Christmas here is different but somehow similar. The Christmas songs in the shops as well as the decorations are far less obtrusive than in Vienna. Even in the main shopping streets of Tokyo there is far less Christmas kitsch than in the relatively small shopping streets of Vienna. It's such a pleasure not to be overexposed to Christmas before it actually happens!
One of the few noticeable things are the "I believe in Santa Claus" hats the cashiers wear in Kasumi. Which seems a bit odd to me because I'm sure they never have believed in those stories. However, I've been told that some are actually teaching their children to believe in Santa Claus (which makes me wonder if the children are just pretending to believe so that they can get their presents and make their parents happy at the same time).
I've been told that in Japan Christmas is a very important time of the year for couples (and not the family, like in Austria). And there are a lot fewer presents than in the US or Austria. Also New Years Eve seems to be a very quiet celebration which is spread out over several days. Unfortunately I'll probably never experience it myself though... but Rome should be nice too ;-)
Other than enjoying the last days before returning home I've been busy with work (as usual, and it's going really well as usual too), and I've been practicing Karate. In Karate I started using the Japanese numbers when it's my turn to count out loud. I still need to practice getting the order right, especially in the range from 4-8 I tend to get the order messed up if I'm trying to concentrate on the movements of different body parts and at the same time yell out a number in the right rhythm. Sometimes I also mix in both versions of the same number (e.g. 4 is "yon" and "shi"). I have a hard time not laughing at myself when I notice that I did it again, I wonder how the others manage not to change the expressions on their faces.
When we did Katas today (which I really enjoy) anyone who would have been watching us must have thought there is a hidden camera somewhere. Not only was I always delayed, but I was also completely clueless on what to do. It was great! :-)
It seems that they practice Katas on Saturday mornings, so I guess in the future I'll be getting up earlier on Saturdays than I do on weekdays.
I wonder how long I'll have the newbie bonus in the class... and what will happen once I don't have it anymore. Everyone else is sticking exactly to all the rules, the whole practice reminds me of the mechanics of a clock. Every movement is exactly precise, unlike Capoeira there is no informal chat between exercises, everyone is very serious. Unlike Capoeirea you don't hear people talking about "scarita" and "atsui" all the time. ("It's so hot in here and I'm exhausted..") I miss Capoeira a bit, if I'm lucky I'll get a chance to play a bit in Vienna. Oh, and I should mention that after class everything changes. People smile, chat, laugh, drink beer, go out for food or Karaoke... they are extremely nice people.
This is probably my last post before next year. It's been a great year, and I hope yours has been great too.
2006-12-12
2006-12-07
Engrish
Japanese Engrish is somehow special. Basically there are two popular styles. The more widespread style is the design-style: Engrish words are used as design elements for shop windows, advertisements, t-shirts, etc. It is particularly popular to chose words with several meanings, and concatenate them in very creative ways. The second style is the babelfish-style. This style is only popular in areas with tourists such as Tokyo. It is used to translate important signs and to entertain tourists.
In addition, to make things even more interesting, sometimes the words are first translated into Japanese katakana, and then back to the Roman alphabet. (There is no "L" in Katakana.)
Angela pointed me to www.engrish.com. I think I should start taking more pictures too :-)
In addition, to make things even more interesting, sometimes the words are first translated into Japanese katakana, and then back to the Roman alphabet. (There is no "L" in Katakana.)
Angela pointed me to www.engrish.com. I think I should start taking more pictures too :-)
2006-12-06
Tea Ceremony
I finally got the chance to participate in a tea ceremony. It was a lot more impressive than I expected it to be. At first it seems very simple and plain, but it is full of important details. There is a lot of beauty in the simple utensils, and the tradition has a very interesting history. If I'm not mistaken, politeness and respect play a very important role in the ceremony. There seems to be an infinite number of possibilities to be rude. Some people spend a life time studying the ceremony. One thing I learned for sure is that it is not really about tea. Strangely it reminded me of Karate somehow. Maybe because of the way we were sitting, bowing, and the precision of every detail. Most likely it was the precision of even the smallest movements that reminded me of the Katas in Karate. It was fascinating! I'll probably be adding pictures to this post later on.
2006-12-04
Reasons to Celebrate Calendar
In German there is a saying that you have to celebrate when it happens. ("Man soll die Feste feiern wie sie fallen.") For example, you should celebrate your birthday on the day it is, and not a week later! (Buxi!)
Anyway, parties are great, and the fact that we only have one birthday a year shouldn't limit the number of parties we celebrate. So what I am looking for is some web service where I can enter a date and get a list of good reasons to celebrate. For example, someone special was born, or something wonderful happened, the more reasons the better. (And of course it should have some smart filtering system to remove stuff I'm not interested in.)
Furthermore, I would like to be able to personalize the "reasons to party" calendar with personal events in my life. Some of these I might even be willing to make publicly available (such as the first time in my life a teacher locked me out of a classroom).
If anyone knows of such a service, please let me know! Maybe it would be possible to adapt the Wikipedia "what happened today" service somehow?
Anyway, parties are great, and the fact that we only have one birthday a year shouldn't limit the number of parties we celebrate. So what I am looking for is some web service where I can enter a date and get a list of good reasons to celebrate. For example, someone special was born, or something wonderful happened, the more reasons the better. (And of course it should have some smart filtering system to remove stuff I'm not interested in.)
Furthermore, I would like to be able to personalize the "reasons to party" calendar with personal events in my life. Some of these I might even be willing to make publicly available (such as the first time in my life a teacher locked me out of a classroom).
If anyone knows of such a service, please let me know! Maybe it would be possible to adapt the Wikipedia "what happened today" service somehow?
Almost There!
In 2 weeks I'll be back home. I'm looking forward to see everyone! :-)
I'll be in Vienna until the 29th or so (and then go to Rome).
I hope I'll get all of my 20 plastic bag stamps before that. I only need 3 more! Every time I go food shopping to Kasumi I ask them not to flood me with plastic bags. Every time I do so, they stamp my card. Once I've collected 20 of those stamps they'll donate 100 Yen (that's about 75 cents) to the WWF. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, check out the post by the Sockenpabst (in German). Here are two pictures of my almost full stamp collection :-)
(The card has the size of a credit card.)
And here is the back side:
Here is a picture of another stamp collection from the same food store. I have no idea what it's good for, but I threw the same card away once, and got a new one the next time, so now I'm holding on to it (just so that they don't give me a new one).
I'm realizing now how many of those cards I have :-)
Here is a different one from the restaurant on the AIST site. We usually go to the cheaper cafeteria for lunch, but every time we go to the restaurant we get a stamp. I think once we collected 30 of them we get a free meal. Last time we went the lady was so nice to give me 5 stamps at once. She probably figured I wouldn't manage to collect all 30 in the time I'd be here anyway :-)
Btw, the title of the card is one of the few things I can read :-)
It says: "Restaurant, Point Card".
While I'm uploading pictures... here are two more. I think autumn is the most beautiful season in Japan. The red and yellow colors everywhere are much more intense than the pale white and pink cherry blossoms. (Both pictures taken within AIST.)
I'll be in Vienna until the 29th or so (and then go to Rome).
I hope I'll get all of my 20 plastic bag stamps before that. I only need 3 more! Every time I go food shopping to Kasumi I ask them not to flood me with plastic bags. Every time I do so, they stamp my card. Once I've collected 20 of those stamps they'll donate 100 Yen (that's about 75 cents) to the WWF. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, check out the post by the Sockenpabst (in German). Here are two pictures of my almost full stamp collection :-)
(The card has the size of a credit card.)
And here is the back side:
Here is a picture of another stamp collection from the same food store. I have no idea what it's good for, but I threw the same card away once, and got a new one the next time, so now I'm holding on to it (just so that they don't give me a new one).
I'm realizing now how many of those cards I have :-)
Here is a different one from the restaurant on the AIST site. We usually go to the cheaper cafeteria for lunch, but every time we go to the restaurant we get a stamp. I think once we collected 30 of them we get a free meal. Last time we went the lady was so nice to give me 5 stamps at once. She probably figured I wouldn't manage to collect all 30 in the time I'd be here anyway :-)
Btw, the title of the card is one of the few things I can read :-)
It says: "Restaurant, Point Card".
While I'm uploading pictures... here are two more. I think autumn is the most beautiful season in Japan. The red and yellow colors everywhere are much more intense than the pale white and pink cherry blossoms. (Both pictures taken within AIST.)
Scientology
2006-12-03
Web 3.43
You haven't heard of Web 2.0 yet? Someone decided to give the Internet a version number. However, as everything in the Internet, also it's current version number is moving fast.
A straightforward approach to compute the current version of the World Wide Web is to query Google 99 times to get the estimated total results for all versions ("Web 0.1" to "Web 9.9" in version increments of 0.1) and compute the weighted average. There is a Google Soap API to do that very conveniently, even from within Matlab. The only drawback is that the results using the API are not as accurate as those you get when using the interface for humans. Anyway, the number I got was 3.43.
Inspired by Userfriendly.org :-)
A straightforward approach to compute the current version of the World Wide Web is to query Google 99 times to get the estimated total results for all versions ("Web 0.1" to "Web 9.9" in version increments of 0.1) and compute the weighted average. There is a Google Soap API to do that very conveniently, even from within Matlab. The only drawback is that the results using the API are not as accurate as those you get when using the interface for humans. Anyway, the number I got was 3.43.
Inspired by Userfriendly.org :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
