Lost In Translation

Watering Hole

Yesterday on my way to Shinjuku I visited the latest Tokyo craft beer bar near Yoyogi station, Watering Hole.

There are 19 taps to choose from, I tried the Serenity Amber Ale from the Crabtree Brewing Company in Colorado. I have to say it wasn't for me, it was much too sweet. I think I should have tried something from the shop's own batch of craft beers.

I liked the atmosphere, so I'm sure I'll be back.

Harlan County USA

Harlan County USA (1976) is an Oscar Award winning documentary from Barbara Kopple that looks at coal miners in Kentucky. This Criterion Collection edition has audio commentary by Kopple and editor Nancy Baker, a documentary: The Making of "Harlan County USA," outtakes from the film, video interview with bluegrass singer songwriter Hazel Dickens (who contributed to the soundtrack), a video interview with John Sayles, a panel discussion from the 2005 Sundance Film Festival featuring Kopple and Roger Ebert, and essays from film scholar Paul Arthur and music journalist Jon Weisenberger. It is a fascinating look at the struggles of the coal miners of Kentucky with archival footage and discussions of the history of the miners in that region. There was a lot of talk about the bloody battles in the 1930s and considerable fear that those days could be relived during the struggle that Kopple was documenting. The people who were striking and manning or "womaning" the picket lines are memorable and give the film it's soul. The woman are prominent in this struggle since there are no injunctions against them for being on the picket lines where they are harassed by company men with guns trying to move the scabs through to work. The soundtrack with authentic music from the region add to the overall effect of triumph of the working man. It is known as one of the greatest documentaries of all time for good reason-it is a powerful story of life and death for real people.

Hatos Bar

About a year or two ago I went to a Beers For Books event at Hatos Bar, which specializes in craft beers and American style BBQ. Now that I live near, I decided to meet some friends there tonight. The beer of choice for the night was Yokohama Pale Ale.

This is a half order of the largest rib item on the menu (not Baby Back ribs), but I forget the name. I cannot forget the taste--excellent.

This is the pulled pork sandwich, which has coleslaw on hand-made buns. We also had orders of potato salad (awesome--just like Mom makes with bacon, oregeno, and pickles!), chili beans, and mac and cheese (skip-able).

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945) is Akira Kurosawa's fourth film and a part of Criterion's Eclipse Series 23: The First Films of Akira Kurosawa (with Sanshiro Sugata, The Most Beautiful, and Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two). it is a curious film in several respects since it was filmed during Japan's surrender on a restricted budget. It was kept off the American censor's list, because some felt that Kurosawa wasn't being respectful of the origins of the story which was staged in Kabuki and Noh versions.  Therefore it wasn't shown until 1952, however Kurosawa maintained that this was not so. He was being more true to the Noh version, of which he preferred and found more artful than Kabuki. That being said it is also his shortest film coming in at under an hour, and also a comedy and musical. Perhaps, his intent was to entertain people after the hardships of the war and defeat.

Shallow Grave

Shallow Grave (1994) the first collaboration between director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, writer John Hodge, and Ewan McGregor has gotten the Criterion treatment. This version has two audio commentaries (one by director Boyle and the other by screen writer Hodge and producer Mcdonald), a new interview piece with actors McGregor, Kerry Fox, and Christopher Eccleston, Digging Your Own Grave (a 1993 documentary by director Kevin Macdonald on the making of the film), Andrew and Kevin Macdonld's video diary from the 1992 Edinburgh Film Festival where they were shopping the script for Shallow Grave, the trailer for the film and teaser for Trainspotting, and an essay from critic Philip Kemp. I remember watching this when it came out and really enjoying it a lot. It was a fresh and nasty thriller. When I hear Boyle talk about films and directors like Scorsese, the Coen brothers Blood Simple, and Blue Velvet I know I am in the company of a like minded film watcher. It seems several critics were put off by the black humor and extreme violence, which are among the things that attracted me. But I have to say the cinematography from the director of photography, Brian Tufano, is pretty stylish and impressive--as it should be from the man who had the same job on Quadraphenia! I think I appreciated the different angles and artful framing of scenes more than the first time around. It an absolutely brilliant ending with great use of the Andy Williams song, "Happy Heart."

Journalism

Journalism (2012) by Joe Sacco, a comic journalist known for his books on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (Palestine and Footnotes In Gaza) as well as his book on the Bosnian conflict (Safe Area Gorazde), is powerful stuff. After reading this book, I have come to the conclusion that his role is exposing human misery to the world through his reportage. It must be exhausting to have seen the many varieties that he has encountered in his travels through out he world. He obviously has an opinion about what he is reporting on and a liberal bias. But it would be hard not to after seeing what he has seen and hearing the stories that he has heard. He takes journalist Robert Fisk's credo as his own: "I always say that reporters should be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer." Furthermore, reading his books make me feel extremely fortunate to be in the position I am currently in, and realize that all my worries are shallow first world concerns and problems--I hopefully will never know the poverty, pain, and humiliation that is chronicled in these books.

The first piece in this collection is a depiction of the Bosnia war crimes trials that were held in the Hague that appeared in 1998. Each section end with a short summary of who he was reporting for, the context, the conditions, and what has happened since his reporting if relevant. This section was followed by three pieces on The Palestinian Territories from 2001-2003. I found the section on The Caucasus and the Chechen War moving and informative since I am not as knowledgeable about the is conflict and the misery it rained down on the Chechen people, which covered the years 2002-2008. This is followed by three pieces on the Iraq War from 2005-2007. "Down!Up!" about the training of the local militia was powerful as was "Trauma On Loan" about mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and the lawsuit two Iraqi men brought against Donald Rumsfield. Migration from 2010, which is about the sudden influx of Africans in Malta, was also fascinating in the number of problems that people are facing in that country that many Japanese travel to study English in Europe. His final piece, written in 2011, takes place in India among the impoverished untouchables in Kushinagar--deep in the countryside, highlighting yet another group of people facing extinction. Overall it is a powerful, thought-provoking, and distressing look at suffering in the modern world.

Fighting Elegy

Fighting Elegy (1966) is known as one of Seijun Suzuki's best films made for Nikkatsu. He asked the company to buy the rights of the novel by Takashi Suzuki (no relation). The script was written by noted director Kaneto Shindo, but Suzuki made many changes to the script to achieve his vision. It is the story of budding love and fascism. It is also a story of guilt, repression, desire, and religion. Kiroku Nanbu is a Catholic teenager living in Okayama who is in love with the daughter of his host family and can't help but getting into violent fights. Furthermore, this all takes place in the 30s when right wing nationalism and fascism is at its highest and leads to the invasion of China and Korea which will lead them into WWII. At the end of the film Kiroku sees a poster of the infamous Ikki Kia who inspired the "ni niroku jiken" (a failed attempt to overthrow the government) and decides to join up with him since he had briefly met him at a cafe earlier in the film. Apparently Suszuki had planned ot make a film about his fighting in China, but it was shelved after he was fired for Branded To Kill. There are some great comedic bits, and plenty of irreverence. However, many of the actors were unbelievable as teenagers like many films that focus on youths. I found the political and historical aspects of the film most intriguing.

Cultural Conundrums: Cultural Uncerainity

Here's another interesting column on cultural differences by Kate Elwood for The Daily Yomiuri:

A couple of months ago, a former colleague, whom I'll call Prof. Kawata, invited me out to dinner as a way of thanking me for a favor I had done for him. We had a bit of back-and-forth with e-mails to figure out an evening that was good for both of our schedules, the type of cuisine we might enjoy, and to relay that his wife, whom I was also acquainted with, would join us. Then the day before we were to meet, Prof. Kawata sent me the final confirmation. In a list in Japanese he wrote the following items with the relevant details added: participants, date and time, venue, address, telephone number.

It was convenient to have all the pertinent information summed up succinctly, but to me the format also seemed a bit strange for a social occasion, particularly the participants' field, when there were only three of us and we all knew each other pretty well. On the other hand, it could be argued that this was the most vital point of all to confirm. Undoubtedly many people have had the experience of showing up for an event and being startled to find fewer, or more--or simply different--faces than anticipated. Prof. Kawata's minimal yet thorough notification left no risk of such an unsettling surprise.

With due discretion I investigated other people's reactions to this style of invitation. Most of the Japanese acquaintances I asked found the way of writing a bit formal or businesslike for the small social gathering, but they tended to shrug and point out that it was practical. Many of the Americans I asked judged it a tad uncouth and somewhat off-putting, feeling it would be friendlier and more natural to abandon the point-by-point communicative form in favor of some connected sentences, like, "The dinner will be the three of us--you, me, and my wife. We'll meet at...." For them, generally speaking, amiability trumped expediency.

It was one of those little, quirky things, certainly not a big deal in any way. But what I found most interesting was my own contemplation of the tersely formulated dinner confirmation, when I became aware that in my mind I was reflexively linking it to "uncertainty avoidance." And then wondering whether that was precisely what I ought to be doing or not.

Uncertainty avoidance, or UA, is one of five cultural values and behaviors identified by the well-known organizational anthropologist Geert Hofstede, based primarily on data obtained through more than 116,000 questionnaires completed by IBM employees from 72 countries in 20 languages. Hofstede suggests "Ways of coping with uncertainty belong to the cultural heritage of societies, and they are transferred and reinforced through basic institutions such as the family, the school, and the state." Among 50 countries and three regions, Hoftstede's uncertainty avoidance index ranks Japan seventh, with an actual score of 92, and the United States ranks 43rd, with a score of 46. Citizens of countries with high UA rankings are characterized as relying heavily on rules and rituals, following well-defined and strictly upheld ways of doing things. People of cultures with low UA rankings, on the other hand, are flexible, content with unstructured and ad hoc approaches and procedures.

In subsequent studies by various researchers, the uncertainty avoidance rankings have been linked to tourist behavior, product development, accounting systems, and many similar customs and practices. Other researchers have replicated Hofstede's study in organizations other than IBM. On the other hand, 25 years after Hofstede collected his data, intercultural management researcher Denise Rotondo Fernandez and her colleagues set out to see whether the rankings still held true, and found that Japan had shifted substantially to weak uncertainty avoidance, while the United States had become a strong UA country. The researchers suggest that political, economic and social change may contribute to such attitudinal modification.

Once exposed to the concept of uncertainty avoidance, and to the notion that Japan has a high ranking in this cultural dimension, it can be easy to unconsciously view various types of divergent behavior through this filter. Perhaps Prof. Kawata likes to avoid uncertainty, and for this reason he favors an explicit invitation confirmation format, or perhaps at the end of a long day he was in his business communication mode and dashed off the e-mail without much concern for uncertainty avoidance, simply attempting to get the task accomplished swiftly and efficiently.

The Devonshire

I wanted to take my friend Pete out for his hospitality in hosting me at his condo in Cronulla, and he chose The Devonshire, where a coworker of his works part time as a waiter. It has recently won a one hat rating form The Sydney Morning Herald, which is a rating similar to Micheline star rankings. I guess it can be described as English food done in a modern Australian fashion. Tuesdays is BYO night--there is no corkage fee.

The appetizer a croquette (ingredients were not recorded--too busy eating).

Three variations of pork: crackling, pork belly, and something that resembled pate.

Wagyu beef.

Moonrise Kingdom

I had some time to kill on my last day in Sydney and have wanted to see Wes Anderson's latest film, Moonrise Kingdom (2012). It was one of his best efforts, perhaps nto as good as my favorite, Rushmore, but it gives Fantastic Fox a run for its money. I think his rarefied world view works better in this film since it centers around  children and takes place in 1965. The props, costumes, special effects, and sets were all wonderfully designed and executed to maximum appeal and use in the film. I was entertained by his camera choices and the way that he frames his shots. The child actors were uniformly excellent in their respective roles as were the adults ranging from Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bob Babalan, and the others. It touches on some dark themes, but ultimately results in a happy ending.