This week I had a talk with a young post-doc working at Osaka University. One of the questions that he wanted to talk about was the secret of learning Japanese. Unfortunately, all I had to suggest was a lot of hard work and study.
( behind the curtain )

NHK BS 3 (the high-vision channel here in Kansai) is holding a rakugo special today. From high noon until 6, then from 7 to 11 - 10 hours of rakugo.

Someone asked in mail about the rakugo piece I'm writing. Just in case anyone else is confused, I'm not writing an original rakugo piece. The blog entries are all based on the NHK show being presented right now on NHK called Chiritotechin. There are quite a few blog entries around in Japanese about the show, but I guess I'm one of the few writing ( Read more... )

Just a short sketch from life here in Japan. Hope you enjoy it.

Our little neighborhood supermarket tends to be busy, housewives bustling, kids in their carts, a veritable center of daily commerce gleaming under the ruthless fluorescent lights. So I suppose it was somewhat out of place the other day when I started laughing.
( hiding the details . . . )

There's an ad for an upcoming biography. Apparently an artist who got his start hiding in a storage box so he could knit. I guess someone didn't think a young boy should be doing this, so he did it in secret ( Read more... )

Mitsuko asked me to watch this ad - and it took us a few times to figure it out. Our first impression was that it was a joke of some kind, and I guess maybe it is.
( An Advertiser's Daydream? )

Okay, this is odd. One of my students has a notebook, and asked me what the English said. After careful consideration, I don't have the slightest idea.

On the cover, under the title La Dolce Vita (Natural Living) it has a picture of a pig looking into a refrigerator full of food. Pink, hairy butt sitting there, ears perked up, snout almost inside.

( Read more... )

This year, the NTT calendar has Japanese four character sayings, along with an explanation, and English translations. There's one every two months, so for January and February, we have the Japanese

意気揚揚：よし、頑張ってみるか待ってましたその言葉
( musing . . . )

Almost forgot. The other day the news people did a short piece on sumi ink - the black ink stick used for brush painting here in Japan? It's kind of incredible, the process for making it.
( The Process . . . )

mizu mashi (水増し) - Mitsuko kept muttering this as we watched the rakugo story this week. It refers to adding water to stretch something out. Padding, inflation of figures, and so forth? And sometimes stories get a dash of water added to fill the time?
( Details, details . . . )