Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

There is a warning flashing on all of the tv channels we get, as well up on the yahoo.co.jp website of a tsunami approaching Northern Japan.

It seems to be heading to north-eastern Japan, especially the World Heritage wildlife reserve of Shiretoko. The t.v. is forecasting waves of 2 meters in that area. Down the eastern-honshuu coast waves of 0.5 meters are expected.

We are along way from the coast here in Tsukuba, so no worries there. The warning system seems extensive, as one would expect from Japan. It is amazing how quickly they get the warnings out there on television. I wonder what will happen in the future though, if we move to an internet based information system where everyone is watching one of a million different channels.

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つくば市に住んで２ヶ月も過ぎました。時間の立つのは早いものですね。

東京に比べたらつくばのほうがのんびり、空がひろい、みどりがいっぱいです。TX（つくばエクスプレス）が走ってるで日本の首都に行くのは簡単です。

外国人に対して、田舎暮らしはちょっとちょっと（！）難しいです。やはり、洋書や洋画や外人さんがふつうに食べるものは欲しいですね。

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Have you ever read a novel that wasn’t a novel? Have you ever considered what a novel is for that matter?

Michel Foucault in his preface to The Order of Things talks about a moment of epiphany he experienced when reading the Argentine writer Borges:

This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought….

The passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.

There are books like that, incredibly rare, that seep through the ether, float around the world, the room, the mind. Genichiro Takahashi’s Sayonara Gangsters is one of those. A little teaser for you, taken randomly from page 193:

“Welcome Home”

12.

I walked over to the snoozing Song Book.
Her legs were aligned, sticking out perfectly straight.
Her hands were arranged neatly on her knees.
An open comic book lay under her hands.
Song Book makes no effort to follow the story when it comes to comic books. Song Book just likes looking through them, jumping from scene to scene. She goes on gazing for ages at scenes she likes. That’s how she reads comics.
Song Book falls asleep gazing at her favourite scenes.
I gazed gently down over Song Book’s shoulder at the scene unfolding beneath her hands.

I thought it apt to create my own taxonomy of Sayonara Gangsters.

The passage quotes a ‘certain Japanese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘characters are divided into: (a) immortal gangsters who die (b) virgil the poet as a fridge (c) ectoplasm becoming chair (d) the author Thomas Mann who did not exist (e) “Henry IV” (f) barman with wings (g) poetry school teachers (h) pontum adspectebant flentes (i) James Joyce expounded (j) “One After Another, Like Bowling Pins, the U.S. Presidents are Toppled by Gangsters (k) GILA monsters (l) potty poetry (m) a manifesto for the Fat Gangster, inelegantly expressed (n) JOVIAN pinky promises.’

Other reviews have said more normal things:

If readers are capable of ignoring the voice inside that wants to yell out that none of this makes sense, they will be well rewarded.

It’s about feelings rather than rationality

; it’s about the journey not the destination. This is a novel that will immediately captivate daring readers.

or,

Reading it can feel like sharing a tiny room with a manic kitten. Sayonara, Gangsters seems

mostly interested in amusing itself

, unfolding in accordance with private rules. Only you can decide whether this whimsical novel is worth your time, whether the emperor has clothes, whether or not he knows, and whether or not it matters.

Indeed.

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NTT Docomo announced today that they are releasing a new system which will enable mobile phones to switch ‘domains’. This has been developed in partnership with Intel and the system will allow for greater customization of mobile phones. It sounds like it will be possible to dual boot either the original OS or your own personal “flavourite” such as a linux build. I doubt Vista will run on it though (hahaha).

Specifications for this will be released 3:00 pm JST on November 1 at: NTT Docomo’s OSTI page.

=> Read more!

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I picked up a copy of Randy Taguchi’s Outlet last weekend from the Tsukuba Public Library. I was initially attracted to the fresh cover design by Chip Kidd – . I hadn’t heard of Randy Taguchi before I picked up this book. A little bit of poking around and on the back flap I learned that she started out as a blogger, and was picked up from there and offered a contract to write for Gentosha, a Tokyo publishing house. Outlet was first published by Gentosha, in Japanese, in 2000.

Overall I really enjoyed Outlet. The writing style reminded me a great deal of a number of Japanese authors, such as Haruki Murakami. There is a certain smoothness, and lightness, that Italo Calvino would approve of to be found in the works of a number of contemporary Japanese authors. The plot is to the fore, and being a plot driven work it is highly readable.

The story is based around the character of Yuki Asakura, a Tokyo based financial journalist, and her experiences as a result of the death of her younger brother. As a university student Asakura studied psychology and this provides on of the tropes that the story revolves around – rational “scientific” analysis as opposed to more traditional occult or shamanistic approaches to the psyche.

Sanford May in his review of Outlet explores the sexual aspects in some detail. There is a lot of sex in this novel but it is conveyed in a subtle way which doesn’t distract from the development of the story.

The outlet that the title refers to is a clever little wordplay on the meanings of power plug and energy release. In Japanese outlet is consento, although the final o is not sounded, making it sound a lot like the English consent. There are overtones of Timothy Leary to be found in Outlet. She was turned on is a way by the death of her brother, the rest of the novel details how she tunes in – often this is in direct conflict with traditional models of psychoanalysis, and finally drops out of the social milieu she was once part of.

Well worth a read.

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Tuesday morning and the rain is coming down. Very heavy rain. Feels like winter has taken its first driving steps across the Kanto plains.

Listening to Scriabin’s The Poem of Fire (opus 60, Symphony no. 5) which is perfect morning accompaniement to such terrible weather. Scriabin is a fascinating character who, as far as I know, hasn’t yet been the subject of a film, although there is definitely enough of interest in his twisted life to warrant one.

We had a good weekend last weekend, one of those I am glad to be in Japan kind of weekends. On Saturday we went to JAXA – the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. They were holding an open day with various demonstrations of current research projects on display. Of interest were a water powered fuel cell, a high output solar panel and a motion sensor utilising tiny springs. There was also a pet bottle water rocket
section for the kids which looked like good fun. These pet bottle water rockets are awefully popular in Japan, and every Japanese person will in all likelyhood have fired one in their lifetime. So we can rest assured that Japan is quite safe from North Korean attack – they can defend themselves quite capably with water rockets!

On the down side, being a free event, every man and, no , not his dog, but his sprog was there. On the up side JAXA can be toured at your leisure most of the year: admission is free.
Exhibits
Open: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily (Reception closes at 4:00 p.m.)
Closed: December 29 to January 3
Registration: For a tour, please register at the Tour Information Office in the PR area first.

Space Library
You can browse space information through books and the internet, and watch videos.
Open: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
For more information visit the Tsukuba page on the visit JAXA site. There are facilities throughout Japan. It is even possible to view launches of Japan’s real rockets – the IIa. Two launches are scheduled for 2007.

After wandering around the JAXA facility we went to the Tsukuba Public Library. Haven’t been to a library, or even a bookstore with a decent selection of English books for a long long time (at least since we were in Istanbul) so it was nice to be able to browse around for some books. Picked up a copy of Randy Takaguchi’s Outlet (Consent in Japanese) which I have been reading. Rather raunchy psychological narrative which lives up to the authors name.

Tsukuba Public Library is located north of Tsukuba Station – look for the rocket and head that way. Compared to the Minatoku Public Library they have a good selection of books. They do have a rather questionable policy for foreigners. Foreigners cannot join the library unless they have been a resident for three months. The Minatoku Public Library allows people to join once they have proof of residence. I imagine this policy is a result of the large number of foreign students living in the area and studying at Tsukuba University.

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The recent request by Japan’s version of the RIAA asking the now google owned youtube to delete almost 30,000 videos raises some quite interesting intellectual property issues. Inherent in the request is, I would argue, an outdated business model and the problems that such a business model meets when it comes into contact with a new business model (call it internet 2.0 if you like, or whatever you wish).

Basically the problem lies in the The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC)’s attempt to control intellectual property in an age where it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. Deleting 30,000 videos this month doesn’t mean that they wont have to do the same thing next month – what it means is that they will have to do the same thing next month.

Organisations such as JASRAC see services such as youtube as a threat. This is a result of their not owning the process – a problem which makes management of distribution almost impossible. So a move requesting the deletion of those files is quite understandable from their point of view as it allows them to regain control of the process and the distribution model.

Instead I would suggest that they run in entirely the opposite direction. youtube offers to a marketer an exceedingly valuable tool in terms of market research. The demographic that youtube caters to – predominately teens and young people in their twenties is precisely demographic mostly likely to be interested in Japanese popular culture such as anime and J-Pop. It is also the market segment most likely to purchase DVDs and music online.

JASRAC needs to work with the music industry in Japan to leverage this market. For most westerners sourcing new material from the Japanese market is an extremely difficult task as a result of the language barrier. Tools such as youtube offer non-Japanese speaking customers the power to browse available works and to make purchasing decisions based upon what they have discovered.

Ten minute videos are fine, but if people want to watch a show they are still more likely to want to be able to watch the whole package without interruption. JASRAC needs to run with this.

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Chooch sent me a youtube video of a Honda car commercial which runs along the same principle as the Pythagoras Switch Video I posted a while back.

Very clever. I like the kind of connotations it creates. A melange of multifarious parts working in miraculous motion.

For an advertiser, a medium like youtube creates unique opportunities, something I will comment on in a post tomorrow. For today, we are off to JAXA – the Japan Space Exploration Agency in Tsukuba to find out about Japan’s space programme. I am quite interested to find out what capabilities they have, particularly in regards to their rocket programme. Even though it is extremely unlikely that Japan would develop a nuclear weapons programme, given the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a delivery vehicle would be one necessity of such a programme. And the government agency with the most experience with rockets is… JAXA? AFAIK.

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News going round that youtube is / has deleted almost 30,000 movies.

The online video site YouTube has deleted close to 30,000 files after complaints from an organization representing Japanese copyright holders, the organization said Friday.

The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), which collects royalty payments for musicians, submitted a list to YouTube of 29,549 files that it judged infringed on the rights of 23 Japanese content companies, said Masato Oikawa, a spokesman for the organization in Tokyo.

You can read more in the YouTube Deletes 30K Files on Request by Japan article at CIO.

I don’t think this move is related to Google’s purchase of youtube, but with the Belgian case proceeding news like this should help their case. I was trying to imagine how tedious the job of trawling through all those videos would be. 30,000 videos. Searching through youtube, the deletions don’t seem to have made much of a dent on the availability of copyrighted Japanese material. A job up there with keeping Osaka people from diving into Dotoburi.

A lot of anime. A lot of bad eurobeat. And some funny stuff.

While it is still up there ?! I thought I would share a little Japanese comedy flashback with you – some Hard Gay with you. He isn’t actually that Hard, and I don’t think he is gay. But here is – ハードゲイ！

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MSN’s Mainichi shinbun site has an interesting little story about the growing popularity of Jetro’s Japanese proficiency test in China. There is a certain irony in this given the average Chinese students comments on Japan – while teaching in Xinjiang we heard all sorts of things from “China should develop a missile to destroy Japan”, to “I want to kill all Japanese” from the high school students. Money rules over morals in this case it would appear.

The Jetro test that the article refers to is one of the two main tests of the Japanese language available to foriegners. Held biannually, both in Japan and abroad, the Jetro test is (according to their site):

The BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test (“BJT”) objectively measures and evaluates Japanese communication skills in business situations. The BJT is mainly intended for students and business-related people whose mother tongue is not Japanese, supporting organizations include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and also the economic world.

Applications for the November test closed on October 11. The next test will probably take place in June 2007 with applications being taken in March.

The other test is the yearly Japanese Language Proficiency Test run by JEES. This is the more well known of the two and has four levels. Level four is the easiest and demonstrates a candidate has mastered a basic level of Japanese. Level Two is about the level of a person who has graduated from Junior High School and is useful to pass if one wishes to work and use Japanese at work in Japan. Level one is the equivalent of a University entrance qualification. Applications for this test usually open in early July and run through to early September, with the test taking place in December.

Here is the story: Japanese proficiency test growing popular in China

A Japanese language proficiency test given by the Japan External Trade Organization is gaining popularity in China, as economic relations between the two countries become closer.

=> Read more!

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