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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 2, 2010 4:53:44 GMT -5
I can see why Kurosawa liked him and joined forces with Kobayashi, the director that made Twenty Four Eyes (His name keeps changing to Kinopoopiea when I do my preview!) and Kon Ichikawa to create films that Kurosawa sadly killed with the reception of Dodes'Ka-Den. I would love to have seen what would have come next. Don't you hate that? I've started writing it Kinosh(i)ta. So, Do Desu Ka Den was a collaboration? That's another favourite of mine. Let me try it. Kinosh(i)ta. Well, what do you know? What happened was the four of them didn't like the films they were seeing from the new generation of filmmakers. Shohei Imamura was the one exception. So they decided to create a production company and they would each help produce the others films. They decided Kurosawa would be first. So Dodes'Ka-Den was made and released. It bombed!! The first Kurosawa movie, in a long time, that just wasn't popular in Japan. Since the profits from Dodes'Ka-Den was suppose to be used to help produce the next film, that was the end of the partnership. And film buffs will never know what could have been created. And I loved the pictures. What a cute kid. And I see the hand holding a photo on the sign so you didn't even have to read it.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 2, 2010 10:24:35 GMT -5
Heh heh, the Fuji film logo should also have been a clue, but the first day in Japan can feel like falling down the rabbit-hole. There's just so much to see, especially in a smaller town like that. Tokyo, now, I love the line in Mr. Baseball: "It looks a lot like Cleveland, except I can't read the signs." There's certainly some truth in that too.
I have some more pics of kids from that same day that I'm debating posting. And I got some yesterday of Yuuto visiting Thomas (the Tank Engine) Town. Yay!
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 3, 2010 2:23:22 GMT -5
I'd like to sketch out another favorite student of mine named Shoji. I have a couple of pictures, but given that he was an older gentlemen I'm less sure that he'd be OK with my displaying them. As a visual aide I am substituting a shot of actor Hidari Bokuzen, who is not at all a bad likeness. You might remember him as the guy who had heard them talk . . . about . . . flying saucers . . . so much lately. Check out his resumé sometime though; he did better. Anyway, at 75 Shoji was one of our oldest students. He was nick-named Maipeisu Ojii-san by the other students, which translates as something like "Doing it his own way grandfather." If you asked Shoji why he was studying English, he would answer, "I waak, intanashanaru hoteru. Many peopo ask to me, 'Whea izu za bassroom?'" Or, in layman's terms, "I work in an international hotel and many people ask me, 'Where is the bathroom?'" Now, please don't think that I'm mocking Shoji by writing him out phonetically. He was a bit hard of hearing, and really boomed out, but he wasn't afraid to speak. Indeed, he was downright theatrical, with dramatic intonation, pauses and gestures (he'd have been a natural for kabuki). He was also a very kind man, and a funny one too. His other teacher (a Brit, as it happens) and I got to where we could both impersonate him well (from swapping Shoji stories over smokes on the roof), but it was in the spirit of delight in him rather than derision of him. There was one time where some new student apparently complained about him, and the staff began talking about trying to maneuver Shoji into not renewing. We handled it the way you sometimes do in Japan, by deliberately misunderstanding. We agreed that it would be a good idea to get rid of this person who had a problem with Shoji. Heh heh . . . one time we were imagining him delivering Roy Batty's final soliloquy from Blade Runner . . . Let me get back to Shoji himself. He was actually a good student, but I gathered he had some memory problems because nothing seemed to stick from class to class. One recurring theme was Shoji forgetting the injunction against Japanese in class. He'd come through some tricky exercise -- usually quite well -- and suddenly say, " A! Kore muzukashii na!" (Dang! This is difficult!). I'd remind him of the rule, and he'd answer, "OHHH, I'mu sori!" I remember once when I had the students asking each other simple questions as a warmup, and he was asked, "What's your favorite color?" Shoji responded, "My favorite karaa . . . out of OOORUUU karaa . . . izu . . . pink. Doyouknowwhy? It is because I am duty guy! Duuuuty guy!" OK, this one takes some culture notes atop the dephoneticization. Pinku has been taken into Japanese as a synonym for "erotic." "Duty guy" was "dirty guy," so Shoji was saying that he liked pink because he was an old rascal. Another time he was asked if he had a wife, and answered, "Yes . . . but she is TOOO OOOLLLD!" I'm not sure that this is something that I can really make live in this text only format. I hope some of the magic that was Shoji is coming through. He used to bring me snacks from his hotel (though I found it was wise to check their freshness date). At my farewell party Shoji presented me with a hachimaki headband saying 「必勝」, which translates as something like "certain success." These are common accessories for students taking school entrance exams or pilots on kamikaze runs. I haven't had a chance to use it in either capacity but I still treasure it. I regret that I never got to talk to him very much outside of class. As the Brit teacher and I agreed, given the times he'd lived through Shoji probably really had seen things we couldn't even imagine.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 3, 2010 3:49:50 GMT -5
When I came here to read your new post, the first thing I noticed was the picture, and I said out loud, "It's Bokuzen!" Then an image from Seven Samurai flashed through my mind. I know he was in a bunch of Kurosawa films and was a beloved comedian in Japan.
That was great Ijon. You definitely caught the magic of Shoji. I was laughing hard. I loved the answer about his wife. And your dialogue of him is fine. Remember, I live in Hawai'i and not only are Asians the majority here but we also have a huge amount of tourist from Japan. I've heard quite a few and I probably would have typed the speech patterns the same way, with adoring and loving care.
I actually did understand the pink comment since I do own one...ahem..'pink' film. Woman With The Red Hair, if I remember it correctly.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments...will be lost...in time...like...tears...in rain. Time to die." For you Shoji, a great man.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 3, 2010 10:58:19 GMT -5
It makes me heartwarm* that that came through. Shoji was my favorite student in that gig.
There are a lot of interesting observations to be made on Japan's pinku culture. I remember the first time I walked into a 7-11 there and saw that nearly half the magazine rack was porn. Probably best to leave it lie though.
*"Heartwarm" is an adjective Japan is convinced actually exists in English. It always made me think of "heartworm."
The chain school I was working at when I taught Shoji and Rika advertised that it taught "heartful English." We native-speakers joked that it was a misprint for "hurtful English." During one of my breaks I was practicing my Japanese on the whiteboard and had written, "My English is full of heart?" in Japanese. One of the staff came in to ask me something and just burst out laughing when she saw it.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 4, 2010 0:15:53 GMT -5
I stumbled across some YouTubes of the movie 俺は君のためにこそ死ににいく( Ore ha kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku. Literally this is something like, "We go to die expressly for your sake," but Toei's more elegant English title is For Those We Love, and it's a story of the kamikaze. I had been planning to include a translation of the song, but that's going to take a while yet. Still, I want to bring it up as it's a chance to discuss the Japanese Right. Here's a trailerish video: www.youtube.com/watch#!v=OKFb5jPMfbQ&feature=relatedAnd here's the attack sequence. It's well done and looks pretty convincing, though I find the idea of talking over the slipstream dubious (if that's what they're supposed to be doing). I also doubt that many pilots were actually seen off by a kid brother, but that's a bit of artistic license I can accept, I guess. Be warned that the clip is quite graphically violent: Kamikaze TokkotaiThere's not much dialogue, but for what it's worth here's what they're saying: On takeoff: "Elder Brother! Elder Brother!" but there's an element that doesn't encapsulate. What the kid is saying is to "Elder Brother" what "Daddy" is to "Father." It's actually rather manipulative, but it works. I find that the single most affecting moment in the clip. At the same time I find myself thinking, "Jeez! Cut the flippin' stoicism long enough to wave your kid brother goodbye!" But the Japanese have the sort of reserve that MST used to riff on re cheeseheads: "What a glorious day! Maybe I'll even tell my wife I love her!" in spades, and the Right likes it that way. During the battle: "We'll be able to swamp them!" "Oshima!" (a proper name, on seeing him get waxed). "Flight Leader!" (under similar circumstances). "Flight Leader, I will strike." And as the next to last guy goes in, "Horyaaaaaa!" which has no particular meaning that I know of but is a distinctive Japanese shout. Thoughts;I was actually in Japan when this came out, but there was a lot of other clutter on my personal radar and I had forgotten it until stumbling on these. I've heard it was well-made film; certainly the effects look good. In some ways it joins films like Men of the Yamato as Japan's bid for a domestic Saving Pvt. Ryan, though a better comparison might be made to Das Boot. But I didn't come here to talk about the film per se, never having seen it. Rather I'd like to present the film's writer, Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarou with whom I am familiar and whose politics it is said to strongly represent. The governor is not one of my favorite people, having floated during my stay in Tokyo a plan for special police units to control foreigners in case of a natural disaster (not that my particular presence was in any way causal, to the best of my knowledge). He is famously right-wing and an advocate of a return to a certain kind of traditional values. I respect his right to his views and to advocate them, but I am not alone in having a problem with a Far Eastern version of holocaust denial in which he deals. Even moderate Japanese tend to recollect their nation's undeniable suffering in the war while glossing over their own bombing of Chinese cities and iron-fisted anti-guerilla policy, and who can really blame them? They would prefer to think of the war as something that just sort of happened, and in which they were victims not so very different from any others. This is already to some degree disingenuous, but the Japanese Right goes further. In order to remove the stigma of an aggressive war brutally waged from the martial values they cherish, they recast it as a high-minded crusade against Western imperialism and dismiss events such as the "Rape of Nanjing" as Chinese fabrications. This does not go over well with the bulk of their neighbors. Taiwan is a notable exception, in part because it was under a more enlightened civil administration and in part because of its own politics vis a vis the PRC. India was also somewhat sympathetic (notably in the Tokyo Trials). A case can be made for the war having hastened the end of colonialism, but a case for this having actually been a result of Imperial Japan's altruism is harder to make. India differed from countries like Korea or the Philippines in not actually having experienced Japanese occupation. The upshot of this is that there is a war-guilt "trump card" that can easily come into play in regional politics. In recent decades North Korea has often been very skillful in playing it. Japan has occasionally issued apologies, but their internal politics often qualify these to a point of hollowness. When Japan then remains adamant on issues such as comfort women, stirs the pot with Prime Ministerial visits to the graves of Class A war criminals (thankfully now discontinued) and regularly has Ishihara types put it all down to Chinese and Koreans being "low people" and Japan having been railroaded by "victor's justice," it's no surprise that the issue continues to fester. This is in marked contrast to Germany, where the issue has been much more openly discussed and largely put to bed. To a degree it's traceable to Japan's cultural aversion to openly discussing discordant issues. There is very definitely opposition to this view in Japan, as was seen in protests against returning the hinomaru flag and kimigayo anthem to official status. The US must also shoulder some of the blame. Beginning with the Korean War Japan was viewed as a vital bridgehead in the Cold War. Many wartime leaders were rehabilitated in the interests of a strong, anti-Communist Japan. US hegemony in the region also served to submerge Japanese/Korean antagonism and channel Japanese/Chinese. But with the end of the Cold War and China coming to eclipse the US not only regionally but perhaps globally these sentiments risk becoming a great danger. The wartime generation is dying off, and it's probably already too late for "truth and reconciliation" on the South African model. The rise of China is, in my view, every bit as big an issue as the rise of Germany was a century ago, and if today's statesmen don't handle it better than that was the world is in for a rough ride. This can't be helped by lingering resentments in Japan's neighbors matched against a sort of Versailles Diktat mentality on Japan's own part. Add to this North Korea's nuclear testing, South Korea launching an amphibious assault ship (the Dokdo, significantly named for an island disputed with Japan) and Japan's own commissioning of her first postwar aircraft carrier last year, and the road ahead for the 21st century looks rocky indeed. Having laid the issue to rest, Germany could honour the sacrifices of it's fighting men in films like Das Boot or Stalingrad and make them all the more poignant for their love of country having been twisted to perverted ends. Sadly, Japan's heroes -- among whom the kamikaze are an apex in ways both positive and negative -- must remain ambivalent. From letters I've seen in Japanese papers about similar movies some of the vets themselves resent that. Sigh. Now I've gone all Observer's Brainy and depressed myself. Let's watch some old home movies. The music is too Japanesey to be really Japanese, but it's an effective job of editing: Japanese kamikaze pilots
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 4, 2010 1:50:38 GMT -5
I think I'm going to slit my wrists now...
Tell me about North Korea. They tried to launch a missile to reach Hawai'i last year in July. Hawai'i residents are kind and friendly, but I can say this in all honesty, we were not amused.
I had heard about the fact that in Japan they are creating a revisionist view of the war but I never knew the exact details until now. Although we are very forgiving here, they did bomb Pearl Harbor. I know it's because of sanctions that were put on them by the USA after their invasions of China and Korea. So they've come to believe in a sort of 'rose colored glasses' view of the war?
I guess they ignore some of their own movies and books of the past then? Do they believe they are made up stories now? Or are they trying to do what a lot of people who do wrong attempt and that is to 'justify' their reasons for doing it? It sounds like the drug culture in America, wanting to legalize their personal favorite drug so they can 'justify' their own personal reasons for using it and not have to deal with their problem.
In the first part of The Human Condition, Masaki Kobayashi combines his own and the authors personal experiences to tell a story about a Chinese internment camp that they were involuntarily forced to work at. It shows the appalling conditions and treatment of the Chinese soldiers and the film-makers disgust at their own countries behavior during the war. I wonder if modern Japan thinks it's just a movie now?
The clips were quite good although they look like any Hollywood made movie. It's sad to see them losing their own visual style and adopting the 'universal' mode of film-making. And that song did seem out of place. It's like the generic music created for sporting events. Cringe worthy.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 4, 2010 2:29:57 GMT -5
Appy-polly-loggies for going on a downer track, but yeah, I'm afraid there is a real urge among some Japanese today to whitewash the war. My own personal favorite film of all films (partly for personal reasons and partly because it is quite good) is Oshima's 「戦場のメリークリスマス」(Senjou no merii kurisumasu, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence"). I'm not really sure where this issue stood in '82 when it was made, but it's almost the opposite of what I gather Ore Kimi is. I never caught it in Japan. I kept seeing the VHS in rental shops and meaning to get it some time, but somehow as they all went over to DVD it didn't get replaced. Last I checked it's only DVD release was some weird Brazilian disc.
As for the Japanese losing touch with their own film vernacular, I was over there when the Richard Gere remake of Shall we Dance? came out. I was asking people why they cared when they could go see the original, and almost to a (wo)man they said it was much cooler coming from Hollywood.
Pass me the razor when you're done. (^_^)
Edit: I think North Korea is a big factor in this, by the way. I was there in '98, when Japan was about the last government urging patience with them over the nuclear issue. So what does Kim do? Lob a missile right over Japan. Between things like that and the kidnappee return issue, I suppose I can understand why a guy like Ishihara gets some traction.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 4, 2010 20:30:25 GMT -5
Ok, enough Hidemasa Nagata (which as we all know means "hideous negativity"). Let's take a look at some Japanese TV. Do you remember "12 Girls Band"? Here's "12 Musical Boys Tsuyoshi." Tsuyoshi Kusanagi is a member of the pop group SMAP, which is all over Japanese TV. The last segment of their variety show (which it looks like this is from) is each member telling you what other six or eight things he'll be appearing in that week. I like this. It's odd: Next, a segment from one of Japan's infamous game shows. There's a rules explanation at the start, but the idea is pretty self-explanatory. One reason why these shows can put the contestants through such hell is because they're tarento. They're singers, actors, comedians and whatnot. It's the price they pay for all the gigs doing commercials for can coffee. I actually saw this one when it aired: In spite (because?) of their fear of embarrassment, the Japanese just love "Candid Camera" style prank shows. These are just ordinary Japanese, and sometimes the pranks get surprisingly wild. Tarento get to be a studio audience, which I suppose is payback. This one is in an onsen at a ski resort. There are massage chairs in the lounge, and inserting coins starts a timer . . . Ski-joring?I also found a series of weekly TV sketches by a comedy duo called "Downtown" and friends trying to get a "5 Ranger" sketch right. From the first I don't think I should embed it, and by number 10 YouTube makes you sign in: 5 RANGERS X 01They're subbed, and even have notes to help with the in-jokes. (^_^)
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 5, 2010 15:48:57 GMT -5
I'm trying to pull together a post on gaijin in Japan, but in the meantime I found another good onsen piece. Shibu-onsen is in Nagano, a central mountainous part of the country, and they describe it as a very traditional and nostalgic one. This report is about an unusual ryokan (a triditional style inn) located there. It comes up because the owners son-in-law is a gaijin. What the reporter's eating at the start is an onsen-tamago, an egg soft-boiled in the spring water. They take on a bit of the minerally flavor and are delicious. Everything else is pretty self expalnatory, I think. At one point they call this place "onsen-heaven":
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 6, 2010 5:26:44 GMT -5
That game show clip was fantastic and I absolutely lost it on the last design. Built for failure I think they would call it. They did bring this show over and try to create an American version of it last year but I don't know if it's still on the air. We should get badjojo TV here. I'd love to see some of our people hurled and shot outdoors with a jet snowmobile. I wonder where the last guy ended up? What's great about the 5 rangers skit is I grew up watching the original gorangers back in the middle 70's. All three years of it. We sort of had a henshin and other Japanese super hero craze back then. What makes the skit funny for me is not only the repetitive colors but that the villian is actually the design of the henchmen in the Kamen Rider series. Do you remember a Japanese game show that used to re-enact historical events? They would go to the actual sites and have contestants running through obstacle courses with strategically planted sabotages for them. I could swear I saw one like that in the early 2000's. I also wonder if you remember a show hosted by the actor Ishizaka Koji? It was like that panel on the video you showed on the onsen piece. I have no comment on the 12 musical boys....no comment at all.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 6, 2010 9:21:31 GMT -5
Come to think of it, you do get quite a bit of Japanese programming in Hawai'i, don't you? I'm in Northern California, and we used to get a bit (especially when you could pick up the Bay Area stations).
Ishizaka Koji doesn't ring a bell, I'm afraid. I did an image search but I'm afraid that didn't help. It was a feature show of some kind? I don't place the particular game show either, but that obstacle course or "challenge" format is a favorite. I remember one that involved the tarento lying with their faces under a fire hose-sized wasabi dispenser and seeing who could go the longest. The winner managed nearly a minute, if I remember right.
There used to be one on YouTube that involved each team having a bikini model sitting on a bouncing exercise stool and having a pedometer in each bra cup. The stool was activated by sitting on a switch at the bottom of a tank of water so hot it instantly turned their skins red. The first team to bring their scoreboard to 100 pedometer clicks won. Now that's entertainment!
Heh heh, "12 Musical Boys" is kind of hard to comment on, isn't it? I've found a clip of Paris Hilton appearing on SMAP's show. I'm trying to decide if I can annotate it enough to make it worth posting.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 6, 2010 19:16:53 GMT -5
We had KIKU TV from the 1960's until I believe 1981. They had Japanese programming. At first they showed mostly dramas. I know they had a few Sonny Chiba TV programs including the one that copycat Tarantino was influenced by. The first time I ever saw nudity was on one of his shows because of the bath house scenes. Then in 1972 a station representative was in Japan and saw one of the childrens Tokusatsu programs and thought it would be a great show to bring overseas. Unfortunately, it was one of the lamest of the heroes, Kikaida. So in 1973 they made a deal to show Kikaida in Hawai'i and it was a huge it. Thankfully better tokusatsu programs followed, Kamen Rider V3, Zaboga, Rainbowman, Inazuman...we never did get Might Jack or Army Of The Apes, although I recognized the type of program they were. And that's why I love season three.
I had heard that the Bay Area TV stations would pick up programming from Kiku and then re-broadcast it there because of the large amount of ex-Hawai'i residents and the large Asian communities that were established. That's why a few who live in Northern California actually grew up watching the Hawai'i children program Checkers And Pogo.
They still show Asian programming here but only on digital cable so, unfortunately, no free channels exist.
I would enjoy that bikini model video. ;D
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 6, 2010 20:31:24 GMT -5
I would enjoy that bikini model video. ;D I'll ping Shoji and see if he has a copy. (^_^) I actually saw a Mighty Jack VHS in a used video store, and in another a deluxe boxed DVD set of Time of the Apes. Both were pretty pricey or I probably couldn't have resisted. OK, here's my report about gaijin「外人」, or "foreigners." The word literally means "outside person," and my fist Japanese teacher (a native Japanese) insisted that it was so offensive we should hit anyone who used it to us. All I can say is that if I did I'd never stop swinging. The more correct gaikokujin「外国人」or "outside country person" is used by the media, but I only once heard it in daily life. It was used by two ladies on the train who were talking about me with a sort of "oh, one of them" overtone that I was actually slightly offended. But sometimes you see Westerners in Japan acting so stupidly you're ashamed to swim in the same gene pool. Witness these guys making asses of themselves at the Tsukiji Fish Market: There's a fairly complete translation in the YouTube "more info" section, but basically the Japanese guy is saying he appreciates foreigners' curiosity but people are trying to work and it's dangerous. These guys are clearly way over the top. I mean, licking the produce? I don't know if it's drink, a spring break mentality, long term frustration with the strangeness of a foreign country . . . or maybe these guys were just the same kind of jerks back home in London. The one they interview does have a bit of Japanese. Doesn't look like much, but it's understandable if he's rattled under the circumstances. Unfortunately he's using it like a blunt instrument. Asking the Japanese guys their names under those circumstances would come across as very brash. He'd have done better to apologize, even if he really did have permission for what he was doing. Had he done that he probably could have rescued the situation. If you demonstrate that you're trying the Japanese will forgive a lot. Some of the other people they film are less out there, but they're doing things like snapping pics of people without asking or blocking tight alleyways. Japan is a cramped country, and the tendency for foreigners to sprawl on a train seat, wave their arms about or talk loudly strikes them as rude. Now it's true that you sometimes see Japanese (especially teens) do all of the above, but you won't win points conforming to the lowest common denominator. It's also not easy initially to spot Japanese disapproval, as the next clip illustrates. I found it while looking for onsen clips, and as it is a bunch of guys in one I won't embed it: Hot SpringThis is more subtle, but I don't think the Japanese guy in this clip is really comfortable. I'm less sure about the Korean; I only met a few but those I knew seemed to confirm the Japanese view that they're more outgoing. Now, the Australian(?) guy does seem to have asked, because the first thing you can hear in the clip is, " Ii yo," (that's OK). But even among themselves the Japanese dislike saying "no" overtly. As a foreign stranger they tend to interpret you as a guest and see it as a breach of hospitality to refuse you something. It takes a while to develop the feelers for this, and until you do it's easy to push them around without realizing you're doing it. This guy has some Japanese, but I'm wondering how long he'd been there. The ironic thing is that he's just trying to be friendly. He reminds me of the wonderfully friendly folks I met in New Zealand. Now it's my experience that most Japanese do want to get to know you, but this kind of approach hits them like having a St. Bernard put its paws on your shoulders and start licking your face. They tend to be a bit more catlike. I remember when I met my first Japanese language partner he walked past me without eye contact. I figured it couldn't be the right guy, until I saw that he'd gone around a pillar and was peeking from behind it. Speaking of animals though, if you have a pet or child with you it gives them an opening to approach you by admiring how cute it is. Once the ice is broken they can warm up remarkably quickly. On a slight tangent, my first Japanese girlfriend's one English word description of Americans was "talkable." I once showed her and some Japanese friends the bit in Python's Meaning of Life that goes, "You talk and you talk and you talk, you Americans! Well you're dead now so shut up!" They were literally writhing with laughter. This one's a bit on the lighter side, being another prank show. They've left two young brothers in charge of a snack shop and secretly film them as a gaijin customer (actually a ringer) comes in. Apologies for the ratty sound: The younger one starts off, "Oh no! A gaikokujin! He asks his brother what kind of snacks they eat, and the brother tells him, "Chocolate, nothing but chocolate!" Waiting on the customer and thinking he's saying he's hungry, he tells him, "Here's the chocolate!" and dumps a bunch in his basket. The ringer then stirs the pot by pretending ignorance of Japanese coins. They get it sorted out and he leaves, and then the younger brother says, "Boy, Africans are really cool!" But don't get the idea that most Japanese think of all gaijin as jerks. I found some other clips that are more positive, but most of them have little English. This one is a feature on an ALT working in a Japanese school. That wasn't my usual gig, but I did quite a bit of it over the years and this takes me back: One of the things they find endearing about this guy is that he speaks with a regional accent (Yamagata-ben). I can understand the feeling. My Japanese boss went to college in Tennessee and can still put on the accent when she wants to. I'm glad to hear this guy say that even he finds the polite keigo forms difficult.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Mar 7, 2010 2:15:20 GMT -5
Hmm . . . I don't know how well this one will track. I'm missing a lot of it myself, partly because of what I take to be girl slang. Still, it might be interesting as an example of how foreign celebrities look to Japanese, and I had originally thought to include it above. Which Gamera was it where Joel wonders if Japanese make fun of American names? I'm not positive there's an element of mockery here but I suspect so. One certain ingredient is enough Shibuya girl culture to make Servo's head explode.
It's called "Gal's Shop Clerk Shinobu," with SMAP member Kimura Takuya as Hamano Shinobu. In the intro "she" is saying that she works in a shop in Shibuya (a trendy part of Tokyo for that kind of thing) but that she has a terrible secret: she is 46th grade. Slang for age 46? For cross-dresser? Sorry, got me.
Anyway, fellow clerks Kanako and Marie (half-Canadian, by the way) arrive and complain about the noise from the new shop opening next door. They decide to go over, setting out with a pun that escapes me.
They complain to shop owner Mayuko with rudely delivered polite language (Japanese is a great language for sarcasm), and she tells them to get stuffed because her campaign model is due. This turns out to be Paris Hilton.
A side note here: the first time I returned from Japan I had lost track of US pop culture. I remember the first MST I caught opened with Crow doing his WWW ~ ~ JD bit, which was just a WTF? for me. In my first newspaper I saw a bit on Paris Hilton but couldn't figure out just why she was famous. To this day I'm not sure, but that and her "glass-brained silent-scream star" persona make her an excellent analogue for a certain type of Japanese tarento, so I'm not surprised she goes over big there.
Anyway, they're impressed, but through another pun Shinobu misidentifies her as a 60 year old half-Japanese celebrity. After clearing that up they decide this is a chance for Kanako to use the English she'd been studying. (Her proficiency is all too plausible).
If you listen to Paris' interpreter you can follow much of the rest of the scene fairly well. I'll note a few things that aren't that clear.
A word to watch for in here: kawaii = cute. Or in Shibuya galspeak: kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
*shudders*
Shinobu borrows Paris' sunglasses and uses them to do an impression of a tough cop character from Japanese TV. She then gets excited about how this is the way Paris sees the world, and then suddenly (and bluntly) tells the audience they're dirty. Interestingly she keeps the falsetto voice but uses rough male language.
After admiring Paris' photo album, Shinobu and company decide to lure her over to their store with gifts. Kanako gives her caramel cream and Marie gives her macaroons. Shinobu gives her kelp drops, insisting that they're a good source of minerals.
They go from sweets to character goods. Except that Shinobu gives her an eggplant, explaining something I can't quite follow about doing something with it at the entrance to your home during the obon holiday. She defends this to the others by saying that it was the only thing in her bag.
On finding that Paris is going to a party they ask to join her, and then ask what kind of men she likes. Shinobu asks what she thinks of the guy in this picture (himself out of drag). After Paris approves he's saying, "No mistake, no mistake!" and tells Kanako and Marie to mind the store while they're gone. Her final voiceover is something about hoping the invitation doesn't uncover her secret.
"Shield your eyes, Frank!"
Edit: It occurred to me that what I interpreted as "46th grade" is actually "46th year." That's what comes of getting rusty. This may mean the year Showa 46, or 1971. If this is reference to age it's still an unusual way of doing it, and checking his wiki I find Kimura Takuya was born in Showa 47. I'm pretty sure I'm hearing it right but may be totally misinterpreting it.
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