Lots of walking and also feels about Kaze Tachinu

Update time!

For our field trip on Friday, we were allowed to pick our courses again, and I decided to go to the Yokohama Art Museum.  It turned out to be a lot smaller than expected (I think it was really only about 5 rooms), so I finished up pretty quickly.  It was interesting--they had a fair number of works by famous artists...but no actual famous works.  But it was still an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

Saturday and Sunday I hung out with Mary, who was visiting Tokyo before she headed to the US for her first visit in two years.  (She is in the US now!)  I hadn't seen Mary for about a year and a half, so it was nice to have some time to hang out, catch up, and walk wayyyyyy too much.

Some places we went include:

Tokyo Tower!
(We didn't go up to the top, though, 'cause that costs money.  More money than it did last time I went.)
(Also, Ueno Park, but I didn't take pictures there, so you'll have to take my world for it.)

Meiji Shrine!  (We actually got pretty horribly lost on the grounds, because I have the best sense of direction in the world.)

Last time I went to Meiji Shrine, it was closed (I went after 5 p.m.), so it was nice to see inside the gates.

Both Mary and I were pretty strongly reminded of Heian Shrine in Kyoto, which makes sense, I guess, given that they were both built in roughly the same era.

We also went to Yoyogi Park, which is right next door, and had some really great peach soft serve.
(I'm not addicted to soft serve.)

The Imperial Palace!

Which includes a moat full of slime, I guess.

I dunno what the deal is, 'cause the other moat was clean.

The Imperial Palace is actually a pretty great place to walk, and it cooled down enough for the weekend that we weren't totally roasting in the sun.

See?  Non-slimy moat.

And finally:

The Tokyo Sky Tree, which is the replacement for the significantly shorter Tokyo Tower.  We didn't go to the top of this either, 'cause it cost 1,800 yen, and I could eat a really nice meal for that much.

Anyway, yes, it was really nice to see Mary, even if I was totally exhausted and lost my voice a little bit afterwards.

Yesterday we got over 100 milimeters of rain in the course of an hour.  Also, lightning.  We made the news!  Because our weather was that ridiculous!

Our sensei had a fever today, which meant that we didn't have class.  So we get to have a make-up class next Saturday, fun, fun, fun!  I should note that that's the Saturday immediately before the final.  *lies on the floor dramatically*

Also, I went to see the new Studio Ghibli movie, Kaze Tachinu, today.  I went to see it with Ma-san (another Harvard student) and...neither of us was entirely sure how to feel about it.  Scattered thoughts (some spoilers) below, although they may coalesce into something more coherent at some point in the future:

To be fair, I think I only understood about 70% of what was going on, because every time anyone started talking about anything having to do with engineering planes, I was completely lost.  Airplane terminology: not a thing I understand.  There was also a subplot fairly late in the movie having to do with the secret police that neither Ma-san nor I understood a word of--we know what happened because of the secret police, but weren't entirely clear on why they had gotten involved.  Also, a weirdly large proportion of the dialogue is in German and Italian with no subtitles.

On a side note, there is a German character with worse Japanese than me, which makes me feel weirdly okay about my Japanese, because you know your Japanese must be pretty okay if the movie!foreigners have worse Japanese than you.  (Movie!foreigners tend to have pretty good, non-garbled-if-pretty-thickly-accented Japanese, mostly because horrifyingly bad grammar will tend to confuse the audience, and an accent will get across the message that they're not a native speaker just fine.)

People (mostly people who haven't seen the movie) have been branding the movie as "anti-Japanese propaganda," but, honestly, it's significantly less political than a lot of Miyazaki's movies.  You could interpret the ending as having an anti-war message, but...you could also totally not.  On the other hand, you can't really interpret Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa as not being about the environment.  While Miyazaki's movies tend to have pretty strong messages (like "DON'T POLLUTE" and "DON'T WAGE WAR" and "DON'T CUT OFF THE HEAD OF A FOREST DEITY"), Ma-san and I spent several minutes puzzling over the closing scene of the movie, which could be interpreted as "DON'T WAGE WAR," "DON'T DO BAD MATH WHEN MAKING AIRPLANES," "DON'T LOVE AIRPLANES MORE THAN YOUR WIFE," or even "DON'T BECOME AN ENGINEER BECAUSE ENGINEERING IS HELLISH."  Heck, the movie ends on such an ambiguous note that we couldn't tell whether one of the major characters was alive or not.
Despite the fact that the movie is basically about the guy who designed the planes that killed a whole bunch of people during WWII, it's not a movie about war--it's a movie about planes.  As one of the characters remarks fairly late in the movie, "We make planes, not weapons."  The characters all know what they're making the planes for--at several points, the main character asks who Japan is going to go to war with, and other characters respond with increasingly long lists of potential targets (all of whom Japan did go to war with!), but none of the characters have a moral dilemma or dwell upon the destruction that their planes will rain down.  Perhaps that's the point--perhaps the audience is supposed to question the characters' motives and wonder whether saying, "I make planes, not weapons" is really a free pass.
On the other hand, the rest of the audience seemed just as puzzled about how to react as we did.

It's really not a kid's movie, not necessarily because of any sort of mature content (okay, there is probably the most kissing that I have ever seen in an animated movie, but that's about it), but because I think kids would find it excruciatingly boring.  It's a very slow movie--very gorgeous, but just sort of rambles along until it reaches its conclusion.  In terms of pacing, it reminded me very much of Only Yesterday, in that it just sort of...goes...without a particularly clear build to a climax. And then it just...ends.

Ma-san and I also weren't entirely sure how to feel about the main romantic relationship in the story.  There are essentially two ways to interpret the role their relationship plays in the narrative.  You could interpret it as a cautionary tale about putting your work ahead of the people in your life (can we talk about what a lousy brother the main character is), which ends in a bittersweet manner (and the main character realizes that he has made a terrible mistake).  Alternatively, you could interpret it as a woman putting her partner and her partner's interests before everything else in her life--including her failing health.  I would prefer it to be the first--Ma-san interpreted it as the second (i.e. as another one of those "ladies, stick by your man no matter how bad he is at taking care of you while you're bedridden" movies).  ...on the other hand, you could also interpret it as a straight-up love story, I guess.  Again, the ending is so ambiguous (and there's enough evidence to interpret it any way you want) that I have no idea how I feel about it.

I'm also not sure how well it will be received in the US, as I'm not sure how watchable it would be for someone who isn't well-acquainted with Japanese history.  Or how many people want to watch a movie about a dude trying to make planes.  Or if people will be as puzzled as the audience we walked out of the theatre with.

...so that's my scattered thoughts about the movie.  Really unsure how I feel about it at this point, and will probably have deep conversations with Yuting about it tomorrow (she saw it this weekend and has been waiting for someone to talk to this whole week like the trooper she is).  May have more coherent thoughts on it at some point, but yeah.

I am still alive

Sorry for not updating; I've been busy with people visiting and way too much homework, and so I haven't really had time to sit down and write out a post.  Shall have a post up by this weekend at the latest.  Also, I'm going to see the new Ghibli movie, Kaze Tachinu, tomorrow afternoon, so will probably have a review of that up at some point as well.

海の日

First off, have a picture of all the IUC students:

Bonus points to anyone who can spot the two people who were photoshopped in.

And here's a picture of all the folks from my cohort who are currently at IUC:

(Picture ruthlessly stolen from Danica.)

Wow, look how academic we are, oh man.

Monday was 海の日 (Sea Day), so we, of course, went to the beach!

Everyone else in Japan had the same idea as us.

Japanese beaches are bizarre, 'cause they're some kind of "social norm-free" zone.  Needless to say, the "don't show your shoulders" rule doesn't apply at beaches.  Also, after about 3 p.m., most of the kids went home and the water suddenly turned into the "adult" zone--people were making out and necking and taking off their clothes (????) in the middle of the ocean, and, uh, that's not really normal behavior in Japan.  There were also these dudes carrying around boomboxes that were bigger than me, and these other dudes who kept doing backflips into the ocean, which I guess is a common Japanese pastime, 'cause I saw an ad with a dude backflipping into the ocean the other day????

Also, apparently the ocean in Japan doesn't really have waves.  It's weird.  It's like a wave pool or something.
I just don't know how to deal with an ocean that isn't actively trying to drown me.
ALSO ALSO, the ocean is really weirdly warm????  Possibly warmer than the Atlantic?  It was really confusing.  But it also meant that I could go swimming for half an hour and still feel my feet. Wow, how radical.

Wow, look at those beach-going gaijin.

(Picture ruthlessly stolen from Danica.)

P.S. Inner tube + ocean = GREATEST COMBINATION EVER.

The best part of the beach trip was the part where I managed to apply sunscreen properly and didn't get burned at all, yesssssssssssssssss.
The weirdest part was where all of us kept experiencing bite-y feelings in the water, and we couldn't tell if we were being bitten or if there was just really sharp seaweed or if there was some kind of not-particularly-lethal jellyfish in the water.  Oh well, none of us died, so it's all good.

And now, a random aside:

I ran out of soap last week, so I went to 100 yen store to buy some more, and of course I got COW SOAP.

You probably thought I was kidding.

It's probably hard to tell from these pictures, but one side says "COW" and the other has a picture of a cow.

COW SOAP.

FINAL NOTE:

This is a picture from inside the American restaurant we went to for 4th of July.

(Picture totally stolen from Danica, again.)

(Also, these are two of my lovely Harvard classmates.  Joanna was my mentor last year, and Floris is in the PhD program.)

Can someone please tell me that that strange piece of artwork hanging on the wall is not what it appears to be?  After we saw that, everyone got really uncomfortable...

Still too hot, still in love with the NDL

Greetings from the Land of Excuse Me While I Dump Ice on My Head, where it is currently Literally Thousands of People Were Hospitalized Because of Heat Stroke This Week degrees.

Not much to report again.  (Sorry, I live a boring life.)  We had our midterm this Friday, so I spent most of the week either in class or studying.  Friday we had our first field trip in Yokohama; we were given our pick of courses (each course going to a different set of places).  The course I picked went to the Yokohama Shipping Museum, which was actually more interesting than it sounds.  Afterwards I hung out with some of the other students, and we went over to the customs building at Oosanbashi, which is also more exciting than it sounds.  It's basically a giant wooden building that you can walk on the roof of.  Obligatory picture.  We wound up grabbing dinner together afterwards.

Today I spent...basically the entire day in the National Diet Library, because the NDL is the best.  Got some stuff copied (although, geez, their copies are expensive--about $0.25 a page), found an article that seems like it'll be really helpful in a technical school manual (I don't even know), and wound up running into another student from the program, who was visiting the library with his wife.  Anyway, it was a productive day overall, although I now have abrasions on both my arms.  I was taking out huge stacks of books at once, which was good for my productivity ('cause I could flip through six books in 30 minutes and figure out which ones were actually relevant without having to do the whole "flip through a book and then wait for 30 minutes for them to bring me another book" thing), but not so great for my arms, especially since a lot of books I was looking through were HUGE.  There was a point at which I was carrying around six encyclopedia volumes plus my electronic dictionary plus my notebook plus two other normal-sized books.  At least I didn't have to borrow a cart from the library, like that one guy who was hauling around what looked like 20 encyclopedia volumes on architecture.
Also, I discovered that the NDL has more reference works on "food culture" than it does on Shinto.  Yeah.

Also, this is totally unrelated, but on the train today I saw an ad for this TV show, which is apparently about a single mom housewife who fights bullies FOR GREAT JUSTICE.  I really hope she fights them with a vacuum.  Really.

Anyway, we have a three-day weekend this weekend, so I might be going to the beach with classmates on Monday.  Otherwise, not a whole lot of plans, other than maybe catching up on sleep, if I can stop from waking up at 6 a.m. because of the heat.

It is 11 p.m. and 90 degrees Fahrenheit

...so I haven't been writing much recently, mostly because I've been spending a lot of time writing speeches in Japanese, and once you've written a speech in Japanese, you don't really want to do much else.  Plus, it's been Hotter Than Entirely Legal, which has kind of been killing all my energy.  Seriously, it is currently 90 degrees, and it's 11 p.m. and I strongly object to this state of affairs.

BASICALLY, THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED RECENTLY:

Friday we had a field trip to see kabuki at the National Theatre in Tokyo.  It was a special show intended to introduce people to kabuki, so there was a 30 minute introductory lecture followed by about 2 hours of kabuki.  Thus, most of the other patrons were middle school children.  Unfortunately, the introductory lecture turned out to be cooler than the actual show, 'cause in the introductory lecture they showed us a whole bunch of cool mechanisms they use in kabuki (from puppets to hydraulic lifts in the stage)...which then did not appear in the actual play.  The actual play was...not the most exciting piece they could have performed. Basic story: dude discovers that his wife is actual a fox pretending to be his true love when true love shows up at his house with her parents, dude apparently is so distraught by this state of affairs that he goes to sleep (????), fox lady spends 30+ minutes lamenting the fact she has to leave, fox lady finally writes a poem on the sliding doors and leaves, dude feels bad and follows her, fox lady dances around with...dudes in clothes I don't know what they were supposed to represent, THE END.  That took 2 hours.  Roughly half the audience fell asleep, while one fourth of the conscious audience spent the entire performance poking each other and being super disruptive.  So.  That was a thing.

Afterwards I went out to dinner with a bunch of my classmates, and then headed home because the rest of them were heading out to a bar.

Saturday I visited the National Diet Library with Danica, who is one of my cohortmates from Harvard.  If you ever get a chance to go to the National Diet Library, you should definitely go, because it's awesome.  I now have a library card that is good for the next three years, and I think I'll be up there next weekend, 'cause they have a bunch of books I want to look at.  The way it works is that you find the book you want in the library system, place a hold on it using the computer, and then you'll get a message when it's delivered to the holds counter.  You can take out three books at a time, and you can also get up to 200 pages copied per day (2,000 pages, if you're okay with them delivering the photocopies to your house within 3 days).  It's a great system and they have a bunch of interesting books, and I am basically super into it.  So, yes, I will be going back there.

Otherwise, I have mostly been doing homework and writing speeches in Japanese.  I led a one-hour discussion class about religion today, because I am all about talking about religion in class all the time.  I'm giving YET ANOTHER speech about religion tomorrow morning, because my class is all about speeches all the time.  Otherwise, my class has not been terribly exciting; we're reading about the unemployment rate for the forty millionth time in my academic career, because apparently when Japanese classes are looking for "societal problems" to talk about in class, rather than talking about, I don't know, any of the forty million other societal problems we could discuss, we talk about the unemployment rate.  [insert loud sighing here]

...so, yeah, that's basically it.  It's grossly hot, I want to swim in a pool of ice, I would eat ice cream for 600% of my meals if that were a nutritionally viable option, etc.

True or false answers, among other things

Firstly, true or false answers:

True or false: You will very rarely see Japanese people wearing anything that reveals their shoulders, even in summer.
True.  It's considered rude to reveal your shoulders.  On the other hand, it's ridiculously hot.  This leads to some interesting fashion choices, such as wife beater/tank top + scarf.

True or false: In Japan, you stand on the left side of the escalator and walk on the right.
False.  In all parts of Japan except the Kansai region, you stand on the left and walk on the right.  In Kansai you stand on the right and walk on the left.  Basically, Kansai is forever rebelling.

True or false: You can buy all of the following items at convenience stores in Japan: batteries, shampoo, notebooks, sandwiches, razors, fresh vegetables.
True.  Japanese convenience stores are basically the best thing ever.

True or false: It's common to hear American pop songs in Japanese stores.
True.  Including some wildly inappropriate ones!  My favorite example is that Steven, one of my fellow Fulbrighters last year, heard Lady Gaga's "Christmas Tree" (perhaps you should not listen to this around sensitive ears) playing in a convenience store along with other "Christmas" music.  I also heard "Starships" (same with this one) playing in a super-girly-lace-and-sparkles-everywhere store, which I personally thought was an awesome juxtaposition.  And since I've linked to "Starships," I am now required by law to link to this music video.  It is the law.

True or false: All of the following are foods closely associated with summer in Japan: watermelon, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, persimmons, figs.
False.  Cucumbers and watermelon are the only ones of the bunch that are strongly associated with summer.  Persimmons are a fall food.

True or false: The LDP just lost seats in the Diet.
False.  The LDP just gained seats in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly.  I should know, 'cause we've been watching news on it all week.

True or false: Wearing a hat is the most common way of protecting oneself from the sun during the summer in Japan.
False.  It's much more common to carry a sun parasol.  Particularly concerned women will often wear long sleeves or gloves.  Sunscreen is a thing, but it seems like not many people use it.  There are generational and gender differences, of course--men and older women are more likely to wear hats than carry sun parasols...although young men are much more likely to just not use any sun protection at all.

True or false: Tanning is considered unattractive in Japan.
True.  Thus the long sleeves and gloves in ridiculously hot weather.  I've had a couple of uncomfortable conversations where people have told me that I should be more careful not to tan, because tanning is unattractive, and I have to inform them that, no, that's just the color my skin is.  The weirdest instance was when I had such a conversation in the middle of winter.

True or false: Japanese deodorant is significantly stronger than American deodorant.
False.  Japanese deodorant is actually significantly weaker than American deodorant, so if you're planning on visiting Japan, I highly recommend bringing your own!

Mary and Julia tied for first with 7/9, so each of them will be receiving an arbitrary fabulous prize (alternatively an arbitrarily fabulous prize).

In other news, uhhh, not a whole lot to report.  Class continues to be class-like.  The weather is slowly getting hotter, which I strongly object to.  I have discovered the joys of frozen watermelon during summer (seriously, chop up a watermelon and stick it in your freezer RIGHT NOW; you're welcome).  I've been assigned my RSEA mentee for the next year, which means I have a minion now mwahahahaha.  It looks like I might be going to the National Diet Library with some of my classmates this upcoming Saturday, which should be cool.  I submitted my first abstract to a conference.
...yeah, my life is not terribly exciting right now, OH WELL.
I should go do research on Japanese political parties for class right now, so I'm going to end this post here.

Oh, wait, since I promised Julia, here's the speech I gave last week on how not to be super offensive while visiting a shrine:

　今日は神社への正しいお参りの仕方について話させていただきたいと思います。お参りとは、参拝しなくても、神社に行くということです。どうしてお参りのやり方が分かったらいいかというと、皆さんは観光客として神社に行くかもしれませんが、神道を信じなくても、神社は聖なる場所なので、正しい行動が必要だからです。

　まず、鳥居の通り方に関してご説明いたします。鳥居とは、神社の領域を示すための大きいゲートです。鳥居を通る時は 、真ん中を歩いてはいけません。なぜかというと、鳥居の真ん中の部分は神様が通るはずの道だからです。真ん中を歩けば、神様の道を阻んで、お邪魔になるという信仰があります。ですから、鳥居を通るなら、右側か左側を歩いてください。

　鳥居を通ってから、「手水舎」という、手と口を洗う場所に行かなければなりません。なぜ手と口を洗うのが必要でしょうか。神道の世界観によると、人間の世界で生きたり、生活をしたりする人の体は「穢れ」という汚いものを持ってきます。聖地に入る前にその穢れを消すために手水舎で手と口を洗わなければなりません。神道を別に信じなくても、聖地を汚さないように手水舎を使ってください。正しい洗い方は次にご説明いたします。最初に、右手でひしゃくを持って、左手を洗います。次に、ひしゃくを左手に持ち替えて、右手を洗います。そして、もう一度ひしゃくを右手に持ち替えて、口を漱ぎます。手水舎の水は飲めない場合が多いので、漱ぐふりした方がいいです。ひしゃくを使い終わってから、握りを洗うためにひしゃくを縦にして、残りの水を握りに浴びせて、置き場所に戻します。

　皆さんは観光客として神社に行くので、写真を撮りたいという方 は多いでしょう。撮影禁止というサインがなかったら、本殿の中を除き、どこでも撮影していいという神社が多いです。本殿は「神体」という神様の体を象徴している像や宝が祀られている場所で、そこで写真を撮るのは本当に失礼ですので、ご遠慮ください。本殿はどの建物かというと、参拝者がその前で祈る、「坪鈴」という鈴が取り付けられている建物です。ある神社では撮影コンテストなどがありますので、本殿以外の場所できれいな写真をいっぱい撮ってください。

　皆さん、今夏、このお参りのルールを守って、たくさんの神社を楽しく見に行きましょうね！