This is the Direction Science Fiction Should Take: My Impression of the Film “Her”

Somewhat belatedly, I managed to catch Spike Jonze’s great contemporary science fiction film“Her".



Before seeing it, I had believed that science fiction as a genre was dead.

Although the great novels and films in the history of science fiction have always depicted a new vision of the future, nowadays science fiction novels and films seem to be nothing more than imitations of what has gone before.

For example, in the film “Transcendence,” the consciousness of a scientific genius is transplanted into cyberspace. I read this idea in William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer” which was first published back in 1984.

In "Transcendence", the transplanted consciousness attacks human beings. Again, I first came across this idea (computers attacking human beings) in the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”



In contrast, the film, “Her”, envisions a future L.A., which is both similar to, and slightly different from, today's actual L.A. Spike Jonze's attention to every detail is what makes the film's vision so convincing.

The main character and an AI fall in love with each other. They constantly communicate with each other via PC and smartphone. While I find it hard to believe that computers would attack human beings in the near future, to me the idea that a human being and an AI could fall in love sounds entirely plausible.

I believe this film indicates a new direction for science fiction.

Every actor did a really good job. Scarlett Johansson, who voiced the role of the AI, was especially good. Watching "Her", I was once again struck by her talent.

Simple Is the Best: My Impression of Kindle 4th Generation

It took such a long time for Amazon.co.jp (the Japanese branch of Amazon) to begin to sell Kindle, so I couldn’t wait it and bought “Kindle 4th generation” from Amazon.com.

Finally, Amazon.co.jp started selling “Kindle Paperwhite” and “Kindle Fire”, but they don’t sell “Kindle,” which does not support Japanese digital books. Now, I read English digital books with Kindle 4th Generation and Japanese ones with Kindle app on Nexus 7.

Kindle 4th generation has many restrictions. It is obviously inconvenient for me, as a native Japanese speaker, not to be able to read Japanese books. Its display is just black and white, and too low resolution for us to watch photos and read mangas. Unlike Kindle Paperwhite, it doesn’t even have a touchscreen and a light.

But it is really comfortable, when you just read a string of character on a book.

Firstly, it is very light in weight. It is quite important. Nexus 7 isn’t heavy as compared with other tablets, but I feel it is much heavier than Kindle 4th generation when I read digital books for a long time.

Secondly, it is just suitable for carrying out. I don’t have to be careful for running out of battery, because it isn’t necessary to recharge its battery almost for a week. It is just a right size to put in a jacket’s breast pocket.

When I flip a page with Kindle 4th generation, I have to push a button on its side. Pushing a button isn’t fashionable, but actually it is much more convenient for me just to push a button than to swipe a display.

Kindle 4th generation has nothing but functions just only to read digital books.

Simple is best.

How to Look for a Book in the Stone Age

I have written a series of entries, which I call “the Stone Age series.”

Everyday life has been changed drastically by the spread of the Internet, but sometimes I feel that the life with the Internet is so natural, because I forget the life before the Internet. In order to remember how was the life before the Internet, I wrote some entries about it. In these entries, I call the age before the Internet “the Stone Age.”

In the Stone Age, we could survive without the Internet and cell phones. I wrote about the devices that we could use in the Stone Age in the entry “I could survive in the Stone Age.”

In these days, people managed to meet friends with public phones and “real” message boards. If you interested in how they met friends, please read my entry “How to Meet a Friend in the Stone Age.”

Today I’d like to write about a way of looking for a book without amazon.com.

If I were looking for a newly published book, at first I went to a bookstore. Now, in the Iron Age, I can check the stocks in a bookstore with the Internet, but at that time the only thing that I could do was just going to a bookstore. If there were no stocks of the book that I was looking for, I went to another bookstore.

I don’t have to worry that the digital book that I want to read will be out of print, but paper books often became out of print so quickly. In the Stone Age, I had to buy the book that I would read someday as soon as possible, and there were a pile of books on my desk, which I myself didn’t know when I could read.

Paper books are heavy and bulky. It was really hard to bring a shopping bag that was full of books from a bookstore to my house. My room was filled with a lot of books, which I could no longer put together. Sometimes I bought again a book that I had already bought, because I couldn’t find it from a pile of books in my room.

In the Iron Age, I can get a book just with “1-Click” from Amazon.com on my kindle.

Superman and the 442nd Regimental Combat team

The movie “Batman vs. Superman,” which is a sequel of “Man of Steel,” will be out in July 2015.

Batman and Superman are complete opposites in every aspect. Batman is the dark knight, but on the other hand the sun makes Superman a super hero. Bruce Wayne is a son of a millionaire in Gotham City, whose model is obviously New York City, but Clark Kent grew up in Smallville, Kansas.

It is most interesting that Superman who was born in the Planet Krypton is very patriotic, but Batman who is a born American doesn’t believe in his government.

In Frank Miller’s comics “Batman: the Dark Knight Returns,” Batman said to Superman, “You always say yes to anyone with a badge or a flag. No good,” while fighting against each other.

Superman’s patriotism reminds me the motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat team, “Go for Broke.”

In the period of World War II, Japanese American citizens in the U.S. were interned in camps, because they were thought to be anti-American, even though they had American citizenship.

Most members of the 442nd Regimental Combat team were young Japanese Americans whose parents were interned. They had to prove that they were the true Americans, and they fought bravely in Europe in World War II.

After Superman fought for life to save America and the Planet Earth, at the end of “Man of Steel,” General Swanwick talked with Superman.

General Swanwick: Then I'll ask the obvious question: How do we know you won't one day act against America's interests.
Superman: I grew up in Kansas, General. It's about as American as it gets. Look, I'm here to help. But it has to be on my own terms. And you have to convince Washington of that.
General Swanwick: Even if I were willing to try, what makes you think they'd listen?
Superman: I don't know, General. I guess I'll just have to trust you.

Superman has to keep trying to trust American people, so he keeps fighting for Americans like the 442nd Regimental Combat team, because he was born in a foreign planet.

The Problem of Mistranslation of “Norwegian Wood”

The title of the Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood” was translated as “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” in Japanese. “noruei” means “Norway”, and “no” means “of,” and “mori” means “forest,” so “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” means “Forest of Norway.”

Some one pointed out that this was mistranslation, because “Norwegian Wood” means Norwegian wood furniture. Basically I agree with it.

I looked up the word “wood” in a dictionary.

wood 

1 [uncountable and countable] the material that trees are made of 

Put some more wood on the fire. 

a polished wood floor 

soft/hard woodPine is a soft wood. 

Her house was made of wood. 

a piece of wood 

2 [countable] also the woods a small forest: 

a walk in the woods

The word “Wood” in “Norwegian Wood” isn’t plural, so it doesn’t mean the second definition “a small forest” but the first definition “the material that trees are made of.”

And let’s read the lyrics of "Norwegian Wood."

She showed me her roomIsn't it good Norwegian wood?

No one might think that there was a small forest in her room. It is obvious that this “Norwegian wood” is Norwegian wood furniture.

Haruki Murakami named his novel  “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” after the Beatles’ song. He wrote about this problem in his essay.

I, as one of a translator, want to say that the right interpretation of the word “Norwegian Wood” is just “Norwegian Wood.” The other interpretations might be more or less mistranslation. If you look at the context of the lyrics, it is clear that the ambiguous tone of these words dominates this song and lyrics. It is difficult to definite these words as one special meaning. It is not different between in Japanese and English. If you wanted to catch it, you would lose it. Of course, one of images that these words contain might be “Norwegian wood furniture” = “Nordic furniture.” But it isn’t the only meaning of them. If you insisted that they meant just “Nordic furniture,” the narrow way of assertion would detract the deepness of this song that the ambiguity (this deepness is the point of this song). It is just to miss the forest for the trees. “Norwegian Wood” might not be “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori),” but at the same time it isn’t “Norwegian wood furniture,” I think.

翻訳者のはしくれとして一言いわせてもらえるなら、Norwegian Woodということばの正しい解釈はあくまでもであって、それ以外の解釈はみんな多かれ少なかれ間違っているのではないか。歌詞のコンテクストを検証してみれば、Norwegian Woodということばのアンビギュアスな（規定不能な）響きがこの曲と詞を支配していることは明白だし、それをなにかひとつにはっきりと規定するという行為はいささか無理があるからだ。それは日本語においても英語においても、変わりはない。捕まえようとすれば、逃げてしまう。もちろんそのことば自体として含むイメージのひとつとして、ノルウェイ製の家具＝北欧家具、という可能性はある。でもそれがすべてでない。もしそれがすべてだと主張する人がいたら、そういう狭義な決めつけ方は、この曲のアンビギュイティーがリスナーに与えている不思議な奥の深さ（その深さこそがこの曲の生命なのだ）を致命的に損なってしまうのではないだろうか。それこそ「木を見て森を見ず」ではないか。Norwegian Woodは正確には「ノルウェイの森」ではないかもしれない。しかし同様に「ノルウェイ製の家具」でもないというのが僕の個人的見解である。(村上春樹「雑文集」)

Honestly, this passage is inarticulate.

If he was right, no one could translate the words “Norwegian Wood” in Japanese. There is no perfect translation, but translators seek better translation. In this case, it is clear that “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” isn’t relatively adequate.

I’d like to know how native English speakers think about the words “Norwegian Wood.”

The Reason That I Really Want to Improve My English

I’m learning English as a secondary language. I wrote about the reason that I learned English in the entry “The Meaning of Learning a Foreign Language.”

A while ago, I was almost satisfied with my English, because I felt that I could largely express what I want to express. But now I’ve got frustrated with my English.

When I read IMDb’s user reviews, I think that they are more advanced than these on similar sites in Japanese but at the same time I can write a review from my unique stand point of view. So I try to write reviews, but I am not satisfied with them at all.

First of all, I can’t write grammatically accurate English.

Before I’ve got frustrated with my English, I thought, “It’s OK. I’m not a native speaker. If I made some mistakes, readers could guess what I meant.” 

In fact, if I mistook “a” for “the,” it might lead a critical mistake. In order to express accurately what I mean, so I have to write accurate sentences. Nevertheless, I haven’t understood even the usage of “a” and “the,” yet.

Secondary, I can read and write in English too slowly. I guess that I can read and write in Japanese four or five times faster than in English.

I have a lot of books and articles to read in English, but actually I can read only a small part of them. I can only read two or three articles of newspaper a day and it takes two or three weeks to read through only a book.

My typical entry in this weblog has about two or three hundred words and it takes about one or two hours to write through one entry. Sometimes, I haven’t written what I’d like to express yet, I don’t have enough time to write through it.

Of course, I couldn’t keep up with chat, if I used dictionary and thesaurus.

Thirdly, I don’t understand the nuances of English expressions well. In Japanese, I can write both of formal document and casual mail. But I don’t know what impression my writings in English give to readers, so I can’t control my style of writings.

When I wrote the title of this entry “The Reason That I Really Want to Improve My English,” I try to find an adequate adverb and search thesaurus, but I am not convinced which adverb is most adequate for what I really want to express.

In the end, I should read more and more English in order to improve my English. The road ahead will be long.

There Is No One Who Is Completely Evil or Right

Finally, I read through the article “Jahar's World” on Rolling Stone magazine. It reminded me of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the cult "Aum Shinrikyo" in 1995 and  Haruki Murakami’s book “Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche.”

In 1995, I was living in Higashi-Koenji, and commute to my office in Otemachi, Tokyo by Marunouchi subway line, which was one of the subwaylines that Aum Shinrikyo attacked by the Sarin gas. Fortunately, I felt sick and took a day off at my work on the morning of the Sarin gas attack. It was possible for me to be a victim of this attack, so I couldn’t think that this was someone else’s affair.

Just after this attack, there were full of reports about Aum Shinrikyo in every media, but most of them were based on the stereotypical views. The book “Underground” is a series of interviews with the people that affected by this attack and the members of Aum Shinrikyo. Only “Underground” presented these people as individuals. 

Everyone in the world is special, but at the same time it is difficult for us to avoid stereotypical views. In fact there is no one who is completely evil or right, even including Shoko Asahara, the cult founder, or Jahar, the the bomber of Boston Marathon.

After September 11 attack, Bush Jr. started to use the words "war on terrorism." Now, every government that wants to suppress its opponent uses these words. The Egyptian army calls the Muslim Brotherhood "terrorist." 

Of course, I don't have any intention of justify the Sarin gas attack, September 11 attack, and the bombing Boston Marathon, and we should care about every victim of these affairs individually, but I want to know exactly why they caused such affairs.

When you read "Underground" or his essay about the bombing Boston Marathon "Boston, from One Citizen of the World Who Calls Himself a Runner," you would understand how deeply he cares about the victims of these affairs. At the same time, he didn't write a founder of the cult as just an evil person in his novel "1Q84."

I got a little knowledge about him from the article “Jahar's World.” Although I can't say that I completely understand why he did so, it's much better to read it.

A Great Story, Good Actors and Actresses, but a Cheap Direction: My Impression of the Movie, “The Great Gatsby”

I saw the movie “the Great Gatsby” yesterday.


I love the novel “the Great Gatsby,” so I was looking forward to this movie, and at the same time I felt anxious about it.

Of course, the plot is great, not due to any staff of this movie but to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Gatsby devoted whole his life to Daisy, who wasn’t what she really was but what he believed that she should be. He did anything that he believed that she would love, but actually it wasn’t sure that she would love it. In the end, he was betrayed by the real Daisy, because she wasn’t what he thought that her was.

In this sense, “the Great Gatsby” is tragedy and comedy like “Don Quixote.” Gatsby and Don Quixote lived in their own imagination. All of us also live more or less in our imagination, but we can’t forget the real world at all. Therefore, we look down on them and adore them at the same time like Nick Carter.

Would you like to live your own life at any cost and go to ruin like Jay Gatsby, or to watch someone else’s life from a safety zone like Nick Carter?

Tobey Maguire was adequate as Nick Carter. Although sometimes Leonardo DiCaprio overacted, I can’t imagine that another actor palys Gatsby. Carey Mulligan was cute enough for Daisy who Gatsby loved.

But I was really disappointed that the direction was so cheap.

In my entry “Punk Rock and the Digital Camera: the Impression of the Documentary Movie “Side by Side,” I wrote, “I want to watch a movie made by punk rockers more than by Thomas Edison.” I don’t deny developing of the digital technology, but I just hope that directors would use them effectively.

In this movie, everything in the images was unnatural. If it was a music video, I could say that their images were fashionable, but in this movie they broke my concentration on the story.

Did they use such artificial images in order to express the cheapness of the Roaring Twenties? If they wanted it, it would be successful. In fact, I seemed this movie to be cheap.

I’ll try Robert Redford’s “the Great Gatsby.”

The Age of Discovery in Europe and the Age of Tokugawa in Japan

As I wrote in the previous entry “Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea: The History of Globalization,” I have become interested in the history of globalization.


When was the beginning of globalization?

A historian pointed out that the empire of Mongolia made the Eastern and Western world unified and established world history. Marco Polo could travel from Venice to China in the thirteenth century through the territory of the empire of Mongolia. In this sense, the origin of globalization was the empire of Mongolia.

Aside from Marco Polo, there was few people actually traveling between the Eastern and Western worlds at that time, and Europeans had not reached America or “Zipangu”, which Marco Polo called Japan. Of course no Japanese people had arrived in Europe.

And then, the Europeans, who had been trying to find a more direct route to Asia, accidentally discovered America in the late fifteenth century. In the middle of sixteenth century, Portuguese with guns drifted down to Tanegashima, the southern part of the Japanese archipelago, as I wrote the entry “Spread of Guns in the World History.” 

Japan, “Zipangu”, which is located in the farthest area from Europe, was the ultimate goal for European in the Age of Discovery. Their arrival on Tanegashima meant that the whole world finally had been united. This was the beginning of globalization, I think.

In fact, the arrival of Europeans had great impact on Japanese history.

In the sixteenth century, feudal lords called “daimyo” (大名) were scattered and fought each other throughout Japan. After the Portuguese brought guns to Japan, Japanese artisans began to produce guns. These then quickly spread among the feudal lords engaged in battle. Guns transformed the way of battle, and only forty years after the arrival of guns, Japan was reunified by force.

The feudal lords competed with each other to trade with the Europeans in order to get gunpowder. Some of them converted to Christianity and Catholicism spread rapidly into Japanese people. Some Christian feudal lords called “Kirishitan Daimyo” (キリシタン大名) dispatched embassies to Rome.

In the early of seventeenth century, the Tokugawa Shogunate (徳川幕府) was established and a big rebellion of Catholic people occurred. Iemitsu Tokugawa, the third Tokugawa Shogun, decided to expel Portuguese and only allowed trade with Chinese and Dutch traders, because Dutch were not Catholic but Protestant.

In the age of discovery, European culture and technology to the world both eastbound and westbound. Portuguese arrival at Japan was, of course, eastbound. In the early of the nineteenth century, American whalers passed through Cape Horn to off shore of Japan in the Pacific Ocean, which they called “Japan ground.” This meant that the Europeans finally arrived in Japan in the farthest “west.” 

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Californian gold rush occurred and Europeans literally “rushed” to the west coast of North America. The United States dispatched a fleet to Edo to request the Tokugawa Shogunate to open country. This caused the breakup of the Tokugawa Shogunate and Japanese modernization.

In this sense, the age of Tokugawa was the period between eastbound and westbound of European arrival at Japan, and after the sixteenth century Japanese history was deeply influenced by globalization.

Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea: The History of Globalization

I have just finished the book “The True History of Chocolate.”

Recently, I have become interested in the history of globalization, especially its origin, so I have been reading books about the history of commodities - such as coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, whale oil, fur etc. - that were produced, traded, and consumed all over the world.

The origin of chocolate is Mesoamerica. In the Olmec, the Maya, and the Aztec civilization, chocolate was quite a precious drink. Basically, only noble people drank it and ordinary people could drink it only during rituals.

After Columbus reached the New World, chocolate spread mainly among aristocratic society and Catholic churches in Europe through Spain.

The episode in this book that I was most interested in is about coffee houses in the seventeenth century in London. In the middle of that century, three of the most major beverage, coffee, tea, and, chocolate, were introduced to England almost at the same time, and people in London drank them in coffee houses.

The origins of three of them are different. As I wrote, the origin of chocolate was Mesoamerica. Coffee is from Ethiopia and tea is from East Asia. It is no coincidence that they arrived at England simultaneously. Coffee, tea, and chocolate were the most important commodities in early globalization, and their arrivals in the seventeenth century symbolized the dawn of globalization in England. 

In the eighteenth century, coffee was most popular in three of them in England. Chocolate was characterized as southern, Catholic, and aristocratic, and coffee as northern, Protestant, and middle-class. Tea was quite expensive before India was colonized and tea plantations were developed in India. The bourgeoisie with “the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism” drunk coffee.

Before the nineteenth century, chocolate was basically drunken. In this century, Van Houten, Henri Nestle, Rudolphe Lindt, John Cadbury, and Milton Hershey, who ironically were not Catholic aristocrats in the Southern Europe but Protestant bourgeoisie in the Northern Europe, invented and manufactured the mass product of solid chocolate.

Next, I will read a book about the history of sugar.

Both Sides of the Same Coin: Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” and Hideo Levy’s “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard”

In 1949 Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto. His father was a high school teacher and moved to a high school in Kobe, so Haruki Murakami was brought up in Kobe. In 1968 he entered Waseda University and moved to Tokyo. Although his novel “Norwegian Wood” isn’t an autobiography, in it he described the student lives in Tokyo at that time.

In 1950 Hideo Levy was born in Berkeley, California. His father was a diplomat, and he was brought up in Denver, Taichung, Hong Kong, Washington D.C., and Yokohama. In 1967 he began to study Japanese at Waseda University, and then he ran away from his home in Yokohama, and moved into his friend’s room and worked at a coffee shop in Shinjuku. He described Waseda University and Shinjuku from the standpoint of a foreigner in his first novel “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard.”

In the late 1960s student movements escalated throughout the world, May Event in France, anti-Vietnam movement in the U.S., the Cultural Revolution in China, and Zenkyoto movement in Japan. Waseda University and Shinjuku were in the midst of Zenkyoto movement, and Haruki Murakami and Hideo Levy were deeply influenced by it but both of them couldn’t fully get into it.

Haruki Murakami felt something different from Japanese society. In fact he wanted to run away from his parents, so he chose Waseda University in order to move to Tokyo and to live alone. But in Tokyo he still felt something different from students especially who took part in Zenkyoto movement. All of the characters in the novel “Norwegian Wood” more or less couldn’t fit in Japanese society.

Hideo Levy also felt something different from his father and wanted to run away from him and get into Japanese society, but he, as a foreigner, was rejected by Japanese society and people. Of course he couldn’t get into Zenkyoto movement, because he couldn’t speak Japanese and he was a “Gaijin”, which means “foreigner” in Japanese.

“Norwegian Wood” and “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard” are both sides of the same coin. After that, Haruki Murakami became a world-famous novelist and he got out of Japanese literary society into the world. Hideo Levy began to write novels in Japanese, and got into Japanese literary society, if not fully.

If you like the novel or movie “Norwegian Wood,” I strongly recommend that you read Hideo Levy’s “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard.” If you have learned Japanese, I suggest you try the original Japanese version of this novel, but you can read it in English translation as well.

Wittgenstein, Barbara Minto, and Me

I am now reading Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus." Of course it is hard to understand it and I have to read the same sentence again and again to understand what Wittgenstein meant, but I am really enjoying reading it.

In the preface of this book, Wittgenstein wrote, "Perhaps this book be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it ― or at least  similar thoughts." I have been thinking about the same problem, about which Wittgenstein wrote in "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus," even though my thoughts are so shallow.

My problem is how to write and how to make a presentation in business. I use Barbara Minto's "The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, and Problem Solving" as a reference. One of good points of this book is that it deals with not just how to write but also how to think at the same time. I think that writing and thinking are indivisible, because if one thinks illogically, they cannot write logically. If people want to write or to make a presentation logically, they must think logically.

In "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus," Wittgenstein wrote about thinking logically and expressing it in a language. He thought about this problem radically and in principle, and Barbara Minto thought about it quite practically, but both of them dealt with the same problem in similar way.

I think that Barbara Minto was apparently influenced by "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus," because her "pyramid principle" was along the same line as writings in "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus," which has the strict structure. In fact it is difficult to understand "Tractus Logio-Philosophicus," because Wittgenstein's thoughs are so deep, but the way of writing, itself, is quite simple to understand. In this sense, "Tractus Logio-Philosophicus" is a good example for us on how to think and to write logically.

I am frequently told that I am argumentative and sophistic, and I answer back that I am just logical. Sometimes I make people angry because I make a quite logical assertion persistently. But Wittgenstein was far more logical and persistent than I. Wittgenstein's biography encourages me, and I have confidence that I should be more logical and persistent, whatever people tell me.

Wittgenstein's life seems to have been eccentric and unhappy for people around him, but I guess that he might have been satisfied with his life, even if it could not be said that it was happy, because he lived his life in the way he believed. I also want to live my life in the way I believe.

You Must Read "Sunny" As Soon As Possible

I've just finish "Sunny volume 3" by Taiyo Matsumoto, which made my heart ache.

In the entry "Japanese Manga Classics (3): Taiyo Matsumoto "Ping Pong"," I wrote about one of my favorite manga author, Taiyo Matsumoto. "Sunny" is his latest work and I think that it is his best work.

His graphics are artistic and fantastic, and I've been fascinated his graphics. Although manga consists of graphics, story, and dialogue, his graphics are so amazing that he gave too much importance to graphics in some of his work. And his works were sometimes so avant-garde that it was difficult to understand them. I, myself, love these works, but I don't recommend them to somebody else.

But "Sunny" is quite orthodox, and graphics, story, and dialog were integrated into an impressive manga, which must touch everyone's heart.

I was really happy to find English version of "Sunny," and I strongly recommend reading it as soon as possible.

Please Explain to Me What Anti-globalism Is.

I couldn't write a new entry these three weeks. I wasn't so busy at work, but I was just tired. Anyway, I'll try to write a new entry.

It's really true that I can't understand what anti-globalism is at all. What do anti-globalists want?

I think that it is clear that free trade makes people's welfare around the world much bigger. Of course some industries might suffer damage by free trade, but it is the governments' role that compensate these industries. If a government adopted a protectionist trade policies to protect these industries, it would seriously damage tother people.

Globalization isn't a phenomenon in the modern age. The begging of the globalization was that Genghis Khan built the Mongol Empire and made connection between Asia and Europe in the 12th century. In the Age of Discovery, finally Portuguese got to Japan, Zipang, in the 16th century, and the world became literally one globe.

In the previous entry "Spread of Guns in the World History," I wrote that Portuguese gave a deep influence to Japanese history. In other words, the globalization of Japan had already begun in the 16th century, not in the 21st century.

I want to know what anti-globalists want. Do they want to go back before the Mongol Empire or the Age of Discovery? We are living in the globalization and it's almost impossible to refuse it. North Korea isolates in the world and it can be call anti-globalism country, but I guess that anti-globalists don't want to be like North Korea people, do they?

In the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five", Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "writing an anti-war book is like writing an anti-glacier book." Going against globalization is like going against glacier.

Please explain to me what Anti-globalism Is.

The Writing Revolution

I, who have been keeping a weblog in Japanese for fifteen years and a weblog in English for two and a half years, am deeply interested in the method of writing.

I found the interesting article "The WritingRevolution" on "Atlantic Magazine website".  The author of this article wrote as followings.

Fifty years ago, elementary-school teachers taught the general rules of spelling and the structure of sentences. Later instruction focused on building solid paragraphs into full-blown essays. Some kids mastered it, but many did not. About 25 years ago, in an effort to enliven instruction and get more kids writing, schools of education began promoting a different approach. The popular thinking was that writing should be “caught, not taught,” explains Steven Graham, a professor of education instruction at Arizona State University. Roughly, it was supposed to work like this: Give students interesting creative-writing assignments; put that writing in a fun, social context in which kids share their work. Kids, the theory goes, will “catch” what they need in order to be successful writers. Formal lessons in grammar, sentence structure, and essay-writing took a back seat to creative expression.

The catch method works for some kids, to a point. “Research tells us some students catch quite a bit, but not everything,” Graham says. And some kids don’t catch much at all. Kids who come from poverty, who had weak early instruction, or who have learning difficulties, he explains, “can’t catch anywhere near what they need” to write an essay. For most of the 1990s, elementary- and middle-­school children kept journals in which they wrote personal narratives, poetry, and memoirs and engaged in “peer editing,” without much attention to formal composition. Middle- and high-school teachers were supposed to provide the expository- and persuasive-writing instruction.

 

I heard that in school of the U.S. the method of writing was emphasized, so I was surprised with this article.

Although I don't know about the present education of writing in Japan, I got "the catch method" of writing education in school. I had to write a diary in every summer vacation for homework, and I didn't know what I should write on a diary, which my teachers would read.

After I finished school, I learned the method of writing by myself. The most useful reference for me is Barbara Minto's "The MintoPyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving." It's no useful for me to learn "the catch method" in school. Of course there are people who don't like "the pyramid principle."

I think that the suitable method of writing differs depending on the person. Someone can become able to write creatively well by learning "the catch method." But it is effective for someone to learn "the pyramid principle" like me. It might be important for anyone to be able to choice their suitable method.

As I wrote in the entry "Swim in the Ocean", we wouldn't be able to swim in the ocean just with reading a book about how to swim. We have to write certain amount in order to became able to write well, if we learned any kind of methods.

Heta-Uma (Unskillful but Skillful) and Uma-Heta (Skillful but Unskillful)

There is the word "ヘタうま (heta-uma)" in Japanese, which hardly can be translated into English. Heta-Uma is combined with the two words, "へた (heta)" and "うまい (umai)". "Heta" means unskillful or primitive, and "umai" means skillful or sophisticated.

In the 1980s, Teruhiko Yuasa, a Japanese illustrator, advocated the concept "heta-uma." He insisted that artworks, which were seemed to be unskillful but in fact were skillful, were most excellent, and called them "heta-uma." And he also criticized artworks, which were just quite skillful but not excellent, and called them "uma-heta."

I'd like to show one of his artworks "情熱のペンギンごはん (Passionate Penguin's Meal)". I think that it isn't realistic but quite skillful. At least it doesn't seem to be primitive for me at all, so I'd like to call it "uma-uma" (skillful and skillful).

In the previous entry "I Hate SongsSung by Whitney and I Love Songs Sung by Carole" I made a comparison between Whitney Houston and Carole King. In the words of Teruhiko Yuasa, Whitney Houston's songs are typically "uma-heta." Her songs are just quite skillful but without any substance.

Sony used to be like what Apple is now, but now it lost its luster. Sony invented Walkman, but it couldn't invent iPod, iTunes, and iPhone. It's not only Sony, but most Japanese electronics companies are slumping. Panasonic, one of the largest Japanese electronics companies, released the report about the estimate of huge loss in fiscal year 2013.  I myself don't want to buy products made by Japanese electronics companies, but I actually bought Apple's products, iPod, iMac, and iPhone.

When I compared the specs of electronic products, sometimes I find that Japanese products were best, but they don't make me want to buy them at all. I guess that they resemble to Whitney Houston's songs, "uma-heta" (skillful but unskillful).

The specs of Whitney Houston might be better than most singers, but her songs don't move me at all. Recent Sony's Products don't move me either, but Apple's products touch me.

In the entry "Why Do I Buy AppleProducts?" I wrote "Nowadays the specs on PCs are not different so much, so the feel of them are important for me. In this mean iMac is as same as my Mont Blanc's fountain pen, whose touch is really nice." Apple's products don't seemed to be unskillful, so they can't be called "heta-uma" (unskillful but skillful) but "uma-uma" (skillful and skillful), but it's clear that Apple doesn't pursue specs on the paper. For example, the size of display of iPhone 5 isn't largest in smart phones, because Apple took account of usability.

One of the strangest electronic products that I've ever seen is the PC with an air washer made by Fujitsu, one of the major Japanese computer manufactures. Who wanted to PC with an air washer? It is "uma-heta" (skillful but unskillful), isn't it? No, it is just "heta-heta" (unskillful and unskillful).

Boy's Culture and Girl's Culture

The wallpaper of my PC is from "Sin City." I love this picture.

I said to a female colleague, "This picture is so cool, isn't it?" She replied, "Mm, I don't know if it is or not and, in any case, I'm not really interested in cool things." When, my friend, who's really into comics, said that she didn't know a single girl who liked "Sin City", I began to think that perhaps this kind of coolness was a boy thing.

I wrote about "The Dark Knight" on my weblog. I really love this movie. But my friend said that, although boys might love "The Dark Knight", she, herself, liked Tim Burton's Batman movies more because they were colorful and fun whereas "The Dark Knight" was too heavy  "The Dark Knight" was influenced by the American comic, "Batman: the Dark Knight Returns", which was also created/drawn by the same artist/author who drew/created "Sin City". Maybe thinking the "The Dark Knight" is cool is another boy thing.

Although I know that it is very controversial, I feel that gangsta rap is coolest in hip hop music.　Contemporary hip hop music is too commercialized for me. How do you think about Ice-T? It also might be the thing in boy's culture.

The valley between boy's culture and girl's culture is so deep.

Hip Hop and the Death of the Author

My favorite pop music is Rock and Funk in the 1970s.

I think that the 1970s were the golden age of Rock and now it is dead as I wrote in the entry "The Song for All of the Stupid Boys in the World."

I think that rock music isn't contemporary music now either. Hip hop killed Rock music in the 90s, and Nirvana was the last band that created new rock music. And then rock musicians have basically rehashed old rock music, so I mainly listen to rock music from the 60s and 70s.

 

Sometimes I used to try listening to Hip Hop music, but Hip Hop sounded so strange that I couldn't get used to it. Recently I realized that what was different between Rock and Hip Hop and now I enjoy listening to hip hop music.

Roland Barthes, a French critic, wrote about the concept "the death of the author." For the traditional literary critics, literary works were always related to their authors, but Barthes insisted that we should read the texts themselves. Texts weren't creations by their authors, but each text is related to and quoted by others.

Roland Barthes' theory is based on structuralism. Claude Levi-Strauss, one of the most famous anthropologists, studied mythology by applying structuralism. Mythology doesn't have its authors, so it can't be related to its authors. Levi-Strauss focused on the variations of the texts of mythology and revealed the meaning and structure of mythology.

Hip Hop brought "the death of the author" to the world of pop music. Rock music was treated in the traditional way of literary criticism, but Hip Hop music is rather like mythology.

After the Beatles released the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", Rock musicians made many albums, which were thought as art works created by them.

On the contrary Hip Hop music aren't creations of the special authors. In the beginnings of Hip Hop, DJs played pieces of songs with turntables on the street. They didn't create their original songs but just edited and quoted songs, which already existed.

Please watch this video, "Otis" by Kanye West and Jay-Z.

 

Otis Redding's, a legendary soul singer, song was quoted. His voice and shout were reconstructed, and raps of Kanye West and Jay-Z were overdubbed.

Who is the author of this song "Otis"? Otis Redding? Kanye West and Jay-Z?

I realized that I should enjoy the song itself and forget about who was the author. Barthes called this attitude "the pleasure of the text."

In the Hip Hop world the author is actually dead.

 

American Heroes after September 11

I'm reading Kichiro Yanashita's "User's Guide to Pandemonium (新世紀読書大全)". Kichiro Yanashita (柳下毅一郎) is a critic and a translator,and he specializes in so-called subculture, which is called "サブカル (sabukaru)" in Japan. This book consists of all of his book reviews written from 1990 to 2010.

He wrote about American comics in the 1990s and after September 11.

I read American comics most eagerly in the 90s, when the world of American comics was changing dynamically because of the American comic revolution led by Frank Miller and Alan Moore. I had the momentum to read every area of American comics, from leaf to graphic novels.. I read the best works of American comics, for example "The Dark Knight Returns", "Watchmen", and "The Sandman", and I felt certain that American comics were on the cutting edge.
...
September 11 attacks and "patriotic fervor" had great influence on American comics. Hero comics lost their power (there were no meaning of heroes like Dr. Doom who collapsed into tears on terrorists' attack and Spiderman who said "The real heroes are firefighters died in the twin tower."), and comics on newspapers were choked by patriotism.

Ironically, American comics in the 1990s influenced Hollywood in the 2000s. Many hero movies were made, and some of these could be called masterpieces. I really love the movie "The Dark Knight", which was based on the comic "The Dark Knight Returns". I wrote an entry about "The Dark Knight" on my weblog.

In American comics in the 1990s and in hero movies in the 2000s justice and evil became relative with each other and heroes lost their identities. I feel it natural that justice and evil are relative, so I can accept this sense of values and I love these comics and movies. I also wrote another entry about American comics.

I am interested in the raison d'etre of heroes.If there were no evil in this world, we wouldn't need any heroes. Batman's raison d'etre is Joker. If Joker is gone, Batman also should be gone. Joker will never kill Batman and Batman will never kill Joker. Justice and evil are two sides of the same coin.

This is the truth about justice and evil in the world after September 11, isn't it?

"I Don't Work, Because of the Relationship between Japan and the West"

I just finished reading V. S. Naipaul's novel "Half a Life."

The central character of this novel, Willie, was born in India and went to a missionary school to learn English, because his father wanted it. Ironically learning English language and culture made him feel uncomfortable with his family and their culture and society, so he left India to go to England. But he couldn't settle in England, he kept roaming around the world.

Ann, Willie's lover, who was born in a former Portuguese colony at the East cost of Africa, sent a letter about the novel that Willie wrote. She. In the letter she wrote as follows.

We read this book and that book and we tell ourselves we like it, but all the books they tell us to read are written for other people and really we are always in somebody else's house and we have to walk carefully and sometimes we have to stop our ears at things we hear people say. I feel I had to write to you because in your stories for the first time I find moments that are like moments in my own life, though the background and material are so different.

I'm not familiar with the background and materials in the novel "Half a Life", nevertheless I can also understand its story very well, because I've read the same theme in a lot of works of modern Japanese literature.

For example, Soseki Natsume, who was one of the greatest novelists in the modern Japanese literature in the late 19th century, wrote a following remark in his novel "Sorekara (それから)", which means "After that."

"I don't work, because of the relationship between Japan and the West"

This remark was spoken by the central character, Daisuke, who was a second son of an upstart in the Meiji Era, when Japan was modernizing rapidly. His elder brother was working at a family business with his father, but Daisuke did nothing.

His father gave Daisuke Western education, so he couldn't believe in old Japanese values, which his father had, but at the same time he couldn't get into western society.

Daisuke in the novel that was written in the late 19th century by Japanese author resembles Willie in the novel that written in the early 21st century by Indian author born in Trinidad and Tobago.

I, who was born and am living in the hinterland of the world dominated by the West, Japan, "find moments that are like moments in my own life, though the background and material are so different" in this novel. Similarly people, who were forced to modernize, in India or Guinea-Bissau might find something in common in the modern Japanese literature.