Sons of Loki

Anamorphotical portrait of Charles II of England. Oil on canvas

My arch-nemesis Miles, over at Memoirs of a Gaijin, has had no less than three people recognise him from his blog in real life, which I think is enough people to get a little first-tier ‘internet celebrity’ badge. I’m pretty sure all my readers stick to the shadows and, upon seeing me, flee in terror and respect. Or I don’t have any readers. Anyway.

Classes started! Civil War literature hasn’t been quite as dull as I imagined. I mean, you got hacks like Edward Waller who just drone on about how radiant and majestic Charleses I & II were (chinless autocratic amoral bastards, the lot of ‘em) but there’s some interesting things hidden away, and there’s the whole turmoil of the period when England stood on a precipice between being playing second fiddle to Spain and the Heiliges Römisches Reich and becoming the most powerful nation in the world – kind of like England’s difficult teenage years? Mandarin is pretty easy – everything’s monosyllabic and I find it really easy to think in Chinese characters. Being used to Japanese means I have no problem with a language without proper plurals or gender or articles, which I imagine must be quite a shock if you’ve only done French or Spanish.

Anamorphotical portrait of Charles I of England. Oil on canvas

Japanese is … kinda weird. Everyone’s pretty much better than me, as I expected, but so far the grammar and such is stuff I did last year, so … the classes are kind of easy at the moment? But it’s still hair-raising to have to speak in front of people, and make conversation, and stuff. I just hide in the library and lurk on 2-channel, which is fun.

Today I had a meeting about my Short Research Dissertation. It’s 4,000 words, and it doesn’t seem like an enormous undertaking, but it will certainly be enjoyable, I think. Well, I say that now. I’ve narrowed it down to being about the phenomenon of NEETs and freeters and the Japanese youth counter-culture – where it comes from, and whether it exists as a short-term phenomenon or whether it will have wider implications for society. Will the monolithic kaisha culture fall or will it remain depressingly intact? These, and other important questions, I hope to answer.

Due to a minor mishap/misunderstanding/deliberate sabotage(?) the house will be without internet for a week. This is perhaps good or bad. It means I have to get out of the house, and it means I can get on with studying more.

It’s really weird, but I’m sort of enjoying studying. I know, right? It’s just there’s really nothing else to do, and it’s nice to sit down in the Brotherton with a copy of 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) and slowly decipher the contents into OneNote (which is my new favourite program, being that I can take my laptop down to uni, make notes or write something, then sync it with my desktop seamlessly when I get home). Certainly, light novels such as Haruhi are a lot easier than real literature like Mishima’s 潮騒 (The Sound of Waves), which I imagine is difficult reading even for fluent Japanese, what with obscure kanji and unconventional readings.

Speaking of difficult reading, Baudrillard! I mean, I consider myself pretty intelligent, and I did philosophy at A-Level, but this guy … Maybe it’s a bad translation. I certainly hope it’s a bad translation, because it reads like a dodgy Babelfish job from French to English via Hungarian. To give you an idea of what it’s like, I will temporarily write in the style of Baudrillard’s prose: certainly the style of one who’s vaudevillian rhapsody runs counter to the mainstream philosophy, which is to say a certain je ne sais quoi of proto-normal Russian doctrine, vis-à-vis the normal interacting with the hyperunsymbotic. Kennedy knew this: thus, the ultimate symbol of American satiety is the death of consumerist ballet as seen in the unbalance of Trotsky minus the special luminosity of what one might call the wrangling of modern fixation on the zabological mannichopology of the general public’s resistance to santological deflectance (PPEP!) and ultimately, what Walt Disney was getting at was this: that there can be no society without the emblence of grisstitude.

No, that barely manages to capture the sheer confusion of reading Simulacra and Simulation. Perhaps I need to read more. He still has some good points, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day and how a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn and other sayings. But as Baudrillard writes on page 15,

Now, one must conceive of TV along the lines of DNA as an effect in which the opposing poles of determination vanish, according to a nuclear contraction, retraction, of the old polar schema that always maintained a minimal distance between cause and effect, between subject and object: precisely the distance of meaning, the gap, the difference, the smallest possible gap (PPEP!), irreducible under pain of reabsorption into an aleatory and indeterminate process whose discourse can no longer account for it, because it is itself a determined order.

PPEP! PPEP! PPEP! The rallying cry of the postmodernists! PPEP!

Had things gone a little differently, I’d be in training right now. As it was, I didn’t get the job of Venue Technician for the Union (and right now a Russian voice is crying “For zje Union!” in my head), but then I was pretty much dead from the start. On Thursday I went along to this assessment centre deal, which was basically ten of us (including four Matts) around a table doing a few icebreaker/teambuilding activities so the assessors could see how we worked. Most of the other candidates had backgrounds in music or theatre tech, some of them worked for LUU, and all of them seemed supremely more qualified than me. There I was, assuming it was just a job anyone could turn up to and do, but for some of the people around the table it was clear that this was a stepping stone for a proper career, and they knew a formidable amount about running events, dealing with people, and (most importantly) arguing their point convincingly and with confidence.

I knew which of the candidates I’d hire, and I wasn’t one of them. Nevertheless, the next day I was called along for a final interview (after missing the callback the day before and getting one in the morning at 10:30 asking where I was – embarrassing) and I thought it went quite well. Obviously I couldn’t lie about my experience, but I tried to make it clear that I was eager to learn and could pick up technical stuff in no time at all. Waiting for the call that evening was agonising, but I was put out of my misery by a polite email informing me that I hadn’t got the job. Oh well. It genuinely was a good experience. I’ve never failed a job interview before (the whole Gaba debacle notwithstanding) and I’ve never been through such a gruelling interview process, so I really hope the next time I do something like this I’m better prepared.

Now, someone reminded me that due to my change in circumstances I have gone, in the space of a year, from being entirely ineligible for the Leeds bursary to (hopefully) receiving the entire payment of £1,540 next spring. So if I spend sensibly, money … well, there’s a gaping hole in my finances by mid-autumn, but I should actually break even by next year even without the job. To be honest, I’m going to have enough work on my hands without a part-time job, so perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps.

My housemates arrived! and it has been great fun. We’ve been playing poker, and I cooked dinner, and we have drunk wine and played video games and cleaned the kitchen and moved the sofas and made visits to other people’s houses and flats as the class of 2012 flits back into town one by one.

I’m not entirely confident about this third year. I’m taking on Mandarin and a dissertation in addition to my first proper year of English (unlike Japanese but like most degrees, English has a mickey-mouse first year that counts for naught). And then there’s Japanese, in which all fifty-so of us are now supposedly at the same level, which is patently untrue. I’m living with Rob and Hugo, who are essentially fluent (though they protest otherwise), and I get the feeling everyone else is better than me. Japanese is just really hard, you know? And I’m not sure if I care enough any more. I mean, plenty of people don’t care about their job and still do it, but at least they’re getting paid.

Brg. Maybe things will be better once term begins.

Me ma’s been watching Swedish smash-hit crime drama Wallander and, on another of her crackpot schemes, picked up a book on Swedish grammar. Clearly, my mother was never meant to learn Swedish, but I thought I’d have a flick through and it’s interesting stuff, you know.

You know how athletes will run at high altitudes with heavy weights so that, when they’re accustomed to that, running unladen at sea level feels like a breeze? It’s like that after studying Japanese. Two years of banging my head against the brick wall of fluency in Nippongese, and when I try my hand at Swedish, it’s like punching through cardboard. There’s so many cognates that vocabulary – lång (long), hem (home), också (also, pronounced ockso) – just pops into my memory in a way that Japanese words never do. Knowing a little German helps too – läsa (lese, read), arbeta (arbeite, work).

It always seems remarkable to monolinguists like myself when you hear of people who can speak three or four or six languages, but once you’ve learned the skill-set necessary to learn a language – which tools to use, how conjugating works, what articles and particles do – the next language is half as hard. Conjugating Swedish verbs is essentially the same as conjugating Japanese verbs – it’s just a matter of learning different ‘bits’.

I watched Tora Tora Tora today (remarkably, half-directed by Kinji Fukasaku, he of the Yazuka Papers and Battle Royale) and as a test, tried to understand the spoken Japanese without the subtitles. Entirely hopeless. Been studying this two, three years and I can’t understand even a sentence or two.
I know the answer is “study more” but it’s hella depressing.

I also watched the much-hyped The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Swedish: Män som hatar kvinnor) and found it to be pretty enjoyable, even if I’m always suspicious when beautiful troubled young women end up sleeping with chubby, middle-aged author surrogates. (When I’m an author, my protagonists will be celibate and miserable.) I liked Lisbeth – she put me in mind of one of William Gibson’s heroines, and in a way the whole film is like some kind of modern post-cyberpunk thriller. Sort of. You know, the stuff that Gibson was pioneering in the 80s – technology as an integral part of our daily lives, a world where everything’s on the net and information is a commodity, all those cliches which were revolutionary then but today sound ancient – that sort of stuff is so mainstream now that you hardly notice it.

I noticed Lisbeth’s password was only four characters, though. No real hacker would let that slide.

So I’ve hopefully got an interesting little job lined up, if I pass the final interview next week. Heading up to Leeds this weekend to move into my house and kill a few days before the interview and then, if I get it, starting my induction the week after – then it’s Freshers’ Week and finally, after that, lessons begin again.

I’ve been worrying about what to do for my dissertation, but the other day I found myself writing a blog post about the future of Japan – slowing economy, fossilised government, aging population, freeters, continued backwards attitude to immigration – and realised I’ve got a beautiful paper to write right there. If I do it right. The New World: Changing Paradigms For Japan In New 21st Century Economic Realities – Demarking the Migrant Pathos and the Erotics of Primal Pathology, it will be titled.

Until then, then, I chill out, raid the fridge, learn lines like “Du bröt dig in i mitt hem. Jag kan ha ihjäl dig utan vidare.”* and try to put off packing until Friday.

* “You broke into my house. I can kill you without consequence.” Learning lines from films is much more fun than “I am Herr Smitt,” don’t you think?

“Yell”, by ballad-y group Ikimono-gakari (a name Wikipedia explains as “[the] group of children who are responsible for looking after plants and animals in a Japanese elementary school”) came out last September and went to #2 in the charts. It’s shamelessly sentimental (the video is all about kids in high school, and I hear it’s a popular choice at graduation) and I’d hate it if it was a cheesy English ballad but shucks, there’s something about the brave eyes of naive schoolchildren staring into the camera combined with Kiyoe Yoshioka’s soaring vocals that tears me up inside.

「”わたし”は今どこに在るの」と
“So what of “I”, now?”
(This is a doozy. “わたし” (‘I’) comes in quotes, and the verb 在る (meaning “to exist” for inanimate objects) is used where you’d usually use 居る (meaning “to exist” for animate things like people). Literally it’s “Where am I now?” but if I had to guess, I’d say the gist of the line is “What now for (the concept of) ‘I’?”, or “What’s to become of me?” or “Where am I now?” in a spiritual rather than material sense.)
踏みしめた足跡を何度も見つめ返す
I go back to stare at trodden footprints again and again
枯葉を抱き 秋めく窓辺に
I embrace dead leaves, and by the autumnal window
かじかんだ指先で夢を描いた
I traced dreams with numb fingertips

翼はあるのに飛べずにいるんだ
Though I have wings, I can’t fly
ひとりになるのが恐くてつらくて
At being alone, I’m scared, heartbroken
優しいひだまりに 肩寄せる日々を
The days of sweet sunshine with your arm around me
越えて僕ら孤独な夢へと歩く
We pass through, we walk towards lonely dreams

Chorus
サヨナラは悲しい言葉じゃない
“Sayonara” is not a sad word
それぞれの夢へと僕らを繋ぐＹＥＬＬ
When we head towards our many dreams, a “yell” will connect us
ともに過ごした日々を胸に抱いて
I hold those days we spent together close to my chest
(“胸”, literally “chest” but more figuratively “heart” just as in English, is probably one of the most used words in J-pop)
飛び立つよ独りで未来（つぎ）の空へ
Fly, alone, into your future sky
(The kanji read みらい (future) but are sung as つぎ (next). I mean, if you just listened to the song without reading the lyrics you’d have no idea, but I guess this is a songwriting trick)

僕らはなぜ答えを焦って
We’re impatient for answers to “Why?”
宛ての無い裏切りに自己（じぶん）を探すのだろう
I guess it betrays no one to search for ourselves
誰かをただ思う涙も
Both tears just when I think of someone
真っ直ぐな笑顔もここに在るのに
And smiling, straight-ahead, there’s both here

本当の自分を誰かの言葉で
Our real selves, through someone else’s words,
繕うに逃れて迷って
We run from fixing, we go astray
ありのままの弱さと向き合う強さを
The truth is, the power to face our weaknesses –
掴み僕ら始めて明日へと掻ける
Only when we grasp that can we succeed tomorrow

Chorus
サヨナラを誰かに告げる度に
Every time we say goodbye to someone
僕らまた変われる強くなれるかな
Can we change, can we get used to it?
たとえ違う空へ飛び立とうとも
Even if we take off into different skies
途絶えはしない思いよ今も胸に
We’ll never stop, I hold that in my heart even now

Bridge
永遠など無いと (気づいたときから)
When there was no such thing as eternity (From the time we realised that)
笑い合ったあの日も (唄い合ったあの日も)
That day we laughed together (That day we sang together)
強く (深く) 胸に刻まれていく
Strongly (deeply) those days dig into my heart
だからこそあなたは (だからこそ僕らは)
Because of this, you … (because of this, we …)
他の誰でもない(誰にも負けない)
Without anyone else (no one will fail)
声を(挙げて)”わたし”を生きていくよと
Our voice (as one), “I” will go on
約束したんだひとり(ひとり)ひとつ(ひとつ)道を選んだ
I promised. Alone, I chose a single path

Chorus
サヨナラは悲しい言葉じゃない
“Sayonara” is not a sad word
それぞれの夢へと僕らを繋ぐＹＥＬＬ
When we head towards our many dreams, a “yell” will connect us
いつかまためぐり逢うそのときまで
Until the time comes for us to meet again
This sentence, more literally, is “Until someday, some day, again, again, when we meet again.” Japanese can be wonderfully redundant.
忘れはしない誇りよ友よ空へ
Say you won’t forget – into the sky, my friend

僕らが分かち合う言葉がある
There’s a word we all share
こころからこころへ声を繋ぐＹＥＬＬ
From my heart to yours, a “yell” connects our voices
ともに過ごした日々を胸に抱いて
I hold those days we spent together close to my chest
飛び立つよ独りで未来（つぎ）の空へ
Fly, alone, into your future sky

June’s just flown by in a blur of routine. Indeed, there’s nothing like routine to make the days just fly by, is there? I wake up, go to lesson, get back, learn two chapters of Kanji in Context (I’ll hopefully have done all the ones on the official government-mandated “jouyou kanji” list by the time we leave … at least, all the old jouyou kanji), hit the flashcards for a bit, eat, go to the gym and do some weights and some pretty intensive stationary biking (stationary bikes are ace! You can exercise and read/do flashcards/listen to music/watch TV at the same time! Thinking of buying one next year), get back to my room, watch The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with jury-rigged Japanese subtitles (excellent combined reading/listening practice), then if I’m feeling good, read a bit of Yotsuba or else switch my brain off and play Fallout 2. Then it’s time for bed.

Did I mention I passed? Yeah, that big ass Leeds exam. Obviously, I didn’t get a great mark – well, not even a good one – but it doesn’t bother me now. I am a changed man! I study most of the time. I’ve started using Khatzumoto’s 10,000 sentences method, wherein you find interesting and useful sentences in films/books/manga/daily life, pop them into an SRS flashcard system, and drill them daily until they are burned into the fabric of your brain. It seems to be starting to pay off, or at least I think it is.

Yesterday I went for a bit of a wander for no particular reason; starting in Ebisu, then walking through the quietly upmarket neighbourhoods of Shibuya towards Roppongi Hills and an iced tea outside Starbucks, overhearing a conversation in Australian next to me about how hot it was (and boy, it’s been 31°C – and humid).

Today, though, I went back to Nakano, a place just west of Shinjuku which I used to visit all the time when I lived here two years ago (shit, two and a half years ago. Nearly three years ago). I used to visit the Working Holiday Office there in hopes of finding teaching work (of course, when I arrived in 2007 it was literally mere days after the gigantic NOVA English school imploded, throwing thousands of desperate, highly-qualified, and suddenly unemployed English teachers out on to the streets of Japan, so work was practically non-existent). I’d also hit the Nakano Broadway nearby, because it had a handful of hobby shops and PC stores. And I honestly couldn’t remember why I used to trek halfway across the city when I had Akihabara practically on my doorstep, but wandering around the Broadway mall today, I was suffused with nostalgia, revisiting shops I hadn’t been to in two and a half years. I found the PC store where I bought a keyboard for some reason – and in ultimate proof that everything comes full circle, I bought almost exactly the same model of no-name Chinese-made 500 yen keyboard (the W and S and backspace on my laptop keyboard have stopped working and I stripped the fucking screw! so I can’t replace it until I get home and maybe try some specialist equipment).

There’s all these nice little indie stores – the main store of manga and doujin specialists Mandarake; a store full of weird old books (including Philip K Dick in translation, which I was tempted to buy until I realised that reading VALIS in Japanese would actually give me a brain haemorrhage); a shop selling model railway carriages and model railway carriages only, clearly a labour of love for the glasses-wearing owner (I like to think he worked as a salaryman for decades before deciding to throw it all away and pursue his dream of starting a shop selling sixty-two types of rolling stock); low ceilings, narrow corridors, and a sense of comfort.