Japan Media Review

Another one from my fellow student (also struggling with this essay):

Japan Media Review

I haven't had a look yet, but seems of interest.

Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies

The site that the Black Truck article came from is actually very interesting - and run by a professor afilliated with Sheffield!

EJCJS

Black Trucks and Freedom of Speech

Media Intimidation in Japan: A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism by David McNeill

A link passed on by a fellow student - a chilling account of how right-wing ultranationalism works, and the power of the black trucks.

Editor for a day...

"But this law [which enabled the authorities to silence the press in the Meiji era] had a considerable loophole: while it included provisions allowing the authorities to prosecute editors, it did not permit them to shut down papers that violated the law. As a result, the press began to hired so-called editors, whose main purpose was to serve the jail sentences handed down when their papers were caught having published offending articles." Closing the Shop, Laurie Ann Freeman, Princeton University Press 2000. p. 29

All the news that's unfit to print...?

お久しぶり。I'm just finishing up my second essay for the course, this time on the mass media and politics. Again, very depressing reading and making the thought of heading over there in a few weeks less rosy.

It only reinforces that feeling I get that Japan is a beautiful, enchanting, amazing place with the nicest people, but that it sometimes goes very bad just in the corner of your eye when you're not really paying attention.

But anyway. Lots of quotes to follow...

Word of the day!

A friend of mine just got back from Vancouver - at the limit of her physical strength, she excused herself to 爆睡!

Got to love that language.

Shoji TV

I really like this idea - Report on "Teleshadow" on BBC

Bad Thai cops to endure Kitty shame

Not strictly Japan-related (apart from Sanrio) but so funny it made me snort coffee at my desk...

Yahoo! News Story - Bad Thai cops to endure Kitty shame

Edit: my colleague found an even better version of the story!

What is this thing called kawaii?

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Nipponia magazine does a special issue on kawaii and what it means to the Japanese - fascinating reading!

In the house!

Well, in the library at least.

The Residential Week for the AJS is over, and a lot of fun it was too. I seem to be the last one here, loading all my deadlines for this and next year into a calendar to try to improve my ability to remember them. I do worry when having the printed out schedule right above my desk doesn't help (blue-tacked onto a shelf so it's just above eye level). Shall run out for some lunch in a moment and then off to the station before 4:30 when the left luggage closes, then on a train at 5:20 and see what happens getting home - still no Virgin service from Oxford to Reading but the National Rail line said there would be buses (not according to the website there isn't) but there's always First Great Western.

Not that all this trains nonsense will mean anything to anyone outside the UK.

Harsh...

"But the majority [...] still thought that 'internationalisation' meant having pure and unacclimated aliens on campus – the two-dimensional figure of the linguistically incapacitated, culture-shocked newcomer as exotic ambience. Or, to use the lament most frequently heard from the foreign teachers themselves: 'like pandas at a zoo'."

(Cartels of the Mind, Ivan Hall, p.105-6)

It feels like a book written in anger, and although I want to disagree with it, I can't completely.

Yes, I'm trying to do essay reading again! Lots has been happening, my jewellery course is finished and in for evaluation, work is busy and I'm not doing much other than having swapped Final Fantasy III for 200 man-nin no kanken.

The holy grail

The UK university system does have some rather impenetrable and inexplicable points - the university I went to in Dublin (near enough) didn't give firsts on principle. And it's kind of the same with the Sheffield MA - anything over 80 (not even sure it's out of a theoretical 100) and you should be deleriously happy.

And today I am - 83 for my latest J-E translation! It was a great source text, "Don't make children write poetry!" by a literary critic and novelist Maruya Saiichi. You can feel his immense frustration with schools and worship of poetry in every line. It was great fun to translate.

Pity not all the translation material in the world is like that, as I well know.

Uh-oh

Serious impediment to study... my other half has very sweetly got me Final Fantasy III for the DS. Wheeeeee!

Something's got to give...

Why am I finally getting around to posting some haiku? I'm at home sick, went in feeling okay, but went downhill rapidly and by 12 was unable to type my own name. Various problems kept me from leaving until after 2:30, but I'm now home and feeling a little better. Wouldn't surprise me if it's stress...

MA work not going so well either. I got good marks on Japanese-English translation, but not so good on my transcription (although coming down from almost-perfect last time) and really disappointing marks on my first essay. Fair point that there were probably important sources I didn't use, but the content of the essay didn't crystallise for some time, and by the time it did I didn't have time to go into SOAS to get more books.

I know we're all grown up, but I would appreciate more assistance (even if people want to call it hand-holding) from the university... giving us a massive Handbook - which covers more than just our course - and then throwing assignments at us later isn't working for me, and I'd be surprised if it was for others.

Or maybe I'm just not taking criticism well, as has been noted since primary school. But hey, at least that's something unique about me.

Haiku!

I'm worth more than this!
my soul screams - regardless, the world is not paying

Haiku!

I tell my brother
He sneers, gives reasons why it's a bad idea

Haiku!

skin hair nails face eyes
misery shaping them all
long, long and heavy

Haiku!

green LEDs surge
and scatter prophecying
the end of the world

(after watching a broken LED signboard on a slow train back to Reading while muchos tired)

Future technical

After miserably failing to contribute much to the discussion on media and politics at the online course, had a look at next year's options... including patent translation. I think I need to seriously improve my Japanese...

Google Patents: http://www.google.com/patents

See, you can connect everything

The BBC shows you a connection between whaling and Buddhism.