Japanese 001 - Emily Garnett

The culture blog post can be found at the link below, and my comments are represented below the link.

Japanese Culture Blog - Princess Masako

エミリー (20:41:46) :
I can’t imagine how stifling it must feel for Masako-hime to fit into the royal family after leading a decidedly independent and successful career in business. It’s an extremely abrupt change, going from something so self-directed to an institution as traditional as the Japanese monarchy, and I think in light of that, her actions make a lot of sense.

I see her avoidance of royal functions and penchant for private, lavish dinners as an escape mechanism from the pressures of the monarchy - or, simply a chance to live life as she would have lived it were she still a businesswoman. Sure, the royal family has a history of frugality, but one has to remember that she’s not exactly textbook royalty. This seems to be an attempted blending of modern business culture with traditional monarchy, except no real middle ground is given. That, I believe, is what’s so problematic.
I wonder if the media would be so critical of her were she a prince avoiding public functions and being free with his spending, however. This seems to me to be a pretty good exploration of the traditional role of women in a modern context, and its (seemingly negative) impact on the parties involved. In my opinion, things need to move a little bit forward in that area if Masako is to derive any comfort in her position.

In that vein, I think the pressures on Masako surrounding childbearing are out of line. I’ve never carried, birthed, or attempted to conceive a child, but from every source I’ve heard, the entire process, if it doesn’t go smoothly, is at best frustrating and at worst absolutely terrifying. The fact that she miscarried alone is extremely traumatizing, especially after trying for five years to conceive. I don’t know what the royal family will do without an heir, but they have to realize that their harassment of Masako is doing nothing but harm, and if it keeps up, there may be no heir to show for it anyway.

I really enjoyed reading comments from other people about this topic - not just the other Japanese students on the culture blog, but people who commented on news articles about it. The major rift in opinions seems to come, as usual, from the issue of tradition vs. non-tradition. I think my comments very much reflect that I'm a social liberal and an American, which pains me a little, because I frankly can't wrap my head around everything the Japanese monarchy stands for and why it needs to stand for what it does. It's simply that, as a person, watching another person deal with what I see as unnecessary stress like this, I can't help but sympathize with her.

I suppose that comes back to the American spiritual bankruptcy I mentioned in my other culture blog discussion - my inability to attribute significance to tradition.

The friction between tradition and progress is, as I see it, going to drive a lot of change as our world moves forward and some of our traditions are suddenly denounced as harmful or otherwise backwards. I realize tradition is part of what forms our identities as members of a culture, but there often comes a point where tradition and progress have to compete for prevalence, leaving us to try to work out compromise. Granted, the end product is watered down, but this is the price of globalization. 

(As an aside: The United States is composed almost entirely of immigrants from many different parts of the world, each bringing in their own culture, thus making the country a center for globalization. Most other countries, if I'm correct in thinking so, have, relatively speaking, a much smaller number of immigrants as population, so are more culturally homogenous. While I can identify this predominant culture for most countries, I can't identify a predominant culture for the United States. I wonder if this lack of an identifiable culture is due to this globalization and to the progressive nature of our country, and if a similar trend of progress in other countries would slowly eradicate culture as it has here.)

Japanese Culture Blog - Oni/Setsubun

エミリー (15:56:26) :
Reading all this, I keep trying to find something within my culture to compare with setsubun - the closest I’ve come up with is Halloween, but I don’t think it has the same cultural significance. It probably once did - I did some research and found that Halloween celebrations a long time ago follow some of the same general traditions as setsubun - the roleplaying as evil spirits and good luck ceremonies in particular. It seems to me that the United States doesn’t have quite the respect for superstition or supernatural things as does Japan - here, people who are really into the occult or superstition are pretty much dismissed, but in most of the Japanese media I’ve seen, the same types of things are treated with greater seriousness - and I wonder if that’s the cause of the divergence between setsubun and Halloween.

I didn’t, however, find any kind of mainstream spirits or anything to compare with the Japanese oni. Like I said above, I just don’t think we treat superstition seriously enough in the United States for something like that to become as much of a colloquialism as it is in Japan. I mean, we too have proverbs and sayings based on superstitious or supernatural things, and ghost stories or other supernatural stories are quite common, but they’re really not part of our culture.
It just occurred to me that this might be because of a difference in the way we think of history and our ancestry - it seems that here in America we live very much in the now, but family ancestry and legend seem to hold much more significance in Asia. General history also is kind of ignored here in contrast to the rest of the world - we tear down our old buildings while other places repurpose them. I wonder if we don’t subscribe to ghost stories because we prefer to destroy our ghosts?

This particular post made me think about the differing value systems of my culture and others - not just the Japanese, but European and Native American cultures in particular. Here in the United States, everything really is very much "in the now" - despite our Smithsonians, small-town museums, and national registry of historic places, I would hazard to say that the vast majority of Americans don't care much for learning about the past or don't feel that they have any connection to it. Or, perhaps they claim to care, but their actions speak otherwise - the comment I made about tearing down old buildings presents this. Europeans don't tear down their old buildings because they feel there is significance to them. Likewise with the Japanese, who so far as I have heard rebuild their old buildings when they get destroyed, or the Native Americans, whose entire spiritual belief system is centered around geographic locations. 

I wonder why we don't attach the same significance or simply attach ourselves to places or buildings like so many other cultures do - perhaps it's the commercialism that's so deeply ingrained in our culture, but it seems to me that Japan to some extent is commercial as well. I suppose if we don't attach significance to the things we produce, everything is intrinsically worthless to begin with (which might be going a little too far, but what I believe I'm getting at is, for lack of better words, spiritual bankruptcy. I find this ironic, since among developed nations, the United States is one of the more religious). It never fails to astound me how much more value other cultures seem to give to pretty much everything, whether it's outright ceremony as in Native or Japanese culture, or a simple appreciation, as in Europe.

I'm not sure I've made my train of thought exactly clear (things kind of went from holidays to superstition to history to spirituality) but overall it was a very interesting ride, and a very enlightening one, as it allowed me to realize a little more fully the differences in value systems.

The attached file is the second audio sample I recorded during my second semester of Japanese. Unlike the other audio sample, this sample was a "listen and repeat"-style recording. While this would have normally deterred me from choosing it as fulfilling any sort of goal, this audio sample in particular was filled with vocabulary and grammatical structures that I had never heard before. 

Naturally, this made the sample significantly harder to record, since simply listening through it, I couldn't distinguish what was being said. There was no script in the book to follow, so I wrote my own:

This worked out surprisingly well, giving me ample opportunities to translate spoken Japanese to written Japanese, determine where words end and begin, and, given my best attempt at transcription, work through the gist of what was being communicated.

I ended up spending a lot of time on this sample, working on it significantly longer than I have any of my other ones thus far, perhaps because of the scripting issue. However, because I didn't really know what I was saying or where words were broken up, I think I paid more attention to the inflection and sounds in the sample (as evidenced by all my vague little up-and-down arrow markings and boxes, to show me where things were supposed to flow together), and as a result, it sounds better than I would have sounded simply speaking Japanese on my own.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge offered by being thrown something that was a little bit out of my league. I think it offered a great learning opportunity, especially when writing and getting feedback on my script - in doing so, I was able to discern a bit more of the meaning of the sample and learn a little bit of new vocabulary. This assignment really allowed me to work on interpretive skills, both listening and reading, and I'm pleased with the experience and results.

Another apology - this manga contains fewer frames than my first one, but the files themselves are larger. Hopefully you won't run into loading problems.

What you'll find below is a second manga, again drawn in about a week's time, as my first project for my second semester of Japanese. I wanted to create some contrast between my first project and this one, and it occurs in a few ways. The first that I decided upon was the length of the manga, which was shortened in order to A) reduce the bulk of drawing that I would have to do, thereby B) giving me time to make the project more complex, visually and in terms of script. Since my first project, I've learned a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structures that contribute to my ability to write more fluently and express something closer to what I'm really trying to get across - this is probably obvious, since you can see that my blocks of writing are much longer. I also wanted to show off the kanji that I had learned - only a few of them so far, but they're in there. The last thing that I wanted to do with this project was show whatever I had learned about Japanese culture, which comes through in a more subtle way. The vocabulary I know didn't really allow for me to set up situations where I could discuss that sort of thing, so I was a little limited.

I enjoy noticing how, as I learn more Japanese, I feel like I have to make fewer and fewer compromises with my word choice and ideas. It's not that I was able to express everything I wanted to in this manga - initially, I was going to make it more autobiographical, but I just don't have the vocabulary to describe my own transition from high school to college - but I felt like once I picked a thought to write about, I could write a lot more fluently than I was able to in the past. I didn't feel like I had to just dance around or hint at a subject, for the most part. 

The only thing I felt I really didn't accomplish to the extent that I wanted to was to throw in Japanese culture to a recognizable degree - because of my lacking vocabulary to broach the subject, I was left throwing in visual cues to attempt to say "Hey, this is Japan, by the way." You'll notice the main character sitting at a kotatsu, pictured with a futon in a japanese-style room, wearing a high-school uniform, in a photo-booth picture with her friends, and wearing a kimono. Other things I wanted to put in were specific drinks (like the canned coffee that Mitsuru is drinking. The picture wasn't big enough for me to label what it was) and graduation traditions (which I couldn't find information on until the culture blog so handily enlightened me. I substituted in a picture of the girls wearing kimonos).

In conclusion, I know some areas are lacking and there are mistakes, but I feel like, especially when held against my first project, this represents very well how I've been progressing in the language, and I'm pleased with that alone. In particular, this is a very good example of both the presentational writing and kanji skills I've developed since then.

The title of the animation is "Hello, goodbye, where is my cake?"

Yuusuke: I'm home!

Mom: Welcome home.

Mom: Yuusuke, there's some cake on the table, you know.

Yuusuke: Yes, thanks.

Yuusuke: Mom, is there milk in the refrigerator?

Oji: I don't know. Your mother's in the kitchen.

Yuusuke: Who are you?...What are you?

Oji: I'm Oji. How do you do?

Yuusuke: Where do you come from?

Oji: I come from outside your house.

Yuusuke: Is that so? You speak Japanese, don't you?

Oji: Yeah, that's so. This room is your bedroom, isn't it? This bedroom is a very clean bedroom, you know.

Yuusuke: Umm... Thanks.

Oji: What kind of book is this?

Yuusuke: It's a Japanese literature book. It's not very good, you know.

Oji: This house is a pretty house, you know. What kind of people live here?

Mom: Yuusuke, who's in your room?

Yuusuke: No one's here, Mom. It's the stereo.

Mom: It's very loud.

Oji: It's nice out today. There are pretty things outside your window.

Yuusuke: Yes, that's so.

Oji: Um... I'm leaving. Your mother's cake is tasty cake, you know. See you later.

Yuusuke: ...Mom, there's no cake.

And that's it. As you can tell, the conversation doesn't look terribly natural on paper, which bothers me, but I like to think it makes more sense when you put the animation with it. I would have still liked to be able to say more, though - the language I'm using for the script sounds very, very formal to me, especially since the situation is "you've just found an alien creature in your room." I would have liked to be able to add some indignant, scared, or otherwise more emotional language to the scene, but I just don't know any. Hopefully I'll learn some in the near future.

I chose to do this particular project because it was everything my last project wasn't - sound, movement, and color. I felt like I gave a strong showing of my written Japanese skills last time, so I really wanted to do a project that was more speech-oriented. Granted, I'm not as good at speaking as I am at writing, and it shows, but I'm a beginner, so I guess I'll let myself off the hook. I tried to use a different vocabulary set as well, making use of vocabulary I had literally just learned (in fact, I revised my script twice mid-animation to include vocabulary I had learned that day - including the negative form, in particular) and phrases that didn't get much play in my last project (like more natural descriptions of a house, salutations, and ね／よ). 

エミリー　ガーネト (10:03:12) :

I have to admit that when I saw the video clip, I laughed. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I, as an American, have been set up to look at ultra-righteous characters as ridiculous and petty. Saying that, however, makes me feel kind of backwards and insensitive, especially given that (as portrayed in the above articles, at least) this sort of upkeeping of rules is a big deal to the Japanese.

I guess this is another cultural divide - It’s a view held by many Americans that they don’t need to worry what other people think about them, so they’re free to do and act as they please. Even though I was aware that much of the Japanese culture is focused on keeping up appearances, I was a bit shocked to learn the extent to which it controlled people’s actions. I get the feeling that someone behaving this way here would be regarded as overly anxious at best and somewhat mentally ill at worst. It makes me wonder how foreigners living in Japan and subject to these new rules of society feel, and conversely, how Japanese living in America (where all these rules don’t exist to the same extent) feel.

As far as the garbage sorting goes, I’ll agree with the poster above me that it sounds quite confusing, especially for people who aren’t used to it, and it makes me wonder if there isn’t a better way to go about sorting the garbage - is all this micromanagement of waste by each household really necessary, or could it be streamlined in any way? Kudos to these towns for their efforts to protect their environments and eliminate waste, however. That’s really something to be commended.

In the weeks leading up to the midterm, I was very nervous, not so much about the material that would be covered, but because I tend to perform very poorly in interview situations. I was expecting to be answering a lot of questions and asking a lot of questions, and I was afraid I would get too nervous in the middle of all that and not be able to continue. I was also nervous because I’m not used to using Japanese placeholders (あのう、ええと) while thinking, and I was supposed to speak no English.

The midterm itself was, in terms of material, exactly what I had prepared for, so I had no trouble understanding my examiner or answering his questions. Also, the exam was much, much shorter than I expected – I think we only went through about ten questions – and the examiner spoke little bits of English (okay, let’s see, etc.) which either surprised me because I was used to my language partner saying the equivalents in Japanese or because I wasn’t supposed to use English. I kind of wished, during the exam, that I knew more Japanese, because even though I was answering in complete sentences, I wasn’t doing so with any kind of introduction (The first answer is…, okay, I’m ready, etc.) and that just felt strange.

I thought I did relatively well as far as speaking went, except that I seem to have a habit of dropping the ends of my sentences that, unfortunately, carries over to other languages. I found myself ending sentences without any verb or question marker, which isn’t a good habit at all, especially for Japanese. I need to practice actually finishing my sentences, which means I need to practice speaking.

Overall, the midterm went well for me, and was a great confidence boost - doing well there kind of assured me that I was doing well in the language overall, and I think that at the rate I’m going, I’ll be just fine on the final.

Firstly, if this is taking forever for your computer to load, I apologize. The frames kind of have to be large in order for you to see them properly, and there are quite a few of them. But hey, at least I uploaded them as individual frames instead of one enormous file.

What follows here is a short, very basic manga I drew over the course of about a week's worth of evenings. My vocabulary at this point was/is kind of limited, by which I mean very limited, but I knew I had a good grasp of hiragana and wanted to show off the writing I could do. I also wanted to show off the volume of language that I did know. And I can see now, looking at it, several places where I messed up - using おおき instead of おおきい, for example, but overall it was a pretty solid effort on my part. 

I enjoyed being able to describe people, places, and things more fully than I could, say, in my earlier writing samples, and I made an effort to include some distinctive Japanese phrases appropriate to the situation - いただきます before a meal, for example, and the fillers あのお and ええと. I was also pleased that the conversation didn't seem awfully unnatural, which represents a big leap forward from my earlier work, and I was able to use a little bit of katakana, which has helped with character recognition. 

So long story short, I'm proud of this little comic, and I think it represents very well my skills at the time I completed it. I do think, though, that I've learned quite a bit of new vocabulary that would have contributed very well to this conversation - either to fill out parts that (to me, at least) seem a little ambiguous, or as replacements for other, less accurate words.