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Friend, talking about her moronic American boss and his cheesy-hobby-turned-floundering-business, that only survives off the subsidies of his well-off Japanese wife:

He’s living the American Dream… The American Dream in Japan.

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Last week, in the course of some trainspotting research into the minutiae of whatever Moog set-up Moroder used on his seminal basslines1I know: I have fascinating hobbies, I happened upon this hilarious description of Moroder’s first introduction to the wonders of electronic synthesizers (emphasis mine):

“In 1970, an engineer I knew, called Robbie, introduced me to a classical composer in Munich who had this incredible new instrument.

It was a humongous machine with cords everywhere, and he played me this composition which just consisted of a bass tone that kept changing every half minute. That was his composition! He was using this huge machine to create what was known as ‘musique concrete’.

There were no rhythms, no effects, and it wasn’t too interesting, but then, when he wasn’t around, Robbie took me aside and said, ‘Look, with this synthesizer you can create more than just a low note.’ He showed me a few things and I thought, ‘Wow, this is great!’

Having suffered through my fair share of unbearably tedious musique concrète performances over the years, I can only marvel at the unlikely musical result of that encounter.

by ·Comments Off on Good Bye Maggie, and Thanks for Nothing.

And so it has come to pass, yet another towering political figure of the not-so-distant past is gone, her questionable legacy shielded from scrutiny by the buffer of a couple decades spent decaying into pitiful senility.

I hear it is bad form to speak ill of the dead (some disagree), so I will just let her give us some highlights in her own words:

  • On Nelson Mandela’s liberation movement: a “typical terrorist organization” (in 1987).
  • On Augusto Pinochet, her indefectible friend: “it is you who brought democracy to Chile” (in 1999, yes ninety-fucking-nine).
  • On the gays: “[a local authority] shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship” (Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988).
  • On the immigrants: not keen on them at all (“If you want good race relations, you have got to allay peoples’ fears on numbers”), but “less objection to refugees such as Rhodesians, Poles and Hungarians, since they could more easily be assimilated into British society”: you know, the white ones (in 1979).
  • On feminism and women rights: “I hate feminism. It is poison.” (to her advisor), “The battle for women’s rights has largely been won. The days when they were demanded and discussed in strident tones should be gone forever. I hate those strident tones we hear from some Women’s Libbers.” (from a 1982 lecture).

All that without even getting into the disastrous economic legacy1As a bonus: the emergence of financial institutions with no checks or responsibilities, let free to run the world’s economy into the ground 20 years later., the annihilation of the British working class and the crushing of anything resembling solidarity or compassion (you can see the wince on her face at the mention of such horrible marxist concepts) in most aspects of British social policies.

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Clarence Darrow

by ·Comments Off on Okinawa in Winter

Zamami Ferry

A few weeks ago1Yes: this is another badly outdated entry that has been sitting in my draft folder for over a month., thanks to the munificence of our respective employers (two full days off!) and some incredibly cheap last-minute plane ticket, Irina and I managed to escape Tokyo’s Winter for a four-day stay in Okinawa.

February is unambiguously the worst time of the year to visit Okinawa, with low temperatures and frequent rain making it difficult to enjoy the full extent of its sandy beaches and pristine oceans. On the other hand, that yearly low is still a good 15C over Tokyo’s own temperatures: hard to beat with a 3h flight.

In the end, despite delivering on its promise of middling weather, our stay was so enjoyable that we are already contemplating a repeat later in the year. Despite being (nominally) a fully-integrated part of Japan, Okinawa is nothing like even the most remote regions of the mainland: different culture, different attitudes and (obviously) very different landscapes.

Landing in the evening, we spent one night in a cozy Naha guesthouse before setting our sights for much smaller (and less city-like) locales: a one-hour boat ride took us to Zamami islands: a handful of tiny coral islands making up half of the small Kerama archipelago with Tokashiki.

The southernmost island of Gero, connected to Awa-jima by a bridge.

With a combined population of about 1000 (600 on the bigger of the three inhabited islands), the place is as close as one gets to a desert island without having to survive the wreckage of a 17th century ship. OK, perhaps not quite so remote: plenty of Wifi in the (two) villages and cellphone reception on at least half the island. More importantly, it is impossible to overstate how incredibly crystal blue the water is. Even on the rainiest cloudy days, merely looking out to the lagoon made us feel like putting on a swimsuit and running to the beach.

We spent our first night on the smaller island of Aka, in a diving shop doubling as minshuku (the case with practically all local lodging options), taking walks around the island, enjoying the sights and eating some of the most delicious, freshest sashimi and grilled fish we have ever had (caught by our hostess herself).

On the next day, we took the small shuttle boat to the (slightly) larger island of Zamami, where we stayed the following two nights at the nicely laid back Nakayamagwa hostel. A whole day of overall rainy weather actually made for a welcome occasion to catch up on our reading list, relax and generally not do anything.

On our other day, we did however manage a whale-watching excursion: the main sightseeing attraction during the “cold” February-March Winter months. Zamami’s Whale Watching Association organises two daily tours, backed by the standard efficiency one has come to expect of anything Japanese and sightseeing-related: each day starts with half-a-dozen members dispatched to all three corners of the archipelago, surveying nearby waters for the telltale whale-tails, before reporting to HQ with exact coordinates to which the sightseeing boats shall be sent.

Whale Tail

The boats themselves (about 2-3 for each tour, plus a couple even tinier private boats generally tagging along) are small repurposed fishing boats with just enough room to fit 20-some whale-watchers each. After a mini-lecture on the habits, history and even Japanese etymology of the particular whales we were about to observe2Did you know that the ‘zatou’ in 座頭鯨 was because of this particular whale subspecies’ resemblance with biwa-playing masseurs, like Zatoichi? Yea, neither did I., we set sail (so to speak) on fairly agitated waters toward the last spotted location of the cetaceans. After about 30 minutes (and with Irina a few shades whiter), we spotted the first blowhole geysers at a small distance, then for the next hour or so, we were basically riding along with the whales (apparently 3 in total). Every couple minutes, a creature would make it to the surface, splash around some, and dive back in. By then, the guide had spread all the punters between the front of the boat (basically a flat area washed by the waves, circled by a tiny metal rail 30cm above it) and the more comfortable (but even more shaky) driving cabin at the top. On more than a few occasions, the magnificent beasties would pop up nearly close enough to touch the hull, and definitely close enough to send it swaying dangerously. After an hour of oohs and aahs (well-deserved: these things are truly impressive from up close), we made our way back to shore, to the relief of Irina’s stomach.

Zamami on a sunny morning

Our last day was of course also the sunniest, giving us a glimpse of what true Summer might be like on the island.

Having a couple short hours to kill in the afternoon between our ferry back to Naha and our flight back, we opted to check out some of the more touristy fares on offer on the main island, and went for a tour of Okinawa World: suitably cheesy (and packed with tourists from the whole Asian continent), but a chance to see firsthand how they make habushu (doesn’t seem very pleasant for the snake).

On the plane back to our Tokyo Winter wonderland and its remaining months of Winter, plans were already being drafted for a triumphant return and possible Summer camping trip on Zamami (this time with considerably more swimming). With a bit of luck, you can expect to see more tropical pictures up here before long.

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A long overdue primer on applying for a Monbusho. Hopefully just in time for this year’s application deadline.

What is a Monbusho scholarship?

Monbushō, short for Monbukagakushō (文部科学省), is the Japanese name of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It is also the metonymic name of the grad school scholarship distributed by said ministry to international students. In practice, unspecified mentions of “monbushō” will nearly always refer to the scholarship1“MEXT” is the favoured English abbreviation when talking about the ministry.

In a nutshell, the main qualities of Monbushō scholarships are:

  • You get to study and live in Japan for up to 3-4 years (5-6, if you apply for a Master).
  • You have a free-meal ticket to practically any faculty in any university in Japan: both prestigious national ones (Todai, Kyodai…) or expensive private ones (Keio, Waseda…).
  • In addition to your (potentially costly) tuition fees, the grant includes a stipend for living expenses2constantly decreasing over the years, but still pretty decent for a scholarship.
  • Beside a few conditions (being a foreigner and having a bachelor degree, mostly) and a lengthy application process, these scholarship come with very few strings attached: you are free to study anything you’d like, wherever you’d like (and can leave a lot of the decisions to after the application gets approved).

For more technical details, Google, Wikipedia and your nearest Japanese embassy are your friends.

What do you know about Monbushō scholarships?

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It was recently discovered that DPRK’s last semi-hilarious attempt at getting a front slot on Western news (a cheesy video depicting the fiery destruction of NYC by a proud North Korean-made nuclear missile) had been mainly lifted from a US videogame… Some poor official propaganda video editor is probably getting a free trip to Bukchang gulag for that one.

But this is not what I find most noteworthy in that video.

The soundtrack to that heartwarming tale of the victorious rise of the Juche over the pulverised radioactive ashes of imperialist Western children is, I jest not, a cheap instrumental synth version of We are the World.

If there ever was a less subtle way to say “Give us our annual dose of ‘humanitarian aid‘ now or we will throw a tantrum until you do”, I don’t know what it is.

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Old Japanese Photographs When we moved into our awesome (very) old Tokyo house, I was half-expecting to find interesting leftovers in some of the thousands nooks and crannies of the place. It turned out to be spotlessly clean and empty.

However, in the process of turning our room into a giant LED-lit wonderland yesterday, I happened upon a small worn-out paper bag, tucked in the small interstice between the wall and the hook-supporting wood panel near the ceiling, filled with a bunch of black&white photographs…

The first photographs, in smaller format, seemed to have been shot at some formal event (a wedding?), featuring close-ups of a younger lady in kimono. Hard to pinpoint a date, but easily more than 40 years ago. By that point, I was already pondering whether I should turn over these heartwarming mementos to the landlady (whose family presumably were the last tenants, some time before we moved in), or could claim prescription and keep them in good conscience…

Then I flipped past the first few and understood why these had been carefully hidden behind a wood panel in a corner of the bedroom…

Porn Photo Stash

Yes: I had found one of the previous owners’ secret porn stash from the 70s.

I guess I might hold off on contacting the charming little old lady I pay rent to every month.

Update: I originally abstained from posting the non-nudie pics on the off-chance that they would incriminate some long-retired (/long-dead) philanderer somewhere. Upon further reflection, the odds that anybody in a position to personally recognise them would ever land on this page being astronomically low, here they are:

Japanese Dinner (there are about 5 or 6 more, all near-identical re-shoot, with slightly different angles)

When I first glanced at them, I surmised a wedding dinner or some such. In light of accompanying material and upon further review, I would say it is clearly a much less family-oriented event. My guess is “business” dinner at some onsen retreat. Whether extra “services” were provided by the female personnel, or the pictures merely fueled the secret fantasies of our pin-up collector, we probably will never know…
It is also hard to tell from my crappy keitai copy, but these shots are quite crisp and detailed for amateur photographs, leading me to think they might be a little more recent than the pin-ups (early 80s?).