My novel has a title. It is called “The Remnants”, which sounds like some early-90s California art-punk-rock band (I think I’m confusing The Replacements and The Rembrandts). And, thanks to judicious use of WriteOrDie, I’m continuing on like the damn Duracell bunny to 33,827 words, just an hour or two away from passing last year’s 35,608. I was very pleased when I managed to Title Drop the title a few days after picking it:
Humanity finally had harmony, but at what price? In a sense, the Hostiles had already won, for they – the remnants of humanity – were living in a world that very closely matched the Hostiles’ ideal of a well-regulated, orderly, soulless society.
That passage sounded so good when I was writing it. In the light of reflection, less so. But this is Nanowrimo, and I will soldier on.
TV continues to fascinate me. I watch the late-night anime. Back when I was really into anime – it must have been 2000-2002, bookended by Tenchi Muyo! appearing on Cartoon Network in September 2000 and Saiko Exciting! coming to a premature end in 2002 – the sum total of anime available was dubbed, edited, and at least four or five years old (Tenchi Muyo was eight years old in Japan when it debuted in the UK!).
Now, of course, you can download fansubbed versions of the hottest new anime in about ten seconds off the net, but there’s still a spark of excitement in being able to watch brand new episodes of some anime debuting on Japanese TV, even if most of it’s crap and I don’t understand any of it. (An episode of Miracle Train has just concluded on TV Tokyo, which is about anthropomorphic personifications of Tokyo subway stations, or something.)
It’s getting better, sort of. After about a month too long and a few chats with teachers I have got the hang of the Japanese lessons, to an extent, just in time for our week-long break (school festival, which if it means no lessons is something I’m all for). And I’ve settled in, sort of. I still make the same kind of stupid mistakes I did at the beginning (I accidentally bought a second duvet cover instead of a bedsheet the other day, so I just hacked (literally) the duvet cover into a bedsheet and it’s worked so far) but they no longer bother me.
I love TV. Yesterday I watched a Korean language-learning programme on NHK Educational, and it’s in Japanese of course, and it’s a strange experience to learn a language in a language you do not yet know entirely. But it makes perfect sense in a strange way, seeing as Korean is far more like Japanese than English.
NHK is the equivalent to the BBC, and NHK Educational is what BBC Two started off as – the more highbrow intellectual counterpart to the entertainment-based NHK General. It’s touching (and telling) that even at prime-time, when BBC 2 is showing How Clean is Your MP? and Mastermindchef Extreme, NHK Educational is teaching people how to make a quilt and while ITV is sticking Simon Cowell’s fat mug on screen to gurn at hapless children, NHK is showing the sign-language news on at 8:45pm.
Yeah. So yesterday I decided to get out, fix up something highbrow like.
Had a wander around Shinjuku for lunch (been here six weeks and I still don’t think I will ever get tired of that place) and got the train to Rikugien, a lovely little garden tucked away by Komagome station on the north side. Birds tweeted. Couples walked around in kimonos. Salarymen entertained their compensated dates. It warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart, to see the pretty trees and the swimming turtles. The light was doing lovely things.
It sounds ridiculous, but getting this TV – even with all its faults (the v-hold is all screwed up, so it’s just reverted to filling up a quarter of the screen) – has heightened my mood considerably. And I think I know why.
Japan has this culture of “insider” and “outsider”, and if you are not inside the group you are outside the group. In my room, I’m disconnected from the outside world. The only connection I have is the internet – which for all intents and purposes is connecting me to Western culture. I am not in Japanese culture. I don’t read Japanese newspapers or the magazines, I don’t talk with the average Japanese person (not counting students and young people), I have no idea about the zeitgeist (時鬼？）.
But a TV is a magic box; it gives me a steady feed of what Japanese people are saying or doing or thinking about, 24/7. Like it or not, TV defines culture more than anyone would like to believe. And now I have a direct connection to Japanese culture, even if I don’t understand 90% of it. I can turn on the TV in the morning and watch the news and see the weather, and somehow that changes everything.
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