My Neighbor Totoro
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Today Roger Ebert added My Neighbor Totoro to his list of The Great Movies. The fact that he thinks so, even though I infer from his remarks that he's only seen the terrible dubbed English version on VHS, is a credit to the film and its creator, Hayao Miyazaki.

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Mingei: Japan's Enduring Folk Arts
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Furin. Kokeshi. Bangasa. Daruma. Uchiwa. Maneki-neko. Jizo-sama. These are a few of the many folk arts that have endured through the centuries in Japan. Now you can learn more about their history, their symbolism, and how they are made.

Art critic Amaury Saint-Gilles, a longtime former resident of Tokyo now living in Hawaii, wrote this book as the catalog for an 1983 exhibition of Japanese folk art in Philadelphia. Mingei describes local folk art from Hokkaido to Okinawa with one or more entries per prefecture. Each entry has a black and white line drawing on the left page and the text on the right. The book also includes 20 pages of full color photographs. There are a few spelling errors, but they do not detract from the interesting content.

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Metropolis
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

The New York Times Dave Kehr uses this week's US opening of Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis as his cue to celebrate Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age.

Includes an interesting analysis of Perfect Blue and the shojo phenomenon.

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The Earthquake Bird
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

The Earthquake Bird is the first book I've read by a foreigner in Japan that isn't about being a foreigner in Japan. It is set in Tokyo and the protaganist is English. The sense of place is dead-on, so all the familiar dissonance of being a foreigner in Japan is felt, but The Earthquake Bird is not about that. It is a psychological thriller; it is a murder mystery which has just won the John Creasey Memorial Dagger award as a newcomer to crime fiction.

"Early this morning, several hours before my arrest..." (excerpt)

The writing itself is mesmerizing. I read it over two days and that first night I dreamed in the voice of the narrator.

New Books
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Women of the Pleasure Quarters

Perhaps not coincidentally, I picked up this book by Lesley Downer at the library last week before even seeing the review. Does the world really need one more Westerner's attempt to explain the world of the geisha? After this one, maybe not. Lesley Downer's ability to go behind the veiled world and talk to geisha and maiko, old and young, distinguishes this book. Overall it is very well-researched, but never dry, and more importantly, never judgemental or condescending.

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Japan at War: An Oral History
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Typically the images of war are painted in the broad strokes of national drama. The fine strokes, the individual dramas, are lost in the big picture. This is particularly true of the stories of the losing side. In order to justify the actions of war, one must villify the opponent. To do that effectively, one must reduce the enemy to its lowest common denominator, one must simplify and homogenize individual humans into one evil, national character that we can attack and destroy.

What was the war like for Japanese soldiers, sailors, workers, farming wives, factory girls, and school children? How did they survive, what motivated them, and what did they learn from the ordeal?

In the 1990s, as the last survivors of World War II were dying, a surge of memoirs were written. Japan at War: An Oral History is a collection of memories from ordinary Japanese people caught up in the war. It provides that valuable look into life for people on the other side of the war.

Hippocrene Handy Dictionaries: Japanese
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Whenever I'm in Half Price books, I wander over to the Foreign Language section to see what new system for studying Japanese has been published. Yesterday, I snapped up this little gem for $2.98 ($8.95 list price).

As the title Hippocrene Handy Dictionary suggests, this really is a handy little dictionary/phrasebook for the person travelling to or living in Japan. Because it is targeted for at non-students of Japanese, people who need to be able to communicate in Japanese, it does not use standard romanization, but its own system of transliteration (dess not desu, shta not shita). That is, it provides a pronunciation guide rather than a romanized writing of the Japanese word.

The first 69 pages is an English to Japaneses phrasebook arranged in alphabetical order. The words and phrases included seem to be those most needed by the business traveller. Although I'm not sure why "vagina" is included, but "penis" is not. (No I don't normally go straight for the sexual terms in a dictionary. It just happened that the V words took up less than a page and "vagina" caught my eye.)

For me, the real strength of the book is in the next section, a list of common Japanese phrases in kanji, grouped by category, with their English pronunciations and translations. I'm not sure how useful this section is to the beginner. My experience with people who haven't studied kanji at all is that they can't distinguish one squiggle from another--which would make it hard to find the corresponding entry in the dictionary (especially since the type's point size is quite small). But for anyone who can recognize kanji easily, this section is a godsend because it lists the kanji phrases that you see at the bank, the train station, on road signs, on forms. How many times have I looked up kanji one-by-one and then tried to figure out the compound meant?

This is a great little book at a bargain price. It should be in every new JET participant's survival pack.

Perfect Blue
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

I missed the anime Perfect Blue when it played at the now-defunct Arbor Theater last November 12th, but finally got around to watching it on DVD last night. It reminds me of the live-action, Japanese thriller Angel Dust, but I found Perfect Blue to be far more satisfying.

The story concerns Mima, a Japanese pop-idol, who has grown out of her coy, little girl image and go into acting. However, her pop-idol image is not easily shaken off. Mima is literally stalked by her past, and maybe a crazed fan. Between her past image, her new image, and the part she is playing in a murder-mystery film, Mima descends into such an identity crisis that she (and the viewer) soon have no idea what is real and what is dream. The fact that those working closely with her on the film have a nasty habit of turning up dead make her descent into terror more than a psychological study.

I love this kind of anime, which could have just as easily been a live-action film. Because Japan is drawn instead of filmed, the movie captures the details of Japan in an iconic way. To me it looks more like Japan than any photograph. I was amazed at how much Mima's apartment looks just like the one M2 had in Oita-shi. Not having been back in Japan since 1996, I also was fascinated by the integration of cell phones, laptops, and camcorders into daily life. In one scene, a friend is trying to explain the internet to Mima. She talks about URLs and homu-paji. I turned to Alex and said, "Wow! We can understand Japanese." Mima turns to her friend and say, "Can you explain that again in Japanese."

If you are one of those Americans who still equates anime with cartoons for kids, read The New York Time's Dave Kehr's article Anime, Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age He likens the director, Satoshi Kon to David Lynch and explains "Within the context of a psychological thriller, Mr. Kon explores the crisis of Japanese women entrapped by the crippling shojo image, which is seen as spreading its pernicious influence over several generations."

Links

Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn What Are Shoujo Manga?

AMR: Anime History

The Tale of Murasaki
Posted by Jeanne Belisle Lombardo.

Having read the 11th Century Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu, some years back, I was enthralled when I discovered The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby. An anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture, Ms. Dalby brings to this piece of historical fiction a keen eye for the nuances and sensibilities of 11th Century Court life. Sensuous descriptions of court dress and customs flavor this story of the life of Murasaki, author of the world's first novel, Genji Monogatari, or The Tale of Genji. Muraski, the daughter of a mid-ranking court poet and scholar of Chinese classics, was already a widow when she was propelled into the glittering but narrow court life of Heain Japan. This was the backdrop to her famous piece of fiction about Prince Genji, golden boy and seducer of women, an 11th Century Don Juan. The parallels between these two books promise delight to anyone who finds haiku as a form of seduction a supreme pleasure.

Meeting With Japan
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Fate was smiling on me last weekend at the library's Monster Book Sale. I was discouraged and just about to leave when I spotted Fosco Maraini's 1959 classic Meeting With Japan (Ore Giapponesi). Not that I had any idea it was a classic; I'd never heard of this book or its esteemed author-photographer before. But it was about Japan, it was only two bucks, and it had some nice old photos from the 1940s and 1950s.

This book is an absolute delight. The writing is lyrical. The insights, lucid. It's got me thinking a mile a minute. What an unexpected treasure! This is one of the best books I've ever read on Japan, even though (or perhaps because) it was written almost fifty years ago.

I have hardly begun to digest it, but I can't encourage you enough to buy this book if you can find it. Expect to see a series of quotes posted and discussed here in the next few months.

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Japanese Courtyard Gardens
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Japanese courtyard gardens transform small waste spaces into spots of exquisite beauty. Japanese Courtyard Gardens presents photographs of almost 100 courtyard gardens, both traditional and modern, public and private. This slim volume begins with a short foreward (quoted below) by master landscape gardener Tadakazu Saito. Then the gardens are shown in Haruzo Ohashi's full color photos on pages unmarred by text. After the photographs, a short paragraph describes each garden. Finally the book contains an appendix with some diagrams of Japanese courtyard garden design.

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Good Morning
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

In an interview about the making of the Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa is reported to have said that Japanese film making (of the time) was generally "as bland as green tea over rice". Whether you interpret this as a friendly dig or a pointed insult, the reference is to Yasujiro Ozu. His many films focused on the everyday lives of ordinary people and his 1952 film was titled The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice.

Ozu's films are not particularly popular in America. His best-known film is probably Tokyo Story. Perhaps even in Japan these days, they are considered old-fashioned. His films are character-driven, rather than plot-driven and delve into the everyday social interactions of ordinary people, their neighbors and family. Like a Jane Austen novel, an Ozu's film is a comedy of manners.

Recently, his 1959 film Good Morning was released here on DVD. I've watched it several times and really enjoy it. On the surface, the story concerns two brothers who want their parents to buy them a TV. Only one couple in their neighborhood has a television (most don't have a washing machine). Of course the parents refuse. Not only do they not have the money, but they whole idea of television is suspect. "It will turn Japan into a nation of idiots."

The movie is really about speech and silence, about polite forms and true feelings, about honne and tatemae. When the boys are whining for the TV, their father tells them to shut up...they talk too much. So they decide not to say another word until their parents buy them a TV. "It's you adults who talk too much...'Ohayo, konnichi wa, komban wa, ii o-tenki desu ne'." Are these just wasted, meaningless words, or are they the grease the keeps the wheels of society turning smoothly?

Ozu takes both sides. When the children stop speaking, even to the neighbors, one gossipy housewife spread the rumor that their mother put them up to it because she holds grudges. On the other hand, a young couple are unable to reveal their feelings for each other because they can't get past the small talk. Successful communication obviously requires the sensitivity to know what type of speech is appropriate when.

But the fun of the movie has nothing to do with any of this. First of all the set design is incredible. The neighborhood is a modern Japanese suburb. It reminds me of the (Air Force) base housing I lived in growing up--cookie-cutter houses with no personality. I wondered if it is supposed to be company housing--but all the fathers seem to work at different places, so maybe not. The neighborhood seems so bleak, the soulless architecture of modernity. Ozu makes no attempt to pretty up the scene. In fact, in an early shot he carefully frames the overhead electrical wires calling attention to them, almost celebrating them as part of the whole. I don't remember anything like that in "Leave it to Beaver". I do remember being surprised by the same thing in a woodblock print, an otherwise traditional street scene of a woman walking holding an umbrella, marred (in my mind) by electrical wires overhead.

One of my favorite scenes is when the gossipy housewife is yelling at her son and apologizing to the neighbor (whom she doesn't like) in alternating sentences. This is a great scene for studying the differences between polite and informal forms of Japanese. This same housewife provides an excellent demonstration of the difference between what is said on the surface and what is felt underneath the surface when she is forced to apologize for an error made by her mother. She feels completely humiliated and can't hide insincerity of her apology.

This is Gonna Cost Me
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

After discussing Ozu movies with Kurt, I get curious about which of his films are available on DVD and VHS. Amazon.com actually has a pretty good selection of VHS tapes. Since both Japan and the US are on NTSC format, I expand my search to amazon.com.jp.

I feel like I've hit the mother lode. Why haven't I gone browsing here before? Maybe they have the manga screenplay for "Spirited Away". Search for Totoro, the Miyazaki, and then find exactly what I'm looking for in related items.

Do you know what this means? It means I can buy whatever Japanese books I want online. With the thousands I save on airfare to Japan, just think of how many books I can get!

Ink from a Bottle
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

...everything, even ink, had a purpose and a meaning: Good ink cannot be the quick kind, ready to pour out of a bottle. You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modern ink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn. But when you push an inkstick along an inkstone, you take the first step to cleansing you mind and your heart. You push and you ask yourself, What are my intentions? What is in my heart that matches my mind? -- Amy Tan

Inspector Imanishi Investigates
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Although an avid reader of Nancy Drew books as a child, I've read very little fiction as an adult and fewer mystery or detective stories. Last Sunday, I picked up Inspector Imanishi Investigates and became slowly entranced.

Originally published in Japan in 1961 as Suna no Utsuwa (Vessel of Sand), the book is an amazing snapshot of life in Japan in the late 1950s. According to the jacket notes, Matsumoto is generally credited as the restorer and innovator of Japanese detective fiction following the Pacific War, (during which the government had actually banned mystery stories). In the 1950s he introduced the 'social detective story,' a police procedural that depicted society in realistic terms.

Whether or not it is a good mystery story, by 21st century standards, is more difficult for me to say. The opinions are divided on amazon.com, but most of the people there who really like it, seem to really like it for the same reason I do. It makes us nostalgic for a Japan that is quickly disappearing. It's a treasure for cultural anthropologists. I'll have to mull over it some more, but I do read quite a few books that use Japan as a setting written by foreigners in Japan. Maybe the authors spend too much time explaining, rather than just describing, but there is something slightly false about them; they don't shake the image of Japan as exotic, or themselves as outsiders. Matsumoto, of course, is writing as an insider, writing a contemporary account of modern life in the new Japan.

I was also very excited by the language of the book. Although reading it in translation, I could often "hear" the Japanese. Most of the sentences are short and simple with an emphasis on dialog rather than description. I would love to have the Japanese-language version and try to decipher it with the translation as a guide. Kudos to the translator, Beth Cary. I'm definitely going to see what else she's written.

Sazae-san
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Among my classmates, I'm unusual for many reasons. I'm twice as old as they are. In fact, my son is older than most of them. I've already graduated from college. I'm studying just for the fun of it (or rather the self-discipline of it--which for me is the same thing). And I've already lived in Japan.

Perhaps what sets me apart the most is the types of things Japanese that interest me. I don't care for manga or anime dealing with superheros, robots, or vampires. I don't listen to J-Pop. I don't dream of living a fast-paced Tokyo lifestyle (except when I'm reading Jason's Japan Blog).

What fascinates me are the details of the ordinary, what (during the feminist 1970s) was termed her-story. And that's what you find in Machiko Hasegawa's The Wonderful World of Sazae-san. First published in 1946, Sazae-san illustrates an ordinary family in post-war Japan. The title character, Sazae, is a somewhat giddy teenage girl (later wife and Mom) rushing headlong toward post-war modernity while retaining her essential Japanese-ness. The strip, which ran in the Asahi Shimbun from 1949 to 1974, is as familiar as Peanuts or Blondie to Americans. It was adapted to radio, television (I videotapted episode 3379, which aired in 1990), and movies.

Kodansha International has published twelve volumes of Sazae-san translated into English, with the original Japanese printed in the gutters. I would have done it the other way around. I would have thought it easier (and, aesthetically, much more pleasing) to leave the original Japanese text in the strip and print the translation on the outside margins. This edition includes helpful footnotes that explain some of the practices and events unfamiliar to the foreign reader. And it's a gentle introduction to reading Japanese. The Japanese is uncomplicated. There isn't much kanji and all of it has furigana. Although I think most of my classmates would find Sazae-san boring, for me she provides a history, culture, and language lesson wrapped in a warmly, humorous package.

Golden Oldie
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Update

March 13, 2003

A little video clip, of poor quality. A Summer Affair "Kare no kuruma ni notte" (Quicktime 640K)

"What!?! You're still obsessing about that silly song?
"I love that song."

March 5, 2003

We were watching the silly-but-fun, romantic comedy Adorenarin Doraibu (Adrenaline Drive) for the first time the other night. In an early chase scene, the young couple just barely eludes the junior yakuza by jumping in the back of a truck. The six wanna-be gangsters are stuffed into a very small car. A song comes on the radio. The gangster's dialog goes something like this:
"Hey. I know this tune." (Turns it up.)
"What!?! No golden oldies. Turn it to rock and roll."
"No. This is a great song." (Starts singing.)
"Turn it off!"
"Sing. I said, sing!"

By the end of the scene, they've forgotten the car chase and are driving through the country singing. The great thing is I knew the song, too. I love this song, but I didn't know it was famous. In 1990, it was the background music in some commercial. (This is really strange because I don't listen to much pop music and I know almost no Japanese pop music. So the fact that they played the one song I know was really, really cool.)

The first line is: "Kare no kuruma ni notte....". Doing a first line search on the internet, I found this information.

曲名：真夏の出来事
歌い出し歌詞：かれの　くるまにのって
歌い出しメロディー："DDD,DMS^DLL"
作詞：橋本　淳 作曲：筒美京平 年代：1971 歌手：平山三紀
メモ：

Is this the right song? The artist is Miki Hirayama? Can anyone tell me more about this song. How popular it was, or what feeling it gives you when you hear it? What are the words are in Japanese. What do the words mean.

Spirited Away
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Sunday March 23, 2003

I was trying to decipher headlines in the Asahi Shimbun when I recognised the characters for "Spirited Away" which had just won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Congratulations, Miyazaki Hayao-san, and your team at Studio Ghibli.

Gaijinworld asks, "The Oscars--Who Gives a !@#$"? Well, I do. No I don't believe that award shows are the sole result of a critical appraisal--obviously politics and popularity have a lot to do with who wins. But I do think they are valuable as the marketing tools they are intended to be. (I'm pretty sure that the first Japanese film I ever saw was "Kagemusha" (1980), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Without that award, it probably never would have played in little, old Austin Texas.)

Buena Vista/Disney is the sole distributor of Miyazaki films in America. They did a remarkable job of releasing "Princess Mononoke" here both in the theaters and DVD (although the bilingual DVD resulted only after intense lobbying from the fan base). "Princess Mononoke" was critically acclaimed, but the American box office disappointed Buena Vista/Disney. So, even though "Spirited Away" is the number one box office hit of all time in Japan (toppling "Titanic"--yeah!), it had only a small release in America. I saw no TV ads for it (compared with the countless ones for the other nominees "Ice Age," "Lilo and Stitch," "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," and "Treasure Planet.")

I'm hoping that the Academy Award for "Spirited Away" will encourage Buena Vista/Disney to distribute more Japanese films, and to put more "ooomph" in their marketing. More than that, if it heightens the awareness for foreign films in the American audience, if more parents choose it over lame sequels of Disney most mediocre films (102 Dalmations, the Jungle Book 2, Winnie the Pooh--Piglets Big Adventure), then I say, "Hooray for the Academy Awards!"

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The Roads To Sata
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

One of the books I read in the mid-1980s, before I went to Japan myself, was Alan Booth's The Roads to Sata. At the time, it was one of maybe four books in the Austin Library collection written by foreigner's in Japan and the only contemporary one. (The others were Clara's Diary, A Diplomat's Wife in Japan, Windows for the Crown Prince).

Strangely, I've never owned a copy before, although I've acquired all the others. But today, I got a brand-new paperback from Daedalus Books for the exceptionally low price of $3.98 (originally ￥1500). It's a Weatherhill import and still has the paper pricetag/bookmark that you find in books in Japanese book stores.

In those days, I used to keep notes on all the books I read, and write out my favorite quotes. I found them again and include them below. I wonder what will impress me about the book on second reading, especially now that I've been to Japan.

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Japanese in Action
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Over the years I've carried on a love-hate relationship with fellow Texan Jack Seward. I bought Japanese in Action the May before I moved to Japan. And I blame it, in part, for my fear of speaking up and learning from my making mistakes. His stories of people who speak Japanese badly are so damning, that I decided that it was better to keep my mouth shut.

Like many military men, Mr. Seward is obviously a "sensing" type on the Myers-Briggs scale. He wants everything to make sense literally, so idiomatic expressions frustrate him. He feels it's his mission in life to point out that they don't "make sense". He is so literal-minded, that I cringe every time he relates a "funny story" in which he's lectured some hapless Japanese person on why Japanese doesn't make sense.

This is a bad attitude to take in learning any foreign language, but especially Japanese, which is rich with idiomatic expressions and indirect communication. Mr. Seward seems unable to focus on what is being communicated because he obsesses so on how it's communicated.

The positive, however, outweigh the negatives. Japanese in Action is a treasure trove of insightful gems into Japanese as well as a good, funny read. What better advice can you get about studying Japanese than Mr. Seward's cut-through-the-bullshit maxim "Start now."

"Do not make the common mistake of hoping that Japanese will just 'sort of come to you,' as foreign languages sometimes come to the heroes of storybooks. It will not. It will require much time and effort." 〜 p 15

The book is divided into three sections: one each for the beginning, intermediate, and advanced student. It's not a textbook. It's a book about Japanese. In addition to the excellent advice on how to study Japanese and where to find (pre-internet) study guides, there are chapters on numbers, colors, words for parts of the body (yes, Kurt, the difference between kokoro and shinzou), proverbs, dialects, bar talk, and how to be insulting.

I find myself returning to Japanese in Action every other year or so, to jumpstart my flagging studies. In his closing words, Mr. Seward's rallying cry reminds me why I'm studying in the first place and why I keep up this site--to emerge from this daze and bring my experience in Japan into focus.

"The pleasure has been in the learning, in the dawning of comprehension, in viewing the same scene through new and clearer eyes..." 〜 p 212

Recommendation: 5 stars (out of 5)
Audience: Anyone studying Japanese.

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Kinokuniya
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Friday, June 13, 2002

After our walk along the bay, I maneuver the Mancunian to Japantown, because I really, really want one last meal of Japanese food. We're the kind of couple that rarely spends money on anything but food and books and Japantown had exactly the food and books I wanted. The Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, was the first place I wanted to visit when I arrived in San Francisco, and it made a fitting last place, too.

The irony is not lost on me. Whenever I went to a larger city in Japan (Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto), I always headed straight for Maruzen, a bookstore with English-language books. Now in the US, I'm looking for a store with a decent selection of Japanese-language books.

As it turned out, I didn't buy a single thing. All of the books in Japanese are still much too difficult for me to grasp. Just leafing through them, looking at pages and pages of kanji, made my heart sink. I have very serious doubts about my ability to ever learn Japanese. In the section of books about Japanese language, I was happy to see that all the ones I liked, I already owned. So I resolved not to buy another book until I gotten through the ones I already have. I did bring home their catalog, though.

As it turns out, it was the Mancunian who bought something: a トトロ T-shirt. I was really surprised he bought it, but touched, too, that he doesn't just tolerate the movie, but loves it on his own.

Breaking Into Japanese Literature
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Kudos to Giles Murray for a great idea and a great execution of that idea. Breaking into Japanese Literature contains seven unabridged short stories in their original Japanese and in English translation. Each page layout is complete in itself. The Japanese is on the left, the English on the right, and a complete dictionary for the page at the bottom. The dictionary enables you to decipher the Japanese without other references.

The masterstroke, however, is that you can download audio files of the stories being read by Japanese actors. Although a lot of English teachers in Japan complain about being used as "tape recorders", I think they sometimes forget just how valuable it is to follow along as a native speaker reads a passage.

Another thing that sets Breaking Into Japanese Literature apart from textbooks and other readers for foreign students of Japanese is that the selections are, as the title says, classics from modern Japanese literature.

I only hope that this book is a big success so that Giles Murray's publishers can be persuaded to do more like it. Highly recommended!

Samurai William
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

William Adams is probably best known to modern audiences as the model for John Blackthorne in the 1980's TV miniseries Shogun, or James Clavell's book of the same name. In Samurai William Giles Milton takes us behind the scenes of the fictional account to show that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but even more entertaining. He serves up a heady brew distilled from the letters and journals of William Adams and the men of the first English trading company in Japan in the early 1600s.

The book is somewhat misnamed. William Adams is a central character and historically the key character in opening Japan to English trade. But Adams doesn't even appear until page 51, and then the focus of the story shifts away from him by page 122. Maybe the source material doesn't exist, but I would have loved to know more about Adams's life, how he learned Japanese and Japanese customs, what he wrote in his journals after he became a samurai, a bigamist and was granted an estate in Hemi (now Yokosuka City) on the Miura peninsula. What Milton provides instead is a history of the English factory (trade mission) in Japan.

Overall though, it's fun reading and there are a lot of good quotes from the source material and illustrations from various manuscripts of the time. An annotated list of source material is included as an appendix. I'm sure glad I wasn't a sailor in the 1600s.

"'All the houses of the nobles and gentry have bathrooms for guests,' noted Rodrigues. 'These places are very clean and are provided with hot and cold water, because it is a general custom in Japan to wash the body at least once or twice a day.' The Japanese were uninhibited by nudity; they stripped naked in their public baths 'and do not worry at all if their privy parts are seen.' First they washed themselves in running water. Then they slipped into huge baths and languished in the naturally heated pool. When Cocks and his team tried this strange custom, they were surprised to find it much to their liking." --pp 197-198

"Drunkenness--the men discovered--was a way of life in Japan. Many Japanese saw nothing wrong in drinking themselves into oblivion and would continue their revelries until there was no one left standing. It was one of the few Japanese customs that was eagerly adopted by the English and the only one at which they truly excelled." --pp 206-207

Continue...

The Last Samurai
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

In The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise plays a Civil War hero, Nathan Algren who, haunted by the atrocities he's committed in the Indian wars, is reduced to hawking Winchester rifles while depending on drink to deaden his self-loathing. Along comes a job he can't refuse, and so he goes to Japan, not to find himself, but (like some of us I suspect) to lose himself.

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Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

A scene early in Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book is shot in a small publishing house and shows the various tasks of Japanese bookbinding. It always fascinates me because I love the details of any craft, but especially bookbinding. Actually my first job out of college was working in a small bookbinding factory in Austin. I've always thought that someday I'd like to make books and paper, but this time by hand.

In 1931, Kojiro Ikegami married into a family of famous bookbinders and was adopted to carry on the family business. After WWII he repaired books that had been designated Japanese national treasures, and later did conservation work at the Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties and the Tokyo National Museum. In 1979, he published ほんのつくりかた (How to Make Books) to share his "techniques and knowledge of Japanese bookbinding in hopes this will encourage the reader to try his own hand at the craft." In 1986 it was translated into English as Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman and is now in its ninth English printing.

The thin volume begins with color photographs of the different types of Japanese books: accordian books, flutter books, butterfly books, bound books, multi-section books, and accounting ledger and receipt books. Then there is a short history of each style and a discussion of tools and materials used. The chapters on technique have short, clear instructions with step-by-step black and white photographs in addition to detailed line drawings.

After reading it, I got out a little four-hole bound book I'd bought in Japan years ago and examined its details. I now understand why each page is folded double (because this type of Japanese paper is suitable for writing only one side), which way the grain of the paper runs, and noticed (for the first time) the decorative corner paper attached to the head and the foot of the spine. Even if I never make my own book, I'm glad I read Japanese Bookbinding just so I could see with clearer eyes.

Shall We Dance Redux
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Masayuki Suo's Shall We ダンス is an endearing little gem of a comedy, one of my favorites to come out of Japan in the last few years. I've waited impatiently for it to be released on DVD in America. Instead, the screenplay has been exported to Hollywood and in a few months we will be getting the Americanized version, starring Richard Gere as the salaryman who wants to put a little jazz in his step and Jennifer Lopez as the master in the way of ballroom dancing.

After I recovered from the absolute horror of the idea, I thought, "Well, maybe a remake will encourage people to seek out the original--the way it did with 'The Ring'." Maybe not, but at least Suo shares the screenwriting credit; hope he makes some bucks out of the deal. The trailer looks almost shot-for-shot. At least the story is better than most of the pap coming out of Hollywood. Wait, let me shudder one more time.

Remembering the Kanji
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

About three weeks ago, I picked up James W. Heisig's Remembering the Kanji II at Half Price Books for $9.98, a bargain given that it lists for $37.00. I crossed my fingers, hoping I didn't have it at home already. But no, I had Volume I, which I bought 11 years ago, glanced over, and then abandoned.

I've decided to devote summer 2004 to learning all 1945 kanji for daily use (常用漢字「じょうようかんじ」). I started a couple of years ago, but my efforts stalled out around 600 kanji. Lately, while taking Japanese classes, my focus has been on grammar and vocabulary. Although knowing as much kanji as I did helped me learn new vocabulary, the reverse was not true. Learning new vocabulary did not add to my stock of kanji. I was covering the same material.

I first abandoned Heisig's method because my goals were not attuned to his. The first volume's full title is "Remembering the Kanji I: a Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters". Meaning and Writing. Notice that no mention is made of reading or pronouncing the characters. This is not an oversight; it's the crux of the scheme. In the introduction, Heisig stresses, "the goal of the book is...to attain native proficiency in writing the Japanese characters and associating meaning with their form." When I realized that he expected me to devote up to six months of daily study (at the rate of 10 kanji a day) without learning a single Japanese word, I thought he was crazy. (Fellow Austinite, Chris Kern, says as much in his well-reasoned review on amazon.) However, now I'm ready to try it. Just think how much further along I'd be today, if I had followed through eleven years ago.

What Heisig does is assign each kanji or component of a kanji a keyword in English. He wants you to be able to think of a concept in English and be able to visualize and write the associated kanji. You can imagine (and one does a lot of that following his method) yourself following in the footsteps of the Japanese who assigned Japanese meanings to Chinese characters. After all, it would be just as easy and make about as much sense to transcribe English into Chinese characters.

Recognition is Not Reproduction

A multiple choice test is easier than a fill-in-the-blank test because recognition is always easier than reproduction. Reading kanji in context automatically narrows the choices between possible meanings. But it doesn't mean you know the kanji. And the more kanji you learn, the more you will start confusing those that are similar. Heisig stresses that to really learn kanji you must look at English flashcards and write the kanji, not look at kanji flashcards and read them. He's right. There are hundreds of kanji I recognize, but when I try to write a word, I might get as far as the radical, before having to look it up. Heisig's method enables me to visualize a kanji whenever I hear the concept.

Does Heisig's system work. Well, in three weeks, I completed Part One and can now write 276 kanji. Because Heisig doesn't organize his material based on kanji frequency, most of these kanji were new to me. What amazes me is that I can write them. And whenever I read the English word, or see the corresponding object or action, the kanji pops into mind.

Sounds Like

I can't endorse Heisig's book wholeheartedly because I dislike many of his keyword associations. I always have trouble with other people's mnemonics; I get bogged down trying to remember the memory device. Also I think he makes a mistake treating every kanji as an ideograph (several concepts combined to form a new concept: for example, 女＋子＝好き. woman + child = likable). About 80 percent of kanji have one component related to meaning, and one component to sound. This is like playing charades. "A body of water that sounds like 'e"." (水＋エ＝江; inlet or bay, the 'E' in 'Edo' 江戸). However, I do like his method (visualization and English-to-kanji association) and so far it's working for me. Double-checking Heisig's keywords against P. G. O'Neill's Essential Kanji and my huge Hadamitzky and Spahn kanji dictionary takes longer. But I've got all summer.

I find it interesting that the amazon reviews for Volume I are mixed, but for Volume II are 5-star. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has actually mastered their kanji--what method did you use. And can you write as well as read?

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Gift from the Mikado
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.

Dateline: 2006-08-31

I've received an interesting update from Rick Park and decided to pull this review to the front page to share it. Thanks, Rick!

A hundred years before I lived in Japan, Clara Elizabeth Poate was born to missionary parents in Morioka, the first foreign baby born in that region. Although she was only four when her family returned to the United States in 1892, she retained fascination for the land of her birth. In 1958, when she was 70, she published a children's book, Gift from the Mikado, based on her family's stories of Japan.

The book is dated but in the best way. It's funny to think that the events in it happen less than twenty years after the events in Little House on the Praire books. The style of the books is very similar. Japanese customs are introduced to the American audience in the method typical of children's social studies books: the children act as the mouthpiece of the reader asking questions about the new and strange things they encounter, and the parents patiently and wisely explain all. However, the explanations are well-woven into the fabric of the story. It's clear that the stories came first and the explanations followed, that the vignettes are actual family stories rather than fiction wrapped around a lesson.

Some things have certainly changed. Others have not. Gone from Japan today are rickshas and house servants. There is now a train line to Morioka. But hina doll displays, Boy's Day carps, and visits to the onsen are exactly the same.

"Outside a large packing case had been delivered, and around it stood a crowd of curious Japanese. For this was in the 1890's, a long time ago, when foreigners were still a novelty in Japan, and it always seemed worth-while to see what strange, outlandish thing a foreigner might be up to." 〜 p. 7

In the first few pages of the book, I held my breath wondering if it was going to be terribly politically incorrect. Before everyone jumps on me for using that phrase let me explain: I was worried that the tone might be moralistic, culturally imperialistic, and paternalistic--in short, something I wouldn't want my children to read. However, the descriptions of the Japanese is classist, but not racist. (Hierarchical relationships based on the old class system still seem natural in Japan even though the class system is overtly gone.) For example, when the girls are invited to Baron Hidegawa's house for Hina Matsuri, they are amazed at the honor and on their best behavior, just as they would be if visiting European aristocracy. There are good and bad people in the book, smart and silly people, but they are individuals, not stereotypes of their culture.

Recommendation: 4 stars (out of 5)
Audience: Collectible, primarily for historical interest. Out of print, but available online.

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