Lost In Translation

Back To School: Aoyama Women's College

On Mondays I teach two classes as a part-time English instructor at Aoyama Women's Junior College. It is a part of the Methodist-founded Aoyama Gakuin school system, which also includes a four-year college, senior high school, junior high school, elementary school, and kindergarten. The easiest way to assure you get into the college is to attend the schools from kindergarten, however students from outside the school system get in as well.

It is my favorite for a number of reasons. It is the most prestigious school that I have taught at, the four-year college is probably one of the top 20 if not 10 schools in Japan. As a result, the students tend to be high achievers or from rich families, even at the junior college. This makes them easier to teach. I think girls usually are better students and tend to like English more than their male counterparts. Thus even though my students are non-English majors, (early Childhood Education, Home Ec, Child Psychology, etc?) they are mostly interested and capable of learning.

The campus is located in Tokyo in Omotesando area, which was walking distance from my old apartment and a very hip and convenient location. It is probably the most western-looking campus with faux-European buildings, a tree-line lane, and grassy courtyards.

I teach fourth and fifth periods, which means I don't have to be there until around 2:30 pm, so it is an easy transition into the working week. And the pay is better than average.

Word Of The Week: Freeter

Freeters are becoming a large part of the Japanese workforce, they are basically part-time or temporary workers. I have a lot of friends in this category, some prefer this lifestyle so that they can leave the office at 5:30 or 6 and don't feel the pressure to work overtime, and they can take long vacations or just quit and travle whenever they want. They are usually cushioned by the fact that they live at home. Others can't find full-time employment, it is very difficult to move from temporary or part-time status to full-time status. There was a very interesting article in the LA Times supplement today about "freeters."

Gokokuji Temple

This is a little photo essay on Gokokuji Temple, which is walking distance from my apartment in Bunkyo-ku. Apparently it is one of the most famous in Tokyo, but most people visit the more famous Sensoji Temple in Asakusa.

Corea

I recently read an article in the LA Times Supplement of The Daily Yomiuri that stated that there was a movement to change the spelling of Korea to Corea, because the Japanese had changed it after occupying Corea, they changed the spelling so that Corea wouldn't come before Japan in the upcoming Olympics at that time. I couldn't find the article on the net, but here's an interesting site about the issue.

Gore Vidal

Over the last year I have been reading the essays of Gore Vidal, and he has proved to be one of America's finest essayists and a voice of reason in regard to politics and public policy. He is also an authority/reliable source in many areas. He served in WWII and wrote his first novel while doing so. He comes form a political background; his grandfather, blind Senator T.P. Gore, brought him up. He is related to Eleanor Roosevelt and was friendly with JFK. He ran for Congress in New York in 1960 and came in second in the California democratic primary in 1982. Furthermore, his father served as director of the Bureau of Air Commerce under FDR, which gave him insight into the forming of airlines and access to Charles Lindberg. He wrote his first novel at the age of 20 and has subsequently written 23 other novels, most of them historical novels in which he did significant research to get the details just right. He has numerous interesting insights into the lives of other writers as well as being capable of writing compelling book chat. He has also written for TV and the movies, as a result knows a lot of famous Hollywood movers and shakers. His heroes (John Quincy Adams, FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bowles, Edmund Wilson, Charles Lindberg) and villains (Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, the CIA) are vividly drawn and expertly judged throughout.

My sojourn started with United States, the 1993 Winner of the National Book Award, it covers the years from 1952 until 1992. I am hesitant to recommend this tome that weighs in at 1295 pages and is the size of a reference book, but does seem all but indispensable, because it has many excellent and interesting essays. It is divided into three sections: state of the art (literature), state of the union (politics), and state of being (personal responses to people and events, not to mention movies and children's books). Not a light book to take on the train, this tome took me the better part of a year to finish, but was well worth it.

Subsequently, The Last Empire, is a more reasonable recommendation, it weighs in at a reasonable 465 pages in a pocketbook edition. It is also more recent in its essays, so perhaps of more interest to general readers since it covers the years 1993-2000. He makes some interesting predictions, which unfortunately have come true:

(On the CIA and terrorism): "We have neither the money nor the brains to monitor every country on earth, which means, alas, that if some evil dictator in Madagascar wants to nuke or biologically degrade Washington, D.C., there?s not much we can do about it. Certainly the CIA, as now constituted, would be the last to know of his intention, though perhaps the first to get the good of his foul plot."

"With Extreme Prejudice"
The Nation
5 June 1995

(About George W. Bush's election to the presidency):"With bad luck (and adventures), Chancellor Cheney will rule. A former Secretary of Defense, he has said that too little money now goes to the Pentagon even though last year it received 51 percent of the discretionary budget. Expect a small war or two in order to keep military appropriations flowing. There will also be tax relief for the very rich."

"Democratic Vistas"
The Nation
8/15 January 2000

Tokyo Bay Cruise

As summer finally comes to a close, over night it got cold as a typhoon approached and drenched us with rain on Sunday, cancelling a boat tour organized by my friend Lucy, who has visitors from Australia. Nonetheless, it was rescheduled for Tuesday, Autum Equinox and a national holiday, much needed after my one day of work since mid-July. I think it would have been better to have gone earlier in the summer, because it was too cold to stay on the main deck and enjoy the view.

Here I am with some of our group, it was 2500 yen and was all-you-can-drink beer, wine, softdrinks, and sours.

This is a picture of the illuminated Tokyo Bay Bridge.

There was a dance floor with a DJ, and several yukata (a simple summer cotton cloth {usually in vivid designs} kimono worn to festivals during the summer) dancers performing routines to the music. This was the last cruise of the summer, and it was on a huge boat. A lot of people rent smaller boats and have parties on them during the summertime as well.

Lunch At Mashman's

I found out about a cool little cafe, Mashman's Cafe, near my house in Ikebukuro from a cool site by another Tokyo weblogger. I ate lunch there the other day, I guess I could have taken a pictue of the laidback, funky atmosphere...but you get a picture of the food instead. They always play cool music, I heard The Jeevas for the first time, it sounded cool so I may have to pick up one of their CDs some time.

I had the Special Keeman Curry, while my dinning companion had Tama Gyudon (which is a beef bowl with a raw egg on top).

Film Notes: Frida and The Pianist

On Saturday I saw Frida, the movie based on the life of Frida Kahlo, I believe it got some Oscar consideration, and I think it won an award for best costumes. At any rate, it was quite a spectacle with great performances from the leads, Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina. It was also a very visually arresting movie full of bright colors and bold images, some of which were inspired by the art of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The director Julie Taymor (creator the Broadway version of The Lion King) also made another visually interesting film adaptation of Shakespeare's violent Titus Andronicus, called simply, Titus. Frida and Diego lived a fascinating life, they were at the heart of a great Mexican, epic, fictional biography I read last summer, The Years With Laura Diaz by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who also wrote the excellent and more contemporary The Crystal Frontier. I guess the greatest result of this movie would result in viewers revisiting the artistic work of Kahlo. The Bunkamura, which is showing the film, had an exhibition of some of Kahlo?s paintings earlier this summer, but I missed it unfortunately, I'd like to look at her paintings after having some insight into the interesting and tragic life of the artist.

Last night I finally got around to watching Roman Polanski's masterwork, The Pianist. It was an incredibly well made and moving film about the holocaust. I have to admit that I was reluctant to see it since I feel that the holocaust seems a bit overwrought, but I think there is always room for a powerful individual story of survival, especially if it is the result of a well-crafted collaboration of writing, acting, and filming. The recreation of Warsaw was amazing and Adrien Brody gave a very restrained and believable performance, as did the many extras, a remarkable and emotional film. I think it was much more impressive than Schindler's List, if you haven't seen it, put it on your list.

DVD Notes: Fight Club

When I was back in the states this summer I picked up two DVDs, Miller's Crossing (one of my favorite movies), and Fight Club (because it was a cool movie and had a lot of features). So I watched it once through without any commentary, then watched it with each subsequent commentary (4 total), at different sittings, starting with David Fincher's commentary. This led me to read the highly original and entertaining book by Chuck Palahnik, whom, incidentally, I didn't know was from Portland Oregon. As we speak, he has three novels on the top 20 bestsellers list.

The commentary by Edward Norton, David Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter was equally interesting. For example, there's a line in the book where Marla (Carter) tells jack that she wants to have his abortion, and the studious wouldn't let it stay, so Fincher came up with "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school."
After seeing the dailies, the studio wanted it changed back. Carter who is from England didn't catch the significance of "primary" grade school at first.

I also liked the Writer's commentary by Palahnik and screenwriter Jim Uhls. Palahniuk in particular was very forthcoming about where he got ideas for a lot of the material. Apparently he had gotten into a fight camping one weekend over loud music at a campground and had some severe bruises on his face and he realized that people ignored it and wouldn't look him in the face at work, it made them uncomfortable. Some of the support group material came from when he volunteered as a driver for terminally ill people. I found it funny to see Uhls take credit for making the support groups names, considering in the previous commentary Norton explained that he took them from Planet of the Apes (Cornelius and Rupert), and some other source that escapes me now.

By the time the fourth commentary came around, the Technical Commentary, I was a little burned out and didn't really care so much about where they found Brad's leather jacket or about lighting decisions. But all in all, a very in dept and interesting look at a ground breaking film. I hope Fincher can make more cool movies like this, since I was very disappointed by Panic Room.

A Night In Saitama

I met a couple of my university instructor friends in Saitama. We had quite a few beers at this yakitori place, Rishi, in Urawa.

Then we moved onto a prison-themed izakaya, called The Lockup in Omiya, complete with police gals, like the lovely Yoshika, escorting Bob in cuffs.