So, here's some photos and items of interest that I've been storing up lately, lol.
First off, last week I went over to the Aka Renga to do my Christmas shopping. For those of you who remember, Aka Renga where they set up the tents for Oktoberfest before. It's basically this big collection of old brick warehouses that have been turned into shops and restaurants. It's down by the harbor, in between Pacifico and 山下公園 Yamashita Park. 
And, in honor of Christmas, they'd set up this cute little skating rink outside, sort of like a mini-Rockefeller Center. 
Lol. (It really is pretty small.)
Also, Thank you, Light Fellowship!!
Haha, now that I've gotten that out of my system, Adam from the Light office came with his wife and daughter to Japan last week, doing site visits and stuff. The Yalies (me, Jason, Jeff, and Byol) met up with them in Shibuya last Saturday night, and got treated to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant called Gonpachi, which I guess is the same one the summer fellows took Dean Farley to when he came to visit back in August.
We didn't have much time to take photos (I tried to take some of the inside of the restaurant, but it was too dark), so this is my attempt at a night view of Shibuya from the 15th floor. 
The adventures of a former North Carolinian and recovering Yalie, loose in Japan for the first time.
New video!
みつき 「大切なもの」
Mitsuki, "Something Important"
She looks like a 12 year old boy, but has the most amazing voice.
Also, apparently this song was the theme to some movie, so the video has scenes from that.
so, in IJ--the book for morning class--the chapters alternate between Written and Conversation sections. which is really good cause it means you get practice in both more formal, written expressions/constructions, as well as more casual spoken styles. well, i guess that's the point.
so, we've been on the Convo section of chapter 2 this week, which means lots of focus on casual sentence patterns and getting proper intonation and stuff (ya~y! cause that's my strong point! can i just say how much i love it when we're not reading things? like when we get to do videos in afternoon class, instead of newspaper articles)
and i had kind of a nice boost on friday when Senda-sensei mentioned to me that compared with when she was my afternoon teacher 1st term, she thought that my speaking and intonation and stuff had really improved since then! XD so that totally made my day. i was sort of feeling like i'd been getting better, but it's nice to be told that by someone who can be an actual objective judge of your performance. and i firmly maintain that at least part of said improvement is thanks to my J-dorama habit. also, Senda-sensei found out that I'm going back to Raleigh for christmas, and has requested an ACC handbook as an omiyage. LoL ^.^
Friday after class was super busy but lots of fun. i took off right as soon as class got out at 3, to go over and meet Sato Masako (from my kyudo club at the budokan) at yokohama eki, because she's actually the kyudo sensei at a high school around there. the last tournament, i was talking to her about how i had done kyudo back in the states when i was in high school, and she asked if i would come over one day and talk to her students about my experiences. so i got to do that on friday! she actually wanted me to talk to them in english, since they're all learning it but never get a chance to practice speaking it. so, i did my little intro talk in english, then went back and sort of summarized it in japanese, cause i'm really not sure how much they understood. then Sato-san wanted them all to come over and introduce themselves, and talk to me a little in english. they were all sooooo embarrassed, it was actually rather cute. i tried to talk to them in english a bit, but nobody really seemed comfortable with it, and they all knew that i spoke japanese, so it mostly ended up being that. but it was still fun.
oh! and an even better thing--one of the other sensei at the high school is actually a hanshi (there's no "higher" after that) and so i got to have him correct my shooting a bit--joy! i learned a few things that i didn't even realize i'd been doing wrong, and i actually got the bow to do almost a full yugaeri! it went like halfway around, which i've *never* gotten it to do before. ちょう～嬉しい！ let's just hope i can keep it up from now on. oh, and it turns out that this hanshi sensei was actually in the States for the testing seminar in SC this past summer--so he met Dan-sensei! i swear, every time i meet a kyudo person in Japan, they know Dan-sensei, or know someone who does...it just makes me realize again how lucky I was to get to study there.
i left the high school at about 5:30 (actually had to cut out of their practice a little early) and hopped the Minato Mirai-sen right back to Queen's, because at 6 was Ari-sensei's (my advisor) "Happy Just-Married" party. she's married to a former IUC student...oooOOoohh. as is Aoki-sensei, incidentally--there was a card passed around for everyone to sign, and i saw that he had written "Welcome to AIMY--Association of International Marriages, Yokohama." LOL. oh the things we find to amuse ourselves...
anyway, there were lots of people there--Ari-sensei's family (her dad kept going around trying to shove drinks and food into people's hands--he wasn't satisfied unless everyone had a drink in each hand and, preferably, several plates on their laps), most of the IUC sensei/staff (Matsumoto-sensei was, as usual, popping out of corners, snapping awkward photos of people all evening), and all of Ari-sensei's current students and advisees. a good time was had by all.
oh, and Sano-sensei caught me at one point, to let me know she had gotten a コルティナさん、よろしく mail from Stever-sensei (my 3rd-year japanese teacher at Yale). it was kind of loud and i was totally not in the thinking-of-yale mindset, so at first i didn't realize who she was talking about. it was kind of embarrassing when i was finally like "oh, yes! Stever-sensei was my teacher at Yale!" and Sano-sensei's kind of got this "...and you forgot her already...?" expression. lol. oh, well.
oh, and saturday i went out to start my christmas shopping (managed to put a decent dent in it, i think. it's hard tho). then i met up with Matsuzawa-sensei to go to this place in Landmark that was having a kimono sale (even on sale they're expensive). and this was a for-real place, where they show you all the patterns individually, and drape things around you... i think Matsuzawa-sensei just wanted someone to go with. it was neat, but we didn't stay for long. Matsuzawa-sensei kept talking about how last time, they had other things too, like tabi for really cheap. so i think that's what she'd intended to go for.
oh, but they also had this very odd noodle promotion going on. by the desk, there were several jars of bowtie noodles, elbow macaroni, things like that--and for 20 yen you got a small bag to fill up with as many noodles as it would hold. it was great, and i'll definitely be eating them for supper sometime soon but...... I'm not really sure what noodles have to do with a kimono sale. oh well, i guess a bargain is a bargain.
and here i will end what has become rather a long post. also, it's sunday and i was therefore feeling rather lazy--so apologies for the relative lack of capitalization and appropriate punctuation in the above ramblings.
new Video of the Week:
Orange Range, "Sayonara"
Great song from one of my favorite Japanese groups (tho this isn't exactly representative of their usual).
This video seriously made me bawl the first time I watched it.
There's some dialogue to it, but basically all you need to know, is the lines at the beginning of the video:
"October 25, 2006...I died."
(If you want to know more, drop me a line and I'll give you a rough translation, but that's all I'm putting in here for now.)
I don't think I've mentioned this in the blog yet, but I decided after all to go home for Christmas (15 days to go, yay!)
Because of that, I had to go down to the Immigration Office after school today to get my 再入国許可 Re-Entry Permit, so that I could actually come back to Japan after my break is done. Lol.
While I waited for my paperwork to be processed, this video was playing on repeat, in several languages, on TV screens all around the room.
The video highlights Japan's new security policy, implemented as of Nov. 1 this year, the gist of which is that in an attempt to combat terrorism, all foreigners entering Japan will be fingerprinted and photographed. This includes not just tourists, but also foreigners resident in Japan--so in other words, when I come back to Yokohama in January, my fingerprints will be on file with the Japanese government. The beginning of the video describes the procedures for how the fingerprints will be taken, and then the bulk of the rest shows footage from the 9/11 attcks, the London Underground bombings, and various other terrorist incidents, implying that by fingerprinting all foreigners Japan will be able to protect itself from such things.
I've got to admit, it's a little bit of an unnerving thought, although from what I understand it's not all that different from the current "US Visit" system for foreigners entering the states. There hasn't been as much discussion about the policy here as you might think--other than the Tourist Office being worried that the new procedures will discourage people from traveling to Japan. But it's big news in the expat/blog community, where words like "discrimination" and "interrogation" get tossed around frequently, with other people proclaiming that the new policy has caused them to cut Japan out of their travel plans.
Having not experienced the process firsthand, I don't really know what I think yet. I wouldn't go so far to say it's a reason to stay away from Japan, but I do understand the feelings, for instance, of people who are longtime, tax-paying residents and now must have their fingerprints on file. Especially in a country where most people don't own any kind of photo identification (and aren't required to), and the most common form of ID is a Health Insurance card.
Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure what I think about all this yet, really, but I just thought I'd share.
Today we got out of class at 11:30, because there was a field trip! Well, only those of use who signed up went, but.
We took the train into Tokyo to the National Japan Theater to go and see a 文楽 bunraku performance. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theater, but don't go imagining Pinocchio or muppets or anything. The style of the plays and the performances themselves take a lot from Kabuki and Noh theater, and so are very traditional in that way. Just, instead of people in masks, you have puppets performing the action. The puppets are fairly large, around 3 feet tall I'd guess, and incredibly intricate and expressive. I was really amazed how much range they could give, even down to being able to pick things up with the hands, or raising and lowering the eyebrows. Each puppet is manipulated by 3 people (that's right, 3!) who carry it around onstage. The main person operates the head/face and right hand; a second person is the left hand; and the third person is the feet/legs. The main puppeteer wears a traditional hakama and kimono, but the other two people are dressed all in black, with executioner-style black hoods so you can't even see their faces. The puppets don't actually do any talking. Instead, the dialogue and narration are sung, kabuki-style, by the narrator who sits off to the side of the stage, accompanied by a shamisen player.
The beginning part of the performance was really neat--it started off with a dance performed by two puppets, and then the puppeteers came out and gave an explanation of the various movements, and how the puppets are manipulated. That was really interesting, especially talking about the differences in movement between male and female puppets, &c. After a while, you really stop seeing them as puppets in such an obvious way.
After that, they did a famous scene from one of the bunraku plays, which was interesting but extremely difficult to understand. Like I said before, all the dialogue and narration is done speak-singing style by one person, so for starters it was hard for me to get a sense of who was talking when. The lines were projected above the stage, like what's typically done in opera, but the entire play is written in old Japanese--the same as when it was originally written however-long ago. Which means that even the Japanese in the audience had rented these headphone-devices that translated the play into modern Japanese for them. So of course I had no hope of understanding anything, though we were given an English synopsis of the play.
...I have to admit i nodded off a bit. But then, so did about half of the audience--I gather that this is rather common, if not expected, especially in Noh--so I don't feel quite so bad.
the what: bunraku, class, japan culture, randomness, tokyo
This week we also found out about the plan for 3rd term, which starts up in January, after the break.
Up til now, we've been having simple morning class (grammar-focused) and afternoon class (newspaper articles, videos, current events discussion), the same every day. But apparently during 3rd and 4th term at IUC, you get to choose from a variety of elective-type classes, so the curriculum becomes more tailored to students' particular interests. So this week we got the information about the different options, and picked our top choices. There are three groups of courses plus another set of optional after-school courses that you can opt in to.
Group A (pick 1):
政治・経済 Business/Economics
美術史 Art History
文学 Literature
文化人類学 Anthropology
法律 Law
歴史学 History/Historiography
Group B (pick 1):
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Business Japanese
Group III (pick 1): [no, I don't know why it's III and not C, it just is]
現代史 Modern History
大衆文化 Popular Culture
ビジネス・社会 Business/Society
Optional Classes:
書道 Calligraphy (Shodo)
古筆 Old-style Writing
文語文法専門 Classical Japanese
ビジネス Business
So, the ones I picked were Literature (A), Business Japanese (B), and Popular Culture (III). In the optional classes, I'm continuing on with shodo, which I've been taking this semester at IUC, too (I've mentioned that, right?). I also checked the box for the optional business course, because it might be interesting; I was a little worried about whether it would be over my head, but Ari-sensei said I can just go to the first lecture and see what I think, so I figure I might as well give it a shot. I didn't really have any trouble deciding the other stuff--since I'm not in any way grad school bound, anything I do in relation to Japan after IUC would definitely be work-related, so Business Japanese was a no-brainer. And since 1) I'm interested in publishing, and 2) my reading skills could use some work--the Literature course is definitely the best thing for me out of A-group (altho the Anthropology also sounded neat).
The way the schedule will work, we'll have A-group M/Th mornings; B-group F morning; and III-group in the afternoon (except Wed when we have afternoons off, like now). Tu/W mornings, we'll be continuing on with IJ, which is the grammar textbook we're using in our current morning class, so I guess that will be pretty much the same type of deal as now.
It sounds like a lot of work on paper, but as I've mentioned before, it's supposedly easier than 2nd term, so... We'll see. I'm looking forward to the change of pace.