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Published: April 26th 2006
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View from the walk home
I don't know why, but the distance you can see in Japan is not very far. I can't imagine it's pollution, but it gives the cool misty effect. Written Monday Night
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I figure it's time to do the stereotypical post on differences between Japan and the U.S.
So!
Toilets -
Yes, the toilets here really are as ridiculous as you've heard. There's a touch screen on the arm of the one my family has, along with two dials, a multifunctional bidirectional flush lever and 4 status LEDs. There's a sink on top of it, too, but I have yet to figure out how to enable that.
Staring -
Not that bad, to be honest. No one really stares at me, even though I'm a bit of an oddity. On the weekend, I went for a couple of days without seeing another foreigner, but that's mostly because I was hanging out in the suburbial neighborhoods. In the touristy areas, it can get up to like 50% American. I guess people here have become accustomed to the invasion. It was definitely nice, though, to hear English voices on Monday and let the language wash over me again. My Japanese is so kludgy it is painful to use, still.
Trees -
This was a big surprise for me personally. The trees here are taller and more menacing - they remind me of an old Kurisawa film. I think it was "Throne of Blood," the feudal-Japan remake of Macbeth. Anyway, towards the end of the film, a bunch of the soldiers cut down the trees and use them as a defensive shield as they approach the castle, fulfilling a great prophecy. There's a great shot of these tall, thin trees wavering menacingly as they approach. The hills here in Kyoto are covered with 'em.
TV -
I watched a lot of television my first few days here. It was a non-confrontational way of absorbing Japanese and didn't require any action on my part except sponging up information. TV shows here are kind of weird, but I haven't seen the totally bizarre ones yet. It seems like dramas focusing on the search for meaning, or even shows with plots deeper than soap operas, simply don't exist - or are extremely rare. On the other hand, the weird stuff - the Japanese equivalent of stupid FOX shows, like Man vs. Beast - are far more common. My guess is that the average oddness level is higher in Japan, but the really really strange stuff is probably pretty rare.
*Edit*
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After seeing a bit more TV, I'm going to conclude that the deeper shows do exist - as well aso the really weird ones. I saw a cop drama tonight in which, though not too deep, the protagonist has to balance his duty as a police officer and protector of the peace with his stormy home life and uncaring family. On the other hand, I watched what appeared to be a talk show in which the host dyed his long hair straw yellow and wore a bright red dress with a v-neck and poofy shoulders. Um, yeah. The purpose appeared to be a competition in which the contestants end up crying. I couldn't figure out why, or what he said, but it definitely seemed strange. Oh, additionally, the average show budget seems much, much lower. There are a lot of handheld cameras, that over-saturation peculiar to low budgets (Lighting? Low-quality cameras?), and avoidance of special effects.
Technology -
Yeah, this place is tech-crazy. To go to bed at night, using my directional remote control, I point at each of the lights in turn and set them to darken mode - all from within my toasty bed. They then switch to a dim blue light which gradually fades. Random household objects have more functions than are possibly reasonable from the toasters to the bathtub (which also has a digital touchpad interface to set everything from water temperature to jet stream pressure).
Calves -
Pertaining to a question brought up on the Mexico trip, I would argue that the women here do, in fact, have larger calves. Unfortunately I don't have a way to gather accurate sampling information, and suspect that the cause may lie in the huge hills that people have to traverse daily. It is equally possibly, though, that this is from the sheer quantity of steps in the sheer number of tall buildings.
English oddness -
Mostly, the English on signs here is pretty good. About two-thirds of the buildings have some sort of non-kanji signage (katakana, hiragana, or English), and a good portion have some sort of English translation. Almost all of the time, though, it is just the sounding-out of the characters in the English alphabet. Occasionally, though, you'll get an English phrase - and these phrases are themselves usually grammatically correct. But these phrases sound strange - they are just awkward phrasings, like the dorm that promises to create "a bright and afflunet life," or the amusingly named "Oh no!" dermatology clinic.
Next time will be the stage-setting cast-of-characters-and-locations post. Expect neat-o pics of the family, the doggies, the center, etc.
~Danny
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Allan Vol Phillips
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On calves
Hello Danny, You write very well. I have bookmarked this thing and would be disappointed if it were entirely forsaken for the charms of the sturdy-calved Japanese girls. With regard to those calves, the hills probably have very little to do with it. There is not a lot known about muscular development, but one thing a lot of scientists--and bodybuilders agree upon--is that calves are a difficult thing to build through failure-induced hypertrophy. Most theories say that calve size is hugely genetic and any appreciable gains in their size are rare, as is atrophy. Mind you, strength can be built and lost by normal means, but the bulge remains the same. Keep on keeping on.