yes i did write that
I’ve written a piece over at Japundit: Hikikomori - Japan’s Invisible Population
coriolinus rampant
Review: Sukiyaki Western Django
This is an unusual movie. Produced with an all-Japanese cast (except Quentin Tarantino), it unites 12th century Japan and 19th century Nevada. It is in English, but as though the characters (not the actors) had agreed to use that language beforehand for reasons of their own. Accents are thick, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility, [...]
The Importance of Diversity
My little brother recently wrote about an article which argues that western culture has gone too far in accepting and promoting diversity, and the acceptance of other cultures.
On the one hand, I am forced to agree with this guy on some points: not all worldviews have equal merit, and some are simply better than others. [...]
Some Books I’ve Read Recently
(In reverse chronological order:)
Shogun, James Clavell. It’s not a bad story, really; it’s extremely detailed, and he does a good idea of giving an impression of 16th century Japan. I just couldn’t get past the fact that he absolutely butchered the Japanese language, which he scattered throughout for a well-intentioned but disastrous attempt at verisimilitude. [...]
JLPT
I just registered for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 3. According to the official site, this represents the following:
The examinee has mastered grammar to a limited level, knows around 300 kanji and 1,500 words, and has the ability to take part in everyday conversation and read and write simple sentences. This level is normally [...]
Images of a Green Apocalypse
I think sometimes that I am just a sucker for cityscapes. The ones in question show the reclamation of Tokyo by nature after all the people, for whatever reason, disappeared.
That link goes to a roundup by another English-speaking blog; the original artist posts in Japanese, and doesn’t have an obvious link which collects all the [...]
Whence the fascination?
I’m really not sure why I’m so interested in Japan, or the Japanese language. It’s easy enough to find the point of entry of my interest; it was when I started to match sounds to subtitles in the anime I watched in college. However, that was little more than a passing fancy; it doesn’t explain [...]
in which a random fact leads to a political realization
A doctor’s predictions about whether or not various victims of assassination could be saved with modern trauma medicine.
Casualty rates in american wars.
The importance of medicine in keeping people alive is hard to appreciate. It’s easy to say that the US life expectancy has more than doubled since the nation’s inception, but it becomes much more [...]
True Stories of Life in Japan, pt 10: All Good Things
My contract in Japan specified that I would stay one year at that company, and that nine months into the process both the head office and I would determine whether the contract was worth renewal. If we both decided that I should stay, I would get a raise of about $1000 annually and an automatic [...]