Photo dump

I know that the following type of post is the blog equivalent of Patty and Selma inflicting a holiday slide show on the family Simpson, but I like taking snaps. These pictures must be worth at least a couple of hundred words.

So yesterday, I got my culture on and attended an exhibition of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. In contrast to the western aesthetic, Japanese arrangements rarely feature flowers in full bloom: Ikebana is not about explosions of colourful flowers. In fact, the stems and leaves are equally - if not more - important than the actual flowers because so much of the beauty is supposed to come from the overall form, how the arrangement occupies space and where the eye is led.






There are lots of styles and schools and rules governing the practice, about which I know nothing. I just love how some of the arrangements feel like miniature gardens.



Technically, this is my first cherry blossom of the year, but I have decided not to do any more blossom watch - it's making me feel the passing of time too harshly.


A view of Buddha from the temple in Sugamo, and a serenity in which I am severely lacking these days. Whatever happened to Zen Patrick and all the 'think positive' carry on?



A bit of an only-in-Japan scene. Can you see what's going on here? The person living in this oldish house on a narrow street in downtown Tokyo doesn't have the room or drainage to have a washing machine indoors. So they just leave it fully plumbed on the doorstep! I'm telling you, space is a luxury in this city. I don't think this machine would last five minutes in Dublin. I mean some nasty, nasty Dubliners stole the freakin' sandbags put out by the local government to protect the city from a hurricane there a few months ago.





A view of Fuji from an early-morning train to Kyoto.


Here you can see where the name of the company comes from. (Mount Xerox is just to the South of Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture.)



I come from docker stock, so I have a genetic affinity for quays and loading bays. The cranes lined up on the horizon here put Dublin to shame. Even though the Japanese economy has slipped to number 3 in the world rankings, this caravan of proud metallic beasts is a reminder of how much stuff still gets traded through this port.







Last photo. I love the light quality in this snap. Can you guess whether it's dawn or dusk? Only for the fact that I took the picture, I'd get the answer wrong.

Bowing runs deep in this culture.

I'm on my first business trip in ages and of course it falls on the first day of snow this winter in Tokyo. To quote Gob Bluth, "Come on!"

(Quick aside - I read that Mitch Hurwitz hopes to have the Arrested Development movie in theatres by the end of this year. Woohoo!)

Anyway, heading out on the train today I saw something you'd probably only see in Japan.

So a station guard was leading a blind passenger by the arm to his seat on the train. He sets him down and then goes to the door and as he's about to leave the carriage he turns back and bows deeply. He then waits on the platform until the train pulls out of the station and bows again, long and deep.

I guess I'm not yet all that one with the Borg because I just kept thinking, "Dude, he's blind."

It reminded me of all the people you see over here talking on the phone and bowing away merrily. To be honest, I might occasionally be guilty of the odd nod during a phone call myself.

iPhoneから送信

The glorious mysteries of the Japanese language.

This is a post to encourage all those struggling to read and write the Japanese language. Fear not! The Japanese themselves can't seem to agree on how to read and write their own bloomin' words.

Background Information The First:
I've been learning Japanese for about 8 years. I work in a Japanese office, with Japanese people, through Japanese. So I'm pretty comfortable with the language, including reading and writing it.

Background Information The Second:
I work for a fairly traditional Japanese company. In such a company every document needs to be stamped by about 49 different people. I am not kidding - you need to get a special form stamped three times just to get the official stamp of a director put on your report. It's madness, but it's how 'we' roll and I ain't gonna hate.

So the other day a Japanese co-worker was swamped. They had written a report and it needed to be circulated. This is usually done through internal mail and can take ages. I knew we needed to get this document out asap, so I offered to walk around the various departments and get it stamped.

At my first stop, I show the report to the director and he gives it the once over. He stamps it reluctantly and says, 'I'll approve this but I want to show you some mistakes in your Japanese.' Bear in mind that a native speaker wrote this and I had nothing to do with it. But being a good little Japanese, I didn't want anyone to lose face so I just smiled and said thank you. The positive-thinking part of me felt that at least he thought I could plausibly write like someone born to it. Then the next director says almost the same thing, only this time he changes about half the previous guy's corrections back and then adds a few new ones. When the third and final stamper had more input about how to make 'my' Japanese more 'adequate for a business environment' my icy smile was starting to wear a little thin.

Moral of the story. I believe there is no such thing as a perfectly correct Japanese sentence. The language is so complex and full of nuance that there's room for everyone to give their two cents and still have the sentence be right but just different. This is frustrating as hell, but the other way to look at it is that you shouldn't waste your time aiming for accuracy. Just keep plugging away using Japanese as a communication tool and once the idea is getting across, job done!