 years, some of them using Sarin gas - was he investigated? Have a guess...). Anyway because of this there have been lots of TV news features about ex-cult members and what they are doing now. Most of them are trying to live new lives, leave the past behind, but they can't as wherever they move they have to register with the local police who then tell all their neighbours, everyone in the town, who they are and where they live, so they and their kids are attacked, threats made and houses defaced. All nasty stuff that need not happen but is basically encouraged by the local boys in blue.
Seems to have turned into quite a polemic, this one. But they are pretty useless, in my opinion. Pick on the small guys whilst letting the big fish, the yakuza, swim freely about.
But on a happier note
Let's all cheer for Middlesbrough, who finally won something for the first time in 128 years by beating Bolton in the Tin Pot Cup. Yay!
And also
Saw a very strange thing on Friday. I was on the train - clean, cheap, on time (pogo take note) - and sitting a few yards down the aisle was a girl in suspenders. I had to stop and stare. I could hardly help myself, such was the scene. Now lest you think I am one of the dirty old men mentioned above, this young lady was wearing gentlemans' suspenders, the old fashioned type that go around one leg at about calf height and are attached to the sock by a single clip. Otherwise she was quite normally attired - coat, scarf, skirt, socks and shoes. Most very odd indeed, although it is indicative of the strangeness of the fashion of young women in this country. I mean for heaven's sake, leg warmers are back in fashion right now...
Wednesday, 25 February 2004
+++ UPDATE +++ UPDATE +++ UPDATE +++
Poor old Yoshinoiya, when it rains...
As reported before, the whole American BSE thing has hit Yoshinoiya's gyudon empire by depriving them of their main source of beef. Now it appears that the Bird Flu in South East Asia has now hit Yoshinoiya's second most important money earner, which was some kind of chicken and onions on rice, as there is now an import ban on all poultry from infected countries.
That leaves, on Yoshinoiya's once extensive menu, pickled daikon and water...
Poor old Yoshinoiya, when it rains...
As reported before, the whole American BSE thing has hit Yoshinoiya's gyudon empire by depriving them of their main source of beef. Now it appears that the Bird Flu in South East Asia has now hit Yoshinoiya's second most important money earner, which was some kind of chicken and onions on rice, as there is now an import ban on all poultry from infected countries.
That leaves, on Yoshinoiya's once extensive menu, pickled daikon and water...
Monday, 23 February 2004
The howling wind
Last week, as is its won't, Haru-ichiban made its presence felt. Haru-ichiban is the spring wind in Japan and the harbringer of warmer weather, so when it blows for the first time in a year, it a sure sign that spring is on its way. It is not really up there with the big and famous winds in the world (the mistral, the sirocco, both my granfathers) but the Japanese like it. Just to give you all a quick lesson in meterology, during the winter a huge mass of cold air squats brooding and resentful over China, Korea and Russia. This air then tries to take over Japan as well, but has difficulty because of the Sea of Japan. So all the cold air rushes off the steppes, hits and sea and slows right down until it hits the Japanese coast, whereupon it sort of gives up and dumps prodigous amounts of snow all over the west coast and the mountains. So if you think of the shape of Japan, you can roughly split the main island of Honshu into two long halves, with the Sea of Japan coast and Hokkaido getting huge amounts of the white stuff from November to March, whereas the East coast, places like Tokyo, get very little indeed. For winter sports enthusiasts, the southern and northern Japanese alps and the mountains of Hokkaido are home to some of the very best powder snow in the world.
Now as you have probably worked out, all this is brought by the winds blowing from the north and west. But then along comes out friend Haru-ichiban, puffing away from the south and blows all the cold air away, bringing the scent of warmth and spring time. Sounds a bit romantic that, it would be if it didn't blow at about gale force 7 (rising steadily). It also brought with it some rain, which was welcome relief as we haven't had any rain for about a month or so, very dry winter this one, so the grass on the river bank was very happy (well, what is left of the grass after the local council had flame throer practice earlier in the week and burnt much of it to ash - now we have black banks, not pleasant to look at at all). So anyway, that was last week, which made Haru-ichiban 18 days earlier than average, which could well mean we are in for a really hot summer this year. Oh great...
Science
Myself and the good Guru were out and about on Sunday, as it was such a nice day with the wind blowing, and we saw some of the whales that Japan catches for its scientific research projects. It was 458 yen per 100grams in Oh! Kawa supermarket over in Todakoen. Bit crap that really. But it did make me think, as Oh! Kawa is not some sort of specialist fish or whalemeat seller, it is just a bog-standard supermarket and home store. So what was it doing with whalemeat on it shelves? Who knows.
Now I do, after having done a quick bit of research - the things I do. I wandered over to the wonderfully biased Japan Whaling Association and had a gander around their site and apparently the Japanese are allowed to catch 4-600 whales a year for their scientific research. Now as this is an expensive business, they are conveniently allowed to sell some of the bits they don't study to supermarkets, who sell it onto the punters in the street, to subsidise the costs of catching the things. Lucky that. So around 2,000 tonnes a year finds its way to the supermarket shelves every year, even in places like Oh! Kawa in Todakoen.
Now my mother always told me 'try everything once'. I'm still recovering from the dabbling in smack and watching snuff movies, but I'm not sure about eating whale. I have eaten some strange things here in Japan, a lot of them only once, some more often (raw horse meat, for example, very nice with fresh ginger, spring onions and soy sauce), but I think there is something morally wrong with eating whales, so for once I am not going to do what my mother says.
Last week, as is its won't, Haru-ichiban made its presence felt. Haru-ichiban is the spring wind in Japan and the harbringer of warmer weather, so when it blows for the first time in a year, it a sure sign that spring is on its way. It is not really up there with the big and famous winds in the world (the mistral, the sirocco, both my granfathers) but the Japanese like it. Just to give you all a quick lesson in meterology, during the winter a huge mass of cold air squats brooding and resentful over China, Korea and Russia. This air then tries to take over Japan as well, but has difficulty because of the Sea of Japan. So all the cold air rushes off the steppes, hits and sea and slows right down until it hits the Japanese coast, whereupon it sort of gives up and dumps prodigous amounts of snow all over the west coast and the mountains. So if you think of the shape of Japan, you can roughly split the main island of Honshu into two long halves, with the Sea of Japan coast and Hokkaido getting huge amounts of the white stuff from November to March, whereas the East coast, places like Tokyo, get very little indeed. For winter sports enthusiasts, the southern and northern Japanese alps and the mountains of Hokkaido are home to some of the very best powder snow in the world.
Now as you have probably worked out, all this is brought by the winds blowing from the north and west. But then along comes out friend Haru-ichiban, puffing away from the south and blows all the cold air away, bringing the scent of warmth and spring time. Sounds a bit romantic that, it would be if it didn't blow at about gale force 7 (rising steadily). It also brought with it some rain, which was welcome relief as we haven't had any rain for about a month or so, very dry winter this one, so the grass on the river bank was very happy (well, what is left of the grass after the local council had flame throer practice earlier in the week and burnt much of it to ash - now we have black banks, not pleasant to look at at all). So anyway, that was last week, which made Haru-ichiban 18 days earlier than average, which could well mean we are in for a really hot summer this year. Oh great...
Science
Myself and the good Guru were out and about on Sunday, as it was such a nice day with the wind blowing, and we saw some of the whales that Japan catches for its scientific research projects. It was 458 yen per 100grams in Oh! Kawa supermarket over in Todakoen. Bit crap that really. But it did make me think, as Oh! Kawa is not some sort of specialist fish or whalemeat seller, it is just a bog-standard supermarket and home store. So what was it doing with whalemeat on it shelves? Who knows.
Now I do, after having done a quick bit of research - the things I do. I wandered over to the wonderfully biased Japan Whaling Association and had a gander around their site and apparently the Japanese are allowed to catch 4-600 whales a year for their scientific research. Now as this is an expensive business, they are conveniently allowed to sell some of the bits they don't study to supermarkets, who sell it onto the punters in the street, to subsidise the costs of catching the things. Lucky that. So around 2,000 tonnes a year finds its way to the supermarket shelves every year, even in places like Oh! Kawa in Todakoen.
Now my mother always told me 'try everything once'. I'm still recovering from the dabbling in smack and watching snuff movies, but I'm not sure about eating whale. I have eaten some strange things here in Japan, a lot of them only once, some more often (raw horse meat, for example, very nice with fresh ginger, spring onions and soy sauce), but I think there is something morally wrong with eating whales, so for once I am not going to do what my mother says.
Friday, 20 February 2004
And in this week's friday five...
When was the last time you...
1. ...went to the doctor? back in the UK in 2002
2. ...went to the dentist? same as above when a lump of my tooth fell off
3. ...filled your gas tank? never had one of my own
4. ...got enough sleep? what, real, non-alcoholic natural sleep? No idea
5. ...backed up your computer? hmm, the whole thing? heaven knows, mba stuff - last weekend
When was the last time you...
1. ...went to the doctor? back in the UK in 2002
2. ...went to the dentist? same as above when a lump of my tooth fell off
3. ...filled your gas tank? never had one of my own
4. ...got enough sleep? what, real, non-alcoholic natural sleep? No idea
5. ...backed up your computer? hmm, the whole thing? heaven knows, mba stuff - last weekend
Tuesday, 17 February 2004
Humiliation
Just had to post about this as saw it on TV last night. Remember the reality/humiliation gameshow that was 'Endurance' that Chris Tarrant used to show clips of all those years ago?
Now we have a new variety, a sort of reality tv auction. Silly punters with a little too much money go into a studio and bid for items live on camera. Then once they have 'won' the auction, they find out the real price. Marvellous!
Last night a very silly couple, wearing something I'm sure they bought in Roppongi Hills at the weekend, bought a pretty horrible looking afternoon tea/dinner service for 1,300,000 yen and then were somewhat aghast to find the true cost was about 400,000!
My how they chuckled and put a brave face on the fact they had paid three times the price. Ho ho ho went the studio audience. 'Oh no' went the watching gaijin, ' are they really this silly...?' Oh yes.
If you have a beef about something...
In a follow up to the collapse of the gyudon empire that was Yoshinoiya, this little gem from last weeks' papers. A lorry driver wandered into a roadside Yoshinoiya around 9am and, as a livener, ordered a couple of bottles of Asahi beer and, a little later, a bowl of gyudon. After quickly downing his beer he was told, very politely, that the Yoshinoiya would be unable to provide the gyudon as they had no beef left. The chap flew into a rage and started shouting at the staff 'what sort of place do you call this?' etc. Another customer, obviously a bit more clued up, told the chap to sit down and stop causing a ruckus, at which point the driver attacked him and, just for good measure, the person sitting next to him as well! On explaining himself to the impressively efficient police, who turned up on the same day, he said he was unaware of the whole US beef/BSE issue!
So if anyone tells you that the Japanese are the most educated people on the planet, remember that doesn't all of them.
A new blog
have a wander over to pogetry when you get the chance, made me smile, especially about the things parents said whilst driving...
Just had to post about this as saw it on TV last night. Remember the reality/humiliation gameshow that was 'Endurance' that Chris Tarrant used to show clips of all those years ago?
Now we have a new variety, a sort of reality tv auction. Silly punters with a little too much money go into a studio and bid for items live on camera. Then once they have 'won' the auction, they find out the real price. Marvellous!
Last night a very silly couple, wearing something I'm sure they bought in Roppongi Hills at the weekend, bought a pretty horrible looking afternoon tea/dinner service for 1,300,000 yen and then were somewhat aghast to find the true cost was about 400,000!
My how they chuckled and put a brave face on the fact they had paid three times the price. Ho ho ho went the studio audience. 'Oh no' went the watching gaijin, ' are they really this silly...?' Oh yes.
If you have a beef about something...
In a follow up to the collapse of the gyudon empire that was Yoshinoiya, this little gem from last weeks' papers. A lorry driver wandered into a roadside Yoshinoiya around 9am and, as a livener, ordered a couple of bottles of Asahi beer and, a little later, a bowl of gyudon. After quickly downing his beer he was told, very politely, that the Yoshinoiya would be unable to provide the gyudon as they had no beef left. The chap flew into a rage and started shouting at the staff 'what sort of place do you call this?' etc. Another customer, obviously a bit more clued up, told the chap to sit down and stop causing a ruckus, at which point the driver attacked him and, just for good measure, the person sitting next to him as well! On explaining himself to the impressively efficient police, who turned up on the same day, he said he was unaware of the whole US beef/BSE issue!
So if anyone tells you that the Japanese are the most educated people on the planet, remember that doesn't all of them.
A new blog
have a wander over to pogetry when you get the chance, made me smile, especially about the things parents said whilst driving...
Sunday, 15 February 2004
Out and about
Wednesday was a national holiday last week, Constitution Day or something, so all had the day off. I decided to take thursday and friday off as well to give me a bit of holiday and to do some serious study. In the end I did a bit of study for the mba, a lot of study of the grape and went out for a couple of day trips with the Guru, something we haven't done for a while. First up was...
Yokohama
Which is a jolly nice place and to be honest I would prefer to live there rather than Tokyo, or Kawaguchi, but have never had the opportunity. Anyway we visited a place called Daska (lit. 'big world' (?)). This is the kind of recreation thing that the Japanese love. It is based on a Chinese trading enclave and features period Chinese costumes, artifacts and, most importantly I guess, lots of restaurants selling small, over priced portions of Chinese food. The best thing about this recreation is that the powers that be decided that the best place for an artificial chinatown would be slap bang in the middle of the real Chinatown.
No really, and here is this week's point (I have them sometimes), the Japanese, in my humble opinion, don't like things they can't control and so, at the first opportunity, try to remake an idea they like but in a way they can control. Thus they love the idea of Chinatown, especially the food and the cheap goods (2 level bamboo steamer plus metal boiling pot for 3000yen - bargain) but they don't like the fact that it isn't Japanese and therefore aren't in control of it, so they make their own version right next to the original.
Another example to consider is the Seagaia resort in Miyazaki, Kyushu. A huge indoor, artificial beach was built, complete with wave pools, real sand and one of largest retractable roofs (at the time) so if the weather was nice, which is most of the time, the visitors could sunbathe on the artificial beach but with real sun. Seagaia was built, as you have probably guessed, right on a perfectly nice and respectable beach (in the picure in the link, it is the stadium looking thing above the tall hotel building). The problem with it was that it was miles from anywhere so no-one went there and it is slowly going out of business. Ah-ha, you may say, proves that they aren't really interested in these things then are they? But if that is true, where did the billions in planning, funding and contruction come from? Someone with an awful lot of influence thought it was a good idea.
So why have a dodgy, uncontrollable real beach, prone to weather and bad things like that when you can have a purpose built beach that a little man with a computer has complete control over? Same with Chinatown. Why go to the real thing, where people speak funny, you may get ripped off and the back streets are dirty, smelly and full of bustle when you can go to Daska where everything is clean and tidy and safe? A no-brainer, I think, to your average Japanese.
I think this is also manifest in things like bonsai and Japanese gardens, where control of form and nature is more important to aesthetic beauty than the wild lines of real nature.
So anyway we went to this Daska place and were quite disappointed, so went out to the real Chinatown and wandered around for a while, bought the steamer and a few other things and then wandered back to the bay area. The walk along the bayside is most pleasant indeed, through a park and then into the old warehouse district, which has now been renovated into a shopping and eating centre. (To get to Chinatown in the first place we used the new subway. Chinatown is a really inconvenient 15 minute walk from the bay, so what better way to connect it than spend billions on a six minute subway extension? On its opening day the new subway drew in half a million punters! Roppongi hills (more of which later) only had 330,000 visitors on its opening day, and it is a huge purpose built shopping an eating heaven in the middle of Tokyo. Japanese must love their trains.)
The warehouse area is a really well done, lots of little shops and restaurants to wander through, and original iron girders with 'Middlesbrough' stamped on them, which pleased me no end. The only downside to the place is that there are large open spaces between the old warehouses which the planners have filled with nothing, so we have wide expanses of pattened concrete. On a sunny February afternoon this was no problem, but come August it will be like an oven. A few trees would not go amiss, to break up the expanses and provide a bit of cover, but trees feature rarely in Japanese architecture, which is a shame as when they do appear, they always look exceptionally fine.
That was Thursday, on Saturday we went to...
Ikebukuro
But the only reason we went here was that Saturday was the opening day of 'The Return of the King' which we just had to go and watch - good valentines movie, you see. We queued for 2 hours and still weren't at the front, but we did get good seats and personally I thought it was a cracking 3 hour flick with a really bad last 30 minutes or so. Completely butchered the ending, the Shire was even lightly scrubbed, let alone scoured, which seemed to betray one of Tolkien's most important themes. Having said that the film was long enough so I'm not sure an extra 20 minutes would have been acceptable. Anyway, battle of the pelennor was awesome, the Frodo/Sam bit reasonably well done (except when Frodo tells Sam to bugger off, where was that from?) and Gollum stole every scene he was in. So I think a 7 out of 10 for this film and a 9 out of 10 for the series as a whole.
Which only leaves Sunday, which was...
Roppongi and Roppongi Hills
Today was our third wedding anniversary so we wandered into Roppongi for a pleasant lunch and chance to have a nose around Roppongi Hills, the new shopping place mentioned earlier. We found a nice little French restaurant in an out of the way back street that was most pleasant and even looked a little authentic - really old rather than pretend old, and served up a decent bit of scran with a pleasant drop of plonk too boot. Afterwards we had a short walk around the streets of Nishi Azabu, which is dripping in cash and full of lovely looking little bars and eateries, a place I could live if I won the lottery, twice.
Onto Roppongi Hills. This is a huge place, full of offices, hotels, residences, shops and food places. It was built by a chap named Mori who has a vision to encourage real people to live and work in the centre of town. A noble venture as Tokyo has a dearth of people actually living in its middle. So he has created this place with 4 enormous tower block right in the beating heart of the metropolis. Shame that rents start from about 1.5 million yen per month, but it is a nice idea (and therein is the reason no-one lives in the centre of Tokyo, too damn expensive. Anyone with a bit of sense can see this, so forward thinking boroughs try real experiements, like giving free municipal health care to kids so as to encourage families. Mr Mori obviously doesn't live in the real world of real salaries, silly bugger).
The other problem is that the whole place just feels artificial. Walking around with the Guru we saw plenty of places to buy a new handbag, pair of shoes, horrible item of clothing that only the filthy rich would wear, but nowhere to buy a book, or a chair, or a lettuce. It is a place you can visit, but as a place to live, I don't think so - and nor did the Guru. So, great date place, bit of window shopping, go to the Virgin cinema to watch the latest flick and then visit one of the many nice restaurants, but I think Mr Mori's vision is not going to be fulfilled here.
Again it sort of ties in with this week's point - Roppongi Hills is an artificial town, rather than going to Ginza or Shinjuku, where you have to walk to so many different places to shop, eat, watch, consume, come to RH where you can do it all under one roof. Much easier, much more convenient and much more under control.
Wednesday was a national holiday last week, Constitution Day or something, so all had the day off. I decided to take thursday and friday off as well to give me a bit of holiday and to do some serious study. In the end I did a bit of study for the mba, a lot of study of the grape and went out for a couple of day trips with the Guru, something we haven't done for a while. First up was...
Yokohama
Which is a jolly nice place and to be honest I would prefer to live there rather than Tokyo, or Kawaguchi, but have never had the opportunity. Anyway we visited a place called Daska (lit. 'big world' (?)). This is the kind of recreation thing that the Japanese love. It is based on a Chinese trading enclave and features period Chinese costumes, artifacts and, most importantly I guess, lots of restaurants selling small, over priced portions of Chinese food. The best thing about this recreation is that the powers that be decided that the best place for an artificial chinatown would be slap bang in the middle of the real Chinatown.
No really, and here is this week's point (I have them sometimes), the Japanese, in my humble opinion, don't like things they can't control and so, at the first opportunity, try to remake an idea they like but in a way they can control. Thus they love the idea of Chinatown, especially the food and the cheap goods (2 level bamboo steamer plus metal boiling pot for 3000yen - bargain) but they don't like the fact that it isn't Japanese and therefore aren't in control of it, so they make their own version right next to the original.
Another example to consider is the Seagaia resort in Miyazaki, Kyushu. A huge indoor, artificial beach was built, complete with wave pools, real sand and one of largest retractable roofs (at the time) so if the weather was nice, which is most of the time, the visitors could sunbathe on the artificial beach but with real sun. Seagaia was built, as you have probably guessed, right on a perfectly nice and respectable beach (in the picure in the link, it is the stadium looking thing above the tall hotel building). The problem with it was that it was miles from anywhere so no-one went there and it is slowly going out of business. Ah-ha, you may say, proves that they aren't really interested in these things then are they? But if that is true, where did the billions in planning, funding and contruction come from? Someone with an awful lot of influence thought it was a good idea.
So why have a dodgy, uncontrollable real beach, prone to weather and bad things like that when you can have a purpose built beach that a little man with a computer has complete control over? Same with Chinatown. Why go to the real thing, where people speak funny, you may get ripped off and the back streets are dirty, smelly and full of bustle when you can go to Daska where everything is clean and tidy and safe? A no-brainer, I think, to your average Japanese.
I think this is also manifest in things like bonsai and Japanese gardens, where control of form and nature is more important to aesthetic beauty than the wild lines of real nature.
So anyway we went to this Daska place and were quite disappointed, so went out to the real Chinatown and wandered around for a while, bought the steamer and a few other things and then wandered back to the bay area. The walk along the bayside is most pleasant indeed, through a park and then into the old warehouse district, which has now been renovated into a shopping and eating centre. (To get to Chinatown in the first place we used the new subway. Chinatown is a really inconvenient 15 minute walk from the bay, so what better way to connect it than spend billions on a six minute subway extension? On its opening day the new subway drew in half a million punters! Roppongi hills (more of which later) only had 330,000 visitors on its opening day, and it is a huge purpose built shopping an eating heaven in the middle of Tokyo. Japanese must love their trains.)
The warehouse area is a really well done, lots of little shops and restaurants to wander through, and original iron girders with 'Middlesbrough' stamped on them, which pleased me no end. The only downside to the place is that there are large open spaces between the old warehouses which the planners have filled with nothing, so we have wide expanses of pattened concrete. On a sunny February afternoon this was no problem, but come August it will be like an oven. A few trees would not go amiss, to break up the expanses and provide a bit of cover, but trees feature rarely in Japanese architecture, which is a shame as when they do appear, they always look exceptionally fine.
That was Thursday, on Saturday we went to...
Ikebukuro
But the only reason we went here was that Saturday was the opening day of 'The Return of the King' which we just had to go and watch - good valentines movie, you see. We queued for 2 hours and still weren't at the front, but we did get good seats and personally I thought it was a cracking 3 hour flick with a really bad last 30 minutes or so. Completely butchered the ending, the Shire was even lightly scrubbed, let alone scoured, which seemed to betray one of Tolkien's most important themes. Having said that the film was long enough so I'm not sure an extra 20 minutes would have been acceptable. Anyway, battle of the pelennor was awesome, the Frodo/Sam bit reasonably well done (except when Frodo tells Sam to bugger off, where was that from?) and Gollum stole every scene he was in. So I think a 7 out of 10 for this film and a 9 out of 10 for the series as a whole.
Which only leaves Sunday, which was...
Roppongi and Roppongi Hills
Today was our third wedding anniversary so we wandered into Roppongi for a pleasant lunch and chance to have a nose around Roppongi Hills, the new shopping place mentioned earlier. We found a nice little French restaurant in an out of the way back street that was most pleasant and even looked a little authentic - really old rather than pretend old, and served up a decent bit of scran with a pleasant drop of plonk too boot. Afterwards we had a short walk around the streets of Nishi Azabu, which is dripping in cash and full of lovely looking little bars and eateries, a place I could live if I won the lottery, twice.
Onto Roppongi Hills. This is a huge place, full of offices, hotels, residences, shops and food places. It was built by a chap named Mori who has a vision to encourage real people to live and work in the centre of town. A noble venture as Tokyo has a dearth of people actually living in its middle. So he has created this place with 4 enormous tower block right in the beating heart of the metropolis. Shame that rents start from about 1.5 million yen per month, but it is a nice idea (and therein is the reason no-one lives in the centre of Tokyo, too damn expensive. Anyone with a bit of sense can see this, so forward thinking boroughs try real experiements, like giving free municipal health care to kids so as to encourage families. Mr Mori obviously doesn't live in the real world of real salaries, silly bugger).
The other problem is that the whole place just feels artificial. Walking around with the Guru we saw plenty of places to buy a new handbag, pair of shoes, horrible item of clothing that only the filthy rich would wear, but nowhere to buy a book, or a chair, or a lettuce. It is a place you can visit, but as a place to live, I don't think so - and nor did the Guru. So, great date place, bit of window shopping, go to the Virgin cinema to watch the latest flick and then visit one of the many nice restaurants, but I think Mr Mori's vision is not going to be fulfilled here.
Again it sort of ties in with this week's point - Roppongi Hills is an artificial town, rather than going to Ginza or Shinjuku, where you have to walk to so many different places to shop, eat, watch, consume, come to RH where you can do it all under one roof. Much easier, much more convenient and much more under control.
Monday, 9 February 2004
Meaty topics
If you thought the BSE scare in the US was a domestic issue, you'd be right, except that it is a serious domestic issue for the Japanese.
Japan is the biggest export market for US beef in the world. Lots of millions of tons of the stuff comes here every year, a lot of it to top off a bowl of gyudon from Yoshinoiya (not one bowl, obviously, as that wuld have to be a very big bowl. Lots of small ones seems much more likely). Gyudon is a mixture of very thinly sliced beef, fried with onions and a special sauce served on top of rice (the suffix ~don means 'over rice, such as Tempura-don, Katsu-don and Maguro-don, but not Udon, strangely, which are noodles - different kanji I expect). Anyway, the point is that as soon as BSE was found in an american cow, all imports were stopped immediately, with little chance of a swift return.
So why not use Japanese beef? Oh no, far too good to be wasted on gyudon, which is the equivalent of student food. And to be fair, it would seem a bit of a waste to use Kobe beef in such a way, seeing as it can cost 50 quid per 100g. But this is also another example of the Japanese government basically screwing their own people, as the govt. here is really into protectionism for agriculture, so the price of Japanese beef (and rice, and veg, and everything else) is kept artificially high, ostensibly to keep up the quality, but, as everyone knows, to keep the votes for the LDP rolling in from the countryside - can't have votes being los...sorry, farmers going out of business now can we...?
So what about Aussie beef, also very popular in Japan (and dirt cheap and shit (i.e. non Japanese) quality like US beef)? Well now squire, you see, your Aussie beef, right, well, it doesn't really taste the same, does it...? Not like the crap we usually mix with an overpowering sauce and so can't tell the difference and eat with our rice. Or words to that effect. So poor old Yoshinoiya, the biggest chain of gyudon restaurants in the land, has had to change all its menus and come up with some alternatives to its biggest seller. Poor them I say.
Last Friday's Angst
Strange thing angst. As reported last week, I had issues on the way home. This week, even though I got drunk, I didn't. Strange thing was that the night of angst came after a good week at work and a pleasant evening out, drinking and laughing. Friday just gone, I had a shitty week at work, went out in the evening, watched a bit of a boring game of cricket which Australia won and then carried on drinking and discussing the unpleasant things about the company before heading home (though to be fair we did chat about pleasant things as well and the evening was enjoyable). This time I wandered along the riverbank - being careful not to sit down - but everything was right with the world and I was in a much happier frame of mind. Must be the modern novel.
And talking of novels...
Actually not talking about novels at all, that was just a clunking segue into talking about navels (or belly buttons, if you prefer). This is a bit of research into belly buttons and their fluff (or lint, as some may call it). Now I get belly button fluff, and it is of a certain colour, no matter what colour clothes I wear. Minako, bless her heart, thinks this to be odd and doesn't believe me when I saw that not only do most males get it, but it is usually the same colour as mine. Heaven only knows how she could doubt me, but she does.
So, dear readers, I would be most grateful if, as a male, you could use the comments section to state whether firstly you do, or don't, collect fluff in your navel and, if you do, what hue it may be. Anonymity may well be respected
If you thought the BSE scare in the US was a domestic issue, you'd be right, except that it is a serious domestic issue for the Japanese.
Japan is the biggest export market for US beef in the world. Lots of millions of tons of the stuff comes here every year, a lot of it to top off a bowl of gyudon from Yoshinoiya (not one bowl, obviously, as that wuld have to be a very big bowl. Lots of small ones seems much more likely). Gyudon is a mixture of very thinly sliced beef, fried with onions and a special sauce served on top of rice (the suffix ~don means 'over rice, such as Tempura-don, Katsu-don and Maguro-don, but not Udon, strangely, which are noodles - different kanji I expect). Anyway, the point is that as soon as BSE was found in an american cow, all imports were stopped immediately, with little chance of a swift return.
So why not use Japanese beef? Oh no, far too good to be wasted on gyudon, which is the equivalent of student food. And to be fair, it would seem a bit of a waste to use Kobe beef in such a way, seeing as it can cost 50 quid per 100g. But this is also another example of the Japanese government basically screwing their own people, as the govt. here is really into protectionism for agriculture, so the price of Japanese beef (and rice, and veg, and everything else) is kept artificially high, ostensibly to keep up the quality, but, as everyone knows, to keep the votes for the LDP rolling in from the countryside - can't have votes being los...sorry, farmers going out of business now can we...?
So what about Aussie beef, also very popular in Japan (and dirt cheap and shit (i.e. non Japanese) quality like US beef)? Well now squire, you see, your Aussie beef, right, well, it doesn't really taste the same, does it...? Not like the crap we usually mix with an overpowering sauce and so can't tell the difference and eat with our rice. Or words to that effect. So poor old Yoshinoiya, the biggest chain of gyudon restaurants in the land, has had to change all its menus and come up with some alternatives to its biggest seller. Poor them I say.
Last Friday's Angst
Strange thing angst. As reported last week, I had issues on the way home. This week, even though I got drunk, I didn't. Strange thing was that the night of angst came after a good week at work and a pleasant evening out, drinking and laughing. Friday just gone, I had a shitty week at work, went out in the evening, watched a bit of a boring game of cricket which Australia won and then carried on drinking and discussing the unpleasant things about the company before heading home (though to be fair we did chat about pleasant things as well and the evening was enjoyable). This time I wandered along the riverbank - being careful not to sit down - but everything was right with the world and I was in a much happier frame of mind. Must be the modern novel.
And talking of novels...
Actually not talking about novels at all, that was just a clunking segue into talking about navels (or belly buttons, if you prefer). This is a bit of research into belly buttons and their fluff (or lint, as some may call it). Now I get belly button fluff, and it is of a certain colour, no matter what colour clothes I wear. Minako, bless her heart, thinks this to be odd and doesn't believe me when I saw that not only do most males get it, but it is usually the same colour as mine. Heaven only knows how she could doubt me, but she does.
So, dear readers, I would be most grateful if, as a male, you could use the comments section to state whether firstly you do, or don't, collect fluff in your navel and, if you do, what hue it may be. Anonymity may well be respected
Sunday, 1 February 2004
What does it all mean?
Had a real moment of existential angst on Friday night. Well, I had to, I was drunk.
Being drunk I questioned the meaning of existence, analysed the motivation of desires, addressed the refutation of the immortal soul and composed a letter to my unborn children concerning free will and logical positivism.
To be honest I came up with some pretty startling conclusions that shook the very bedrock of accepted philosophical thought and fused western rationalism with eastern mysticism to create a whole and radically new way of thinking and viewing the world.
I also sat in a puddle on the riverbank, which I grant you isn't quite in the same league and led to a frozen arse, but you can't have everything in moments of blinding insight.
Blinding insight also falls down in the face of rigour and looking back on what I can remember of my thoughts, I think I may have left something out. Or lots of things, who knows. Come to think of it, I don't actually know what logical positivism is, but it sounded like a very good thing to write to one's unborn children at the time and I came up with a very convincing argument for it (or perhaps against it).
But I did get to watch the moonset over the river, which was a first, and most beautiful it was to. Indeed it was better than a lot of the sunsets we get (and we get them almost everyday) so it was worth it for that at any rate. I think the moment of angst was rooted in reading Atomised by David Hollebecq, which is resolutely depressing. I don't know why I bother to read 'modern' novels as everytime I do they seem to depress me. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books. But maybe I'm right and for a modern author to write about the state of the human pysche they have to look on it in the most negative way their storyline will allow them (i.e. Atomised - one bloke had a bad childhood, shags lots of women but can't love them, finds one he can love and she commits suicide; his half brother doesn't shag women at all, can't find anyone to love until he meets his childhood sweetheart, they are just about to try and be happy when she dies of cancer. First guy ends up in an asylum, half brother creates genetically engineered sexless 'humans' with no passions who inherit the earth. Laugh a minute, I think not.) Maybe I should get out more...
As you can guess, I'm scratching around a bit here for things to write. But at least we can talk about the...
Plants
Seem to be in reasonable fettle. A couple of weeks ago I blitzed the basil with some kind of chemical bug killer thing as the little white buggers were doing much damage and causing much angst. It seemed to work for a while, but I think little white buugers may be back with a vengeance so more Agent Orange may be called for.
But, the basil is flowering! I was most surprised by this at first as it didn't occur to me at all that basil should flower (but of course it should, it is a plant, I know that now). There seems to be quite a spread of little blossoms all over the basil patch so I am quite hopeful that things may continue to improve.
Today I hacked back the Olive tree a bit, just to see what happens. I have tried a little half-heartedly in the past and, to be honest, I haven't noticed a lot of change, so this time all the budding shoots were hacked back to the base to see what happens. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Lastly, back in Novembr I think, the Guru said she wanted flowers in spring, so tulips were duly bought. Just goes to show how much the Dutch know (or maybe the Japanese, depends where they're from I guess) as the tulips were sold under the name of 'Union Jack' but the picture was of a mainly white flower but with 4 red stripes going up the petals! Do these people know nothing?
Anyway the rosemary is still growing, as is the lavender. Soon I shall be sowing thyme and sage to add to the collection.
Hutton
Or not really Hutton, but the idea. I think that it is impossible for an inquiry such as the Hutton one to happen in Japan. I suspect that the mechanisms for calling the national braodcaster and the government to account do not exist in this country. So whilst a great many people seem to bemoaning the fact that the inquiry went too far criticising the BBC, or not far enough with the government, perhaps those people should reflect on the fact that it can happen at all.
Had a real moment of existential angst on Friday night. Well, I had to, I was drunk.
Being drunk I questioned the meaning of existence, analysed the motivation of desires, addressed the refutation of the immortal soul and composed a letter to my unborn children concerning free will and logical positivism.
To be honest I came up with some pretty startling conclusions that shook the very bedrock of accepted philosophical thought and fused western rationalism with eastern mysticism to create a whole and radically new way of thinking and viewing the world.
I also sat in a puddle on the riverbank, which I grant you isn't quite in the same league and led to a frozen arse, but you can't have everything in moments of blinding insight.
Blinding insight also falls down in the face of rigour and looking back on what I can remember of my thoughts, I think I may have left something out. Or lots of things, who knows. Come to think of it, I don't actually know what logical positivism is, but it sounded like a very good thing to write to one's unborn children at the time and I came up with a very convincing argument for it (or perhaps against it).
But I did get to watch the moonset over the river, which was a first, and most beautiful it was to. Indeed it was better than a lot of the sunsets we get (and we get them almost everyday) so it was worth it for that at any rate. I think the moment of angst was rooted in reading Atomised by David Hollebecq, which is resolutely depressing. I don't know why I bother to read 'modern' novels as everytime I do they seem to depress me. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books. But maybe I'm right and for a modern author to write about the state of the human pysche they have to look on it in the most negative way their storyline will allow them (i.e. Atomised - one bloke had a bad childhood, shags lots of women but can't love them, finds one he can love and she commits suicide; his half brother doesn't shag women at all, can't find anyone to love until he meets his childhood sweetheart, they are just about to try and be happy when she dies of cancer. First guy ends up in an asylum, half brother creates genetically engineered sexless 'humans' with no passions who inherit the earth. Laugh a minute, I think not.) Maybe I should get out more...
As you can guess, I'm scratching around a bit here for things to write. But at least we can talk about the...
Plants
Seem to be in reasonable fettle. A couple of weeks ago I blitzed the basil with some kind of chemical bug killer thing as the little white buggers were doing much damage and causing much angst. It seemed to work for a while, but I think little white buugers may be back with a vengeance so more Agent Orange may be called for.
But, the basil is flowering! I was most surprised by this at first as it didn't occur to me at all that basil should flower (but of course it should, it is a plant, I know that now). There seems to be quite a spread of little blossoms all over the basil patch so I am quite hopeful that things may continue to improve.
Today I hacked back the Olive tree a bit, just to see what happens. I have tried a little half-heartedly in the past and, to be honest, I haven't noticed a lot of change, so this time all the budding shoots were hacked back to the base to see what happens. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Lastly, back in Novembr I think, the Guru said she wanted flowers in spring, so tulips were duly bought. Just goes to show how much the Dutch know (or maybe the Japanese, depends where they're from I guess) as the tulips were sold under the name of 'Union Jack' but the picture was of a mainly white flower but with 4 red stripes going up the petals! Do these people know nothing?
Anyway the rosemary is still growing, as is the lavender. Soon I shall be sowing thyme and sage to add to the collection.
Hutton
Or not really Hutton, but the idea. I think that it is impossible for an inquiry such as the Hutton one to happen in Japan. I suspect that the mechanisms for calling the national braodcaster and the government to account do not exist in this country. So whilst a great many people seem to bemoaning the fact that the inquiry went too far criticising the BBC, or not far enough with the government, perhaps those people should reflect on the fact that it can happen at all.
Saturday, 31 January 2004
And here are my answers to the fab Friday Five
You have just won one million dollars:
1. Who do you call first? Have to call the Guru of all things Japanese, she'll be *so* happy.
2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself? A stiff drink
3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else? A big cake for the Guru
4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom? Yes, to the family and some to charity (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth)
5. Do you invest any? If so, how? Yes, bricks and mortar (but not in Japan)
You have just won one million dollars:
1. Who do you call first? Have to call the Guru of all things Japanese, she'll be *so* happy.
2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself? A stiff drink
3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else? A big cake for the Guru
4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom? Yes, to the family and some to charity (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth)
5. Do you invest any? If so, how? Yes, bricks and mortar (but not in Japan)
Wednesday, 28 January 2004
P
Minako watched TV last night, she does this a lot. On one of the nonsense variety programmes that are so popular over here there was an item about the peeing habits of adult Japanese men. Apparently, according to recent research, 30% of Japanese men sit down to have a piss when at home.
30 per cent!
I know I've been talking about the collapse of Japanese society recently, but it was tongue in cheek. I had no idea things had become this bad...
Minako watched TV last night, she does this a lot. On one of the nonsense variety programmes that are so popular over here there was an item about the peeing habits of adult Japanese men. Apparently, according to recent research, 30% of Japanese men sit down to have a piss when at home.
30 per cent!
I know I've been talking about the collapse of Japanese society recently, but it was tongue in cheek. I had no idea things had become this bad...
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