Lost In Translation

Vientiane, Laos

I arrived in Vientiane, Laos on Monday night for a four day visit to my friend Shingo who is running the Happy Smile Tour company and pursuing other business ventures with his brother, who is in Cambodia. (More on this later) I return to Bangkok on Friday and Japan on Sunday. The picture above is of Wat Mixai, which is near Shingo's office/home where I am staying. I'll try to update more this week if I have the time/opportunity.

House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

I recently finished Yasunari Kawabata’s novella House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories. I was inspired to read this collection after noting that the first sentence of the novella appears as an inscription to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s elegant novella inspired by Kawabata’s, Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Although these are two very distinct works of fiction, they are both primarily concerned with the connections between the young and old, sex, life, death, and remembrance. In Kawabata’s story Eguchi is an old man approaching 70 who has been introduced to a special sort of service, an older woman procures young girls whom she drugs to sleep naked in the same room with old men. Eguchi uses these episodes to reflect on the women he has known in his life, including his wife and daughters. He is unusually preoccupied with death through sleeping. The services provided by the old woman include drugs to aid sleeping, and the girls are given a more powerful drug to keep them unconscious. This causes complications later in the story. Kawabata’s unusual exploration of living is further investigated in the other two stories included in this collection; “The Arm” and “Beast And Man.” The first seems to have been possibly inspired by Golgol’s “The Nose” when a woman detaches her arm and gives it a man whoa takes it home to sleep with and at one point detaches his own arm re-attaches the woman’s arm in its stead. However, this act causes him to experience great anxiety. The protagonist of “Beast and Man” feels more at ease with animals in his proximity, the movement of the animals seems to clam him for some reason. All of these characters seem to be deep thinkers and eccentrics; Kawabata writes metaphorically that is cause for reflection after reading his stories. I am interested in reading more. I have read only one other book by him, Beauty and Sadness. It is a novel about a love affair between a young girl and an older distinguished man, a novel that I found impressive as well.

After The Coup

I have to say that there aren't any signs of the recent coup that I have noticed since coming to Bangkok. However, this article in Salon suggests that this government is different and wants to protect Thailand from external economic forces:

Hard-core anti-globalization activists are thus put into the odd position of supporting an anti-democratic military takeover because the actions taken by that government jibe with their passions against greater global financial integration and the placing of intellectual property inviolateness above public health needs. Meanwhile, the international investment community is beginning to look back with longing at the pro-free trade regime of Prime Minister Thaksin. Sure, he may have been a corrupt demagogue who bought the people's love with handouts, but, darn it, he was a corrupt demagogue who believed what we believe!

It is no accident that the military government is making such decisions on both fronts. James Hookway, who has been doing great reporting on Thailand for the Wall Street Journal, traces it all back to the King.

The new government is also adopting some of King Bhumibol's long-held beliefs about promoting broader-based economic growth and better preparing Thais to withstand the buffeting that economic globalization can bring. This concept of "self-sufficiency" appears to be reflected in some of the government's recent moves, including the introduction of capital controls to prevent speculative money ramping up the value of Thailand's currency, and new measures to limit foreign shareholdings.

"Buffeting" is an interesting word. It is related to the word "buffer." King Bhumibol's great-grandfather, King Mongkut, was famous for resisting an earlier incarnation of globalization -- outright imperial conquest -- by cagily playing off Britain and France against each other, and therebye maintaining Thailand's independence as a buffer state between French holdings in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and English holdings in Burma and Malaysia. Is King Bhumibol attempting a similar feat, striving to find a way to insulate Thailand from the potential vicissitudes of economic conquest?

It's a risky game, even putting aside the question of whether more or less foreign investment is good or bad for Thailand. Already, there is talk in Bangkok of discontent with the pace at which the military government is steering the country back to democracy. King Bhumibol himself is 79, and not as fit as he used to be. A referendum of sorts on globalization is taking place in Thailand, but it's not at clear at all who is going to win when the final votes are tallied.

2007 Thai TESOL Conference: Bangkok

I've been in Bangkok for the annual Thai TESOL Cofnerence, last year it was in Chang Mai. This time around my friend Darrel seated right, at Larry's Dive, our favorite breakfast stop near the confernce hotel. One of my current colleagues at Toyo University and a former colleague from SIMUL made presentations. In general there were more presenters from Japan this time around; more seminars of interest to me. It ended today and while Darrell returns to Tokyo, I move onto Vientiane, Laos, for five days before returning to Bangkok on Friday then Japan on Sunday. I'll try to post more now that the conference has ended and I have more time.

Eric's List: The Unfamiliar Part 2

The next four discoveries from Eric’s recommendations are among my favorites: M.Ward, Mazarin, The Magic Numbers, Wolf Parade.

M. Ward used to be in a band called Rodriguez and has put out a couple of albums including Transistor Radio (2005). He has a sort of jazzy old timey sound that’s timeless. I particularly like “Hi Fi,” “Big Boat,” and “Radio Campaign.”

Mazarin’s album We’re Already There (2005) is probably my favorite of the bunch. Mazarin is Philadelphia-based singer/guitarist Quentin Stoltzfus’ project. It’ sort of psychedelic pop music. The standout tracks are “Kenyan Heat Wave,” “Schroed(er)/Inger, and ”I’m With You And The Constellation.”

The Magic Numbers self-titled debut album (2004) is a soulful collection of mostly straight ahead mellow rock by this UK-based band. My favorites so far are “I See You, You See Me” and “Love Me Like You.”

Canadian band Wolf Parade has NW connections since they are on Seattle based Sub Pop Records. I like this record but haven’t had a chance to listen to it closely enough. My favorite song on Apologies To The Queen Mary (2005) so far is “Shine A Light.”

Life After Halftime

Here's the intro to the latest Chuck Klosterman's America column in Esquire:

Jazz-Age drunkard F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote many trenchant thoughts in the somber days before his 1940 death, but few remain more famous than this one: "There are no second acts in American lives." It is the kind of sentence that defines an ethos. Many less-talented writers have since echoed this sentiment in stories of their own, typically in the introductory paragraphs of celebrity profiles and inevitably as a means for pointing out how inaccurate Fitzgerald actually was. In reality, there are lots of second acts in American life; it's what happens to everybody who isn't a) hyperprecocious and b) prone to drinking oneself into the boneyard. It's not that second acts are nonexistent; they're usually just less interesting than the first. If your life's first act is "hospital administrator," your life's second act will typically be "veteran hospital administrator." Such a narrative arc lacks panache.

JPod: Japan Only Music

There's an interesting article about iTunes in Slate that exposes how some music is only availiable in the country of origin. It shows how out of touch with the Japanese music scene I've become, since I've ony heard of a handful of the bands he mentions. But many of the bands he mentions sound really cool:

Music labels have a good reason to lift up the drawbridge: iTunes spans 22 countries, often with somewhat uneven pricing between them, and the specter of cross-border music discounting has already been raised by services such as Russia's much-sued allofmp3.com. But in Japan's case, the blockade becomes downright tragic. If your knowledge of Japanese music barely extends beyond the Boredoms, you're in for a shock at iTMS Japan: There are thousands of Japanese bands that play circles around ours—and they're doing it in English.

It hasn't happened overnight. Japan's long been a music geek's paradise, a Valhalla of reverent remasters of American and British albums that time and fashion have passed by in their native lands. Want a CD release of Rick Wakeman's 1976 LP No Earthly Connection? There's no such thing over here—but there is in Japan, and you can even buy it from the Disk Union chain at a downtown Tokyo store dedicated entirely to prog-rock. Like the British invaders of 40 years ago, the Japanese seem to care more about our music than we ourselves do.

The result? Japan's bands are by turns bracingly experimental and jubilantly retro, a land where our own greatest music returns with an alienated majesty. How else can one describe the King Brothers' "100%," a song that could make the Black Crowes eat Humble Pie? Or Syrup16g's Elvis Costello-esque "I Hate Music"? Or "Johnny Depp" by Triceratops, an amp-crunching reanimation of Physical Graffiti-era Zep? And you'd swear that the Pillows' "Degeneration" was a hidden track on Matthew Sweet's Altered Beast. Other bands, less easily categorized, are no less revelatory: The Miceteeth's "Think About Bird's Pillow Case" conjures up a Japanese troupe stranded in a 1930s British music hall, while NICO Touches the Walls' "泥んこドビー" boils Franz Ferdinand over into a waltz.
Next, there's power pop. If ever a song cried to be played on late and lamented The O.C., it's "4645" by the Radwimps. Like many J-pop songs, "4645" is almost entirely sung in English. After pop diva Yumi Matsutoya started mixing bilingual lyrics in the 1970s, bands perfected the art of seamlessly fusing Japanese verses with English choruses. You can mondegreen their songs in the shower for weeks without even realizing it.

So, what happens when this irresistible rock encounters immoveable corporations? Inevitably, Straightener's "Killer Tune" has shown up in its entirety on YouTube, where the band amuses themselves in an exuberantly goofy lip-sync. With YouTube sporting the clever animated video for the blistering follow-up "Berserker Tune," American fans might get the Straightener they need after all.

Meanwhile, a back door has appeared in the Music Store itself: While iTunes Japan pegs foreign undesirables from their credit card numbers, it can't screen fake Japanese addresses provided by prepaid iTunes Card users. There's a small but ardent underground economy among Americans in dummy addresses and e-mailed scans of Japanese iTunes Cards, picked up by friends in Tokyo convenience stores or openly sold online.

Read the whole article here.

The Birds

There's an entertaining little piece in the latest New Yorker by funnyman David Sedaris. Here's a little tidbit:

Einstein wrote that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That said, is it crazier to repeatedly throw yourself against a window, or to repeatedly open that window, believing the creatures that are throwing themselves against it might come into your house, take a look around, and leave with no hard feelings?

I considered this as I leafed through “Birds of the World,” a visual guide as thick as a dictionary. After learning of the Philippine Eagle—a heartless predator whose diet consists of monkeys—I identified the things at the window as chaffinches. The size was about right, six inches from head to tail, longish legs, pink breast, and crooked white bands running along the wings. The book explained that they eat seeds and insects. It stated that some chaffinches prefer to winter in India, or North Africa, but it did not explain why they were trying to get into my house.

“Could it be something they picked up in Africa?” I wondered. And Hugh, who had lived there until his late teens, said, “Why are you asking me?”

Eric's List: The Unfamiliar Part 1

As I said there several bands that I was unfamiliar with that my friend Eric recently introduced me to and these are five of them: Crystal Skulls, Dolorean, Two Gallants, Islands. I’ll write about the other four another day.

The Crystal Skulls are another Seattle area band, however, this is the first I’ve heard of them. They are an indie band with a 70s pop sound. This particular album is Blocked Numbers (2005). My favorite tracks so far are “Hussy,” “Count Your Gold,” and “Hard Party.”

Dolorean has NW connections as well, hailing from Oregon. Not Exotic (2003), is one of the great discoveries for me. They have a really haunting, evocative acoustic sound. They stood out amongst the other bands immediately to me. My favorite tracks are “Sleeperhold” and “Morning Watch,” but I think the whole album is pretty strong. It is rife with confessional songs of heartbreak and struggle.

Two Gallants are an indie low-fi folk duo from San Francisco. To be honest I probably haven’t listen to their album The Throes (2004) enough to comment authoritatively, except to say that the song that stands out most for me is “The Train That Stole My Man.”

Islands is an indie rock band from Montreal that includes Woody Guthrie’s son Jim Guthrie. They have one album to date Return To The Sea (2006). It seems pretty cool, but I haven’t listened to it enough to comment authoritatively enough as well. However, I like the songs “Rough Gem” and “Swans (Life After Death).”

The Kings of Convenience are an indie-pop duo from Norway. I’ve only listened to Quiet Is The New Loud (2001) a couple of times, so I haven't made up my mind. It might actually be too mellow for me, but the jury’s still out.

Karaoke Bars

Today's photo essay in Slate focuses on karaoke bars in Asia, the picture above is from a karaoke bar in Tokyo.