Katakana words

Well, it seems my internet came back just in time for the "Two girls, one cup" video phase...Not sure what that's all about...

Anyways, I have the net again! YAY!!

So I thought I'd start small, so as not to hurt myself.

Here are some katakana words that sounds very funny:

A little bit of unexpected truth here. When you read the name of the November special, you get 'Mac Crap'. How true...I wish all McDonald's products were named this honestly — McChickenHead, McSaw-Dust, McProcessed Junk, and the old favourite, McMutant Chicken.

Not sure what this is exactly, but the flavour is 'Penis.

This is a bottle of spray paint I was looking at. The colour is 'Ass Brown. What kind of marketing is that?!?

bowing signs

This is great! I`m sure this sign you can only see in Japan. It`s a bowing traffic sign.
"Thank you honorably for slowing down"

tea ceremony

On Sunday I went to a tea ceremony. I'm consedering either a calligraphy or tea ceremony class for the new year. The teacher was a small, grey-haired lady in a beautiful black and red kimono, who spoke proudly of zen, the seasons, and Japanese culture. She seemed very nice and even tried to speak English a little bit. We communicated very well, stumbling only on ceremonial words, names for certain tools, and old Japanese words. But all in all, it was a beautiful experience.

I sat Japanese style for about an hour and couldn't feel my legs by the end. I didn't even try to stand up because that certainly would have been impossible. But I'm getting better at sitting seiza style. When I got here it was hard to sit on my knees for more than 15 minutes.

The sensei explained that tea ceremony was a kind of past time for the ancient Japanese people. They didn't have TV or radio so they used to sit together and have tea. Here's what makes this different from English tea:

The room is small, there's a hanging scroll on which a beautiful haiku is written about the season. (In this case "Slide open the door to see blowing leaves".) You can hear the rain in the garden all around, and the smell is one of incense burning beneath the pot of water. The cups are themed to match the red leaves of fall, the migrating birds, and the rice harvest. Everything is a perfect microcosm of nature. Like being in a tea ceremony you feel at once part of nature and outside it. It may be the perfect zen paradox. The ceremony with all it's rules, creating the spontaneous sensation of the natural world.

It was beautiful.

Sorry no pictures...

is there a doctor in the house?

funniest video EVER!!!!!!

calligraphy and the park

I haven't done any shuji for a long time, but this weekend I had some experienced help, so I tried again. I've been studying kanji pretty much constantly since I decided to take the test, so this was a way to reacquaint myself with it. Last week I hated it...despised it, even. My food started tasting like Kanji...I guess I had an overload. But this weekend writing the characters with a brush felt really good. Really refreshing. I focused on the strokes, the look and not the meaning. It didn`t matter if I forgot the onyomi or the kunyomi, all that mattered was if it looked beautiful. The character in the corner means 'me'.

Although the weather was bad, I took a walk in the park. The leaves didn't change so much...maybe I missed it. Or maybe there are too many evergreens. I'm not sure.

What was beautiful was the pyramid shapes they make to hold up the trees in the heavy snow. It's characteristic of this area. I love the shape!

on my desk

I believe that you can tell a lot about a person by listing the items on their desk...or in their bags, for example.

If you empty out the contents of a woman`s purse, you`d be able to give a pretty accurate description of her psychologically.


So here is a picture of my desk.

The items are listed like this:
a map of the world with australia at the centre, drawn on a 3M post-it note;
a whiteboard with my dream house drawn in the corner;
spiderman pen;
my personalized water bottle;
kanji practice cards;
(some work);
a giant origami ball;
a walkie-talkie...

What does this say about me? ...I wonder...

Re: NTT telephone line

To whom it may concern:

My internet is not working. I have been having trouble with my NTT telephone for the last few months, and it was disconnected last Wednesday. I have been unable to receive phone calls on it, and so it seemed to me unnecessary to have. Especially since I am paying over ￥2000 for what is now basically a desk ornament from the 1980s.

Much to my chagrin, when my phone line was cut off, my internet also stopped working. I suppose I need to reconnect my phone line, just to have the internet. So, I want to let you know that my posts will be few and far between until my desk ornament is connected again.

Sincerely,

Graeme Lottering

PS. Thanks to all who left comments on the last post. :)

visiting beauty (culture tip #14)

Every once in a while, I will have a real spiritual experience. Perhaps I have been neglecting myself lately, or parhaps I have been too busy to look out into the world recently. I`m not sure, but it's been about a year since I've had a spiritual thought. Yesterday, however, I certainly had a beautiful, serene experience when I visited a temple in Nagoya. (Yes, yes, there's nothing to do in Nagoya, I know! But this temple popped out as I exited a subway and was a delightful surprise.)

Sometimes you just feel that there's something great about the place. It leads you in and you find yourself wondering around the yard, listening to chants and thinking about life. I stood on the porch for about 45 minutes, breathing incense and staring at pigeons scavenging the yard for food.

fig 12 - culture tip 14: The incense is considered purifying and people will waft it onto their bodies, and especially over sick or injured parts to help them heal.

The temple yard was surrounded by buildings because Nagoya is a rather big city, but standing on the temple porch was completely quiet and peaceful, and life seemed to go by at the slow pace of nature.

Every temple has two guardians standing watch over the entrance. Raijin, the thunder god; and Fujin, the wind god. Here there was a giant painting on Fujin on the apartment building walling off the temple yard. It's cheesy I know, but once you have been to Japan you except that the Japanese make very little distinction between cheesiness and high-culture.


I sat on the porch thinking and thinking. And under the giant lantern tied with people's wishes, I felt some deep 4th-dimensional feeling of understanding. Like time was overlapping and the I saw life ever-so-briefly through the temple's eyes. It's impossible to fit into words...But it was beautiful.

funny bush moments

And my personal favourite:

a wee typography video