Smiley's Tropical Escape

Daido Moriyama Exhibit

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:03:10 +0900

Last Saturday I had a bit of free time to kill in downtown Tokyo, so I went to one of my favorite places: The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Through the end of June they are running the 2008 award winners for photojournalism as well as a double exhibition of Daido Moriyama. Moriyama's exhibitions are a retrospective as well as a recent collection called "Hawaii".

The photojournalism winners was an amazing collection of modern photography, as one would expect, but they were also incredibly graphic. Scenes of war-torn countryside, shanty towns, extreme poverty, death, and shocking rites of passage filled the gallery to the point of saturation. While I recognize the importance of the display, it was hard to walk through for any extended amount of time.

The Moriyama exhibits were much tamer, if not any less interesting. The retrospective suffered from over-exposure to Moriyama's style through no fault of his own. Moriyama was a pioneer in using what were then "bad" techniques to produce photographic art - things like blur, high grain, stark contrast, off angles, etc. - that have since become so mainstream as to produce a feeling of "oh, this again" in the viewer. Again, his work is important in a historical, big picture, context, but the exhibition itself did little for me.

On the other hand, Moriyama's "Hawaii" collection was fantastic. Although he used many of the same techniques that made him famous, when seen together, the individual works combined into a moment much greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, there were several photos that are moving in and of themselves, works that capture a single frame of time, a single piece of reflected and refracted light, but it was truly the collection that made an impact.

If you're in the Tokyo area, around Ebisu, the exhibitions are definitely worth checking out and the TMMoP is worth supporting in any case because of their consitant excellence.

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Lingo

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:59:57 +0900

So, I've been thinking about languages recently. Nothing new, really, except that instead of the mechanics of language, I've been thinking about how we acquire languages.

Many of my circle of friends are in mixed-nationality marriages and speak two languages as primaries in the house. This is great for their children, who are growing up bilingual, but it is also somewhat confusing for the kids as they don't always know how to express themselves to the people around them. Something that will change as they grow older and more fluent, but can be problematic in the beginning.

And it is no secret that kids learn languages from their parents and the other adults around them. What I think most of us forget is that that is how we adults learn best too. I actively study two very different languages - Spanish and Japanese and while Spanish is the easier language (for native English speakers), my Japanese far surpasses my Spanish.

Let me put that in a bit of perspective: I grew up in Arizona, not 20 miles from the Mexican border. I took Spanish all through high school and have spent quite a bit of time in Mexico, as well as having several friends whose first language is Spanish. Some of my friends had parents who spoke only Spanish, necessitating that we kids speak Spanish in their homes.

By contrast, I have lived in Japan for just over seven years and my wife is Japanese.

And my Japanese is much better than my Spanish. The only reason I can really give for this is that I hear Japanese being spoken on a constant basis, where as I hear Spanish only when I pop in a DVD (Seriously, Shrek? Much funnier in Spanish.) I can attribute much of my Japanese to what I have heard when I watch t.v. or listen to J-Pop, or just talk to our friends. Because I have spent equal amounts of time studying both languages and yet my Japanese is so much better than my Spanish.

So.

The other day, as my wife and I were driving around somewhere, I was being a fairly typical husband. In other words, I was not really listening to what she was saying, instead concentrating on my driving. My wife smacked me on the arm and said, "Pay attention, bitch!"

I almost drove off the road from laughing so hard.

But the point is, we acquire languages from those around us much more than we give credit for. All studying, reading, writing aside (and don't get me wrong, those things are necessary for learning another language), the most natural, most fluent pieces of language we have do not come from a textbook.

There is a similar point to be made in that all of us use the same expressions and phrases as our friends and media heroes. However, I have to get back to studying now.

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Manga Review: One Piece Vol. 1 Romance Dawn

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Sun, 06 May 2007 11:34:01 +0900

One Piece is the story of Strawhat Luffy, a boy whose sole ambition in life is to become King of the Pirates; chapter 3 of Volume 1 opens with Luffy riding a shark, cowboy style, complete with a rope strung between its teeth for reigns. This image, much more than the story, is why I like this manga so much.

My wife, on the other hand, loves the story. She maintains that when I get as far into the story as she has (there are currently 47 volumes in Japanese, vs. 16 in English) I will read for the story rather than clever pictures.

The translated manga is published by Viz media, who have made a business out of finding the more popular Japanese properties and translating them with as much of the original art and format preserved as possible. This includes keeping the right to left reading format of both the book and each page. That said, there are little, helpful hints such as an arrow pointing left and the phrase "read this way" at the top of some pages to help readers adjust to the Japanese layout. There are other fun pages scattered throughout the book, such as the page that teaches you to draw a Jolly Roger and one that encourages the reader to design their own pirate flag.

Volume one serves to introduce the main characters and to get the story in motion. We meet Luffy, the central protaganist, as a young boy hanging out in a pirate bar, listening to the sailors tell stories. Luffy decides that he will become king of the pirates someday, somehow. In the meantime there is a scuffle with some bandits and Luffy eats one of the devil fruit, turning his whole body to rubber with the cost of never being able to swim. (Being made of rubber enables Luffy to use various combinations of stretched limbs to get himself or others out of tough situations.)

Luffy grows up and sets off to become a pirate. In the first volume, he saves another boy from a dangerous female pirate captain and, with the boy's help, saves the world's greatest swordsman from certain death. The swordsman becomes Luffy's first crewman and the story is launched.

The original Japanese story was first published in the pages of Shonen Jump magazine, a weekly that presents the next issues of several different stories in one volume. Shonen Jump is aimed at Japanese boys in the Jr. High School to High School range and the writing reflects this with its themes of friendship and its use of violence to produce humor. The art is, of course, manga style, with all the cliches and must-haves present. Emotion causes huge distortions to the mouths and eyes of whichever character is in the throes of an outburst, while Luffy's rubber body stretches to amazing and inconsistent proportions depending on the need at the time. The art is also brilliant. Clean lines and a minimum of shading are used to keep the page busy without being cluttered and to get the story from point A to point B easily and clearly.

The book is worth picking up if you are a fan of anime or manga, or simply curious as to what all the fuss is about. Priced at $7.95 U.S., each volume is almost twice the price of the Japanese versions, which makes collecting and reading the entire series a more daunting prospect. However, as the English language editions are still being translated, a dedicated reader can take his or her time and pick up new volumes at their leisure.

One Piece has its share of melodrama, absurdist humor, and cartoon violence, all of which makes it a fun, if sometimes simplistic read and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.

Links: Viz Media, Shonen Jump Magazine (English) and my Amazon Affiliate Link for One Piece Vol. 1 Romance Dawn (English).

This entry is cross-posted to Soapadoo.

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Rock Star

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:24:06 +0900

Florescent light gleamed off the card case I was holding against one of my flashcards, wondering if the one would fit into the other with a minimum of fuss and / or bending. A little girl, maybe about six, walked by, wide-eyed and curious. Her eyes stayed focused on me, even as she continued on into the next aisle. I smiled at her and went back to my contemplations.

After a moment or two the girl came back by, this time pausing and then changing course to meet me. She looked up at me and I saw that her chin still had a smudge of chocolate from some treat or another, giving her an almost cliche appearance. She spoke in a soft but clear voice. She said, "Konnichi wa."

I looked back at her, smiled and said, "Konnichi wa."

She backed up a step, speaking even softer, and to herself, in Japanese, "Wow, he spoke Japanese." She pondered this for a moment, then stepped back up to me. Her flipped her head to one side, looking at me from an angle. "Can you really speak Japanese?"

"Yes," I said, "although not as well as you can."

She flipped her head to the other side, still looking thoughtful. "Can you speak English too?"

I nodded.

She smiled, puffed out her chest and said, still speaking in Japanese, "I speak English."

"Really?" I said, "Do you study it in school?"

She nodded. Her hands moved in a series of gestures that I recognized from teaching school children; she mouthed the words of the song to herself and, after a moment, said, in bright, clear English, "Hello! How are you?"

I laughed and said, "Hello. I'm fine, thank you, and you?"

"I'm fine!" She giggled and ran off. A moment later, she popped her head around the end of the aisle and said "Bye bye!" and giggled again. As she left the store, I could hear her telling her mother, "Guess what? I saw a foreigner and I spoke English to him! It was so cool!"

I laughed out loud at hearing this and, smiling, went back to my cards and my boxes.

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QotD: Speak To Me In...

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:01:18 +0900

How many languages can you speak? Which languages can you read or understand?

I speak English fluently, Japanese ok, Spanish a bit, and Italian just enough to make an ass out of myself. I read and write a fair bit of Italian, as well as a fair bit of Spanish, some Japanese and just enough English to make an ass out of myself.

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QotD: Key words

nobody@vox.com(Smiley) — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:27:34 +0900

What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.

In the past several years, since I have been studying, many of my favorite words are, in fact, Japanese. English speakers in Japan, like any group of second language speakers anywhere, have been adding certain Japanese words and phrases to the local English lexicon whenever there is a good, easy to understand word that fulfills a purpose or meaning not easily expressed in English.

(An example closer to home would be the Spanish word "simpatico". It has a clear meaning, that of someone whom you feel relates to you better than most others; someone who is closer than a friend, but may not necessarily be an intimate, and can be pressed into English grammar with a minimum of fuss. Further, through continued use by non-native Spanish speakers, the word has become accepted as part of English, especially along the U.S. border to Mexico.)

So, some of my favorite words to use, that many of my non-Japanese friends here in Japan, learn to use very quickly:

Genki - Genki means healthy, but is used to also indicate wellness, happiness, the state of being good, energetic, and positive. In both languages it is an adjective. I find it to be useful in describing children. Here is a pure English sentence: Ryosuke is a happy, healthy child, who is usually quite positive and friendly. Here is the modified sentence: Ryosuke is very genki. As you can see, the one word substitutes to make conversation much easier.

Natsukashi - Natsukashi means to invoke a feeling of nostalgia in someone. The closest I have come to finding an English phrase that holds the same nuance is "Gee, that really takes me back." which is an acceptable phrase. However, I find that among people who understand Japanese, "natsukashi" holds a much more poignant nuance that makes its use all the more appealing.

Various onomatopeoics - Onomatopoeia is the formation of words based on their sounds. Think, for example, of the words we use to indicate an animal's voice - woof, bow-wow, etc. The Japanese language has thousands of these and they are a lot of fun to learn. For example, someone who is very good at a language is "pera-pera". A bowling ball, rolling down the alley is "goro-goro". A light, gentle rain is "pika-pika". As I said there are many, many more.

I find that I use these words in my everyday speech now, whenever there is something I want to convey and the Japanese word is more convenient than the English.

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