TetrisRockstar » from japan

Missing Tokyo

Fredrik Olsen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:17:40 +0000

When you begin to study at a Swedish college (at least every technical college) you are assigned to a group of like 10 people with 2-3 people as coordinators. These coordinators are supposed to help you through your first couple of weeks of school, show you where everything is, how stuff works and stuff like that. I think my coordinators did a very good job, though I didn’t get to know them very well.

I just noticed on Facebook though that one of my coordinators has started studying in Tokyo. Reading his blog I get extremely home-sick. I want to go back there and I just want to be there! I want to eat lunch at Design Festa, I want to go to Akiba to look at figures and check out new cameras, I just want to do all the stuff, I just want to be home.

I’m meeting with the international department (the department handling exchange programs) on the 30th, but it seems I misunderstood what the double-exam thing I talked earlier about really was. The information is really unclear, everything you can find online and in brochures indicates you take your masters degree there, but when I spoke to the head of the international department on the phone, she said the program was to extend your education by 2 years to take another masters degree – something I’m not very keen on.

Maybe I can get into one of the programs that my coordinator got into. Maybe I can survive here for 2.5 more years and then get a job there. Maybe.

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Books I want to read

Fredrik Olsen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:53:28 +0000

Recently I’ve been reading more than usually. I think mostly because I’ve gotten some good tips on books I actually like. I really like Haruki Murakami and I’m going to read Norwegian Wood as my next book.

When I was in Japan though I picked up a book that whose title is “100 books for Understanding Contemporary Japan”. I looked through this in Japan and picked out a list of the ones I actually wanted to read and after seeing that Dex had bought one of the books that was on my list I thought I’d post the list here! Since I haven’t read any of them, I’ll just post the title with an image and description from Amazon.

Constructing Civil Society in Japan: Voices of Environmental Movements

Writing in the tradition of Japanese environmental sociology, which emphasizes fieldwork and case studies, Hasegawa (sociology, Tohoku U., Sendai, Japan) reviews the environmental movements in contemporary Japan and the new public sphere as the vibrant civil society that the movement supports. Among his topics are motivating and mobilizing the movements, anti-pollution lawsuits, regional referendums, the dynamics of social movements and official policies as exemplified in green electricity, and transforming the Citizens’ Sector. He also sets out the principles and issues of environmental sociology.

Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism

Japan Remodeled is an important book. Japan’s economic system is undergoing major transformation exacerbated by 15 years of malaise. Steven Vogel provides a sophisticated, careful, rather cautionary analysis of Japan’s processes and patterns of public policy reform and corporate restructuring. He cogently argues Japan’s capitalism is being reshaped partially toward a liberal market system, but with distinctive institutions and values persisting.

Media and Politics in Japan

A collection of essays which examine the influence of media in Japan. These essays discuss the media’s influence in politics and public opinion, to name a few.

British Factory–Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations

The Japanese way of work is notoriously ‘different.’ But is it Japan or Britain which is the odd man out? This is the first book to explore the real differences, not by contrasting Japanese employment relations with a hazy ideal image of ‘the West,” but through a point-by-point comparison of two Japanese factories with two British ones making similar products.

Evolution of Manufacturing Systems at Toyota

This is much more than a book about Toyota or a book about manufacturing….The book contains important contributions to the theory and practice of organizational learning that will be equally interesting to the practitioner and the academic.

Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society

The ancient civilization of Japan, with its Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, is also closely associated with all that is new and modern. Looking outward, Japan sees what it has become since Hiroshima: the world’s second-largest economy, a source of fury and wonder, a power without arms. Looking inward, Japan sees old ways shaken and new ones developing at a hectic pace. Japan in the Twenty-first Century offers compelling insights into the current realities of the country and investigates the crucial political, economic, demographic, and environmental challenges that face the nation.

Note: This one seems almost the most interesting and informative.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan

Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution.

Japanese Science: From the Inside

Samuel Coleman provides a profound and insightful critique of scientific organizations in Japan. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in a number of bioscience-related laboratories and research institutes. And, most importantly, rather than rushing towards his own judgements, Coleman provides ample space for the views and voices of Japanese researchers themselves.

Japan’s High Schools

Looks at five high schools in Japan, analyzes their organization, politics, and instruction techniques, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese educational system.

Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle, Updated Edition: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation

This new edition of the groundbreaking popular book is a must-have for both seasoned and new fans of anime. Japanese animation is more popular than ever following the 2002 Academy Award given to Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. It confirmed that anime is more than just children’s cartoons, often portraying important social and cultural themes. With new chapters on Spirited Away and other recent releases, including Howl’s Moving Castle–Miyazaki’s latest hit film, already breaking records in Japan–this edition will be the authoritative source on anime for an exploding market of viewers who want to know more.

Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga

As Schodt points out, in the 13 years between publication of his 1983 Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, and this volume, American consciousness of manga, Japanese comics, and its animation offshoot, anime, has grown considerably. The collective American eyebrow may still rise quizzically at the enormous popularity of comic books in Japan, where they are accorded nearly the same social status as novels and film, but the narrative strips, with their characteristic big-eyed characters, are increasingly popular in this country. The informally encyclopedic Dreamland Japan, the result of Schodt’s 16-plus years of studying manga, not only makes it easier to understand the art form but also says a good deal about Japanese culture.

And last but not least, the book that Dex had bought, which seems really cool:

The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan

Otaku: Nerd; geek or fanboy. Originates from a polite second-person pronoun meaning “your home” in Japanese. Since the 1980s it’s been used to refer to people who are really into Japanese pop-culture, such as anime, manga, and videogames. A whole generation, previously marginalized with labels such as geek and nerd, are now calling themselves otaku with pride.

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Back to school

Fredrik Olsen — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:20:34 +0000

I feel it’s about time I get back here and write a little something about what’s happening. I’ve been quite silent because, well, I was trying to put into words my entire experience in Stockholm and what I thought about the city. But I can’t. I just can’t find words for it, not in the way I can’t find words to describe Tokyo – more in the sense that I can’t express my experience because it wasn’t really that deep. I was mostly working there. It’s a nice city and I could see myself living and working there, maybe not all my life but there’s nothing wrong with it.

Another reason I’ve been silent is because life since I came back has been, well, busy. I haven’t really had that much to do, but there’s been a lot of different stuff happening and I kind of wanted to relax and try to adjust to the new environment, even thought it’s the old one.

And frankly, that’s the third reason I haven’t written much. I’m back to the old. I can’t think of many good things to write about. I’m back to a town where I can’t go out to a nice restaurant because there aren’t any, I can’t go to the closest town to go out to dinner because It’s a pain in the ass trying to get back home without a car.

Going from Tokyo to Stockholm was a step down, but it was still kind of alright, there was a subway and stuff was open a bit longer than here. Going from Stockholm to here.. that’s what I can’t describe. But it sort of the reverse of not being able to describe Tokyo properly.

One good thing I can report on is that we have finally (after 2 years) stopped studying introductory math. We have now started studying introductory physics! I included a picture of this semesters books, the biggest one “Introductory Nuclear Physics” has 800 bible-like pages of super-compact text and no images other than the occasional small graph on every 10 pages. Luckily we only have to read half of these books this semester and the other half during a semester next year.

Another good thing that has happened is while talking to a student counselor (about studying abroad) she said that not many people try to get into the exchange program where you spend 2 years in the other country. Apparently normal people don’t want to be away from home that long. This in turn increases my chances of being able to spend my last 2 years of school in Japan, probably at Keio or Tohoku university. I’m going to talk to the people responsible for the admissions of these programs and see what my chances are, I’ll keep you posted.

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The Last Post From Japan II

Fredrik Olsen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:24:59 +0000

So it has come to an end, we’re at the hotel packed and ready to leave early tomorrow morning. What can I say, it has been a crazy ride. One month has gone by and we’ve seen loads of stuff, done loads of stuff and shopped loads of stuff (me at least).

It’s been a wonderful time and it leaves me longing for more. It leaves me longing for a more permanent stage of being able to go out to restaurants without loosing all your money, being able to actually physically buy a figure, being able to look for information or just see some cool magazines in a bookstore.

There’s so much I can do here that I simply can’t at home. It’s not possible because it doesn’t exist. Then there’s all the stuff I can do here that I can’t at home because it’s so much more expensive at home. The only thing I can do at home that I can’t do here is buy candy (I’ll write a post on this later from home to explain).

Regardless of all I said before about wanting to know more of Japanese life before deciding on whether or not to actually live here, leaving now feels like leaving home, I’m leaving so much behind.

But not to leave on a sad note — it’s been wonderful and there are some things I’m looking forward to at home, things that will be coming in the next couple of months.

As I place my butt on the plane for another 20-something hours of travel to go home, I will think about all of the wonderful things here and all the wonderful time I’ve spent with Emma here.

Once I’m home, I’m going to start sorting out the best pictures from this trip to produce a picture book, I will also be blogging a bit about stuff that I’ve thought about during the trip but forgot or didn’t have time to write about (unless I forget them again, in which case maybe I’ll write about them next time I’m here :P).

Life is almost about to turn back to normal and I hope I can keep the feeling of Japan with me, and that I can have the discipline to read my theory books on Japanese and start learning this beautiful language.

日本、またね。

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Figures

Fredrik Olsen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:57:56 +0000

I’ve always known about japanese figures and I’ve seen them a bunch of times. But most (read almost all) have some quite significant sexual tendencies, that is — they’re always half-naked.

The thing is that I’ve always thought people bought them for their half-nakedness and the sexual thing about them. But after reading a lot of Danny Choos’ blog about Japan and a bit of how figures play into the Otaku culture I’ve changed my mind.

So it kind of hit me and I’ve really come around to liking figures a lot — maybe not as much as Danny Choo or some other nerds around Akihabara, but I certainly am a nerd and as such it felt very wrong to go home without a proper figure in my bag!

So I went out today to find something cool and I think I hit the jackpot, cool and cheap!

50% off! Its a really good-sized high detail figure, so I’m really happy :)

Some images when it’s assembled:

And a final image with its proper base (which I think is supposed to look like snow or something) and the other clothes I got with it, plus the book and CD that I really haven’t checked what it is yet.

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Cough

Fredrik Olsen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:09:43 +0000

So as you know I got a cold last week. As expected the soar throat gave way to a runny nose, but something very unexpected arrived as well. I’ve gotten one of these “i’m-on-my-last-breath-help-me-i’m-gonna-fucking-die”-coughs too! It’s really annoying because I fucking hate coughing, and I think our neighbors and Emmas’ need to sleep agrees with me.

So I thought I’d fix the problem, googled and found this. So I subsequently went out to buy “az アネトン”. On my way there I had a really nice feeling! I had woken up a bit earlier today from the cough so I let Emma sleep in while I went out. I had a clear purpose (walking to the drugstore) and it felt a lot like morning because of the weather (even though it wasn’t morning in most peoples definition) and with both those things, it really felt like I was doing something here. Like walking to school or work, like I was actually living here, totally nice feeling.

Now I’m gonna try to take 3 pills of this 3 times a day as the lady in the store said. Lets hope it works cuz we’re going to the OriginalFake store today and I don’t want to be all nasty and cough over their super-expensive cool stuff. (Oh and yeah, the image is mirrored)

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The worlds greatest T-shirt store!

Fredrik Olsen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:13:49 +0000

Today I found the worlds greatest T-shirt store in Harajuku. It’s called Beams and it’s beyond awesome. I didn’t take any pictures inside I’m afraid, but they had the coolest T-shirts I’ve ever seen and the prices were between 2800 and 5000 yen, which is awesomely good. You can barely find a mediocre T-shirt in Sweden for 5000 yen.

This is the bag I got from them, it’s extra big because I was carrying around another bag from UNI QLO and they were kind enough to give me this bigger one so I could put the UNI QLO bag inside it as well.

This is the t-shirt I bought.

Today I went on a bit of a shopping spree, so I came home with 6 t-shirts. (^_^)

Without any delay, here’s a collage of all the T-shirts I’ve bought so far. (The one in the upper right corner is Emmas, the other ones are mine)

They are all awesomely awesome and for a fraction of the price I would pay at home for this quality.

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Japanese Bookstores

Fredrik Olsen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:06:35 +0000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Japanese bookstores kick ass!

Here’s why:

There are tons of magazines and literature on every imaginable subject, you could literally walk into a Japanese bookstore and ask to become a master at ___ and the clerk will happily guide you to an entire shelf full of stuff on the subject of ___.

The image above for example are really thick magazines filled with every piece of information you could possibly want about pens, different kinds of pens, fountain pens. They have tests on different kinds of ink, which ink holds the best while moist and so forth. Information about new pens, about antique pens and their ink. It’s insane!

But that’s not it. I found this one magazine which just makes me want to be able to read Japanese that much more!

It’s a magazine about Mad-Science, this specific edition covered atomic, chemical and biological warfare. It shows detailed articles on crazy science and whack plans, it goes through potential biological weapons and weapons used in the past.

Click for larger versions.
As you can see, it covers stuff pretty well, down to chemical compounds and pretty advanced shit about how it affects the brainstem (I assume).

But wait, theres more!

Theres a shelf full of magazines containing every bit of information you could ever want on guns. One of which details everything about every gun ever used in a hollywood movie.

Here’s a shelf full of magazines about watches, everything from latest fashion to one full magazine all about Rolex watches and their every detail.

They even have Match Lectures in magainze format, including a CD with the spoken lectures so you can listen to the lectures and follow along in the magazine.

One thing I really love about Japanese books (not magazines this time) is that they’re really small. Most books you seem to buy in three parts, where the cost of all three books is about equal to the cost of one pocket-book in Sweden (even a little less usually).

They fit perfectly in the hand and don’t weigh anything! There’s no need to carry around the whole book, you don’t read a whole book that fast anyway. You only need one part at a time. Perfect.

As you can see, one can easily waste away quite a few hours in these stores, even if you can’t read Japanese. And if you can, you just want to read everything! I’m starting to understand the whole culture of standing in the store and reading. You couldn’t possibly afford to buy everything you want to read.

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Getting to know Japan

Fredrik Olsen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:12:58 +0000

Well our time is almost up here in this.. indescribable place. And the bad feeling of having to leave is certainly creeping up on me. It really has been a wonderful time and even though we didn’t get to see as many “new” things as the last trip, we have gotten a fantastic experience.

I feel we have gotten more of a feeling of how it is to be here when you’re a bit more used to it, and it’s still not boring me! Not one bit. The first time around of course it’s going to be awesomely fun, but the second time around could have turned out to be boring just because we’ve already seen it all once. It did not turn out that way!

But I plan my departure from this country with one experience missing – one that I wanted, but didn’t know how to get and haven’t gotten. The experience of how it would actually be to live and study or work here.

I want to know what young people complain about with Japan, I want to know what old people are complaining about with Japan. From knowing the complaints of the people, I can decide if they are complaints that actually matter to me and if I would complain about it too if I lived here.

I want to know how people live here, what all the apartments look like on the inside, how easy it is to get rich and how easy it is to get poor.

I want to know what the health care system is like, what insurance people have and if you get ruined if you get an illness requiring you to be in a hospital for a long time.

I want to know what kind of vacation I can expect and what kind of salary to expect as a Master of Engineering Physics fresh out of school. I want to know what kind of vacation and what kind of salary to expect after 10-15 years into my career.

It seems easy to get lost as a salaryman among the millions of salarymen, it seems almost impossible to “climb the ladder” and to earn a reputation.

I want to know what the political system is like, if people care about politics and how they show their care.

I want to know about issues that matter to me, like personal integrity and welfare.

Until I know these things, Japan will always only be a fantastic place for vacations to me. I can’t logically decide if it’s good or bad to live here without these facts, but of course — my heart tells me it’s good.

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Club Womb and the day after

Fredrik Olsen — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:33:21 +0000

Yesterday we went clubbing again, we wanted to go to Ageha, one of the biggest clubs in Japan. It has a lot of dance floor, even one outdoors with a pool in the middle. Unfortunately, yesterday that club was host to “Asias biggest gay party”. Instead, we went to Tokyos second (I think, or third) largest club, Womb.

The club kicked ass actually and it played awesome music (according to me, not Emma :P), but I do think they should have mixed it up a bit and played some nice Hip Hop or something on the other floors, there were 3 “lounge floors” with bars and chairs and stuff and one big-ass dance floor. The lounge floors played the same music as the dance floor.

We left kind of early because I wasn’t in my best shape ever with my cold and all. All in all I think it was a pretty good night though! This club lived up much more to my expectations of what a club should be though! However I still want to see a club that plays Japanese music, but maybe on another trip since we won’t be here one more weekend.

So today, kind of tired, we went up a bit later than usual (we came home at like 6am even if we left early). We went to buy stuff for a friend of mine at Muji, went to buy more sneakers for Emma and then went to a cool bookstore (Junkudo, thanks Maho) in Shinjuku. We stayed there for like 1 1/2 hours just looking around and just when we got to the Manga floor they closed the store :(
They seemed to have a huuge selection of Manga though so we’re probably going back some day!

The number of pictures coming up have declined since we’re not.. finding new stuff all the time. I kind of feel like we’re just living life here now, being half-accustomed to everything here and just… strolling around having a nice time!

Oh right, we went to this mall in Harajuku too that are having a sale, it was craaazzzyy there! They have the weirdest TV commercial ever too that we’ve seen a couple of times.

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