September 2006 Archives

This past Saturday Grahaeme, Michael, Bill, Simon, and I headed up to Tokyo for a bit of fun. Unfortunately this required us to catch a 6:30 am Shinkansen on Saturday morning. After a three and a half hour train ride (though oh so comfortable) we arrived in Tokyo and proceeded to be annoyed by the crowds at the main Tokyo Station. We took another train out to Chiba to see this years Tokyo Game Show! The train was crowded with otaku, all heading to the game show. Even quite a few foreign ones (like ourselves). The Game Show itself was much like last years. Crowded, loud, and with lots of seizure inducing lights. Some highlights include Grahaeme doing a punching bag challenge, seeing some cos-player foreigners, playing a PS3, and being told quite a few times that I wasn't allowed to video tape things.

After 4 mind numbing hours of Tokyo Game Show fun we headed to our hotel, and then out for the evening. Hitting Tokyo, Fukuyama Style. Or drunken foreigner style. We meet up with my old friend Ramin Honary (who I went to middle school with in Iowa) and Japanese buddy Kuni, and we all gorged ourselves on Mexican food. Sweet sweet Mexican food. After that we headed to a very trendy bar where Grahaeme and Simon found themselves cornered by some guy from DC who was really coked up. Honestly. Super coked up. The place Kuni took us was a bit above us all. Everyone there seemed to be 30 something young single professionals, and here we all in shorts and t-shirts. The best was that bill had this sleeveless shirt on. Pure low class. Fukuyama Style. After that we headed to a club that was more our style and had a wicked evening.

Simon and I ducked out early (3 am early) from the club and got a taxi home. But not before being stopped for directions by a couple of Swedish guys, who were also in town for the Tokyo Game Show. The noticed my very cool konami code t-shirt and we started talking about the Game Show. To one up my shirt, one of the guys showed off his DDR tattoos that he had down his leg. Now thats a hard core gamer. I should have asked to see his Final Fantasy tattoo on his back...

The next day, when everyone started to come around, we went to Akihabara for some electronics shopping. We ended up not staying very long, only enough time for lunch, and decided that we should try and hit up the Studio Gibli Museum. Sadly, when we got there, we found out that you had to make a reservation to get in. And thus, we were denied access to fun filled giant totoros. Sadness. ON that note we decided that it would be best to head home and cut our losses.

Wow. So much to talk about from this weekend. Its been a while since I updated my old blog, but with good reason. I've been busy and or really lazy. Both good reasons in my book. Friday night was our first enkai of the fall (aka overly expensive work party). It consisted of lots of sushi, sake, some interesting speeches by Simon and Crystal, and a very large rock, paper, scissors tournament. No really. Massive. With prizes. They love it here. (Don't Simon and Crystal look so nice!)

I left relatively early on Saturday for Osaka. I was to meet up with old roommate Nate Haleen later on in the day, but tagged along with Michael, Julia, and Aki who were also heading up that way. Julia and Aki were going to see the Madonna concert that evening (a way too expensive concert, in my opinion). But we did take a moment to stop and have this fun filled picture taken of us. I met up with Nate once he got off work at NOVA (a horrible English teaching company in Japan) and we hit the town Minnesota style. Which ended up with us getting out picture taken next to those darn statues again. I think I'm going to send it in to the Gustavus quarterly newsletter and see if we can get ourselves in it. Suck it GAC. Eventually we met up with my old friend Motoshi and we had a few fun filled drinks. Which is really what Japan is all about.

The next morning I met up with another friend from college who is now studying abroad in Japan. Fellow violist Charlie Seibel was more than happy to pull herself away from vigorous Japanese studies to have some food with an old friend. Which also resulted in doing some fun picture booth pictures. Which is what most everyone does around here. Besides drink. I eventually headed back to Fukuyama, which sadly did not get hit by a massive typhoon. It was a big letdown.

Monday was spent spending the remaining money I had in my pocket on supplies and biking around town with some friends. While out at Deo Deo I found this nice retro USB gamepad for only 1,000¥. Now I can play my old NES games with some retro class. In the afternoon I also managed to import all my Vietnam video and start to edit it, though don't expect that to be done all too soon. I've been diligently labeling my photos and am not too far behind. A few more dull days at school will have them all in order and soon you can be spending you time looking at silly pictures of me drinking fruit shakes.

Next weekend is the Tokyo Game Show. I believe that there will be 5 of us attending from Fukuyama. Myself, Michael, Bill, Simon, and Grahaeme. Plus it will be a good excuse to hit the town Hiroshima style. Well... maybe we can do better than that.

Yesterday there was a bad scooter/ bike accident in front of my apartment. I had just stopped home to pick up my bike after taking the train back from one of my schools, and as usual, I come inside and got a glass of water and checked my e-mail. Soon after I heard a screech and the sound of metal on pavement. I soon ventured outside and found that all my neighbors had come out of the woodwork. The corner next to my apartment is completely blind. Seems a scooter turned the corner and hit a school girl on a bike. The girl seemed ok, apart from a bump on the head (no one wears helmets when ridding a bike). The young man on the scooter wasn't so lucky. It appears as if he slid and hid his head rather hard. Luckily he had a helmet on. But even so, he was trapped under his little scooter for several minutes while neighbors talked loudly about things I couldn't understand. Eventually the young man tried to get up, but was having major difficulties. At this point I noticed that he was dripping quite a bit of blood from his head area. The old lady that lives next to my apartment (the one who is always looking out her window at me when I come and go) kept talking to me about how dangerous the corner was. The entire time I was thinking to myself "Will someone get this guy a towel! He's dripping blood everywhere!" I eventually headed back to work, but as I left I could hear the ambulance in the distance. When I came home I saw that there were chalk lines all around the corner. Seems the police had been hard at work.

Anyways, this is why I'm always worried about getting hit on my bike, and why everyone should be extra careful on rainy days. But if you're not so careful you can always use the Emergency Medical Care Handbook for Foreigners, published by the prefecture of Hiroshima (now provided online!). I highly recommend that you take a look at it as it contains wonderful amounts of Engrish. Examples:

Reasons as to how you became injured:
I pounded myself at ( )
I was pinched by the machine.
I fought with other guys.
I received bee piercing.
I was bit by the dog.

Problems you may be having:
I feel heavy and dull my body.
I have strong pain at my eyes and cannot open. (So how can you read this one?)

Though I think you may all find this page to the left just a bit too much fun not to read on its own. Especially with such a great picture. The odd thing is I actually used this book a lot while I was in the hospital. Mostly in the form of the doctors asking me stuff directly from it. In all its engrish goodness. I remember how much effort it took not to laugh at them while they asked me some of these questions (you know, through the pain of having massively infected tonsils). Oh Japan. How I love you.

Our wonderful blockhead, Grahaeme 'the beard' Cowie, set up a fun filled day of BBQing and chilling this past weekend. Saturday upwards of 30 some ALTs, and assorted Japanese friends, gathered by the Ashida River. Lots of meet was grilled, many drinks were consumed, and it seemed as if everyone was having fun. Except for a few, who may have been having too much fun. I was worried that it was going to rain on us, but luckily the Japanese Rain Gods took pity on the English teachers and we enjoyed an overcast (if not humid) day. I even broke out a nice bottle of wine for the occasion. A delightful surprise happened as well! Departed Japanese friend Kuni was in town and came by for a visit! I was going to visit him in a couple weeks when I head up to the Tokyo Game Show, but seeing him back in Fukuyama was quite the treat! The evening keep going for quite some time as a large number of ALTs headed out for some karaoke and bar dancing. Yes, our life here is tough.

Simon is smiling because he cooked up the biggest chunk of salmon I had seen in a long time. Rose is smiling because she managed to get Simon to cook her fish for her. You sly girl you.

As a modern day American young adult living abroad I watch a lot of movies and TV shows from back home to stay up on culture. But I've theres been a rather interesting change in American movie and TV watching habits thats breaking a 100 year cultural barrier that has been holding the American population back from a wealth of culture and entertainment. But before going into this, first ask yourself this important question: "Where is the movie producing capital of the world?" Its certainly not Hollywood, not even by a long shot. Its India. A country that produces more movies and watches more movies than the US ever did. But when was the last time you actually watched an Indian movie? Moreover, watch any foreign film in general? If you're like most of the US population the answer is probably never (or a very long time ago). For the longest time American have completely forgotten that the rest of the world makes movies and TV show, and that some of them are actually good. When we do find out about one its usually because its an extremely popular film thats had the misfortune to be remade. Take for instance the movie Vanilla Sky which is a remake of the Spanish movie Abre los ojos though both star Penelope Cruz. Or the more recent Taxi, which is a remake of a French film by the same name. Japanese horror films have been ripe for the taking, with The Ring and The Grudge being remade to great success. For the longest time the only way to actually see a foreign film in the US was to find an small art house movie theater in a bigger city. If a film did manage to make it to the the major theater across the nation many were subjected to horrible voiceover dubbing reminiscent of 70's kung-foo flicks. It seems that the American public is allergic to subtitles. This is quite odd, as the rest of the world is constantly subjected to our movies and TV shows with subtitles, or they at least have the option to watch them with subtitles.

American TV has the exact same problem, though usually with a different area of the entertainment world. Animated TV shows. Since the first Japanese cartoon hit America back in the 70s the American public has been subjected to horrible voice overs that often border on the ridiculous. Now a days you can watch any children's show line up and find at least one Japanese TV show gracing the channel. TV stations like the cartoon network have been targeting the 14-30 demographic with mature Japanese cartoon shows with much success. But for all the anime fanboys out there you still can't watch a Japanese animated show in its original language with subtitles. What is it that has kept America from accepting the idea of subtitles? in my mind it stems from a couple issues. The first is laziness. Who wants to read while watching TV or a movie. Reading is in many respects the anti-TV. Its too much work for people. The other reason is that dealing with another language is very unAmerica. One only has to look at the recent struggles in the US Education system to get bilingual schools and the out-lash generated from the general public to see that to most Americans perceive anything other than English is an attack on the very principals that America was founded on. This is probably why we see so many clear remakes of good films with US actors. The need to have something feel purely American in nature.

At least, that was the way it was in the last century. It seems times are changing in both the mainstream movie industry and on the major networks. Those same kung-foo movies of the 70's and 80's have paved the way for modern craze of the Hong Kong Kung Fu films that American movies have been copying for years. Films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of the Flying Daggers, Hero, and Kung Fu Hustle have been introduced to the mainstream American public to decent success. All these being shown with subtitles. Even the Japanese remake of The Grudge was a step in the right direction featuring the same director, script, several of the same Japanese actors, and Japanese locations as the original (I did enjoy Sarah Michelle Gellar speaking Japanese in several scenes). Even the animated scene is improving in America, though only in slight ways. Thanks to the huge success of Japanese Anime among young adults, partly fueled by internet fan-subbing, its extremely easy to buy almost any Japanese Anime in America on DVD, with the original voices and completely unedited. You only need to look at the Anime section of a Best Buy to see that the selection has gone from virtually nothing in the early 90's to a massive explosion of DVD selling bliss. Even Disney, ever eager to release more animation of today's children, has licensed every film made by master Japanese animated Hayo Miyazaki. Sadly this has not completely moved over the the TV or Movie industry. You'll be hard pressed to find an Anime show on TV or in the theaters that isn't dubbed over, though at the same time they are being released in the US in a timely fashion (probably because the Anime fans are all downloading them for free off the internet as soon as they're shown in Japan and subtitled in house by Japanese savvy community members). Part of these explosion of foreign media is thanks to recent technologies, mainly the introduction of the DVD which allows you to have several language tracks and subtitle tracks and the internet which lets you download anything you could possibly want to watch. The demand is there, and finally the movie and TV industry is meeting those demands.

But this deals with foreign films, which to be honest, a lot of people don't really care to watch. Which is why NBC is really confusing me. In the last couple of years it has introduced TV shows featuring character who don't speak English and with scenes in other countries where no one is speaking English. I'm talking about Lost which features quite a few flashback scenes in Korea. This very popular, and very strange, drama has completely baffled me in its experiment in subtitles. Had it just happened once I would think it a random fluke in the world of US TV Prime Time. But this next TV season theres another show that seems to be heading in the same direction. I recently watched the pilot for the new NBC show Heroes about a group of average people who find themselves suddenly gaining superpowers. One of these people is a Japanese guy, and every one of his introduction scenes is set in Tokyo with him holding long conversations in Japanese with his friend. (Actually, rather good Japanese with some rather funny jokes thrown in) So whats NBC trying to say? Are foreign characters speaking in another language just a gimmick to make a show seem more exotic? Hell yes, but its helping change American perspectives on what to watch. First its 10 minutes here in a TV show, or a few scenes in a movie. If you're ok with that why not just watch an entire TV subtitled? And from there what stops the average American from watching a full length movie? I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the US public demands, or at least what the Entertainment industry throws out way.

As part of my 'Japan' experience I chose to go to a J-pop concert. Just once. To see what it was like. And while I was figuring I should see someone good, I also saw an opportunity to see the best in the biz. So thats why this past weekend I ended seeing Utada Hikaru sing her heart out in Hiroshima (in what would turn out to be two sold out concerts to a full stadium of crazy fans). I've been captivated with her since I heard her the lyrics to the song Easy Breezy which go "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanesezy and tomorrow this won't mean a thing." Oh you know it. That song was EVERYWHERE when I was in Japan during college. You couldn't escape it. Its still used in several popular TV commercials. The weird thing about her is that she grew up in New York City, so she's a weird mix of Japanesezy and Americanezy (which is why her English is so good). So I guess she's some super human pop star hybrid. Anyways I went with new ALT Angela Perrone, who I found out during orientation is also an Utada fan. Oh the fun we had, and how out of place we looked. I think we were the only foreigners there (in a sold out stadium none the less) besides the guys in her band. The weirdest thing about this concert, in such a Japanese sort of way, was that for the most part the people who had floor seating sat down the entire concert. Plus everyone had assigned seats. You go Japan for have the most organized and civil pop concerts known to man. Though I was surprised how fast the merchandise line moved.... (I only bought a keychain strap. Really!) It was fun, and I'd do it again. The Japanese sure know how to have a fun filled, and civil, pop-star concert.

As if you really needed to watch one of her US release videos....