05.30.05
Posted in Off the cuff, Travel at 1:23 am by Administrator
So, today is Memorial Day in the U.S., when we remember those who have fought and died for our country. Usually we celebrate by having BBQs and partying. I know few people who actually visit gravesites besides the president. However, Japan’s Memorial Day is some other day. It was just Monday to them. That doesn’t mean that memorials aren’t in the news however. Every day in the paper I’m finding another new article about Prime Minister Koizumi’s controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.
The Yasukuni Shrine is essentially the Japanese equivalent to Arlington National Cemetary. Anyone who served their country during a war is buried there. In America, no one questions the president’s visits to Arlington—they expect them. However in Japan, it’s a different story.
Amongst all the thousands and thousands of normal Joe’s (maybe normal Kentaro’s in Japan) who died following the orders of their country are 18 men classified as war criminals from World War II. Because of these 18, Yasukuni Shrine has become a symbol of Japanese Nationalism to her neighbors, especially China and South Korea. Many prime ministers choose not to visit the shrine because of the political fallout.
Granted, China and South Korea do have cause to be upset. Those 18 men were the primary masterminds behind a lot of the Japanese atrocities of World War II, including the Nanking massacre, where an estimated 400,000 people were raped and killed in a short period of time to send a “message” to China. Ick.
But to forbid a national leader to pay his respects to the other thousands of people who just did their duty? That seems a trifle unfair. When Ollie North dies, he will be buried in Arlington, despite his involvement in Iran-Contra. I’m not keen with the idea, but it’s his right. (OK, so Ollie is all I’ve got, and he’s a weak comparison, I know. But the U.S. has managed to “win” all it’s wars so far, so what can I do?) I wouldn’t not visit Arlington, just because of him. There’s a lot of other men and women buried there, too.
There have been some efforts at making “amends”. Koizumi says he’s just visiting as a private citizen, but no one’s buying that. There have been suggestions to move the war criminals to a different site, or start a new memorial site, but they’ve gotten a fairly chilly response. Every day, a seemingly new group asks Koizumi to stop going, but he says no.
In the meantime, China is making unhappy noises, and South Korea is recalling visiting dignitaries. It may be that the publisher of The Japan Times has a political beef with Koizumi, especially since he usually visits only once a year.
It’s a big issue here. Happy Memorial Day.
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05.29.05
Posted in Fun, Travel at 3:16 am by Administrator
I’d intended to go to Harajuku earlier, but something always seemed to come up. Indeed, I was not here really to look, but headed for one of several flea markets in the area for interesting souvenirs.
Harajuku is famous for being a weekend gathering place for people who like cosplay, or playing with costumes. I saw quite a few.
I’d convinced Hye Young, Ji Yoon, Ang, and Lenka to come with me. Lenka was unhappy to ride what she considers the expensive train and subway system, but I knew I wouldn’t last all the way to Shinjuku and back. The others didn’t care one way or another.
Unfortunately, the Hanazono shrine was having a matsuri instead of a flea market. I like matsuri, but I knew Lenka wanted to buy specific things at the flea market. So we didn’t linger, but headed to Harajuku. We didn’t find much there either, so I felt bad that Lenka paid for transportation for nothing. She decided to walk back to the dorm, and on the way found a street vendor selling what she wanted. So it worked out after all.
The cosplayers hang out very close to Harajuku station, near the front of the Meiji temple grounds. There were so many people in costume, but most were some flavor of Gothic or Gothic Lolita. Interestingly, even though they gather to show off their costumes, many did not want their photos taken. Why not just dress up at home then?
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05.28.05
Posted in Off the cuff at 2:05 am by Administrator
So, apparently this blog software only puts recent articles on the big page. Keith says that’s because normal bloggers post every day, sometimes several times a day, like Wil Wheaton does.
I am not your average blogger though, so it’s a little frustrating not knowing if people see that you posted a new, but late listing. Please check the archives periodically to see if there’s something you haven’t seen.
Currently, I’m up to May 5. I have one more post for Golden week, then school stuff should help me catch up fast. I’ve been pretty busy, though, with presentations, papers, homework, and the English Drama Club. Be patient, and I’ll tell you about it.
Thanks.
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05.27.05
Posted in School, Travel at 4:06 am by Administrator
Anna is very passionate about the Czech revolution from Communism, which happened when she was a child. Her presentation was on the changes to Czech after the revolution. It’s a very deep topic, and her audience was a fairly select few. Including, I believe, the strict dorm head, Sister Yamatani.
Anna has brought up the topic many times in conversation in the past, so even though the presentation was in Japanese, and difficult, I understood most of it. She had lots of slides to go with it, too.
I was late again, so I was far away and in the dark. The pictures suck. These two are passable, barely.
I don’t know why, but usually I’m the only other study abroad student at the other presentations. I guess I feel a stronger need to give moral support. Also, they’re fairly interesting, even when I can’t understand them.
My presentation is only days away. Eeek!
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05.26.05
Posted in Fun, Travel at 4:44 am by Administrator
When I signed up for activities at the beginning of the term, I signed up for everything available. I figured I would expand my horizons. Some things weren’t so interesting to sign up for, but I figured, why not? Naginata was one of those give-or-take things. But it was fun.
I only knew about naginata from an international tournament my De Anza College teacher, Scearce-sensei was involved in arranging. I was given to understand that it was the ancient art of Japanese halbards, primarily practiced by women. But after looking at the internet, I’m not so sure about the “primarily women” part.
Roughly speaking (George will surely correct me if I’m wrong), a halbard is essentially a big blade on the end of a long stick. Not a spear, but kind of like a sword with an extra long handle, or maybe an axe with an extra long blade and extra long handle. Look it up yourself.
Ironically, given my give-or-take attitude, I was the person “in charge” for this activity. Essentially that means herding the cats into the pen on time, and writing a thank you letter afterwards. Whatever.
I’m not athletic, or overly coordinated, or even graceful, so I wasn’t expecting much. Moreover, there were only two of us, Ang and myself, because everyone else was sick. Ang’s Japanese still pretty bad, but she does a lot with charm and slowly spoken English. The club captain and several members gently coached us through handling and simple maneuvers. By the end, I had learned a basic 2-person kata (or mock-fight routine), although they called it something else. I felt fairly pleased with myself. Then we did cool poses for pictures.
After we learned the kata, things got kind of slow, because most of the members wanted to actually practice and not host guests. Ang drifted off to play badmitton, and I ended up chatting, mostly in English, with two students who were very interested in America. One will study abroad this fall at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
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05.25.05
Posted in School, Travel at 6:39 am by Administrator
Lenka’s presentation was about various monsters and creatures of myth in Czech culture. Many were very interesting, but her presentation was a bit disorganized because the dorm computer hiccuped and lost her outline. Fortunately she knew most of them from memory because she’s got a book coming out next year on the subject.
Lenka is an up-and-coming fantasy author, so this subject is dear to her. She also is an avid player of Vampire, waking up at 2a.m. Japan time to play with her friends in Europe. She’s not very confident with her English, so she doesn’t have much work published in English yet. Currently she’s working with a Japanese producer on a manga deal (I think). But this is besides the point.
Many of the creatures I had never heard of, and many had hard to pronounce or spell names. I vaguely remember some mention of the White Lady, and apparently Golems originated in Czech. She also talked about Veela, but she hasn’t read Harry Potter yet, only seen the movies, so she didn’t know Veela featured in the fourth book.
It was very interesting, despite the disorganization. Once again, pictures were difficult because of the darkness, but at least this time I wasn’t late, so I got a good seat.
Oh, and food poisoning from lunch, which sucked.
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05.24.05
Posted in Off the cuff, School, Travel at 6:19 am by Administrator
Since before Golden Week, the Miyabi club has been preparing for this luncheon with the alumni group of the University of the Sacred Heart, known as JASH. (I think it stands for Japan Alumni of the Sacred Heart.) The JASH members prepare lunch, and we have a meet and greet. All foreign exchange students were required to go.
Since it falls in the midst of our presentations, I’ve started to think of this time as the dog and pony show. Cynical, I know, but everyone is stressed about their presentations. Also, the Miyabi Club decided to have us perform a song to symbolize our unity.
Apparently, “If You’re Happy and You Know It” is present in many, many countries in their native tongues, with an occasional change of melody. We practiced it in Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, Czech, and Thai. Czech was hard, but Thai was even harder. I’m sure we butchered it in Thai, not that the JASH members could probably tell.
The song is cute, although aimed at a much younger audience. But with impending presentations, our cuteness tolerance level was lower than usual, so mostly we felt silly. Ang skipped a couple of rehearsals, and Lenka discussed not attending. In the end we were all present. I decided to be a “good dog” and dress up, but most of the other three month students did not.
The JASH ladies prepared pot luck, so some of the dishes were tasty and interesting, and others were not. Most of the dishes were Japanese cuisine, but some were of other cuisines, including Chinese and French.
In addition to coffee and soda, there was also a matcha station. Matcha is the powdered green tea used in tea ceremonies. There was a little of that formality, but not very much. They even let us make our own cups of matcha if we wanted to. And they had the appropriate sweets for the tea ceremony, separate from the dessert station.
So even if I felt dumb, it was a good thing to do. I did reasonable amounts of mingling and had a good time. The ladies sent us home with goodies, but I took very few, since I usually eat at the cafeteria, and others don’t.
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