Last Days at YCC

I'm writing this from my office in YCC (Yokohama College of Commerce), in my last hour of work here. It's been a great experience, I learned a lot, but I'm excited to be flying home to Boston on Tuesday!



Above is Jacqui, Ross, Stu and I on my birthday, in the skyscaper district of Shinjuku. Below -- YCC !!



Me, in a manga cafe, playing some crazy and delightfully incomprehensible Playstation game.



And here's a little something I took on Carrie and my last day teaching - a little incognito train footage (I had the hanging camera around my neck but left it filming). This is what our morning commute looks like, taking the 7:56 train from Naruse station ...



I've lived and traveled in a lot of different countries in the past five years, but it never gets hard to leave. We've had some great times, Japan, I'll miss you !!

Doraemon

Who is Doraemon? Doraemon is a "gadget cat from the future". According to Wikipedia, in March 2008, Japan's Foreign Ministry appointed Doraemon as the nation's first "anime ambassador." I'm not sure what that means, but he certainly is ubiquitous throughout Japan.

I was recently in a small English section of a bookstore and to my delight I found volume one of the Doraemon manga, translated into English! (with Japanese as well). So now I'm reading about how this little robot cat comes to save the comic's hero from a lifetime of loser-dom. It's very cute.

Here's a scan of one of the first panels, again courtesy of Wikipedia:



This is where Nobita, the main character, first meets Doraemon as he comes out of a desk drawer. Doraemon's first words are: "It's me. Did I upset you?" Nobita, being something of a spazz, is indeed pretty upset to see robot cats coming out of drawers.

Doraemon, you are a cool cat.

I often find my students doodling Doraemon on their English papers - Doraemon, and for some reason, a very gentlemanly looking frog with a necktie.

Stu in Japan

This morning as I raced out the door at 7:47 to catch my 7:51 bus down the road, I bid a sleepy and sad farewell to my good buddy Stu. We had some sweet times in Japan - so glad he could make it!!



Here's Stu at an Okinawa themed bar the other night, with smooth beer and Okinawa tempura vegetables (ゴーヤ - go-ya, kind of like eggplant, and some beans). And of course, Japanese reggae and groovy times. The bartender even gave Stu a free shot of Okinawa whiskey since it was his first time in Japan! What a night ~ safe flights my friend!

the four winds

One of the Japanese kanji symbols I always see, especially on the subway, are the four directions. In kanji, here they are:

北 - きた - kita - north
南 -　みなみ - minami - south
東 -　ひがし - higashi - east
西 -　にし - nishi - west

In kanji, you can often find pictures in the radicals (components of the compounded symbol) to help you remember. I really like these four, because they're rich in imagery. 北 looks like two people back to back to keep warm in the cold (north can be a cold place!). 南 looks like it has the yen symbol inside (¥) - maybe the south is rich?東 has the kanji for tree (木) and the one for sun (日) because the sun rises in the east. This is also the kanji in Tokyo (東京) which means "east capital". 西 looks like it has the kanji for the number "four" in it 四 - why? I'm not sure, any ideas?

anatomy of a manga cafe

Stu is in Japan !!!

At long last my good friend Stu has crossed the Great Ocean, the Pacific one that is! And he's here exploring Tokyo with me. Today we went to a 'mangakissa' or manga cafe, after work.

Manga cafes are more than just places to read manga, though there's always a huge manga library with aisles and stacks upon stacks of books to read. Also: magazines, books, DVDs, PS2 games. Our room had a two seater couch, this computer that I'm typing on, ambient lighting and music, and a nice big TV to play Playstation (we've been playing Guilty Gear, he's owning me) - basically a sweet place to crash with your friends for a few hours and treat like your living room at home.



And the single rooms have massage chairs! Way back in 2006, my friend Rachael and I stayed in one of these manga cafes for the night in Kyoto when we couldn't find a hotel. Some even have showers, didn't see that here, but we got a hamburger and curry delivered right to our little cubicle.

For me, this is one of the iconic places that makes Japan, though it might seem at first very similar, very different than America.

me gustas tu

This song has been in my head all day:



Me gustas Japón, me gustas tu. (that's Japan in Spanish!)

Today is Carrie and Ross's last day here in Yokohama College of Commerce, it's a beautiful cloudless sunny blue blue day, but man - a sad one. I've been carrying my camera around and filming at random moments, within the next few days I'll throw some of them up here so you guys can see what it's like to walk around my school. Two more weeks of makeup classes for me (for students who failed the term) and then -- back to Boston !!! :) I'm getting excited.

Today's Japanese word - いろいろ　-　iro-iro - means varieties. The word is two repeating syllables, and individually いろ (iro) means color. "Color-color" brings to mind a whole bunch of colorful things - a variety. Apparently Japanese has a lot of these double repeating syllable words, anyone know any more?

Coffee Cup

"Coffee Cup"

Wake up in the morning
Stretch your arms towards the sun
Say something in Chinese
And go to Paris…
Every minute, somewhere in the world there is morning
Somewhere, people stretch their arms towards the sun
They speak new languages, fly from Cairo to Warsaw
They smile and drink coffee together.

-Anastasia Baburova

Last month, in daylight in the middle of Moscow, journalist and intellectual Anastasia Baburova was shot and killed. She was born the same year as me - 1983 - yet it seems almost like she lived in different times. Her life story, her brilliant ideas, her tragic death, had me breathless.

I listened to the article while on the Economist's podcast while I was jogging this morning. You can also read the story at the Economist here.

on English

Some languages borrow words from others. English chases them down dark alleyways, coshes them, and goes through their pockets for spare grammar.

a sunny afternoon

One of the wonderful things about living in a foreign country is the little surprises you can encounter on a daily basis. Today I spent a nice sunny Sunday walking around my neighborhood. On the way to a coffeeshop, I found this - a dark den of delights. Or actually, a vending den of delights. A large beer vending machine sat in the front (note the "cameras are watching you" sign - they were watching ...).



Behind that was a ... wine bottle vending machine? Is that cooking wine?



Plus some vaguely pornographic electronic slot machines, I'm not sure Blogger would approve of me putting those up, but that's what's all the way back there, on the left.



In the coffeeshop, a red panic button in an otherwise country home-style bathroom.



My darling Hanna sent me sweet Korean-style shirts for my birthday - also, I got new glasses.



And here's me snowboarding last weekend ~



Today's Japanese word - お土産　-　おみやげ　ー　omiyage - it means gift. I think the second character 土　- mi - is the same character in 土曜日 - douyobi, which means Saturday. The character itself means earth. Very interesting that "earth" would be in the kanji for "gift".