The Telegraphic

It’s bug season. The sakura blossoms have all fallen away, replaced by bright green leaves that are so green, in fact, they look like a Kodak or HP advert, where they’ve adjusted the colour saturation way too high. It’s also nice and hot at the moment, with lots of clear, sunny days.

It’s also bug season. So when you’re riding around on your lovely 4 geared bike, you h ave to constantly dodge fuckin’ huge black bug things. They seem to swerve towards you when you’re going fast so they can brush your face just to piss you off. There’s also little midget insect things that make little swarms and then get in your eyes when you accidentally ride through them (e.g. when avoiding a large bug hovering in the air). There doesn’t seem to be any other types of bug though, which isn’t really that suprising.

On a completely unrelated topic, today was the beginning of Golden week – a cluster of unrelated holidays spread over a ‘Golden week’. It would be the perfect time to go travelling, apart from the small fact that 250 million people are thinking ‘It’s the perfect time to go travelling’. I was going to try and make it to the World Expo, but it’d cost about AU$380 for two days accommodation and entry – and there’d be an insane line for each exhibition. I might try later in the year.

Anyway I have a week of holiday time to figure out what to do with, so I’m off.

See you in a few months,
Danny

As I’m currently in Japan, the tension between China and Japan is a hot issue at the moment. I was talking to Jo’s host father yesterday and he asked me what I thought about it, which made me realise I didn’t know much on the issue. So I decided to do some research using trusty wikipedia and the ABC news*, which I’m writing up so I remember it.
The problem (from China’s end) is, to quote Wu Dawei , John Taylor and AFP is that “The Japanese Government is unable to face and deal squarely with the issues of history arising from the invasion of China by Japanese militarists.” In short, Japan did bad things and hasn’t quite faced up to it.

During the second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945) and the Second World War (1939-1945), the Imperialist Japanese forces commited several atrocities, such as the Nanjing, Sook-Ching and Manila massacres. During this time, over 15 million Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Indonesian, Burmese, Indochinese civilians, Pacific Islanders, and Allied POW were killed.

On August 6th, 1945, the US President, Harry S. Truman, gave the go ahead for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Nagasaki was bombed 3 days later), to force the “unconditional surrender” of Japan. It has been argued that Japan was essentially defeated already by this stage, however Japanese Military leaders were commited to “fighting a ‘decisive battle’ on Kyushu” (aka Operation Downfall). On August 15, Japan surrendered unconditionally.

Whether or not the use of the atomic bombs was ethical, a war crime, or the correct plan of action is still contested. International law at the time stated that the use of poisionous weapons (e.g. radiation poisioning), was prohibited and a war crime (with massive civilian casualties). However, the US got the desired result: they avoided an all out confrontation in Kyushu (of which the expected death toll was about 500,000) and quickly freed over 600,000 POW’s from concentration camps. For all you cynics – they also gave the soviet union a taste of US power and justified the 2 billion dollar Manhattan project.

The actions of the Japanese military cannot be justified, but can be partly explained by the bushido code which they subscribed to at the time. The Japanese Military believed it to be cowardly to surrender and that anyone who did so was cowardly and sub-human. This does not, however, excuse the actions that the military took (which we unfortunately see mirrored all too often throughout history).

So, the current situation stems from actions taken in the past by the Japanese Military. The ‘feather on the camel’s back’ was the white-washing of the events in Japanese textbooks, as well as Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the security council of the United Nations. The recent rallies in China are related to this. Now, Japan is demanding an apology for the violence in the rally which China doesn’t think they deserve. So there you go.

* Sorry to all of you 7, 9 and 10 watchers – but commercial news sucks – feel good dog stories, weather reports submitted by children, biased reporting (e.g. every Today Tonight story), incorrect information (e.g. Today Tonight on several occasions), and ad breaks are not good things.

I just saw the most random video clip I have ever seen. This clip eclipses the ‘Alannis Morisette’ song, the song with the midgets singing about sandwiches and even the badger badger badger badger mushroom flash cartoon. Below is a recount of the trials and tribulations contained within the clip.

Imagine, If you will, a pear tree. Now imagine a pear falling off this tree and a gigantic, aboniable mandarin with antlers sprouting from said pear. Of course, the mandarin is quite friendly and if a small child should come along trying to reach a pair in the tree, it would help out.

Now, if you were a child and a mandarin helped you get a pear off a tree, I’m sure you would immediately fall in love with it (as happens in the clip). You’d go and watch a movie. Stroll through grassy fields. Play hide and seek. But of course, you’re only a small child and when it comes time for your family to move on, you have to go as well. You must tear youself away from the mandarin as much as it hurts to do so. And so in the clip the girl leaves the mandarin with antlers her hat, as a memento of her visit.

I think now would be a good time to mention the clip is in a paper-cutout animation style cartoon. Now back to the story.

The Mandarin waits, as seasons pass. As spring comes around again, we see a tear run down his cheek. He does what any good mandarin would do, he goes on a journey to find his beloved girl. He faces many adversaries, such as the wolf which he scares off with his evil mandarin x-ray stare and fangs. Over the course of many years, he eventually finds the house of his one true love.

But she is all grown up and has fallen in love with a human boy, not the mandarin that she once played hide and seek with. And so the mandarin lets out his last tear, and turns into a pear tree, under which said girl gets married.

It really is the perfect love story, although adapted to include a huge personified piece of fruit. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mandarins don’t grow on pear trees.

Shigehiro worked for Hitachi for 40 odd years and you can tell he has loyalty to them just by looking around the house. The 3 TVs, DVD player, microwave, toaster, fridge, lights, air con, etc. are all made by Hitachi. There are 2 amazingly cool Hitachi products in the house – the carpets are warmed by Hitachi carpet warmers and the bathroom is powered by a Hitachi console. You press a button and the bath fills itself up, whilst monitoring the temperature to make sure it’s perfect. Once it gets to the temperature and level you set it to, it plays a little melody and then TALKS TO YOU. It is very very cool. I have some doubts about the shower though, the shower head is very low because you sit on a stool and use it, which is strange.

The other thing that features a lot around the house is dog memorabilia. It isn’t over the top (I can safely say I’ve seen over the top, in Australia), but there’s lots of dog calendars and a few dog trinkets scattered around the house. The dog is very well treated as well, because he’s old.

Something that I’ve had to figure out is ’shoe etiquette’. You take your shoes off when you get in and use some slippers around the house. If you go outside there are outside slippers. If you go to the toilet there are slippers in the toilet (it would be a faux par to wear them outside the toilet). If you go in the tatami room you must take your slippers off. To be honest, I don’t always wear the slippers inside the toilet because NOBODY KNOWS (muwahaha). As a side note, the toilet seat is heated which is a luxury seeing as I was expecting a ‘Japanese style’ toilet. The toilet has a set of buttons on it which I have yet to try – the buttons translate to ’shower’, ‘charm’, ‘blowdry’ and ’stop’. I have no idea what the charm feature does and I don’t think i’m psychologically ready to find out.

So far I’ve been really spoilt by Kyoko. I’ll have to tell her ‘less calories, please’ because she keeps buying me snacks. I have half a can of pringles sitting next to my bed, and today she’s given me caramels and bought me an icecream, as well as cooking f##king huge Osumiyaki (savory pancake things – very tasty). I’m so glad I (lit: my parents) bought them both Opals and some Aussie bucket hats for Omiyage (presents). Kyoko thanked mum on the phone, for the ‘Opals and the helmets’, which I found most amusing.

My room is very nice and unlike the youth hostels I can move around it. I have a cool Japanese table thing* and a desk so I’m sorted. It’s in the attic.

Finally, In the unlikely event that somebody cares, there’s a strange clown sculpture on the wall, with a clown bearing his belly button. It caused a strange dream, where the clown had a car with wheels that looked like his belly.

* Imagine a heated rug with a table on it. Now imagine a douvet draped over the table, with a piece of wood put on top. The rug and the douvet are both to keep you warm – you put your feet under the table and the heat from the rug and your body warmth are kept in by the douvet. Pretty cool.

I have a cold. It sucks.

In Japan you’re expected to walk around wearing a face mask, so you don’t cough on people. Handkerchiefs and nose blowing (in public), is frowned upon. Screw that. I don’t think the masks make a modocon of difference, as I think is evidenced by the amount of sick people wearing them. There was this one guy who was wearing one in the supermarket, just walking around sniffling making that ‘I have snot in my nose’ sound.

Ah well.

Apparently 1/5 Japanese people have pollen related allergies, so companies put adverts on tissue packets and hand them out. Especially during Hanami (Sakura Blossom season). “Intruiging”, I hear you say.

By the way, I think I fixed most of the problems with the site. I’ve also added some new photos.

Stay tuned for more useless but intruiging facts.
Dan