Lost In Translation

Hachiko

The Hachiko Exit at Shibuya station has a statue of the famous dog, Hachiko, which has become a popular meeting spot for people getting together in Shibuya. There was an article, in The Daily Yomiuri, today on the new English language book about Hachiko that been recently released. Here's the story behind the legend:

A dog's life

The male Akita later named Hachiko was born in Odate in northern Akita Prefecture in November 1923 and given to Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor at the School of Agriculture at Tokyo Imperial University (now Tokyo University) by a former student who knew of the professor's affection for the big, strong dogs traditionally bred in the town.

Hachi, so named because he was the eighth dog Ueno had owned, would accompany his master from home to nearby Shibuya Station each morning and then come back each afternoon to await his master's return on the 3 p.m. train. On May 21, 1925, Ueno suffered a fatal stroke at work. Despite a few initial efforts to send the dog to be adopted by new owners, Hachiko continued to go to the station every day to wait for Ueno and would spend his nights sleeping on the porch of the late professor's house in Shibuya.

Cared for by Ueno's gardener Nenokichi Takahashi and the stationmaster, the big cream-colored dog became a fixture at the station, often begging food from the numerous street vendors in the neighborhood.

Despite becoming nearly lame from arthritis in his last years, Hachiko continued to show up at the station like clockwork just before 3 p.m. each day, waiting until dark to return home.

His fame spread beyond the district in 1932, when he was the focus of a series of newspaper articles. Contributions poured in from across the country and even from overseas, and a statue was unveiled at the faithful dog's regular waiting spot on April 21, 1934, bearing the words "Chuken Hachiko" (Loyal Dog Hachiko), using an affectionate diminutive form of the name Hachi.

On the evening of March 7 the following year, the dog was found collapsed at his post in front of the station and died early the next morning.

The story headlined newspapers across the country and a day of mourning was declared.

Hachiko was stuffed and mounted and can still be seen at the National Science Museum near Ueno Station in Tokyo, but his bones are interred with those of his master in Aoyama cemetery.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Seinfeld

Some friends lent me Season 3 of Seinfeld, which has been one of my favorite TV series of all-time along with The Simpsons. I won’t collect this series, since I’ve seen so many episodes several on syndication. But I love that it was unlike any other TV series and there’s nothing close to it today, well may be Curb Your Enthusiasm, since it’s Larry David’s baby, the main producer of Seinfeld. I always appreciated their gift for euphuisms and observational humor. It broke all the rules and came out on top. I haven’t seen the first two seasons, which are packaged together, but my friends are going to lend that to me when they have a chance. There are tons of extras like commentary by Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, writers, and the actors, deleted scenes, Inside Looks Into the making of particular episodes, as well as Notes About Nothing (which is essentially little factoids and blurbs giving information related to a particular episode). I guess this means that I will finally get to see “The Contest”-an episode about abstaining from "self abuse", which has managed to elude me all these years.

30 Days

Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame has a new TV series that looks englightening and entertaining as well. There was an interview in Salon.com:

Great bad ideas

Morgan Spurlock searches for a deeper truth -- by turning a mom into a binge drinker and moving a fundamentalist into a gay enclave -- on his new TV show "30 Days."

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Heather Havrilesky

June 15, 2005 †|† A brilliant gimmick is worth a thousand words, and no one knows that better than Morgan Spurlock. His "really great bad idea" to eat nothing but McDonald's food for a month -- documented in the entertaining and enlightening 2004 film "Super Size Me" -- won him overnight celebrity, the Sundance best director prize and an Academy Award nomination, not to mention a 24.5-pound weight gain, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and impaired liver function.

Spurlock's liver has gotten back to normal since the film came out, but his life hasn't. In May, he released a book, "Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America," pounding home the brutal facts about fast food he'd explored on film. And his new TV show, "30 Days," which premieres on FX this week, applies the experimental gimmick of "Super Size Me" to new landscapes, all with a political edge: How would it feel to be a Muslim for a month? What would it be like to be a binge drinker for that long?

The first episode, which airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. EDT, follows Spurlock and his fiancée, Alex, as they move to Ohio and try to live off minimum-wage jobs for a month. Combining the reality genre with lots of information and some slippery issues in American life, Spurlock has created a fascinating and informative show that broadens viewers' horizons at a time when our policies are as narrow-minded and myopic as ever.

Most of all, Spurlock proves that a good cause and a clever gimmick go together like potatoes and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. But that doesn't stop me from personally blaming him for ending my lifelong love affair with McDonald's fries. So what did I look for when I spoke to him over the phone recently? Signs of weakness, mostly.

Click here to read the rest of the article and interview.

Exotic Cafeteria Food

The new building (#6) on the Hakusan campus has an enormous cafeteria in the basement with a 7-Eleven, a Pepper Steak Lunch, a curry house, a Balinese restaurant, and a Japanese restaurant. The Balinese restaurant is affiliated with Bali Cafe Putri at Roppongi Hills, as I was told by one of the workers. To be honest, it wasn't all that great, but considering that it's cafeteria food, it's pretty good compared to the other choices-you can't expect gourmet food for under $6. The picture above is of a Balinese beef bowl with shrimp chips, soup, and hot sauce.

DVD Notes: As Tears Go By

As Tears Go By (1988) was Wong Kar-Wai’s first film. It’s a bit rougher than the others, there are some cheap/cheesy sequences that seem more obviously influenced by the cheap street fighting action movies that were popular in the 80s. The plot is a sort of Mean Streets rip off as well, Andy Lau is the gangster that tries to rein in his wild and unpredictable younger brother, Fly, played by Jacky Cheung. But it showed signs of the developing master with the out of place cinematography and romantic character gestures revolving around misguided timing and coincidences. Furthermore, this film serves as the introduction of the lovely Maggie Cheung, who continues to appear in his films. Perhaps most interesting to see where Kar-Wai started in his film making progress, obviously filmed when he was still quite young, I’m exactly sure how old he is, but this was made more than 15 years ago, and show the promise that he will grow into as an acclaimed auteur later.

Concert Review: Towa Tei And Guests

Yesterday I went to a combination concert/club event at The Liquid Room headlined by Towa Tei, of Deee Lite-“Groove Is In The Heart”-fame, with a group of friends. It started at 4 pm and ended sometime before midnight. I think we got there around 5 and stayed until 10 pm or so-a bit exhausting. However, we did hear some good music. There were several DJs on the bill, including DJ Aoba, and SHINCO who were both cool, and a couple of bands. The band pictured above is Plastic Sex-they were really cool-80s inspired “synth/drum machine driven” new wave, complete with a sexy pole dancer who played something akin to Theremin. There was another band that I believe is a Tei collaborator called Buffalo Daughter, they seemed pretty edgy, but no my cup of tea so to speak. I’ve been to club Yellow when Towa Tei was DJing and enjoyed it, but I didn’t find this performance very inspired or inventive-maybe was just too tired.

Added Note: the picture above was the first one I've posted that was taken with my 2.0 megapixel Vodafone cell phone digital camera. Not bad.

Book Notes: Snakes & Earrings

Snakes & Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara is the Akutagawa Prize winning debut of a 19 year old that has been translated into English. I was curious to see what all the hype was a bout, and I think it’s another example of how the Japanese often celebrate style over substance. The writer is a comely lass and has written a shocking tale of fringe lifestyles that are still considered novel here in Japan. I believe it was Flaubert who said the most conventional way of being unconventional was by committing adultery. Perhaps, in our modern times the most convention way of being unconventional is getting a tattoo or a body part pierced. The tramp stamp on the lower back of girls wearing low rider jeans is ubiquitous. Pierced eyebrows, lips, nipples, etc…it seems so much a deliberate attempt to say look at me, definition of the self through outside appearance rather than thought-it’s so much easier. Perhaps the same cannot be said of Japan yet, by try hanging out in Harajuku on a weekend and then make a judgment. It’s another hollow “rebel without a cause” story. I can see why Ryu Murakami gave such a great blurb (“A picture of an eccentric world that clearly passes on what goes on in the minds of young women today: a radical depiction of our time.”): he wrote a similar shocking Akutagawa Prize winning novel himself about 30 years ago, Almost Transparent Blue, a novel that was all about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and apathy- another “rebel without a cause” story. I would hardly call this a novel, it is barely a novella, a mere 118 pages, and I should have been able to read it in a day. The characters are unsympathetic, however it is interesting to take a peak into the underbelly of Tokyo every now and then I guess, but don’t expect any cathartic understanding.

Black Monolith

There is some cool design going on in Tokyo and here's a good example of it in my old funky neighborhood, Harajuku, from The Japan Times:

COUNTER CULTURE HHSTYLE.COM/CASA

Black monolith rises in Harajuku
By MARTIN WEBB

Tokyo is famed for its haphazard layout, with tatty old two-story structures nestling up against ultra-modern constructions, and areas seemingly designated for one type of business that are punctuated by anomalous residential or industrial premises.

hhstyle.com/casa's awe-inspiring edifice dominates its low-key surroundings on Harajuku's famed fashion drag Cat Street.

Interior-design product retailer hhstyle.com's glass-and-steel flagship store is a case in point. It occupies a prime spot on Harajuku's Cat Street, the spiritual home of Tokyo's street-fashion subculture, and is surrounded by ramshackle shops peddling punkish clothes to supposedly angst-ridden teens -- few of whom could afford most of the stuff being sold by hhstyle.com.

As one of the first "clicks and mortar" online/physical combination retailers in Japan, hhstyle.com has reaped the rewards of a surge in Internet use and an "interior boom" since it was established five years ago. Although a significant portion of sales come from its catalog and Internet divisions, its physical manifestation has long since drawn design enthusiasts into the heart of this otherwise apparel-oriented district.

In April, though, this odd juxtapositioning rose to a whole new level of glaring incongruity, with the unveiling of hhstyle/casa next to its existing store. A mammoth Tadao Ando-designed stealth bomber-style black box, it stands in stark contrast to its neighbors in terms of surface texture, scale, color and contents.

Click here to read the rest.

Big Brother Is Watching

I guess the survey concerning foreigners that have been conducted (which I mentioned in this post) are being used to justify the new foreigner ID program just announced recently:

Gov't plans to require all foreigners to carry IC cards for crime control

Thursday, June 9, 2005 at 07:29 JST
TOKYO — The Japanese government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party plan to require all foreigners staying in Japan for more than 90 days to carry identification cards equipped with integrated circuit chips, with all data to be kept at an "intelligence center," party lawmakers said Tuesday.

The LDP and the government claim the new policy is aimed at keeping track of foreigners as part of measures to prevent terrorism and crimes.

But the new system, intended to replace the current Certificate of Alien Registration that foreigners have to carry, is likely to raise concerns over the sharing of information between the immigration and police authorities, as well as protests from foreigners that it unfairly discriminates against them.

Under the plan, foreigners will have to carry with them at all times IC cards that contain information such as their name, nationality, address, birth date, passport number, visa status and place of employment or study. Holders will be required to report any change of address and obtain permission to change jobs.

The data of all card holders will be kept at the intelligence center that the Justice Ministry plans to set up to gather and analyze information on suspicious foreigners. The information will be shared between immigration and police authorities when foreigners are involved in crimes.

Currently, foreigners' registrations are kept at the municipality of their residence. The municipal governments, which issue the alien registration cards, are required to send a copy of the registrations to the Justice Ministry.

Under the new policy, companies and schools where foreigners work or study will also be required to report to the authorities about when the foreigners move or change jobs, and will be subject to penalties for any falsified information.

Click here to read the rest of the article from Japan Today.

This is bullshit, like I said foreigners make up 1% of the population, therefore a meager percentage of crimes are committed by them. What are they going to do 15 years from now, when they'll have to open up immigration in order to fill the job vacancies of the aging population?

Favorite Places: 632 Bakery Cafe Harajuku

The 632 Bakery Cafe in Harajuku is one of my favorite lunch spots on Mondays, since it is roomy and has a outdoor patio, and not to mention a lunch menu that has daily specials in all these categories: pasta, fish, meat (usually chicken), curry, rice bowl, and burger. The lunch set also comes with a drink and your choice of soup or salad-all for the low price of 1000 yen. This last visit I had sausage, well actually it was wieners, and mushroom tomato sauce pasta with a daikon salad with a tangy vinegrette dressing and ice tea-as seen below.