Music and stuff

So I downloaded/bought the new Cat Power album The Greatest today. I think I've already listened to it ten times.
Yeah.
I think it's that great. (I don't know what this guy is talking about.)

I don't have a lot of her stuff, just What Would the Community Think and a few tracks off Moon Pix. I've always like the sparse instrumentals and her eerie, soulful voice. The Greatest is different, fuller, more diverse, more complicated in parts, but just as (or maybe more) soulful. Maybe it's the fact that (as I keep reading) she's gone back to her southern roots, because I definitely feel something like "home" in this.
The first time I put it on, the first (title) track started, and I thought "oh, she's stepping up the instrumentation/arrangment," which immediately made me think of the latest Fiona Apple album, Extraordinary Machine, which I found quite disappointing (title track good, the rest is kind of ho-hum, good enough, but not new and exciting in any way). Thank *goodness* Chan didn't live up to that depressing expectation. This album is *way* better than Extraordinary Machine, not only in listenability, but also as a reflection of the artist's progression.
I think.

Anyway, in other (not quite on par with Cat Power) music news, we recorded ourselves in the rehearsal studio using my iBook and Garageband. The quality's pretty crummy (just ask Fuji), but I think, given what we were working with, it's not bad for a first try. I still hate my voice, but you can listen for yourself.

Today I wrote a draft for a statement of purpose to apply for a master's program at 上智大学 (aka Sophia University). It's just a draft, but I already feel like my writing has vastly improved and my goals have become way better defined since I applied for the ITO Fellowship. I just hope the ITO Foundation is okay with this plan... *sigh*

雪 [yuki] (snow) !

This just in

I took the Autism Spectrum Quotient test and scored "above average"! (Somehow I'm surprised, though maybe I shouldn't be.)

Next, there should be a Hikikomori quiz...

or maybe we should have The Hikikomori take The Autism Quiz?

The little things

Monday in first period, after watching another episode of Churasan (a drama that aired, um, in the '90s?) in class, we had to partner up and reenact dialogue/scenes. Koumatsu-sensei went around listening in on everyone, and when she go to us she told me (and this made me so *happy*) "Your pronuncation is good! You must speak to a lot of Japanese people." Well, I don't. I wonder what happened. Why does my pronuncation suddenly seem better? I thought at first that it was just that we'd just watched Churasan. I've always had a (small) knack for imitating pronunciation or speaking-style after hearing it. (You probably all remember how, when I started studying Japanese, I sounded like an anime character, and then of course there's me learning Megan's Staten Island accent freshman year, and now I pick up British words and vowels from Stu, Chris, and Phil.) But if that was all there was to it, why did so few students say 「がんばってください」[ganbattekudasai] last week when I interviewed them? Maybe there's something to this immersion thing after all, even if I don't consciously speak with very many Japanese people.

Today was a reading day, in which we spend two class periods reading a passage from the textbook and analysing and understanding it together. I try to do the reading before class so that I don't waste time making Sensei explain vocabulary rather than content. (I have a related rant, but I'll get to that later.) So anyway, today I ended up sitting right in front of Suzuki-sensei. You probably all realize now that I think Suzuki-sensei is really sweet and cute, so I guess I smile at her a lot. Today especially I know I smiled at her a lot, because she was being *really* cute!
The reading passage was about the structure of water, which we learn about to some extent in middle school and a greater extent (if you like science) in high school, written for the layman. Normally I'm the only one in class who finds anything related to science fun/interesting (even though I thought today's passage was a little silly because of the way it was written), and Suzuki-sensei has definitely made that connection (she remarked on it today). But today I think Suzuki-sensei also honestly found it really interesting (she explained afterward, when we told her we'd all learned it in school, that she hadn't, maybe because when she was that age it wasn't known). When we read something like "for 100,000,000,000th of a second the arrangement of the water molecules is stationary, but for longer periods of time it is continually changing," she wrinkled her nose and cocked her head to the side and said, "How can they discover that? How do they look at something so small for such a short period of time?" and "So the water in this bottle is moving and changing, but I can't see it. And me! I'm mostly water, and the water in me is constantly moving and changing?!" I thought it was so cute! So I couldn't help but smile. *sheepish* On top of that, when classmates are annoying (because they're not paying attention or whatever), I marvel at Sensei's patience and want her to know that "I see what you put up with and appreciate it," so I guess, as a result, I smile.
So when we broke for lunch today, Suzuki-sensei remarked on how I'm always smiling at her. Immediately I was very embarrassed about it. I know I'd be really weirded out/nervous if someone was constantly smiling at me for no apparent reason. I was so flustered with thinking I made her uncomfortable that I didn't understand her reaction completely (I have to focus all my attention -ears *and* eyes- to really understand, so if I'm flustered it's difficult)... at first she seemed to say it makes her super-self-conscious of when she makes a mistake, but then as she was leaving, she seemed to say that she thought I was... やさしい [yasashii] (tender; kind; gentle; graceful; affectionate; amiable; suave). Anyway, I'm confused, and now I don't know whether I should keep on keeping on or try to hold back my smiles in case I'm worrying Sensei. What do you think?

So, the rant... Student 1, from my last post. As first period ended, Student 1 looked at the schedule posted on the wall to see what was next. "Reading?! What the f*** am I here for?" It's no secret that Student 1 thinks reading classes are a complete waste of Student 1's time (sidenote: English could really use gender-free pronouns). Of course this means that Student 1 never comes to (reading) class prepared (not that Student 1 is alone in this). Sensei first reads the passage aloud to us once. We then go around the room, each reading a sentence at a time as Sensei quizzes our understanding. So she asks for the three properties of water that make it special over other liquids. They're listed within two sentences quite clearly in the paragraph we just finished reading together. Someone gives one property, and Sensei then asks Student 1 for a second one. But of course Student 1 hasn't bothered to follow along with the class, so has no idea what we're talking about or where to find the answer in the passage, and proceeds to sit there and say that Student 1 simply didn't understand Sensei's question. So then Sensei feels it necessary to explain her question (which was a fairly simple one) in-depth. Hello, Student 1, if you think reading class is already a waste of time, don't make it a *bigger* waste of time. *ahem* Anyway. Student 1 was unable to answer the question, and Sensei eventually moved on to someone else.
We have a short break between second and third period. When everyone returns, even though Sensei has sat down and said "moshi moshi!!" over and over to get their attention, people are chatting away.
I say, "Sensei, you have a lot of patience, don't you?"
She says, "Why do you say that?"
"I think, maybe, we are very difficult students sometimes."
And she smiles and says, "Maybe because the presentations are over now, everyone has relaxed, and is having trouble concentrating."
"Maybe." (But of course I don't really believe it.)
Once they finally quiet down, guess who decides he/she is too cool to take a seat and join the class like everyone else? Student 1 is standing with hands nonchalantly in pockets, leaning against the back wall of the classroom. Sensei says, "Shall we start?" Student 1, without moving, says, "Go ahead."
And I want to punch Student 1 in the face.

Here's to Sensei

I'm not the best student; I'll be the first to admit it. My southern, underfunded public high school wasn't exactly the most stimulating environment... but instead of using that frustration to motivate myself, I instead sunk into apathy and complacency, taking it for granted that I could be the best without doing my best. Tragic, really. My teachers (most of whom I loved), family and peers may have thought I was a great student, but only I knew my real potential, and by denying that I lied to them, people who were important to me... and cheated myself in the long run.

Because when I got to Princeton (where I came to refer to myself as "the lower end of average") needless to say, I felt out of my league. I don't mean to imply that everyone else at Princeton was brilliant and motivated - when it comes to slackers and arrogant pricks, it has just as many as any other institution (maybe more in the case of the latter) - just that environment makes a huge difference. By being in contact with just a few people with a contagious enthusiasm for intellectual inquiry, I re/discovered a part of me that had, not to be melodramatic but, atrophied. Princeton didn't turn me around completely though. Blame it on existential crises, social pressures, just plain laziness, whatever; I did my share of going to class unprepared or skipping altogether. (Ironically, college was where I learned not only to care but also to skip class.) But Princeton and the people there who took part in my education were a beginning for me, and I like to think, no, I *know* that I'm not the only student who can say that.

So to the victims of Rate My Professors and contributors of Rate Your Students, I hope most of the time you put the negative noise in perspective and realize that you've probably had a better effect on your kids than you are led to believe. At the same time, I hope you can remember, not only how you felt as a student, but also how others around you felt. Surely you can recall a variety of circumstances that negatively affected a variety of people. Add to that the fact that many students can not or do not separate their studies from other aspects of their lives during college... it can be overwhelming, and if they take it out on you and/or your class, it's unfortunate but not necessarily personal. And then of course, stupid people say stupid things (and young, immature people say...). I hope you don't waste a minute worrying over such remarks.

Now I'm in Japan, after graduating from Princeton, studying for my own reasons and loving it at International Christian University in Tokyo. I'm in an Intensive Japanese Language class for 280 minutes a day, five days a week with fifteen other students from abroad. In ICU's Japanese Language Program, most students are undergraduates, a few are like me, a few are trying to improve their job prospects back home, and a few are formally graduate students. Needless to say, the atmosphere is very different for me, because for most people it seems to be less about exploration and inquiry and more about instant/self-gratification. Even that I think I could handle though, if it weren't for the way we (I'm sure I'm guilty too in some way) treat our sensei.

280 minutes a day, five days a week is a lot, and though five sensei share the duties, they (especially Suzuki-sensei, the head sensei) put in *a lot* of time and effort - constantly asking for feedback, trying to devise new ways to help us learn the material, asking after our health and happiness (particularly if we miss class). They hold our hands to an extent that embarrasses me (because, and I'm sure many of you agree, I believe it should be the students' responsibility). And we repay them by coming unprepared, speaking rudely, skipping class... it makes me sick and ashamed to be associated with the guilty parties as a fellow student. We represent our respective countries, our respective schools, (in my case) our respective funding organization, but we only seem able to think about ourselves.

Today after class, for a project due next Monday, my group gathered outside the classroom door to discuss our course of action. Suzuki-sensei on her way out saw us and, I think, was shocked to see some of her students *working.* Sanbe-sensei was also nearby, and they exchanged looks and said, "Good students, aren't they?" (To be honest, the number they referred to is ambiguous since there is no plural in Japanese, but I will go ahead and assume they were referring to the three of us standing there.) Suzuki-sensei then bowed and said (I'm not a translator, so I apologize for nuance lost), "I humbly thank you for being allowed to teach you." It broke my heart (and being less-than-eloquent and unable to truly convey my feelings in reply was more frustrating than ever). Worse, I can't help but think that the *meaning* of that statement would have been lost on the rest of my classmates. So here's my tribute to Suzuki-sensei and the rest of her team. Maybe their Japanese-ness enables (or forces) them to bear the following quietly, but I have no such compunction.

1: Maybe you decided to speak only in casual speech out of principle (i.e. "Everyone is equal therefore I will speak to everyone in the same way"). Your condescending attitude implies otherwise. So when Sensei subtly corrects your casual speech (which is rude when speaking to a sensei), pay attention. Furthermore, yeah, we know you studied Chinese before and therefore know more kanji than most of us. That doesn't make you better than the rest of the class (certainly not better than Sensei); it just means you have more experience. Instead of using it to show off, why don't you help the rest of us learn? Oh, and, there's more to the language than kanji. Why don't you listen to yourself talk?

2: Part of studying abroad is learning to appreciate and respect other cultures. That means using honorific speech when it's appropriate, not because you think it's funny. And just because Sensei only speaks in Japanese in Japanese class (go figure) doesn't mean she can't understand when you joke about or debate out loud whether or not you'll come to class in English.

And now I should do as I say and finish my homework.

Fun with Japanese

I got some homework back today. Practicing the grammar construction "will not~, would not~, shall not~," one exercise was
ぼくの無実をだれも＿＿＿＿＿＿まい。(No one will/shall/would __________ my innocence.)
The correct answer is
ぼくの無実をだれも信じるまい。(No one will/would believe my innocence.)
My answer was
ぼくの無実をだれもぬすむまい。(No one will/shall steal my innocence.)
Heh.
I seemed to have childhood on the brain that day in general, because other answers for other parts of the homework were things like "I want to see the world like a child, but understand it like an adult" and "Even though childhood is fun, growing up is inevitable."

Today we started a group project (as you know, my favourite thing in the world) in which we're supposed to survey 20 people each on, uh, I guess a word association thing. What image comes to mind when they hear the word -----. Well, honestly I didn't put much thought into it before class, but after reading Susan Napier's The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature, specifically the two chapters on women in pre and postwar fantasy, I suggested お母さん (polite word for Mother). Though I know now in hindsight that such a cursory "investigation" would not have yielded the kind of deep insight to the contemporary Japanese youth psyche I was looking for, I thought it might be interesting. But then after hearing all the other groups' choices (otaku, Kabuki-cho, Hard Gay etc), お母さん was decided to be "boring" and "gay" (I've always hated that use of the word). So we switched to ganguro. While I'm not particularly dissatisfied with this choice, and we've already found some interesting results, I wish people could be less predictable sometimes.

One thing that brightened my day today:
While going about surveying people on campus, others in my group told me they were always told がんばってください [ganbattekudasai] by the people they interviewed. This is a difficult to translate word/phrase, if you ask me. Originally, I was told it means something like "Good luck," but it doesn't really have anything to do with fortune. I think a more correct/literal translation is "Work hard" or "Do your best." So when I/we gaijin are told this with regard to our Japanese, it seems to emphasize the fact that we suck at Japanese, and, in my case anyway, it makes me more self-conscious and very embarrassed and feel like I'm disappointing my teachers and annoying the (Japanese) person to whom I'm speaking. (As you said, Ba, in this way at least I/we are right at home here.)

Well, I was told [ganbatte] by only 3 of the 20 people I interviewed today. Maybe it's a fluke, maybe they just forgot, or maybe it has nothing to do with anything, but... I'll take this opportunity to feel a little more positive about my Japanese than I have for the past two months now, thank you.

Not much to report

Thus the lack of updates.

Got a present from Brett yesterday.

Got some books from the school library:

• The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature - so far so good


• Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture - have read parts before, a little dry but generally lauded as a pioneering attempt at the topic


• Understanding Animation - no idea how useful this might be right now

Watched an episode of Doraemon in Japanese class Friday. It was fun and mostly understandable (if super-fast), otherwise I'd be convinced I forgot all my Japanese over break.

Oh, also watched Stray Dog for post-poop class. Really good if flawed.

My mother is going to hate this post.

So wouldn't you know, a couple days after I rave about the sunshiney weather in winter, and it clouds over and ruins my plans. I'd wanted to go to the Imperial Palace and maybe Tokyo Tower today, but there's no point when it's cloudy (half the point of the Palace is the gardens, and the entire point of Tokyo Tower is the view). Ah well. It's nature's way of telling me "do some homework!" so that's what I've been doing. I've done all the reading for my postwar popular culture (hereafter post-poop, as I've designated its file folder) class (from which the Molasky excerpts in the previous post come) up to January 13th as well as the first reading response (which ended up overlong, but cutting's the easy party... maybe). Next: Japanese homework. I'm *dreading* this. I guess because I feel so behind, but I know I know, the more I put it off, the worse that feeling will become. I also need to define a topic for my final paper in post-poop and start looking for sources. I've never really understood that. Seems to me it would be easier to do the other way around. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do, but I don't really have time for it.

Okay I had time this past week, but hey. *shrugs*

Hmm what else?
Cookies. Everyone (by which I mean my family and Fuji) has been torturing me with tales of cookies. I suppose it should be expected at holiday time, but it's really cruel. Especially since I love cookies. So, tormented by the memory of homemade chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin, I went out and bought some cookies (I don't have an oven, and even if I did it's no fun to bake alone). The first box (chocosandocookkii, aka chocolate sandwich cookies) had a whopping eleven, yes, ELEVEN cookies in it. Obviously I promptly polished that off. A couple days ago I bought a different kind (chocolate chip and macadamia nut), different brand. The box advertised "about 20" cookies. Go ahead, guess.
.
.
.
16. SIXTEEN cookies. And not only that, each one was about the size of a 500 yen coin. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little, but not by much. A knuckle-and-a-half in diameter. Very depressing. *sigh*

On the holidays in general. I find it odd that I don't notice what's "missing." The end-of-year marathons of old tv series, the "traditional" foods (black-eyed peas? why would I eat... oh, right, black-eyed peas), the resolutions (not that I've made New Year's resolutions in the last four, five, eight years, but I totally forgot that other people make them until my sister mentioned it)... I feel like I must pass my days in an oblivious haze, not that that possibility bothers me that much; just merits a passing "hmm."

I've been listening to the Tweaker albums Fuji gave me a lot today. It's all good, but I think I like the stuff with vocals best. It tends to be more mellow and not too over-the-top (although he does a better job of knowing when enough is enough than, say, that godawful guy Brett and I saw with Barry's girlfriend and her friend in the city on July 15 whose name I have selectively forgotten... actually the two of them don't even compare, so ignore this entire paranthetical). Goodies include "Ruby" from 2 a.m. wakeup call and "Linoleum" (which I recognized immediately for some reason) and "Happy Child" from The Attraction to All Things Uncertain. Check out the vocal line-up for 2amwc:
David Sylvian (Japan), Will Oldham (Palace Brothers, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), Robert Smith (the Cure), Mellowdrone, Nick Young (A.I.), Hamilton Leithauser (the Walkmen), and Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields, Lovage).

And here it is. The part that my mother (and maybe my dad) is not going to like. (I warned you this time.)
So I spent my day writing and reading, with breaks for food and random IM conversations. That means I sat in my pjs all day and just got around to showering. And well, I'm not going anywhere, so I guess I'll climb back into my pjs, but... then I smelled my pjs. And then I smelled me, and I didn't want to get back into my pjs just yet. (They don't smell *bad* I just smell better right now.) So yes, I've been sitting here enjoying being and smelling clean in only underwear and leg warmers (thanks, Mother), and it's pleasant, so I wanted to share that feeling. ^_^
And now I'm getting cold, so it's time to get dressed.

Female floodwalls

Michael S. Molasky. The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa (London: Routldge, 1999). Ch. 4 Female floodwalls.

Yamada Meiko observes in her book on the RAA [the Recreation and Amusement Association, i.e. postwar comfort woman system] that once Japan had lost its colonies in Korea and Taiwan, the government decided to recruit military sex-workers from among the nation's own lower classes. Lower-class Japanese women were thus consigned to a status akin to that of Okinawans and Japan's prewar colonial subjects... the RAA did, in fact, concentrate on recruiting women from the water trade [Japan's vast service industry encompassing prostitutes, geisha, bar hostesses etc]. Once the brothels opened, however, it became apparent that the demand far outweighed the supply of women deemed "suitable" for the job, and RAA organizers decided to modify their approach in hope of attracting a larger applicant pool. They relied on unscrupulous recruiting strategies, including posters with advertisments such as that translated below, which appeared throughout Tokyo and Yokohama during the weeks after the war:
TO THE NEW WOMEN OF JAPAN
We seek pioneers from the new women of Japan to help establish and participate in a major undertaking related to the well-being of the occupation troops. Our organization has been established to resolve matters of national urgency presented by the postwar situation.
Wanted: Female office workers. Ages 18-25. Room, board, clothing and other amenities provided. (107)

Today there are few outright brothels catering solely to American servicemen in mainland Japan or Okinawa... Besides the lack of customers, the most notable change is that since the 1980s "dancers" from the Philippines have replaced local women in the sexual labor pool servicing the American military...
In 1993 I interviewed the most notorious club owner in Kin [a town located across from Camp Hansen, a large Marine base in Okinawa]. The man, a native of Miyako Island, agreed to speak with me only because I was accompanied by a newspaper reporter from his home island with whom he had met before. After climbing the stairs from the first-floor club to his family home on the third floor, I caught a glimpse of the dancers' living quarters. The rooms were located near the roof, which was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with rows of barbed-wire, similar to that surrounding American military bases on the island. When I asked him why the fence was placed atop the roof of the three-story building, he replied that it was "to keep the GIs from climbing into the girls' quarters." Perhaps he hoped I wouldn't notice that the rows of barbed-wire were angled inward. The newspaper reporter accompanying me later explained that the fence had gained notoriety when one of the women died in a fire on the premises because she was unable to escape. No one was prosecuted in the case. Surely, this fence is among the most convoluted legacies of the occupation era: a barbed-wire fence - the most salient symbol of America's continuing control over Okinawa's social and physical landscape - placed atop a three-story concrete building by an Okinawan man in order to enclose foreign women brought to serve the former occupiers two decades after the region's reversion to Japan. Kin also happens to be the town where the September 1995 rape incident [in which a 12-yr-old school girl was abducted and raped by three US servicemen] ocurred. (113)