japan is fucked up!

forgot if railway has english options for purchasing tickets.

regular trains within the city do, for sure. worst case, it'll be like matching up cards from the map up top to the bottom screen where you buy your fare

under the impression that: chinese literacy but will never figure out native readings of kanji + being able to read hiragana katakana + still developing c conversational japanese ... it'll be awkward but fine to get around

unlike my china experience though i have no particular fascination w or romantic vision? of the country and know maybe a bit about japan but not that much. i dunno.

kanji is such a bitch. you'll see romaji at train stations, but i'd probably carry with me the kanji of the stops i need with their equivalent romaji just in case. some of the train staff can guide you a bit if all else fails. just show them the kanji of the stop you need to go to and they should be able to point you to the right direction.

wouldn't hurt to learn stuff like hidari and migi. my girl taught me this silly mnemonic. "just think of H&M". hidari means left, migi means right.

now that i remember, when i took the osaka to tokyo shinkansen i saw no romaji for the most part

Yeah. Very limited romaji. Add in the truly labyrinthine maps hung on the wall above the ticket machines (bring your glasses if you wear them) and the throng of thousands of salary men and office ladies trying to get to work, and you've got one bewildering, overwhelming experience.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34581340

as my country voted for a more "hip" prime minister, i read this in the news today and think what the need is to involve fashion to attract supporters.

this is by no means a japan thing, but i've noticed it more in japan. there is a tendency to take on a western "style" of any type of art form, whether it's music, fashion, dance, or "attitude" and "fashionise" it -- i know that's not a word. they copy a style purely for its aesthetic reasons and on the rare occasion that they do delve into studying its meaning, they come up with the most vacuous and oversimplified things. a lot of it is due to their interpreting of individual western cultures as a huge, single oversimplified culture, and another is basing their opinions on hollywood/movie, advertising, etc., stereotypes that feed into their distorted view.

this happens with north americans' interpretation of japanese culture, as well, of course. but it seems like north americans are trying a little harder to break that barrier because we seem to favour open, blunt, honest discussions in classrooms and in open spaces readily. the japanese are surely adopting this stance but at a very slow rate. what makes this a little difficult is the whole tatemae/honne and an image-conscious society.

there are many things i love about japan, but this is not one of them. and in ways, it is contentious, because it's like arguing who the real punks were, where you have some that went against it as a fashion movement, and those who in 1977 were in the business of making punk a fashion "statement." it's tricky.

maybe i'm missing some key element or i'm misreading the protests don't seem vastly different in attempt at "attention to style, slick visual productions and media savvy" and attempt at a tidy overall aesthetic than umbrella movement protests in hong kong but compared to hong kong, japan has limited historical political turmoil and limited political engagement among young people... you end up with slick visual production and people milling around in shibuya while listening to records? again, maybe my lack of knowledge of contemporary japan is the issue but it just looks like a more low stakes version of the hk protests.

flying to tokyo tomorrow btw

nice! good luck and have fun, man! keep us posted.

i will, i will.
i'd still like to know what you think of character or more the aesthetic of umbrella movement vs. recent japan student protests. maybe i should go to shibuya and have a look.

food is good.

http://imgur.com/O1UddgK.jpg

that's where i live

Lovely! Where you at?

kanagawa, suburbs, forty minutes from shibuya

shinjuku i mean, on odakyu line

Very nice
What are you doing there?

i will, i will.
i'd still like to know what you think of character or more the aesthetic of umbrella movement vs. recent japan student protests. maybe i should go to shibuya and have a look.

― dylannn, Friday, October 23, 2015 11:55 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just read this.

i didn't know what umbrella movement was but had a quick read on the web.

i don't know anything about hk. does it have a history of large political demonstrations?

from what i understand, japan doesn't usually have major political protests, and nothing big since i've been following their politics loosely in the last few years. after ww2, the anpo opposition movement was, i want to say, the largest demonstration.

there was a point after the protests where passiveness became a kind of hallmark of japanese "activism," which actually was a reaction to ww2, from what i've read. this shifted to an apolitical attitude and a kind of "it is what it is" stance. and only recently has activism been increasing.

if you want a reference point, i would compare it to those hippies at vancouver protests that don't even know the details of what's going on, they just shout back phrases and are there to hang out and dance, and that's all they think they have to do. it's more of a party where people are not aware of the details of the cause/movement they're supporting. i think this is how i interpreted what went on at the protest i linked to above. obviously this is definitely not unique to japan. but i think foreigners are calling for a more active role in politics over there, and it is slowly changing. i've watched interviews of passersby over there, and they do seem to be interested in changing their politics, but they're not doing much to challenge the status quo.

if you go to shibuya, it's just a massive, super busy fashion center. when i got there i kind of wanted to leave soon. in that regard, i guess the protesters are trying to "disrupt" or "inconvenience" people, but i don't know if this will win people over.

i will go to shibuya to have a look maybe -- the news is covering four things today: 1 car flipped over in nagoya, a building in hokkaido is tilting or sinking, u.s. ships floated past an artificial island claimed by china, protests against a u.s. military base in okinawa reclaiming land.

and i'm not really doing anything here. my girlfriend is working and i am accompanying her.

i'm going to get off at yoyogi walk around towards harajuku... end in shibuya. i'll see what i can see. any other tips, friends?

the walk from yoyogi uehara station to yoyogi ... then yoyogi park is kind of adump

A dump.

Go to Shmbashi station (there's a nice little mini Tower Records in the basement concourse btw) walk up and out to the elevated walkways past the Ghibli clock and take the Yurikamome line to Odiaba, it's mostly all elevated so sit at up the front as the train is unmanned, it's like a gentle free rollercoaster.

Oops, that should read go to *Shiodome* tube station, then take the Yurikamome from the elevated Shimbashi station

thank you! that day, i went from yoyogi -> harajuku --> shinjuku ---> mejiro, then back to machida -> hon atsugo.
halloween in shibuya was pretty crazy yesterday.

Also Yanaka is a fantastic area for wandering, a fantastically huge cemetery and a high concentration of old buildings and temples/shrines, Nippori station is closest.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/02/01/music/akb48-members-penance-shows-flaws-in-idol-culture/

reading about yanaka -- this is fascinating:

The distinction between [Yamanote and Shitamachi] has been called "one of the most fundamental social, subcultural, and geographic demarcations in contemporary Tokyo." While the distinction has become "geographically fuzzy, or almost non-existent...it survives symbolically because it carries the historical meaning of class boundary, the samurai having been replaced by modern white collar commuters and professionals." Generally speaking, the term Yamanote has a connotation of "distant and cold, if rich and trendy", whereas "Shitamachi people are deemed honest, forthright and reliable". These differences encompass speech, community, profession and appearance. There is also an overarching difference based on notions of modernity and tradition The inhabitants of Yamanote were thought of as espousing modernising ideals for their country, based on Western models. The people of Shitamachi, on the other hand, came to be seen as representatives of the old order and defenders of traditional cultural forms.

Interesting stuff

And that idol story is sad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NcIGBKXMOE

Had a walk through Akihabara and suddenly walking down a road where loads of girls were standing around like in this video was very odd, I’d forgotten about it until watching that video.

Anyone recommend any golden gai bars?

https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/lake-toya-the-billion-dollar-tower-of-bubble/

spikejapan maybe everyone knows it? but really fascinating exploration of the architecture and landscapes created by the bubble economy, giant empty hotels abandoned pachinko parlors in hokkaido and suburban tokyo

https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/amakusa-islands-of-dread/

Just read that first link, very interesting! Have been thinking about visting the north of Japan next year.

Wow, great find.
I suppose the phenomenon of ghost towns is common to any society that has gone through a global boom / bust cycle, but there's something about this in Japan that is somehow particularly sad and melancholy.

Reading the other article, fascinating stuff. Stayed in a hotel in the mountains, off season in the Naeba Ski Resort town, to go to the Labyrnith festival and there was a rather faded air about the place, great to get more context on that.

i went to okubo yesterday after coming across a reference somewhere to right wing sound trucks parked outside shin-okubo station calling for the expulsion or death of all koreans. it was an interesting neighborhood even if it will probaably become a place like yokohama chinatown where there are no actual chinese people living there -- i mean there are koreans there but clearly more recent waves of immigration have taken over maybe because rents are still impressively low. on rental agency signs that had text in chinese and vietnamese and english usually but not korean the average rent seemed to be around 60,000 a month. most of the side streets were clearly home to a large chinese community: lots of chinese dry goods and grocery stores, 2nd hand electronics, barbecue and quick takeaway joints, lots of massage places. language on the street was 50% southern-accented mandarin and southern dialects. barebones shoe stores and cheap clothes places with women from the indian subcontinent going through the racks beside chinese women speaking in fujianese. 2nd hand cellphone shops, moneychangers, low level sex industry. large muslim community also, it appeared. it was the closest thing to like the uncosmopolitan multicultural communities of guangzhou -- not quite taojin or xiaobei i guess but close. i have a mental picture of roppongi being a bit like this? but i should probably go see what it's like.

i also walked down toward shinjuku thinking about golden gai and calstars question and it was mostly an unappealing scene just as i had thought from my first walk through - maybe i saw the wrong part? i dunno? but i had good ramen at nagi and stumbled upon a festival at hanazono shrine for shichi-go-san and it was like a microcosm if that's the right word of shinjuku like foreign tourists and businessmen just off work eating chocobanana and cabaret girls in long cecil mcbee sweaters on their way to work and the dudes selling motsunabe wrists and necks covered in gold and folding dirty money into louis wallets. i saw a sideshow that the barker out front promised was one of a kind in japan and this was the only chance to see it before it was gone forever: a middle aged girl group that was backed up by a band that looked like dinosaur jr. but in period drama robes -- the highlights were: the host deepthroated a 20 inch long black balloon - energetic motown medley - a girl with a kappa baldspot wig put out candles on her tongue and drizzled wax on her face and then ate pieces of a wine bottle that an audience member was brought up to smash with a hammer.

your reporting is appreciated. sounds like an interesting time. how much longer do you have there?

couple more months at least. it's kind of an open ended thing at the moment.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2015/11/07/lifestyle/heart-darkness-nostalgic-tokyo-disappearing-amid-construction-boom/#.VksihnYrLIX

huh, can't quite picture a japanese xiaobei; trippy! how's yr conversational japanese going, dylannn? work/study/research/, or ...?

it's not exactly xiaobei--reallllly not even close. i guess glancing down the right alley at the right time, you get sort of the same feeling.

my japanese level is shit. i think it's easy to learn the sentence patterns to get through the day and easy enough to pick up the underlying structures that let you follow along with an overheard conversation, knowing sort of who/what is being discussed... "he went [probably a place name] to [unfamiliar verb] but [an explanation with a few familiar sentence particles in it]"... while still missing out on the majority of meaning. unlike china, there's limited opportunity to engage with strangers in the kind of chit-chat that quickly builds ability and confidence. extremely limited inquisitiveness on the part of the people i've met-- in china, after you went into the same store to buy a pack of cigarettes everyday, the guy behind the counter might ask if you live in the neighborhood, what you're doing there, blah blah blah-- and those that are interested often want to engage with me in english. apart from conversation, just day to day figuring things out is made much easier by being literate in chinese characters (this is of limited utility when trying to read something aloud as you can pick up on the japanese reading of chinese characters quickly but there are always numerous readings) and being able to usually decipher katakana, hiragana.

If you have a smartphone, there's a very good app called Kana Drills, just a simple multiple choice quiz thing, it might get you up to speed fairly quickly.

alright i got some kana drills app that is like choose between hiragana katakana, shows the character and has the full page of sounds to choose from. i find it useful.

you gotta go full rote on that otherwise you'll never remember i find

try http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/

Also Yanaka is a fantastic area for wandering, a fantastically huge cemetery and a high concentration of old buildings and temples/shrines, Nippori station is closest. -- i've been around this neighborhood a few times now, walking from ueno to uguisudani to nippori, but i never took the extra trip over to yanaka ginza until today. the stretch from uguisudani to nippori is pretty TOKYO REALNESS, right below uguisudani station you cross over a kilometer across valley of rail lines and right below the steps to the south of the station are some smokey yakkitori places from 1964, grey condo towers with dirt courtyard parks below them, old ladies feeding cats, shitty little stores, couple blocks of love hotels with a few pink salons down narrow alleys. yanaka ginza was cute.

haha, yeah i mentioned that in one of the other threads of japan

that's yurakucho, it's below the tracks of yamanote line. we were hanging around there at 1am once and it gets kind of wild. probably the only japanese assholes you'll ever meet; drunken salarymen

Dylannn, reading your posts makes me wanna re-read this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Japan-Journals-Donald-Richie/dp/1880656973