tetraphonique

2006-07-29T00:00:00.000+09:00

2006-07-13T12:52:00.000+09:00

2006-07-01T10:03:00.000+09:00

2006-06-26T23:03:00.000+09:00

2006-06-24T02:24:00.000+09:00

2006-05-10T20:45:00.000+09:00

The Trash Heap

The past week was kinda busy and I was unable to update this blog.
The only thing I made sure to do after work was feeding my pet bacteria, really!

I purchased a composter last month, and since then I’ve been filling it with organic waste that comes out from cooking everyday. In order to prevent it from rotting and stinking, I sprinkle over powdery stuff that contains bacteria. These bacteria supposedly make the waste ferment, and when I think of it, the stuff inside the bucket does smell like some fermented food like pickles! The bucket, waste and my dear bacteria together are called “gommie-sama” (something like “Garbegee, his majesty”) in my house. Gommie-sama is the name for the Trash Heap in the Japanese version of Fraggle Rock.

Il y a plusieurs manières de faire le compost. Une 'école' fait manger le déchet à des vers de terre, et aussi j'ai decouvert une autre qui...utilise des blattes!! Berk! C'est une insecte que je ne supporte jamais, et j'imagine la plupart du monde non plus!

ゴキブリ、という字を書くことさえおぞましいですが、それらを使ったコンポスターのことを知った時、かなりの嫌悪感に襲われました。大学で異常心理学をとったとき、フォビアというのは人間に害を与えるもの、間接的にでも死の危険に結びつくかもしれないものに対してしか起こらないと習いましたが、ゴキブリのような毒をもたない虫に関してはどうなのか・・・。疫病を媒介するなど太古の記憶に深く刻みつけられるようなことがあったのか。どちらにせよ、ゴキブリが野菜くずをバリバリ食べることを考えただけでもう・・・ぐぇ。

2006-04-20T14:56:00.000+09:00

Fascination
with numbers

Today’s lunch

Orange Juice 346yen

Chicken Basil Sandwich 320yen

TOTAL 666yen

日本人として生きていて特定の数字を不吉に感じることは（一般に言われる4なども含め）ないですが、キリスト教文化の人はキリストが死んだといわれる日付からの連想で、13という数字を意識的に避けることがあるのでしょうか。少なくとも慣習のなかではホテルに13号室をつくらないなどということは今だに行われていることだと思います。

数字の666というのもまた、新約聖書に書かれた世界の終末に現れてくる「野獣の数」として嫌がられる数ですが、この「野獣の数」の詳細は実は不明で、666が暗号で特定の名前に変換される、とか、666が数学的に特別な「過剰数」であることに関係あるとか、説はいろいろなようです。レシートに666と出たとき、わたしはドキッとするともに少し嬉しくなりましたが。

2²+3²+5²+7²+11²+13²+17²=666

Le problème des chiffres, c’est qu’ils sont dénués de sens. En général, j’ai difficulté à retenir des informations chiffrés, par example des dates des événements historiques et des numéros de téléphone etc. Je ne connais pas même mon numéro!

Pourtant, il y a des chiffres qui sont riches en significations, et le chiffre j’ai vu sur mon reçu, 666, et un des leurs. Le chiffre de la bête, on l’appelle, d’après le livre de l’Apocalypse. Je ne suis pas particulièrement adoratrice du satanisme, mais ce n’est pas mal d’assigner un catactère au chaque chiffre ou a la série de chiffres, n’est-ce pas? Pour moi, comme ça, ils seraient plus facile à retenir.

I’ve just discovered that there’s a name for the fear towards the number 666.
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (take a deep breath here…) is what it is. Once you name it, it takes certain eeriness and fun away I feel. But again, the weirdness of the name kind of makes up for it. It’s so interesting how naming conditions / syndromes can make people who suffer from them feel sometimes better and sometimes worse. I’ve been looking for an official term for the state of procrastination that will justify what I am...

2006-04-07T23:53:00.000+09:00

おっさんと

仕事を終えて帰るときの話。
知らないおっさん、大声で曰く「もう雨降ってないよー」
そう見えるけど、かすかにポツポツ。
わたし「降ってるよ」
おっさん（さらに大声で）

「降ってないよー、だれも傘さしてないよー」
わたし（見回して）「あの人さしてるよ」
おっさん（今度はその人をターゲットに）

「もう雨降ってないよー」

Un homme fou: La pluie a déjà cessé, mademoiselle!
Moi: ...Mais, non! (--Il pleut encore un petit peu.)
Lui: Il ne pleut plus!! Personne ouvre son parapluie!
moi: Mais, regarde-le!
Lui: ... Monsieur! La pluie a cessé!

People in Tokyo never talk to strangers (unless they are handing tissues with ads). Even in situations where they obviously share the same feelings towards one event, like a train delay or a car crash, they generally don’t express their impatience or surprise openly with strangers around them. There are, however two groups of people who don’t follow this rule, and they are women over 60 and the mentally disturbed. When they talk to me, I normally try to talk back, so that’s how it happened, the never-ending rondo of “Hey, it’s stopped raining!!” “It hasn’t!” I hope I didn’t make him feel even more helpless than he already was…

2006-03-28T23:15:00.000+09:00

PSE
二転三転

The very first time I heard about the PSE law in Japan was last month. It said in the paper that PSE, the ‘Product Safety of Electrical Items’ law, would be in effect on April 1St and ban sales of used electronics that would not go through costly tests. What interested me was the fact that it was to regulate sales of even musical instruments like vintage synthesizers and amplifiers among general household electronics like fans and washing machines. This outrageous law was clearly made by a bunch of politicians who knew nothing about global effort towards recycling nor true values of old electric/electronic instruments. Costly and time-consuming tests (that see whether a musical instrument functions under 1000v, for example) were basically going to drive most recycling dealers out of business. I started to scrap articles on PSE that appear every couple of days, but...

Many people must have thought the same thing like me and actually voiced their opinions unlike me. The situations started to change, and around the 15th, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced that the sales of ‘vintage’ musical instruments would not be affected by the new law, and further more around the 25th, practically all electronics could be sold as before if dealers would conduct ‘proper safety examinations’. Lame, my country and the Ministry of Industry! But scary, how they tried to create such a backward law in secrecy.

D’abord j’ai été concernée seulement par l’influence de la loi sur les instruments musicals. Petit à petit, pourtant, j’ai commencé à penser du charme des appareils ménagers antiques. Des luminaries et des frigos rétros, sa rondeur et simplicité… A mon avis, derrière de la loi de PSE et sa controverse, il y a des lobbies qui profitent de l’interdiction de la vente des électroménager d’occasion. Ces capitalistes sales veulent que nous soyons obsédés de racheter des nouveaux appareils uniformes et laids.

2006-03-22T11:15:00.000+09:00

Milosevic

On the death of former Yugoslav leader Milosevic (died on March 11), I want to remember the NATO bombing of civilians in Kosovo. It’s easy to call Milosevic a Hitler reincarnate and forget ‘minor’ mistakes done by others.
But let’s not forget how quickly NATO gave up on diplomatic process, how it unreasonably bombed Kosovo BEFORE Albanian’s evacuation, and by doing so encouraged ethnic cleansing further more.

Serbs’ refusal of Rambouillet agreement started the bombing, but it is said that Serbia originally agreed to the main proposal.
What they couldn’t accept was later presented appendix that read:

NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia including associated airspace and territorial waters.

This was basically written to be refused. Why didn’t Serbia have an option of having UN station in the country?

About 12,000 Albanians and 3,000 Serbians were said to be killed during this time.

2006-03-11T02:03:00.000+09:00

春眠不覚暁

I wake up within my dream and open the windows. The windows of my neighbors also open and two Caucasian men I have never met come out. In front of our houses (different from my real house) there are woods and we see two yellow-striped snakes crawl out. They seem to be a mother and a child (the real phallic mother in the Lacanian sense...) just waking up from hibernation.

All of the sudden a dog appears from nowhere and attacks the snakes, bites and badly injures the mother. The child snakes runs away in the opposite direction from the mother. The three of us above, the neighbors (yet strangers) and I, are kind of paralyzed there witnessing such a shocking event first thing in the morning.

春眠不覚暁　処処聞啼鳥
　
夜来風雨声　花落知多少

Au printemps le sommeil dure au delà de l'aube
De tous les côtés parvient le chant des oiseaux
La nuit est à peine troublée par le murmure du vent et de la pluie
Qui sait combien de fleurs sont tombées cette nuit ?

The spring dawn has crept upon me
heralded only by the singing of the birds
Last night's rainstorm has subsided
who can say, how many flowers have fallen?

Meng Haoran(689-740,Tang Dynasty)

2006-03-03T19:08:00.000+09:00

Goth or Punk

Because of the Ministry of Forestry’s haphazard planting of cedar trees everywhere, half of Japan’s population’s suffering from pollen allergies this time of year.

I am no exception in this case, and what’s better, in addition to itchy eyes and runny nose, I managed to get eye + nose infections and a cold! Never touch your eyes and nose after playing with dirt outside... Anyhow, these conditions are creating strange effects, and I now look Goth or Punk (pronounce “poonk” to pay respect to Francophones) if not just sick...

Ici, même dehors, on met souvent un masque pour prévenir la réaction allergique. Ça paraît bizarre aux yeux des étrangers apparemment. Quand même, il faut décider entre l’esthétique et la pratique dans ce cas.

集団でマスクをしている日本人が怖い、という気持ちは分かる気がしますが、傘をさす、という世界共通でありそうな行為にもやはり微妙な違いがあって、日本人が小雨でも傘をさすのに対して、西洋人は（東京で観察する限り）多少の雨では傘をささないようです。

あと買い物にもっていくカート。例の日本ではお婆さんのトレードマークのように思われていて、若者や中年だったら使うのを躊躇するような物ですが、あれはヨーロッパでは老若男女に親しまれ使われていたりするので、「普通」と書いてあるラインは見えないのに、みんな微妙にそれを察知しながら「普通」を出入りしているのかな。

2006-02-24T00:50:00.000+09:00

Le Jardin des Oiseaux

J’ai une mangoire avec des graines pour des petits oiseaux dans le jardin. Elle est régulièrement fréquentée par des moineaux, et des pigeons (qui n’arrivent pas manger des graines directement mais mangent ceux que des moineaux dispersent).
Alors, ils sont mignons mais pas très speciaux, et pour attirer les plus colorés et rares, l’autre jour, j’ai mis des oranges sur des branches d’un prunier.

Ça était un grand succés, et maintenant j’ai des nouveaux visiteurs comme Lunette Blanche, Mésange Charbonnière, et Mésange Variée. En fait ils ne sont plus vraiment rares, mais mieux que des moineaux en tout cas!

There are stray cats around my house so I worry for my visitors when they are pecking grains off the ground. So far I haven’t directly witnessed any problems between the two creatures, but there are some signs of tragedy like a tiny bird skull found at the corner of the yard... it must have been very old but I know hungry cats are always up for some Yakitori for lunch.

The birds above are White-eye, Great Tit, and Varied Tit. (Left to Right) How do you like to be named Great Tit. Or Varied Tit...

メジロ、シジュウカラ、ヤマガラなどが最近庭に訪れています。メジロは梅の花の蜜（？）が好きなのでもう少ししたらオレンジがなくても頻繁にやってきそうです。家の中から見えるのですが、細部を見たくて八倍の双眼鏡を買ったら、今まで気づかなかった微妙な色合いまで見えるようになりました。日本の鳥は一見地味なようですが美しいよ。

2006-02-20T02:16:00.000+09:00

Pyongyang

The most famous Kim in the world celebrated his birthday on the 16th. On TV, I saw a huge mass of people dancing and singing to praise their great leader and the usual anchor woman in Chima Jeogori reporting on the celebrations with that distinctive manner of speech. We can see this far, but only this far, sitting on our butts in front of the TV.

And if you still prefer to sit on your butt rather than going there to see the country yourself (...sure), read Guy Delisle’s graphic novel "Pyongyang" and discover the world of Kim and meet its people. I can criticize the work in terms of its quality as a manga/graphic novel, but its choice of topic and careful depiction of the life there make it well worth reading. An effort to make it funny could ruin the funniness of what North Koreans do with a straight face, so maybe it's ok that the way he writes it is sometimes kind of dry.

The story is about Delisle himself, a Quebecois animator (residing in France) going to Pyongyang to supervise cel drawing work for a French animation program. Seems like China is already becoming a costly place to contract out work for greedy capitalists, and many are now interested in the cheap labor in North Korea. Reading the book, I’m really surprised to know that besides NGO people, there are still many Europeans and Middle Easterners working there.

Ma scène préférée, c'est celle où Delisle donne "1984," un livre de George Orwell à son interpréteur. L'interprteur est naturellement trés troublé par le thème après l'avoir lu, et affirme que ça ne lui plaît pas du tout. Cette affirmation montre bien la terreur dominant le pays, je pense. Delisle est frustré étant toujours accompaqné par son 'guide' (surveilleur, en fait) et interpréteur, mais là, il arrive à inverser les rôles entre eux. La meilleure solution d'échapper à l'œil de la surveillance, c'est devenir un serveilleur/observateur soi-même!

巨大建造物に興味がある人が平壌に言ってみたくなるようなマンガです。サグラダファミリアのようにあてどなく現在進行中のピラミッド型廃墟、いやホテル（105階建て、3700室、5つの回転レストランつき）。省エネのためにほとんどの階は電気もつかず使用もされていないネオ・ニューオータニ。それから平壌市で唯一アイスクリームを食べることができる巨大版東京都庁。

かと思いきや命綱をつけた「ボランティア」（北朝鮮では休日の「ボランティア活動」が義務づけられている）によって鉄橋のペンキが塗り替えられるローテクな光景に出会ったり、そのペンキが途中でなくなったのか半分色が塗られたまま放っておかれてサビがひどくなる、というような細かな観察が光っています。原語であるフランス語版と英語版が出ています。

2006-02-11T02:14:00.000+09:00

牛を殺す

All my dreams are in a way nightmares but I’m never aware of the nightmarishness when I’m actually in one. I seem to cope with all the bizarre events happening one after another better than I do in real life.
The most recurring theme is of myself being chased by the unknown. It’s stressful, but really the only way for me to get some exercise done, virtually or otherwise...

So it goes again and I am running away and this time, went into a park like place. It's hilly, wooded in some parts, and has a really sombre atmosphere.

I follow a winding path and see a girl lying beneath a caved space of a bank. She looks dead or ill but I ignore her and go on. Then I come out at the top of a cliff and try throwing a huge rock to three cows grazing far away.

The rest is forgotten, but I just remember being disappointed when the rock missed the cows! How vicious of me in this entire dream!

三頭の牛を殺そうとしたのは、永田町駅の階段で男性が搬出中の券売機の下敷きになって死亡したというニュースが記憶の隅にあったせいか。新聞を読んでいるときは何とも思わなかったけど、高いところから落ちるとか物の下敷きになるとかいうことが本質的に恐ろしいみたい。たとえば高所や閉所が好きだという人でも、動物としては意識のどこかで命をおびやかす可能性があるものを恐れているのかも。

Il y a quelque jours, un homme a été écarsé par un distributeur automatique de billet de train pendant le transporter par l'escalier avec des autres. Je pense que ça c'est la source du rêve de tuer des vaches...

2006-02-02T21:47:00.000+09:00

麻婆豆腐考

Had Ma Po Tofu for dinner.

This "Po" character means "grandmother" in Japanese, so I originally thought that together the phrase means something like "Grandma Po's Beancurd" but it turned out not.

"Pockmark Faced Wife's Beancurd" is what it actually means. I have a couple of chiken pox pits on my face, so really feel sorry for the lady who created this dish for being remembered in such a way.

Comme cette instance, on ne comprend pas trop de la langue chinoise en fait. C'est comme la langue latine pour les européens. Elle paraît plein de sens et de significations et on comprend ce mot-ci, ce mot-là, mais des pharses entières ne nous donnent pas toujours une cohérence. On se comprendrait mieux si on arrêtait de supposer une grande similarité entre les deux pays...

豆腐といえば、台詞などでよく「豆腐の角で頭をぶつけて死んでしまえ」などというけれども、実際にはどういった状況で使えばいいのでしょう。喧嘩の目的が相手をやりこめたりすることで自分の気持ちを静めることだとしたら、もしそういう台詞が言えたらその時点でもうにこっとできるはず。

2006-01-27T21:34:00.000+09:00

Soudain il n'y a rien à écrire

and nothingness fills the air

書きたいことはある程度書いて

心が空になる感じ

2006-01-19T04:18:00.000+09:00

Lydia Davis was at first no more than an ex-girlfriend (ex-wife?) of Paul Auster (an American author) to me, and I borrowed her book from the library out of mere curiosity.
I hope she doesn’t regret her relationship in the past, because if Auster wasn’t there, many people including myself would not have found her!
Davis’ “Almost No Memory” contains 51 short stories and it’s by some considered experimental because of the shortness and the occasional fit of metaphysical craziness. Nice thing is that you can skip them and read the remaining dozens, if you plan to spend a more coherent evening.
I liked many of them, but if forced to pick one, “Foucault and Pencil” is really neat. It’s about reading a Foucault in a train and thinking about a counseling session where she and her counselor discussed quarrels she had with her partner. She writes how Foucault’s ecriture, the train ride and quarrels resemble each other, because they all seem to be only locally related sequences of things. That really gave me a weird sensation because I was on the train the very moment of reading it and I actually think about stuff like that a lot. It also reminded me of my music theory professor who gave another fascinating analogy of train rides. It was when we were learning about pivotal modulation where music progresses from one key to another through a chord present in the both keys, he said that it was just like changing trains at a station where two lines meet. Nothing is easier to understand than that for someone from a train-oriented society.

2006-01-08T23:07:00.000+09:00

Last night I had a beautiful dream about floating in a warm lagoon half asleep. It was in color because I remember seeing dazzling colorful fish swimming in front of me. There was me who was trying to wake up from fear of drowning and another me not minding it. It was just way too comfortable. It was a dreamy state in a dream. Hope it'll be as warm and sunny and sleepy when I actually die someday.

Recurring images like beaches, train platforms, elevators and theaters are I guess where I can be with others without confrontation. (Literally, facing the same direction, as opposed to facing each other.) It's a pause phase, a point temporally and physically 'before' the real stuff...

2006-01-03T02:56:00.000+09:00

The history of Iran is a history of invasion, war, and instability.

Alexander the Great first conquered Persia in 331 BC, followed by Islam's Arab forces in the 7th century AD, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane who conquered a significant portion of Persia in the middle ages. During the 19th century Persia came under increasing pressure from both Russia and the United Kingdom.

In 1953 Iran's elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, was removed from power in a plot orchestrated by British and US intelligence agencies. The operation was conducted following the Prime-Minister's nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. It reinstated the Iranian monarchy against the people's will, handing power back to former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Following Mosaddeq's fall, Pahlavi grew increasingly dictatorial. With strong support from the USA and the UK, the Shah further modernized Iranian industry but crushed civil liberties. His autocratic rule, under which systematic torture and other human rights violations were known to occur, led to the Iranian revolution and overthrow of his regime in 1979. After more than a year of political struggle between a variety of different groups, an Islamic republic was established under the Ayatollah Khomeini by a revolution.

The story of the comic book, "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi starts just around this time. Female students like Marjane are from 1980 obligated to wear scarves at school. In a shortened version of the history, we might say, "So Khomeini came and forced women to wear scarves," but in reality, there was what what what? a coup d’etat by the UK and the US? You cannot leave out preceding events like that when talking about Khomeini’s Iran and what followed after. In the age of the Internet, all news is reduced to one-line headlines and behind it, somebody is carefully removing facts unfavorable for the UK and the US governments. I recommend the book because it talks about lots of interesting historical events in Iran that I never learned at school. I don’t say that it’s even intentional here, since Middle East is not the area Japan is most interested in to begin with...

Anyway, even if you are not interested in politics or history, you will still enjoy the book. I want to emphasize that. It's simply HILARIOUS!! People in the 80s were just goofy regardless of where they were, but imagine an Iranian girl who is into Iron Maiden! What’s goofier than that? I thought Salam Pax in Iraq liking Radiohead was cool, but it’s more radical to like Iron Maiden in Iran 20 years ago.

2005-12-26T01:44:00.000+09:00

It was announced a couple of days ago that one of my favorite authors, Hideo Levy won the prestigious Jiro Osaragi Prize of this year. He was born in America and has lived in Japan on and off since he was 17, but did his studies mainly in America. He taught Japanese literature in Princeton and Stanford, and is an authority of Manyoshu (‘ten thousand leaves (of poetry)’) from the 7-8th Century Japan, but even his flashy career does not impress me as much as his command of Japanese. I lived in the States for a while and learned enough English that I can get by in most situations, but writing a novel in English... that is out of question. Still, many people, say, Nabokov, Conrad, succeeded in crossing that gap and wrote novels in the acquired language that remain in the history of literature. Bravo to them. We don’t see that happening in Japanese literature as much, and while Japanese is no more difficult than other languages, I feel that jumping to this side can be tricky depending on where you are coming from. I can name Lu Xun (Chinese), I Yanji (Korean born and brought up in Japan) as ‘foreign’ writers writing in Japanese but not more. Levy winning the Jiro Osaragi Prize is thus truly outrageous news. Japan has been obsessed with American culture, but why a Jewish-American person like Levy ever cares about us and our literature? We feel flattered and confused maybe.
In search of fellow dual personality (?) sufferers, without realizing, I have built up a collection of books by ‘exophonique’ writers in my bookshelf. Agota Kristof of ‘Le Grand Cahier’ (‘The Notebook’) is Hungerian. This lady must have started learning French in her 40s! Yoko Tawada – I only know her Japanese writings but she also writes in German and received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize for her contribution to German literature. I was just given and am about to start Kundera’s ‘Farewell Waltz’ and he is too an exophonist, a Czech writing in French. Marjane Satrapi of ‘Persepolis’ (sort of considered as an Iranian version of ‘Maus’ ) is an Iranian writing comic books in French. I hope to write a bit about ‘Persepolis’ next time.

2005-12-18T02:03:00.000+09:00

What makes me realize that I'm in Japan:

People who fall asleep in ten seconds after getting on the train. Sleeping so deep that they ofen lean on your shoulder and it's annoying. They somehow manage to get off at the right station as though there's an internal alarmclock set.

Girls successfully putting on makeup despite the occasional jolt of the train. Must make use of that talent in embryology or something. (Grab a wiggling sperm with tweezers...)

People sending seemingly endless text messages on their cells. It must be a matter of urgence, but that will give you tendinitis if done non-stop. I've gone close.

All three types were there sitting next to each other in front of me this morning. (And I myself was a sleeper in the next second.)

2005-12-15T22:32:00.000+09:00

There has been a huge debate within the Cabinet of Japan regarding whether the word gender should be used in the next year’s official documents. Parliamentary Secretary, Eriko Yamatani claims that the use of the ‘vaguely defined term’ gender in school is harmful since it encourages educators and their students to ignore the true biological and sociological difference of the two sexes. Minister of State for Gender Equality and Social Affairs, Kuniko Inoguchi (her original title in Japanese does not include the word ‘gender’) argues with this and explains that the aim of using the globally accepted term is not to promote radical sex education etc. (many claim this) but to correct the social and economic disparity between men and women.
So in my country the word ‘gender’ is associated with radical feminism. Somebody also created a term ‘gender-free’ which seems to mean for many people ‘ignoring every difference between the two sexes” and that is used interchangeably with ‘gender equality.’ Do some research on the Internet, and you will be surprised to see so many men and women of this country fiercely arguing against the use of the words ‘gender’ and ‘gender equality’. What’s the use in putting girls’ and boys’ names together in the attendance list? (Traditionally there are two separate lists for the two sexes.) What’s the use in making gym classes co-ed? Are they going to in the end force them to change in the same room before gym? What’s wrong with girls wearing skirts as uniforms? etc etc. so they say.
I’ve been in both girls-only and co-ed gym classes, and both were fine. No need to call some co-ed activities that were traditionally not co-ed radical or abnormal. Newly introduced concepts are often times foreign and threatening at first.
I don’t say they should ‘impose’ global standards in every aspect (‘take off your scarf and liberate yourself!’), but at least the new way of thinking should be tolerated. It seems that the lack of tolerance both in the conservative and progressive sides is preventing them to have productive discussions. See what happened to the word ‘feminist’ and how it now means to many ‘an angry sexist woman.’ The anger and frustration of the ones advocating gender equality are definitely sneaking into the definition of gender in Japanese language, and that should be stopped. I’m angry too, but I feel that we have to argue with as much tolerance as we ask for.
We are no Humpty Dumpty and have to speak with words defined by the majority. Since ‘JAP’ is recognized as a discriminatory term, they use ‘JPN’ or ‘JP’ as abbreviations of Japan. ‘Chosenjin’ just means ‘Korean’ in Japanese, but lots of Korean people consider it to be discriminatory. Now what are they doing to ‘Jenda’ (‘gender’)?

2005-12-09T16:12:00.000+09:00

Continue with SDF stories.
There are ones who beg and ones who don’t.
When I was in France, there were always one or two beggars (is this a discriminatory term?) near my metro station. They were gone in the evening, so they might not have been homeless in the technical sense, but in any case they seemed pretty poor, supporting themselves or their families in such a way.
I don’t give money in that kind of situation, but no strong opinion behind it. I do wonder though, if constant giving to beggars means acknowledging their current state as normal. If so, are the givers making it harder for the beggars to get out of the circle? Or is it better to acknowledge begging as a kind of profession and support it?
One time I gave oranges to one Muslim girl begging for money. I didn’t want them so I felt like that was a good opportunity to exercise my charity and to get rid of the oranges with skins too thick.

She took them but you could tell that she was in her mind wondering what the heck this kid was doing. Yeah, like, what if my boss paid me with oranges on my pay day...

There are also ones who ask for money in exchange for (?) showing their interesting physical features.
We are taught not to stare at handicapped people but once this teaching is stuck in head, we can’t help staring by reverse psychology, just like the wife of Bluebeard can’t resist the temptation to look into the forbidden chamber. At least I can’t.
Especially when they are actually trying to display their deformity, it’s hard to keep them invisible in the background. I think if I ever give them money, that will be out of guilt for staring. And yet out of guilt for trying to ignore them.

A guy who was begging for weeks in Paris. Some time later I saw him again in Madrid where I visited my brother! Was he ‘trafficked’ by the mafia like the rumor, or was he the twin brother of the Paris version??

A guy in a really busy fashion district in Tokyo. Because there are hardly no beggars in Japan, people are not accustomed to giving money to them either. This guy is always completely ignored by the fashion victims (1/3 of them with Louis Vuitton bags) walking by. What a contrasting view of life.

2005-12-03T23:06:00.000+09:00

Hannah told me about this funny website: http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
I wish people in Tokyo were this funny. We might have as many hobos and cops, but they never actively engage in conversation with strangers. From a comparative behavioral hobiological viewpoint, homeless people in Japan are much more introverted compared to their western counterparts. They don’t beg (they know which dump to look for what) first of all, and they almost seem self-sufficient. Only to completely close themselves in their caterpillar-looking cardboard beds (houses) at night, they need each other’s hands it seems.

I just worry sometimes if the last person has somebody to tuck him in.

Some have larger, more elaborate houses that are made out of blue sheets and/or cardboards etc. in parks. There’s a book that gives architectual plans of 40 truely unique houses of the 'homeless', but it’s not yet translated into English, unfortunately.

SDFs, sans domicile fixe in Paris seem to have more minimalist lives. In winter, you see many lying on subway grates with hardly no belongings...

Another book that I wish was available in English is ‘Disappearance Diary’ by Hideo Azuma, a non-fictional manga on the writer himself’s experience being a hobo. Really sad and funny!
'The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City' by Jennifer Toth is a dark sequel to Walden, tells you what happened to tax resisters thereafter.

2005-12-03T02:33:00.000+09:00

2005-12-01T03:33:00.000+09:00

Went to a concert of Mum (pronounced 'moom'), an electro-acoustic band from Iceland. I got interested in them after seeing the singer Kristin (an Icelandic Kahimi Karie, got no lungs) perform with Mice Parade from New York.
But Mum playing by itself all the way was...too gooey to my taste. It works when inserted here and there in the well-structured music of Mice Parade, but I guess that's not where they want to head.

One thing I liked was the variety of acoustic instruments they used. There were a viola, accordion, melodion (pianette), trumpet and xylophone. Whether they are good players or not, it's ten times more interesting to see the actual act of instrument playing than to see people grimly bending over their laptops only. I like electronic music, but it's true, some electronic shows are really boring visually.

By coincidence, the names Kahimi Karie and Mice Parade that I mentioned above are both anagrams of their real names. Fun. My fascination for things like anagrams and palindromes (in the Latin alphabet) might suggest that words in western languages are for me forever signifiant, before signifie. I don't care what the Engrish writing on my T-shirt says!

2005-11-30T17:01:00.000+09:00

2005-11-29T18:12:00.000+09:00

I've just finished reading 'The Genius Factory: The Curious History of The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank' by David Plotz. The eugenic concept of spreading /planting elite seeds around the country is bizzarre and creepy, but what if you were a woman who desperately wanted a child but couldn't have one because of your husband's health condition? If I were ever in that situation, I might prefer 'smarter' sperms to mediocre ones... I mean, duh.

The latter half of the book is focused on the psychology of donners, and of their genetical kids and kids' families being confronted with each other, and through it you can see some of the serious problems behind the sperm bank business. I wish it inspected environmental factors working on the development of inteligence more though. The author is skeptical about overestimating the influence of genes on kids, but never goes deep into that topic.

2005-11-28T00:30:00.000+09:00

Today was a day off, but I was not very productive. Wanted to write a little for the creative writing course that I'm taking in Ikebukuro, but that did not happen. I cleaned a moldy shelf in the bathroom instead (you should not leave a wet powder puff in an enclosed space). And somehow managed to waste the rest of the day going to a shoe repairer (though that was necessary), eating, watching TV... Anyway, I'm pretty obsessive compulsive about cleaning. I got a little nervous thinking how much there is to clean, but that is nonsense I know. I just use that thinking to escape from things I really need to do!

A little assignment I got for my writing course: record conversations of real people

I always felt a lot of conversations take place in novels sound unnatural or unrealistic (it's bad when you can hear the author's voice in every character), so I think it's a good exercise to learn from the real. In Japanese language, there are multiple ways to end your phrase, and often these endings unnecessarily suggest the authors age (different generations prefer different endings), gender (male authors tend to make their female characters speak very femininely) etc. and make readers uneasy when they are read away from the original context.
Just to say "(I'm) tired", you can say "tsukareTA", "tsukareMASHITA", "tsukareTAYO", "tsukareTAWA" "tsukareCHATTA" or "tsuakareTANA" (and more). They are not like different 'tenses' but only used to suggest different nuances. I wonder if this phenomenon is still called conjugation.
Anyway, back to my attempt to collect real conversations. It was not as easy as I thought. I take JR chuo line every day to go to work, so that was my main fishing ground. I soon realized though, people normally don't talk that loud unless they are teenagers. I did catch bits of interesting words, but never got the entire picture. Also hard to remember the real word endings people used, so this is still multiple me talking to each other.

no.1
woman: ...but, he was there at the wedding?
man: yeah, they were like...
woman: that was his third marriage, wasn't it?
man: they are so used to it.
woman: and the kid...
man: yeah...
woman: a normal person will go crazy, but...
man: ....
woman: a normal person will go crazy

This is not that interesting as a conversation, but their gossipy manner was funny, and the fact that the rest of the passengers and I were being all ears was funny.
Try this by yourself, and you'll realize it's not easy to collect 'funny' conversations. Even if they were funny as you heard it, it gets stale very quickly when you try to retell the same thing. Telling your friend's or family's story to another mutual friend is funny, but strangers' stories are literally 'strange' when retold, rather than 'funny.'

2005-11-27T03:58:00.000+09:00

Well, so here it is.
It took me a while to figure things out and now it's well passed my bed time.
'Death and the Penguin' (by Andrej Kurkow) is getting interesting, but that
has to wait until tomorrow, too.