Jet Interview Preparation

Waiting. Waiting to hear from the JET Program to see when (or even if) my interview is. According to the American site for the JET Program, interviews start sometime next month. Canadian and English applicants have already been notified, apparently. This is driving me crazy.

The JET Program is my top choice for teaching English in Japan. It pays the most, offers the most assistance, and has high recommendations from former participants. I really want this job. However, getting back over to Japan is, for me, the most important thing, so if JET isn't going to work out then there's tons of other places to send my application to. I just haven't yet because I'm waiting to see about JET.

Then there's the interview. Will they be friendly, or will they be terrible? There's no way to guess. I've done long job interviews before so I know how stressful it can be. As long as I'm prepared and can have high confidence—after all, it's in their best interest to hire me because I'll do an awesome job—then I'll be fine. And if I don't get the job, then there are lots of other places that can use me.

I really want this job though.

(I didn't make that image, by the way. I think it's from Tofugu. I found it on Google image search.)

Finding Japanese Music Online

Ever since I started studying Japanese five years ago, my interest in Japanese music has steadily grown. In the past, having even a passing interest in Japanese music meant getting hit hard in the wallet, having to pay import costs on already expensive Japanese albums. Well, I won't say why that problem's been solved in the 21st century but if you're reading this, you likely know what I'm talking about. I don't want to out and out endorse the current (anti-)business model of music on the internet, but hey, it sure is convenient for us music fans.

OK, financial part solved. But how do you find the music? I'm the first to admit, it can be tough. Randomly stumbling on good Japanese music blogs is one way, as is getting links from friends who've done the same. I've been stockpiling bookmarks to some of the best Japanese music sites and I thought I'd share them with you.

Beautiful Noise
http://beautifullnoise.blogspot.com/
Not exclusively about Japanese music but there's a lot of it on this site that focuses on post-rock, ambient and shoegaze music.

Japanese Old Prog/Psych Rock
http://community.livejournal.com/japan_old_prog
Pretty much what it says. It hasn't been updated in a while but there's still lots of great old bands from the 60s and 70s here, like Les Rallizes Denudes and Flied Egg.

Oldies But Goodies
http://tsuzilla.blogspot.com/
Here is where I reveal my inner nerd. Yes, this is a repository for 80s idol groups. Yes, I love it. And you should too.

Japshare
http://japshare.wordpress.com/
Name aside, this is a great site for discovering recent Japanese bands that don't make the charts. My latest faves Supercar are well represented (plus their solo material) and there's tons more like them.

Cutetapes
http://cutetapes.wordpress.com/
This is a very recent discovery and as such I haven't had much time to explore, but it looks promising. More on the fringe than any other site mentioned here. A cursory look reveals Merzbow & Pan Sonic, the Japanese Eel, and lots of non-Japanese breakcore.

Another good source for Japanese music are message boards, particularly ones from Thailand, Russia and China (actually, this is true for anything Japanese you may want, like pictures or magazines).

Happy hunting.

That's Entertainment

Being an American, it seems I've been lead to think that the world copies what we do. That we're the fashion leader and everyone else can't wait to mimic us. This may be true on some level, particularly when it comes to movies and television, but we are not the only force of influence in the world. Far from it. I personally was influenced by British mod and skinhead (this is late '60s skin, not '80s flight jacket skin) looks. And of course Europe, particularly France and Italy, continue to be high fashion leaders. And then there's Japan.

In Asia, Japan seems to be the culturally dominating force. Its music is popular all over Asia, despite the language barrier. It exports its fashion sense, through magazines. I'd even go so far as to claim that—particularly for women—it's the Japanese facial structure that is most desired.

First, music. Like Europe, Asia is comprised of a lot of small (and some not so small) countries in a relatively close area. It makes sense then that cultural products would go back and forth. Being from America, where everything not American is faraway and even undesirable, it's sometimes hard to grasp this. We might get a few British bands reaching into the Top 40, but when was the last time a foreign-language song was popular? The '80s? Japan has been selling its music into Asia for a long time with little trouble overcoming the language barrier.

In the past, concessions to local languages were occasionally made, like Puffy's Mandarin-language versions of its bigger hits. But now, the trend seems to be to co-opt and sell back. Take Morning Musume for example. The decade-strong all-girl J-pop group, like Menudo, graduates its members when they get too old. A few years back the group's producers held auditions in China to find new members and, one can assume, expand its audience. The new members sing in Japanese and are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable with the other members. But they're there, and China knows it. Likewise with Sweet Vacation, a techno-pop duo comprised of a male producer and young female singer. Same as it ever was, except the singer is actually Thai.



While May sings in Japanese almost exclusively, they have released Thai-language versions of some of their songs in Thailand. Discovered in Thailand, groomed in Japan, and sold back to Thailand. (And, although I don't remember her name, there's also another singer, discovered in her home country and now working in Japan with Japanese producers. I think she may be Nepalese.)

Japanese media available in other Asian countries are not restricted to music. Japanese magazines are readily available, depicting Japan's unique, homegrown styles and fads, which are soon adopted throughout Asia. One example is the recent school girl fashion boom in Japan, as worn by groups like Scandal and AKB48. May, Sweet Vacation's Thai-transplant singer, has even been hired to model school girl-inspired outfits.

Of course, along with clothes comes personal appearance. The Japanese "look," that being light skin and wide, doe-like eyes, is popular throughout Asia. However, for the Japanese this is as much of a construct as it is for non-Japanese, with everyone using skin whitening creams, eyelid glue to hold open the eyes, and contacts for maximum doe-eyed effect. I'm not sure where exactly the blame can be placed. Certainly there's a Western effect happening, with large eyes and white skin valued over Asian eyes and brown skin, but that's too simple. Japan has long valued white skin, centuries before ever encountering Caucasians. And in the West, we're more interested in being tanned brown, images we eagerly broadcast back out to the East. I suppose the stylistic hallmarks of anime and manga are somewhat to blame too.

As in the images in the picture above from a personals site, you can no longer tell whether someone is Japanese, Chinese, Thai, or even human. Japanese style may have been the jumping off point, but where it's going is somewhere else entirely. More than human? Time will tell.

California Haikyo

Just south of San Francisco is the Gilroy Hot Springs, also known as the Yamato Hot Springs. It's an abandoned hot springs resort of the kind you might find in Japan. Yes, I do mean the abandoned kind you might find in Japan.

Abandoned locations are known in Japanese as haikyo 廃墟. It basically means ruins, but for a lot of people it means a place to explore. For many people, visiting haikyo sites is their hobby, and they take pictures and post them online. Do a search, they're pretty interesting.

I first heard about the Yamato Hot Springs from a friend, who claims there's a big torii (shrine gate) there and everything. Curious, I did a little snooping around online and found out about the place.

It was first established in the late 1800s as a place to "take the waters," as they used to call it. It was a rich person's destination, with the then mayor of San Francisco coming down to party with singers and business tycoons. By the late '30s it had fallen out of favor with the upper crust and was purchased by H. K. Sakata, a local Japanese lettuce grower.

Now known as the Yamato Hot Springs, it became a cultural center for Japanese and Japanese Americans, hence the torii. Although Mr. Sakata was interred in a relocation camp during the war, his business partners kept the springs open, and after the war many displaced Japanese American families used it as a temporary shelter.

The site is now part of a state park and is a State Historic Landmark. It remains closed while it is decided how best to handle the extensive repairs necessary to make it safe again.

Although I'd really like to go, it seems like just hopping the fence would be disrespectful given its history as a sanctuary. However, the Friends of Gilroy Hot Springs, the de facto caretakers of the site, offer guided tours for a small fee. Anyone want to join me on a tour?

New Site

I've launched a new site, Dope Computer Music, as the home base for my musical endeavors, be they dubstep, ambient, downtempo or whathaveyou. Check it out!

Dope Computer Music

There'll be links to my mixes, songs, all that stuff, plus writings about music, which I feel is a little out of place here (unless it's about Japanese music, of course).

The Secret Life of Youtube Comments

Back in 2008 when I was living in Japan, I posted a short video of two baby monkeys playing at a monkey park to YouTube to illustrate a story on my then blog. Here it is.

For awhile no one commented, but then a funny thing happened. The more people randomly found it and commented, the more the comments took on a life of their own. It's as if the people didn't even watch the video and just commented based on what people had said before.

Here's the comments list, in its entirety.

• thats so cute I love baby monkeys I want one
• so cute
• hehe this is kwl lol
• cute
• (So far, so good. Now watch what happens.)
• LOL @ 0:24, "GIMME MY STICK BITCH!!"
• if i had 2 monkeys id do that with banaanna
• 69 forever
• monkeys are awsome
• lol so cute
• that monkey got tea-bagged multiple times.
• aww so cute lmfao 69
• lol hes like gimmie the stick! then hes like fine ima hit u in the head then... SNEAK ATACK! then hes like we can share SIKE! then the other 1s like *sniffle* i wanted thats stick *sniffle* GIMMIE!!! NO!... SNEAK ATTACK! " FIGHT " THEN HES LIKE IM SITTING ON U!! HA HA!!!!! ROFL SOOO FUNNY
• cute :)
• is the one monkey jerking off the other at the end
• hahahahaha thats what i thought.
• -Judo floor practicing to me!
• Borat: hotel scene...
• wow what is he doing at the end???
• Just like my junior school,but not the examining of the mating tackle!!!
• stupid video
• so cute
  

So there you go. This is the kind of inanity that 26,592 views will get you. Although, now that they mention it, it does look like something kind of fishy is going on there at the end.

Shinto and Me

The other day a Japanese friend asked me if I had done hatsumode, the first temple or shrine visit of the year, yet. (Take a look at a post I made a few days ago about looking for a suitable place to do hatsumode.) There are plenty of Buddhist temples in the Bay Area but no Shinto shrines. I explained this to my friend, born and raised in Japan, and she asked, "What's the difference?" For me, everything.

Buddhist temples are interesting, and I find the teachings of Buddha fascinating from a philosophical and psychological standpoint. I like the architecture of temples, I like their tranquility. But I am not spiritually moved by them. I am, however, spiritually moved by Shinto shrines.

That my Japanese friend was not sure of the difference of her country's twin religions wasn't all that surprising. Indeed, for more than a thousand years there was no difference. Buddhism and Shinto existed syncretically, supporting and completing each other. Shinto, Japan's native religion, is about life as it is lived in the here and now, Buddhism about life later (or after life). Shinto ceremonies cover children and weddings, and Buddhism funerals. Shinto is animistic and pantheistic, with room for ever more gods. Buddhas, come on in. It was only in the late 1800s that Shinto was separated from Buddhism as part of a political movement to deify the emperor and legitimize a new form of government. This lead to State Shinto and all sorts of unfortunate Imperial expansionist policies.

But getting back to the matter at hand, there are no Shinto shrines in California. The nearest one is the Tsubaki Grand Shrine, in Washington, near Seattle. Not being able to go all the way there myself, I sent away for two omamori, amulets blessed and purified by the shrine. I got one for business, as this is the year I start working again, and one to make sure I choose the right path in life.

That I, raised as an athiest, should care about these kinds of things at all is evidence of how much I feel an affinity with Shinto. What started as a fun way to participate in Japanese culture has become something important to me. Do I really believe that a god will help me get a job? No, not really. Do I believe that by making a commitment and focusing my energies on something, I can help it to come true? Yes, surely.

But there's more. In Shinto, I feel awe. This is harder to explain. In fact, I think that's part of the definition of awe, that it's unexplainable. Let me give you an example. For hatsumode in 2008 I traveled all day from Oita, in southern Japan, to Matsue on the Sea of Japan coast, to visit Izumo-taisha, an ancient Shinto shrine. Set in the forest amongst mossy trees, its beautiful, pre-Buddhist architecture a reminder of a Japan long past, the shrine complex so moved me I couldn't help but cry. It was as if I had been there before. The experience of awe was incredibly palpable.

The Tsubaki Grand Shrine has this to say about Shinto:

Shinto emerged and developed spontaneously as an expression of the deep intuitive connection with Divine Nature enjoyed by human beings in ancient Japan. Shinto, as natural spirituality, is based on a harmonious primal relationship with the "infinite restless movement or Great Nature" rather than on the written or reveled teachings of human beings.

That last part is especially important to me, and until reading this pamphlet that accompanied my omamori I had never heard it said about Shinto. I have long felt that, for me, for a religion to have validity I must feel it directly. To be told how and what to feel by a person, whether that person be the Buddha, Jesus Christ or Muhammad, even should one of those people appear before me to deliver a special message, is still one person removed from me. Shinto, however, does not proscribe. These are no saints or teachers. There is only nature. And this makes sense to me.

I was not able to find a local shrine to visit this year, but I was able to find the Tsubaki Grand Shine online, purchase omamori, and thus receive this message that helped validate my feelings about Shinto. Sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.