I know I’ve been saying I was gonna start writing again properly for the last 4 months. So I’ll stop saying it. Instead I’ll do what every good blogger does, which is take inspiration from someone else’s work to knock up something of my own. Well kind of…

In this case I’ve actually been meaning to write about the cult of the cute in Japan for a while, but like most other things I haven’t gotten round to it. And considering I’m leaving the country in six weeks, I should really get my arse in gear and play catch up.

Back to the matter at hand. Japan’s love of cute, also known as かわいい　(pronounced kawaii - emphasis on the last i sound please). I was browsing the Sushimatic blog about an hour ago, and came across this post, which speaks for itself in terms of how far the whole cute thing can sometimes be taken in this country.

Thing is Japan really has this weird thing going on with cute. How a foreigner picks up on it depends on the person by and large, but regardless of your degree of ‘immunity’, sooner or later it really starts to stick out like a sore thumb. It’s not entirely exagerated either, as Sushimatic pointed out. There is probably a certain degree of difference depending on who’s speaking on it, but by and large Japan very much seems to hold dear the belief that everything can be ‘cute-d up’ and that making something cute can make it easier to ‘process’.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: cute, Japan, kawaii, signs, society

Came across this article on Japan whilst looking for something the other day. Aside from being an interesting read for anyone who’s lived here for a while or is thinking of living here, the author makes a very interesting point that I can relate to, even though I’ve only been for a very short time compared to his 20 odd years.

And yet beneath all the motion and excitement, something had caught inside me in Japan, and it was perhaps (I see now) all that I couldn’t explain, everything that I couldn’t put into tidy boxes and pinwheeling sentences. I had walked around a temple near the airport at Narita, during a morning layover, waiting for my flight back to New York, and something in the mild October sunshine, the gathered quiet, the shelteredness of the scene, took me back, unanswerably, to boyhood and England: Japan made me feel more at home than I’d been in a life of traveling the globe.

This sense of home he talks about is something I’ve felt on multiple occasions in the last year, and everytime I’ve struggled to fully understand it. I think the main thing I struggle with is that while Tokyo, and Japan, has this ability to make you feel at home, more than even home can, it’s also undeniably alien and very much an environment in which a foreigner stands out, regardless of linguistic skills or social integration.

Yet despite this, Tokyo can very much make you feel at home, make you feel like belong in a sense, or if not belong that you’re in a place where it’s ok to just be. This contradiction between being regularly estranged and feeling embraced at times is funnily enough another contradiction to add to a long list I’ve discovered since being here. Maybe it’s just because of the way the Japanese are, how the society functions and operates that lets you be able to feel that just being is ok, that you are, as strange as it may seem in such a, at times, foreign land, at home.

It’s definitely one of the things I’m going to miss the most once I’m gone, especially when I walk around Tokyo and just take it in: sights, sounds and smells. It’s also a reason I would recommend anyone try it out here once if they feel they got it in them and want to experience something different. It’s a mindset too, you have to be in the right headspace I guess, it’s not as simple as just turning up and waiting for it to happen. But for anyone who has any experience of living in a different culture, or wants to really try it out, then I think Japan in a weird way definitely holds something nowhere else really does.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, Random, society, travelling, writing

One of the reasons I came to Japan was monkeys. Which may sound strange, but the fact is Japan is home to the world’s northermost monkeys, the famed Japanese macaque, first given fame by a cover on Time magazine of all places. Having seen the monkeys on TV a fair few times, I knew that if I was coming here for any length of time a trip to see the monkeys was a definite.

The snow monkeys live primarily in Honshu, though a friend of mine mentioned seeing them in Hokkaido as well even though various things I read seem to indicate that’s not the case (anyone with a clarification on that?). The most famous area to see them, or more accurately visit them, is near Nagano in a place called Jigokudani Koen, which roughly translates as Hell’s Valley apparently, due to the area’s harsh environment, regular coat of snow and hot spring geysers. What’s great about the monkeys in Nagano is that you really are visiting them, in the truest sense of the word. This is no real park, no fencing, no containment. It’s where they live, roaming pretty much free and doing what they please while humans hang around. Considering the state of some of the monkey parks I’ve seen elsewhere in the country, it’s an incredible experience to be able to see them in their natural habitat like that. What’s more, as they’ve become used to seeing humans hang around they’ve become pretty much oblivious to the visitors, which only makes the whole thing even more surreal at times.

The other thing the Japanese macaques are famous for, especially in Jigokudani, is their appropriation of one of the valley’s natural hot springs for their own benefit. Seeing as they live high up in the mountains, with freezing cold temperatures in the winter, you can easily see how a hot spring would suddenly become an enticing idea. And it’s around this hot spring that you primarily visit them. The picture of a monkey with its head poking out of the steaming water and snow on its head is a classic, and something of a signature pose for the monkeys.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: chilling, holidays, Japan, monkeys, onsen

It was trade show time again 2 weeks ago as the Tokyo Amusement Expo 2008 (aka Tokyo Arcade Game Show) rolled into town at the Makuhari Messe. Compared to the Tokyo Game Show, which is the year’s video game event by excellence, TAE is a much smaller affair spread over two days and taking in just one of Makuhari’s exhibition halls. When TGS rolls into town, pretty much the whole of Makuhari is taken over, and the majority of Tokyo’s geek community descends on the Chiba town. TAE was quieter and smaller, which didn’t necessarily make it less fun.

For one you get more space to stroll around, taking in all the glory of trade shows: the scantily-clothed ladies, the suits eyeballing people from the sides, the stall staff looking bored or scared, the geeks willing to queue 2h for a five minute blast on a yet to be released game and the hordes of pervy old men with big cameras chasing the aforementioned scantily-clad ladies. The arcade show had the added bonus of also being swarmed by hundreds of kids, dragging their parents to various stands displaying the latest wares aimed at the younger market, from card games to UFO catchers to… well, really weird shit.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: akihabara, computers, Japan, society, video games

For most foreigners, Japan not only carries an image of the exotic and different but also of futurism, aided in no small part by its cultural output, especially anime. Stepping into Tokyo for the first time, taking in the sights and sounds of places like Shinjuku or the public transport system only reinforces this perceived impression of a hypercapitalist, futuristic society. Give it a while though and you realise that while this impression does have a grounding in reality, it’s also exagerated in parts, misrepresented through an outsider’s lens.

But as I found out last month when I went to the Dairoboto exhibition, in Ueno, Japan does lead the world in robotics, which given the aforementioned preconceptions of a futuristic society, is hardly surprising. Japan uses more robots than any other country and, as the exhibition’s blurb explained, is the world’s leading ‘robot kingdom.’ A term that would send the imagination of any self respecting nerd wild with possibilities.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: computers, geeking, Japan, pictures, robots, technology

With 2007 now behind us this might be a good time for me to actually get back to writing… still working on that, what with living in temporary accommodation and having to sift through piles of to do stuff. I’ll get round to it though, promise. In the meantime here’s some more pictures, this time from my New Year skiing trip.

Getting out of the city for New Year was probably the best idea I’ve had in a long ass time. Having spent the majority of the last 10 new year eves in a big city, I must admit that the great outdoors is a hell of a better place to spend your time. With that in mind I somehow managed to squeeze in a 3 day holiday over the New Year period, despite my now working for a Japanese company, and a newspaper on top, which entails no bloody holidays whatsoever (and I don’t qualify for legal holidays yet  :sad: ).

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written by Laurent \\ tags: food, Japan, mountains, ski, snow

With a week long hangover and impending first skiing trip in nearly 14 years, it’s time for a round-up of my first year in Japan. Traditions and what not, everyone’s probably bored to death with yearly round-ups already but hey it’s the season of excess so I’ll add to it, considering I managed to keep my xmas shopping consumption to pretty much zero this year.

A lot has happened in one year. I’ve changed jobs much to my surprise, I’ve visited a lot more of Tokyo and Japan than I thought I would and I’ve also managed to attain a somewhat decent ‘beginner’ level in Japanese.

So to sum it up are two lists of what I consider good and bad points about living in Tokyo and Japan.

This’ll be my last post of the year. I’ve still got a bunch of things to write up which have accumulated and which I’ll get onto in the new year - once I’ve drunk away all the money I need to live and am forced to do nothing but work and sit in front of my computer at night.

Happy new year and wishes for 2008 to everyone.

2007 in two lists, bullet points and randomness  

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written by Laurent \\ tags: food, Japan, Random

While I’ve been busy this last month with a change of jobs, impending flat move (the worst possible thing to do in this town at this time of the year) and other assorted pleasures, I’ve still managed to spend a few days around the city. In this case two days spent re-discovering two areas I’d already visited, but doing so in different conditions. The old and new together cliche of Tokyo is, well, a cliche but it’s also something that hasn’t bored me yet, and the two trips I made this month only made that clearer to me.

First up was Asakusa, home to the oldest temple in Tokyo and one of its most famous tourist spots. I’d been to Asakusa in the summer during rainy season, which gave the place a certain charm as people sheltered from the rain under the temple or in the shops. Going back on a crisp, sunny winter day totally changed the vibe and feel of the place, with bright colours grabbing your attention everywhere, and as was the case back in July, a throng of people to fight through.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, pictures, Random, Tokyo

While the sight of temples and shrines has now firmly lost the exciting appeal it had after first arriving in Japan (after all there is only so much you can take in before going a bit meh, kinda like churches in Europe), there is one thing I still thoroughly enjoy the sight of day in, day out: Japanese architecture. Though that might be a bit of a far reaching term, considering the architectural mish mash that actually consitutes most of Tokyo and the Japanese knack for knocking down old buildings and replacing them with crappy new ones (oh yeah and the earthquakes). Still I’ve always been a sucker for architecture in a way, not in a deep sense but just cos I like the shapes of buildings and just looking at streets and areas that are either old and quaint, or new and nice looking, or just weird looking like say Tokyo, or even Soho in London.

There’s also something about traditional Japanese houses, I don’t know what, but they do it for me. I think it’s the roofs, I really like them. The roofs are actually the only parts of temples I can still look at with any real interest as well. So it was lucky that we went to Kawagoe on our holiday this week, about 40 mins outside of Tokyo and nicknamed Little Edo (Edo is the old name of Tokyo), as it still holds traditional buildings and houses from the Edo period. Most of these seem to be clustered in one part of the town, which has now become a big shopping street (nice tactic there), and they make for a fascinating day out - not just because they’re old and traditional, but because you’ll find them alongside a variety of modern buildings, including red brick walls, fancy architectural nonsense and European buildings. All of which makes for a refreshing sight. And actually the shopping isn’t bad either, and the area is really nice.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, pictures, Random, travelling

Let me start this with an aside: if you ask a Tokyo resident about the Imperial Palace you’re likely to be met with a blank look and an answer along the lines of ‘what is that?’. Turns out it seems most Tokyoites don’t know that’s the name for the Kokyo, more likely if their English isn’t so good as well. I’ve tried it with about twenty people so far, and only one didn’t return a look of consternation at me.

Anyways we went to the Imperial Palace the other day. Located near Tokyo station (that always gets tourists too it seems), it’s the proverbial jewel in the Imperial family’s crown. I’ve got to admit though, it’s pretty average as far as jewels go. Don’t get your hopes up too high should you come to visit, and I’d even say you shouldn’t make it too high a priority on your list either. Kyoto has a lot more to offer on that front.

Imperial, royal and other -al ending adjectives related to god like classes and associated with a building generally mean something pretty imposing and interesting. Thing is with Tokyo’s Imperial Palace is that you can’t actually see the Palace itself - it’s off bounds, apart from two days a year. Bit of a bugger that really. Not that I wanted to see every angle of it, but it’d be nice, what with the name and everything. What you can see is a bit of the building from far off, the moats and some of the gardens. Which is nice, but again a bit of a downer. I’ve seen a few royal lodgings in my time (ho hi hon [pronounced in a snotty French accent]) and this one is by far the most uninteresting. Hell even Buckingham Palace was more interesting.

The moats and gardens are nice, but pretty quickly seen and taken in really. I actually found the surrounding skylines and streets more interesting than most of the Imperial Palace. Ah well. On the plus side we did stumble upon what seemed to be a huge gathering of Goth fans on our way out of the area - and I mean huge, with thousands of black clad, boots wearing, pasty faced teens meandering down the street towards a concert arena. Actually the stereotypical Goth image doesn’t really do these guys justice. There was enough of them to provide us with a veritable kadeiloscope of variations on the whole Goth theme. Which was interesting, culturally I mean  :lol: Seriously though walking through the hordes of fans was a pretty surreal experience, which more than made up for my missing the cosplay days at the Tokyo Game Show.

While we didn’t stop to immortalise the moment when we were amidst said hordes, we did decide to stop and snap some of them on their way out of the nearby station. So as usual there’s a bunch of pics on Flickr you can check out, as well as some pics from that Imperial thingymajig.

Imperial Palace Flickr set 

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, pictures, Tokyo

Following on from my quick blurb about Alex Case’s recent post on the mysteries of Japanese motivation in the classroom, I’ve got round to formulating some thoughts on the issue. While it’s definitely not something I can claim to have much experience of, having worked in Japanese classrooms (or the pretence of depending on how you view Eikaiwas) for the last 10 months has definitely given me a whole new insight into what the motivations for learning a language can be for Japanese people. In contrast to my short but intensive time training for a CELTA degree last year, and during which I dealt with learners from a variety of countries and levels, dealing with the motivation of certain Japanese learners on a daily basis can be a totally mind boggling experience, and one that definitely forces you to also reconsider your own reasons, and motivation.

The issues with motivation in a Japanese classroom can be varied - some people come it seems just to tell you how great Japan is, others are obviously after a chat and will seemingly do anything they can to delay any sort of teaching, others yet will take any form of trying to teach them pretty badly, some will want your opinion on anything and everything and yet more come because it seems that learning English is their current hobby. The last one is probably the one that winds me up the most. Don’t get me wrong we all need, and have, hobbie especially in this day and age of over consumption and capitalism, but personally I’ve never once considered learning a language as a hobby. I don’t know, I learnt languages because I needed to, and I practice them because I want to, or need to for work (my current employment being a strong case in point). I can understand why someone might want to learn a language as a hobby, especially if they’re older. It passes time, it can be stimulating and it brings a certain amount of cultural learning with it too.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, motivation, school, Teaching

No matter how prepared you are, how trained or how keen, one thing you won’t be ready for when teaching in an Eikaiwa in Japan for the first time is how quickly your motivation can be sapped. And how many people you’ll deal with who have no seeming motivation to learn. I know I sound miserable and it’s likely not the case for everyone out there, though I’d really like to hear of someone teaching in an Eikaiwa who has never dealt with either problems, even just once.

Alex Case put it better than I could over on his blog, having solved the mystery of Japanese motivation. Which got me thinking… but right now my brain is totally shattered from exhaustion and so I’m gonna leave my own thoughts on this until a little later, when I can actually string an argument and some thoughts together. I swear though, one hour private lessons are the work of the devil.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, motivation, Teaching

By definition trade shows are far from exciting, what with being all about just one thing and generally just an occasion for people to showcase their new products, technologies etc… in whatever field it is that’s the focus. I can think of a few expections, having done my fair share of trade shows in the last 10 years: music and video games. Well ok they’re not boring to me because I’m into both things heavily. But really what other subjects could make a trade show appealing? What’s that? the sex industry you say? Perverts… :lol:

Anyways, I’ve been going to DJ/music trade shows for the last 4 years regularly, mainly PLASA in London, which used to be the most interesting of all the European trade shows but has in recent years become a ghost of its former ‘glory’. All it offers these days is the chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen in ages and piss about with new equipment and also pretend to be remotely interested in whatever marketing BS the reps come at you with. I also went to ECTS a few times while I lived in London, which was the European equivalent of E3 or Tokyo Game Show. Good fun but on a really small scale. By and large I learnt soon enough that trade shows are only really good for one thing - catching up with people, getting drunk and pissing about (ok and sometimes actually doing some work).

With the last PLASA being quite disappointing (actually it was shit) I was really looking forward to Tokyo Game Show - the second biggest video game trade show on the planet after E3 and by the sounds of it and stories from my mates, quite possibly the most fun you can have with geeks in one day, in a enclosed space. TGS takes place yearly, at Makuhari Messe a giant exhibition hall just outside central Tokyo, in Chiba prefecture. This year the show ran for 4 days, with the first 2 open to trade only and last 2 open to the public. I opted for the trade days, purely because from my past experience trade days tend to be better - less people, more exclusive stuff to be seen, and more importantly more (and easier) freebies to be had.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: geeking, storytelling, TGS, video games

Oh yeah! Back To Chill first anniversary on the 30th of August at Saloon at Unit. This time it’s an all night extravaganza of beats and bass, with more guests than you can shake a stick at it.

Props to the BTC boys for pulling this one off it should be off the Richter scale :wink: Lots of MCs as well as live shows from Skyfish and Sak Dub I as well as guest appearances from Quarta 330, Mixmas and yours truly.

If you ain’t been before you can check some previous posts in the music section with some reviews and audio from previous nights. If you like your bass though this is an unmissable event!

You don’t wanna miss trust me, and at 2000 yen in it’s a bargain for Tokyo really. More info and details on the BTC blog and brand spanking new BTC site.

Right I best get practicing really :oops: See you there!

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written by Laurent \\ tags: back to chill, clubs, dubstep, goth trad, Music, night life, Tokyo

Making the most of the last few days of my holidays, and deciding to brave the overbearing heat, I went off on a long overdue record shopping trip yesterday. I’ve been planning said trip for a while, having had to dig quite deep online to find some useful resources for record shops in English, but haven’t had the time to really do it properly yet.

Tokyo, and Japan to an extent, is a real haven for music fans and collectors. While most other countries seem to be quickly suffering from the increase in availability of digital formats, with physical sales suffering accordingly, Japan still has a strong market for physical sales - and not just new releases, but especially second hand releases. Second hand CDs and records (as well as tapes in some places) abound in Japan - they’re everywhere, and there’s a shit loads of them.

With regards to vinyl, Japan has long been known as a bit of a haven for DJs and collectors - Japanese only releases and re-issues always compete for high prices in the west, and when you’re here it’s quite easy to complete your collections. All you have to do is roll down to places like Shibuya and Shinjuku, which according to the lists I’ve found online collectively hold in excess of 80 vinyl shops, which is impressive to say the least. From new releases to classics and oldies, if you’re looking for it, chances are you’ll find in Tokyo, and with a bit of luck for dirt cheap too (and if it’s not cheap the current exchange rate should prove more than favourable).

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, Music, record shops, shopping, society, Tokyo, vinyl