Summer Festivals - 2009 version

Summer has arrived. Very hot and very humid... And summer in Japan calls for hanabi, a.k.a. fireworks.

For those who don't know, fireworks are associated with summer in Japan. For people like me used to see lots of fireworks when the New Year comes, that can be a little disappointing. I say that because I went to Osaka for the countdown... and to my surprise, there were no fireworks nowhere nearby, even though I was in the middle of a crowd gathered for the countdown (Umeda).

(Note to self: in Japan, it may be better to go to a temple instead... at least you hear the bells)

Anyway, after seeing fireworks in Uji, Osaka, Biwako and Shirahama in 2007 and travelling around the world during that season in 2008, I was looking for places to see hanabi this year.

The chosen one was the Naniwa Yodogawa Fireworks Festival (なにわ淀川花火大会) on August 8th. This one is popular in Osaka; and it is one I have never been before. Thus, we (Fang and I) decided to go check it out.

This time, though, having a better camera and a tripod, I was really into taking decent pictures of fireworks. That's something I still hadn't been able to do. So I decided to get some information from Kazu, who's taken great pictures there before. He basically told me to get there early and find the spot right in front of the fireworks.

... I was only able to follow half the advice.

I got there early. More than three hours before the event. There was still plenty of space. But I did the stupid thing of trying to guide myself only by the picture on Kazu's blog, but I was fooled by a second similar bridge nearby and chose the wrong position: far away from the fireworks... I only realised the mistake when the fireworks started, then I was swearing all over and rushing to change the position of the camera in the middle of a sea of people.

Also, to avoid overexposure, I was told that ND filters are a good thing to use. I didn't have one, so I tried to improvise with my CPL filter. Well, the results speak for themselves...

Those are some pictures that turned out more a less all right. Better than those I took two years ago, but there's still that feeling that "I could have done better"...

Do you have a Japanese friend?

Some time ago (June), the author of a blog that I follow and personally like a lot wrote an article about a simple question, that foreigners living in Japan are asked every now and then.

"Do you have a Japanese friend?"

Such a simple question, yet so complicated to answer...

That's because, as Caruso (the author) mentioned, it depends on your referential of what's a "friend", especially when you go between diferent cultures.

His point was that, basically, if you consider a friend from a "Japanese (culture's)" point of view he has Japanese friends, but from the "Brazilian (culture's)" point of view he has not. Nevertheless, it is not a bad thing. He doesn't have the right or even the capacity to turn them into friends according to his native perspective, especially since he is in Japan. One can be good friends with Japanese people if one hold one's expectations closer to the local standard.

What are those diffrerences? For example, even with the closest Japanese friends, the senpai-kouhai system still shows up. If they started with a difference in rankings or age, that difference will probably never disappear doesn't matter how close they become. In Brazil, depending on the occasion it is possible to ask for one's boss (or professor) to go out for a drink just like a regular friend.

In general, Japanese care about politeness and manners even between friends. Brazilians care more about sincerity and loyalty; and have a tendency to get "too close, too fast". I've heard from Japanese and Chinese friends that Brazilians may often hug, kiss and have other liberties in man-woman friendships that make it hard to distinguish if they are a couple or just friends.

A last detail that was mentioned in a comment in the original post that I also noticed: Japanese who leave Japan for a while become more "relaxed" in friendships while in the foreign country, but many resume at least partially the "usual behavior" after returning to Japan.

(Note: of course, as in any country there are different kinds of people, obviously in Japan it is also possible to find someone who adheres more to the "Latin" style of friendship or any other. But those people are unusual inside the society.)

Me? I was lucky enough to have met Japanese friends in Himeji which whom I could be more like myself. In Kyoto, there are also those who are friends a little beyond the meaning in the Japanese (culture) way. That may be because they are still students, or because some are from an international exchange group. There was a time that I avoided people that wanted to be my friends because I'm a foreigner. Now at least I have to admit that, since my Brazilian background is a part of me, there's no reason to rebuff those people right away. I'll do that if our connection keeps based only on that point, though.

Nevertheless, I still have to admit that in general I feel more confortable around other foreign students and the Brazilian group in special. But that's probably because it is a group with more things in common with me, as my background is still essentially Brazilian. Maybe if I stay in a different country for years that might change. More then nationality, the common things you share with people around you define your affinity with them.

Syzygy

On July 22nd there was a total solar eclipse that could be seen in many parts of Asia, including Japan. Although the totality could only be seen way to the south around Kagoshima Prefecture and I couldn't (and didn't want to) go all the way there, even in Kyoto where I live the eclipse would reach 80%. Enough for a good show, I guess.

Being the longest solar eclipse of the century (and we're still in the first decade), it was surely a big event. Obviously lots of scientists and people went to the countries where the totality could be seen. India, China and Japan included. For the Japanese case, of course there was a festival to celebrate the eclipse.

I was also preparing myself to watch the eclipse. Had saved the morning for that. Unfortunately, the weather didn't help. It was cloudy on that day, which spoiled the "getting dark during daytime" effect (people don't get so surprised when it gets dark while the weather is cloudy). Nevertheless, I still managed to get a glimpse of the eclipse.


Perhaps I should say the cloudy weather helped in the sense of allowing myself to take pictures without solar filters. The picture below is from the LIVE! UNIVERSE website feature where one can see the projections for the eclipse in many parts of Japan. It shows how the eclipse was supposed to look at the time I took the picture above.


And of course, there are all the problems related to that kind of event: places getting overcrowded, accidents happening during totality... Nevertheless, the eclipse got me thinking about the meaning it has for humans.

As a (very) unusual phenomenon, there are many superstitions and religious meanings related to an eclipse. Perhaps even more for a solar eclipse. Movies, TV shows and the like also used eclipses in their plots. One example is the TV series Heroes, where a solar eclipse visible all over the globe was used as trigger for the whole story.

One common point in almost all those views is that an eclipse is seen as a sign of change. So I'll try to make it so in my case. I could really use some change in some aspects of my life...

As an extra, a decent eclipse picture from the Japan Times article, taken from Iwoto Island (previously known as Iwojima).


For those wondering about the title, "syzygy" is an astronomical term for the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a plane. It is a better title than "eclipse"... and an excellent word when one is trapped in a word puzzle.

G for Green, G for Gundam

Lately I've been to Tokyo (more precisely, Chiba) for a workshop held by a member (or should I say "former student"?) of my lab. It was about transaural technology, and it was nice both for the workshop contents and for the people I met there.

But since I try to avoid technical stuff in this blog (you may see one post like that when I get my degree, though), the topic this time is a temporary attraction in Tokyo, more precisely in Odaiba.
The world faces an environmental crisis, who can help us to create more environmentally friendly cities?

The answer is about 18m tall, a special icon in Japan...

Gundam!


Explaining better: 2009 is also the 30th anniversary of the Gundam series. And as part of the commemorations, they created the Green Tokyo Gundam Project aiming at raising funds for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's push for a more environmentally friendly future.

The centerpiece of the project is an event in Odaiba (an artificial island in Tokyo) where the main attraction is a 1:1 scale model of the classic Gundam RX-78-2.


So for a couple of months, the artificial island's got an extra guardian; and also an extra icon to help Tokyo's bid to host the Olympics. From August 1st, the Gundam will carry an icon of the bid on its shoulder.


It's an interesting place to fans of the series. Too bad they blocked the best angle (from where one can take pictures of the Gundam with Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge on the background) for paid pictures.

Also, it is possible to see the Gundam as you're approaching Odaiba if you go through the Rainbow Bridge (Yurikamome line). I was just a little disappointed to see that it was smaller than I thought. 18m is big, but it pales in comparison to other structures on the island like the Fuji TV headquarters. Of course, it is the tallest structure where it is located.

If someone wants to see it, go to Daiba station and walk to Shiokaze park. From there I think it is easy enough to find.

More about the event and the Gundam series can be found here.

What about English?

Well, almost two months without writing... Does anyone still read this blog?

I am stuck with many things to do and not much time to write, and that's the main reason I've been away for so long. I hope I can at least write regularly from now on.

This time, I'll (try to) be brief.

One topic that comes every once in a while is if Japan is opening or closing itself to the world.

On one hand, the government tries to estimulate tourism and increase the number of international students (I have to admit that there other motivations in those measures: tourists bring money and students bring knowledge, but I'll just leave it at that for now), on the other, parts of the population don't seem too keen to look outside Japan. (The article from the link suggests that Japan should look into itself to find the path to follow, reason why people are looking less abroad. Again, I won't touch this issue now.)

One common issue when it comes to "internationalization" is the ability to speak English, the current international language. On that point, stories about Japanese people English proficiency are almost legendary. I was even impressed one day to read on one message board at the university that Japanese people had the lowest average scores in TOEFL test. (Just in case, I've looked into that data myself and Japanese are not the lowest average score. They do rank quite low, though.)

On that issue, many blame the differences between the two languages ("as a native Portuguese speaker, I have more common points with the English language than Japanese do, which makes it easier for me to learn it", for example); others blame the foreign words imported to Japanese (the Japanese word "tsuaa" means "tour". So there's a some likelyhood that the average Japanese will pronounce the word the Japanese way, even when speaking English); and others blame culture (Japanese culture values the "communication without words")...

My own personal opinion aside (it might be somewhere in this blog, though), I've just read an article that blames the Japanese government for it.

... Yeah, you read it right.

The reasoning goes into the conspiracy theory. Basically the government wanted Japanese people to understand English enough to be able to understand information from abroad, but not enough that the best members of society would leave Japan to work in other countries. Even if you don't believe a word of it, it's interesting just for the different line of thought. You may even start to believe it... heh!

Original in Japanese here. Translated to English here.