"Memoirs of a Geisha" Film

Hulu is finally available in Japan, for more money and with less content than in the US, but it is nice to be able to see even a limited amount of programming. It seems like they are releasing according to how much translation is done, however, I guess I'll take it.

One film that piqued my interest was "Memoirs of a Geisha", after having put off viewing it, having heard negative reviews. I thought it was well done, with lush visuals and a great attention to detail. There were a number of memorable scenes in the film, which really set the tone of longing of Chiyo / Sayuri, for the Chairman. The story was plausible, as it is well-known that destitute families sold off their daughters, at that time of our history.

Several irritations or questions come to mind:

• Taking nothing away from the three lovely and skilled Chinese and Malaysian leads, there are plenty of lovely, skilled Japanese actresses, so why not feature more of them? I know some of them speak English too. Kudos to the Japanese they did cast.
• I read that there was a lot of controversy about the written Chinese kanji characters used for words that mean geisha, because they have different meanings in Japan and China. With all those Chinese speakers involved, you would think that that sort of thing would be vetted better.
• I understand the book has the narrator telling her story from New York. I would have liked to see that woven in.
• I've never seen a Japanese with blue eyes, except due to the wonders of Bausch and Lomb. What's up with her blue eyes, pretty though they are?
• The language coaches worked hard to get the actors less-skilled in English to deliver their lines and for the most part it succeeded pretty well. A very difficult task to be convincing in a language not your own. The Japanese was so limited, though, that you would think they could get that pronunciation right. But to this Japanese speaker, the Chinese accents on simple words like "arigato" and "hajimemashite" were pretty heavy and grating, in this context.
• It is supposed to be set in Kyoto, so why not get the "background language" right, for the various conversations you can hear but are not part of the dialogue. Pretty clunky, and it had me thinking Edo, not Gion.
• The musical score is vaguely Chinese-sounding, probably due to instrumentation. Perhaps they could have worked in a slightly more Japanese sound, though they certainly did use a lot of shakuhachi.

I think this could have been a master work, had they just taken the extra steps needed to apply just that extra one layer of polish. I am picky because I live here, but overall, I did like it.

Japan Girl Talk - The Secret Code 2011

The creatures called "gyaru" (teenage girls who hang out in the youth spots in Tokyo) have their own slang language that morphs rapidly. Nobody, even them, can keep up with it. Morning TV had a special segment about the latest "gyaru-go" language trends, which I thought were worth sharing:

"Itsumen" - いつメン

From itsumo-no-menbaa いつものメンバー. The usual group we hang out with.

"kamacho" - かまちょ

From kamatte-choudai 構って頂戴. Pay attention to me.

Said to boyfriend who is studiously ignoring your commentary.

tkmr - タカマル？

Takamaru 高まる, meaning, wanna party? Wanna go crazy? Or: are you excited?

I could be down with some tkmr. Itsumen? Kamacho!

あげモーション

Agemotion. Apparently this is more excited than merely tkmr.

So, it's a nuance thing. tkmr < agemotion.

ピー逃げ

Pii-nige. To touch your RFID school ID on the attendance sensor in the classroom, then beat a hasty retreat.

Cutting class was never so scientific!

オコなう

Oko-nau. 怒っているなう。She's upset or angry. Now I'm angry (okotteiru).

N.b: Nau is used in twitter language in Japan, to say where you are now, and uiru (will) is used to say you will.

At home now. Work will. Kind of Yoda-like, if you ask me. Just be forewarned: if you engage in pii-nige, your teacher will be okonau, I tell ya.

ロールキャベージ

Roll-cabbage. Used to describe a guy who is a vegetable eater on the outside (nice, sweet & pliant to her wishes), but a meat eater on the inside (a take-charge type).

Roll-cabbages can give you gas so be careful, ladies.

メンタル

Mental. Means she's depressed, feeling blue.

Kind of how I feel now when I try understanding teenage girls!

Now you can visit Shibuya or Harajuku armed with some understanding. Until the language morphs again!

 

Japan and Its People are Unique

At least that is what they tell me! I like Japan and have had some interesting, enjoyable and indeed unique experiences here, otherwise I would not have stayed in this country since 1987. But over the years, I've had an earful of people telling me directly or indirectly how unique Japan and its people are, and I've had to burst more than one person's bubble. Sometimes incorrectly.

A couple examples of the oft-heard "unique" characteristics of Japan and its people, from my first-hand experience:

• Only Japan has four seasons. So my teachers lied to me about the nature of Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall? I'm shocked!
• Japanese intestines are unique, so that is why Japanese cannot digest foreign rice and cannot import US beef. Quick, revise the anatomy textbooks.
• Foreigners cannot understand the unique Japanese concepts of dignity and morality. Just ask Konishiki who was practically put on trial for not being dignified enough to perform his sumo-ly duties at the highest level, but while you do that, ignore the Japanese abusive Sumo stablemasters.
• Japanese pregnancies take 10 months (!). It's possible that all that extra moral development occurs in utero, but I kind of bet it's got something to do with lunar months or the ancient Japanese counting 0 as 1.
• Japanese Kafunsho (hayfever) does not exist in other countries. Put away that Allegra, you buncha fakers.
• The snow in Japan is special, and unique, and that's why we cannot import foreign ski equipment because it just doesn't work here. Ah huh. A patent on crystallized water?

Of those, I dismissed the Japanese intestines-are-unique thing as being more politician wind-blow, but there is anecdotal evidence I've read in favor of it being true. I have to admit that that's physiologically possible for races (i.e. caucasian vs mongoloid) to be physically different, but the problem arises when eager-beaver politicians try to further some agenda by linking a longer Japanese intestine to Japanese "not being able to digest" certain foods. Same goes for thinking that "Japanese snow is unique", and therefore foreign skis won't work on it. Rubbish.

What I believe is unique are the aspects of the Japanese language that allow a detailed and evocative rendering of the weather, or seasons, a la Basho or a writer like Kawabata. By the same token there are things that Japanese language does not handle well, like anatomical descriptions. That's part of the reason the doctors use German and English and not Japanese, to describe ailments. So it's not necessarily that the Japanese language is "better", but that there are some well-developed aspects and some not-so-well developed aspects.

Rather than have a strange fixation on these comfortable yet largely inaccurate trivialities steeped in the language and (ill)logic of nihonjinron thinking, I would hope that the Japanese would focus on some of the genuinely amazing and far-reaching achievements of their countrymen, like Takamine's isolation of Adrenalin, the various management techniques of Toyota, or their wonderful cultural treasures (and I don't mean manga and maid cafes). I would hope that the government would teach the Japanese children, my children included, the true beauty of Japan, rather than resorting to weak arguments.

I'll leave you with something I saw today that triggered this aside, and thinking about my time here. Eric Hilton wrote in to the the Japan Times that he supplied a student with the (in my opinion very adroit) translation of a popular Japanese proverb "saru mo ki kara ochiru" (even monkeys fall from trees) as "even Homer nods", and he said that the student was amazed that proverbs even exist in English. Now that takes the cake, but at least one can say that the child is just an ignorant student.

That's more than we can say for the people who put such ideas into his head.

"Gyaru-go" Girl Japanese

Mezamashi TV had a segment on the lastest gyaru language. If you're not familiar, gyaru are the sort of schoolgirls who hang out in Shibuya or Harajuku, dress in the latest fashion and speak in a sort of code. Here's the three I remember:

• ムカTK mukaTK - mukatsuku, to be pissed off. The original's just as easy, ladies.
• モレる moreru - um, to be dressed up, with your hair in a bun with cute accessories. Comes from "moritsukeru" to decorate.
• シカメ shikame - from shikato and meeru, ignore mail. To have blown off answering someone's text message. I hear that a large percentage of schoolkids get really stressed about "shikame", in all seriousness.

At any rate, remembering these is one thing, but using them is another, so remember this: if an "oyaji" (middle-aged guy) like me uses gyaru-go, he's ostracized by his daughters and subjected to the "uzai" label for all time. :-)

Bribe Desserts are Just Sour

Since the Lockheed scandal brought Kakuei Tanaka down in the late 1970's, Japan has seen many and varied incidents, their occurrence only escalating in recent years. Even the Tanaka protege Ichiro Ozawa, who has been stressing a (rather two-faced) populist agenda of late, is now tainted by a bribe scandal via a top aide accused of taking corporate donations. Ozawa san, so much for that "for the people" agenda eh? Who's going to replace Aso?!

I like talking to just about anyone, and it's frequently the case that I find myself talking to a random taxi driver about something or other happening in Japan. The other day, during a conversation variously about Ozawa, bribes, the US Sarbanes Oxley legislation and "settai" (client entertainment) in Japan, my "over 60" year old driver told me he worked at Mizkan, the vinegar maker, for 40 years. I assume was his whole career, and he said he was in sales, in charge of large corporate accounts.

He said he invited the big supermarket chain buyers out nightly, for expensive dinners and visits to "caberet clubs" (kyaba-kura) in the Ginza or Kabukicho in Shinjuku. He mentioned, bragging a little, that it was common to spend "a few thousand dollars each night", wining and dining these buyers to ensure getting their business. He made the point though, that most of the companies that were allowing sales reps to entertain them were now bankrupt - Daiei, Seiyu and others. He said they tried wooing the Ito-Yokado buyers, but they were adamant, and never went out. Since 7-and-holding's Ito-Yokado stores are very strong performers today, I think perhaps that company policy of not accepting any sort of bribe was a good one.

My retired ex-Vinegar Maker sales rep and taxi driver must have a sour aftertaste in his mouth, despite all that expensive settai. Just desserts?

Beiju - 88th Birthday

In Japan, a person's 88th birthday is called "beiju" and is a special celebration where yellow- or gold-colored gifts are given. The "bei" of beiju comes from the three kanji characters for eight "八", ten "十", and eight "八", or "hachijuu-hachi" (88), which combined together form the character kome, or rice "米". You can see one eight flipped upside-down on the top, the other on the bottom, and the ten as the cross in the middle. The "ju" of beiju is the character kotobuki, or celebration "寿", which is also the su of sushi. Beiju is written out as "米寿".

Because rice was so important to Japanese, as an integral part of daily life and vital to sustaining life, the 88th birthday is a celebration of importance in Japan. Beiju is also known as "yone no iwai" or Rice Celebration, the yone being another way to say kome or rice. The photo is from great-grandma's beiju celebration in Sept 2008.

Support the Local Stores - Imamiya

This is our local store "Imamiya", which is not as cheap as the local giant chain, but has a certain charm. It has been in business for quite a long time, but recently seems like it is a little bit run down. These places get driven out of business by the big guys, so I like to shop there when I can. Support your local store!

Japanese Evacuation Centers are Well-Marked

Japan is obviously prone to earthquakes, so there are designated evacuation areas or "hinanjo" here and there, usually in parks or stadiums (stadia?). This one says it is down in the US Military Fukaya Communications Base "tsushintai" in Japanese under the words "EVACUATION AREA". If you live here, keep and eye out for these markers, because that is where most people will proceed in the event of a major disaster.

Kintaro-ame by anzyAprico on Flickr

This is typical Kintaro-ame next to kompeito.

Originally uploaded to Flickr by anzyAprico

"Kintaro Ame" Chopstick Stand at Robataya

Went to Robataya in Roppongi last night, and got this shot of some ceramic chopstick stands that look like "Kintaro-ame" candy. Kintaro's the guy on the right, and he is said to be Sakata no Kintoki, a Heian Period samurai. There is a traditional story about him that Japanese children learn, in which Kintaro, born with great strength, goes on to conquer a group of "oni" or demons. Kintaro-ame is a cylindrical candy produced from the Edo period on, which has the same image of Kintaro wherever you cut it. Kind of metaphorical and suitable for his legendary stature.

Brush Me Sign

This sign on a door says "brush me" or "touch me" - "furete kudasai". Little sensors near the sign on the door frame respond to your light touch, and the door opens. I must have some kind of special gaikokujin aura, because I can never get the things to work - I have to literally touch the sensor itself and not just the sign. The newfangled Japan Rail touchpads on the ticket machines don't work for me consistently either.

Baru Tapas in Hiroo, Tokyo

Baru is a great Tapas place in Tokyo's Hiroo district between Tengenji and Platinum Street. Great Tapas and wine, and it is always packed with good-looking ladies (unless a certain Jason is there :). The master is a personable guy, who speaks a little English and a little Spanish. Go. You won't regret it.

Jack, Anna, Phil and Rick Tour Kamakura

Jack, Anna (pictured), Phil and I tried our hand at "omikuji" at the big Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura. Omikuji are fortunes that you draw by shaking a box of numbered sticks, the number corresponding to a white piece of paper with the fortune written on it. You can pray to improve your fortunes by folding and tying the omikuji paper onto a contraption shrines have, with horizontal wires. You can see it in the picture.

Seems when I take customers touring, someone always has to pull a "kyo" (worst luck)! Oh well, it can only get better. My year end omikuji in 2007 was a "kyo" but I drew a "daikichi" or "best luck" on New Years day, my birthday. Good luck to all in 2008!

Kodomo Hyakutouban no Ie - "Kids' Emergency House"

Neighborhoods in Japan have people join the "Kids' Emergency House"
network, and affix these signs to their gates. If a child is in
trouble, they are taught in school that they can go to a house
designated this way, for help.