This posted rated H (for Hentai)

So, if you know a bit about Japanese culture you may have run into the words Shonen and/or Jump. Shonen Jump is a weekly comic compilation for teen boys that's pretty famous. A lot of anime have gotten their start as serial manga in Shonen Jump. Naruto, for instance, and currently Gantz is running.

Anyway, last Friday Max and Seiji (pictured below) both recommended Shonen as reading practice. So Saturday I went out and bought.

It cost me 280円, which is like less than three bucks, and it's a good-sized volume, with around 15 seperate comics. I bought something called Young Jump, which I figured would be easier to read.

Which, of course, it wasn't. Through the unique ambulations of English-as-pop-culture the meaning of the word Young was somehow reversed, and Young Jump is actually harder to read and contains more gratuitous nudity than run-of-the-mill Jump.

I was slightly surprised. It's all fairly sexploitative, and I'm sure in a regular country people would be up in arms over it, but this is Japan and they're a little more relaxed about these things. I've heard a lot of explanations for this, ranging from the lack of Christian influence to the debauchery of American troops in the post-war period. Hentai (that's pervert in Japanese) culture is so accepted in Japan that the word has even found its way into American vocabulary, though in Canada it's generally a noun reserved exclusively for, say, tentacle-rape-porn.

Which, to be honest, I'm glad I couldn't find in Young Jump.

Two quick notes.

Two quick notes.

The Epoch times has been praising Harper for taking a hard-ish line on
China's lacklustre human rights record. Hu Jintao and Stephen Harper met for a
brief 15-minute chat in Hanoi this week, and apparently Canada has not been
making friends. Among our sins:

Canada is concerned with the case of Huseyincan Celil, a Canadian citizen and human rights activist who fled China in the 1990s and who is being held in a Chinese prison for alleged terrorism links.

Liu said the case was discussed by the leaders who reiterated their positions. China considers Huseyincan a Chinese citizen. In another potential strain to ties, Ottawa declined to renew the visa of a Chinese diplomat who was reported to have spied on followers of the Falun Gong religious sect in Canada.

In September, Canada granted honorary citizenship in September to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader and a sworn enemy of Beijing for his
opposition to Chinese Communist rule in the remote, mountainous territory. (Epoch Times)

Even better, is the fact that the Japanese still don't want to go nuclear. Huzzah. Some 80% of over 1700 Japanese citizens interviewed responded that they were against nuclear armament. And on top of that, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged at APEC to keep Japan on the nuke-free path.

ooooooooooooooooo

At the recommendation of my friend Tony I upgraded to the Blogger Beta. It reset some of the sidebar formatting, so I'm working my way back through it. I'll also be adding labels to the archives over the next few days, to add new search-a-funka-bility.

It's pretty good all in all. Way to go Gooooooooooooogle.

I also had to change the pic of Harper in the last post. I don't remember where I was linking it from, but it fell off the internet.

"Arafat is a slob. If he put on a suit he'd have a country by now."

Wanna see something funny?

Okay, so, APEC is gathering right now. They're in Hanoi, which I learned the other day got a stock market in the last couple of years, but that's not the point.

As part of APEC our great leaders all get together to take a family photo of sorts. It's a wonderful tradition. They get a chance to dress up in the colourful garb of foreign nations. We get to watch them trying not to look uncomfortable. Everybody gets to enjoy themselves a little bit.

They did it in Korea in 2005. Paul Martin is a pimp.



And of course they did it this year too. The traditional Vietnamese garb is not as black and pajama-like as G.B. Trudeau would have us think (Dad, at least, should know what I'm talking about. I hope). It actually looks quite good on, say, Hu Jintao. Vladimir Putin manages to pull it off even.

Harper not so much. He kind of looks like, maybe, an easter egg?

"Japan is a Safe Country"

Panic moment from yesterday:

I've gotten really good about being healthy recently. I'm going to the gym three times a week, mostly to run but I'll do weight training every now and again as well. I'm really proud of myself.

When I check in at the Training Center's front desk the お爺さん ojiisan staff member (alright, the word actually means "old man" but in Japan it's actually a polite form of address) hands me a key for a locker in the changeroom. So I get dressed and go running for an hour and a bit and get a really bad cramp, and then I'm on my way back up the stairs to the changeroom when I realize that I don't have my key on me. So I sprint the rest of the way, the sound of my pounding heart clamouring in my ears, and there is my key, still in the door of my locker which isn't even closed all the way. And my cellphone is still there, and my wallet is still there, and all my books and my bag and my shoes and clothes are all still there. And this is an amazing thing.

I've heard that Japan is a very safe country, I think almost everybody has. One of my readings recently pointed out that when the comparison is made the touchstone is usually the United States, which is unfair - the truth is that Japan is a normal country, and the US is just terribly dangerous. But even so, Japan is safer than most European countries. When I thought about it afterwards I realized that if the same thing were to happen in Vancouver I wouldn't be terribly surprised either. The difference is that in Japan I was less surprised to see my stuff untrammeled.

Which, I mean, is cool.

A Yen for more Sidebar

I've made some more changes to the sidebar. A sizeable handful of my fellow exchange students have blogs of their own, so I've added in a second round of their various blogspots and LJs. They're listed under the new category フレンド which is jangrish for friend, except that I've never actually seen it used. The political blogs are exclusively in the ブログ category, and we have a new addition - China Confidential.

That's all folks. Happy Remembrance Day.

And if you understand the title of this post you know way to much about the English language. Nerd.

Out of the fold

I just quit the choir. God was that embarassing. Everybody got really silent as I tried to make my explanation exceedingly vague and polite in broken Japanese.

It went down like this. I realized one night after karaoke how much I like to sing. I started going to choir practices. They met three times a week and they really are lovely people.

Like three weeks later I learned that if I wanted to join I had to do chapel services as well. It's like two a month maybe, not that big a deal.

A week after that I learned that on top of regular practices and chapels, there were also three practices a week for each section. Which brings the sum total up to, what, like 6-7 events a week?

Hells no! Karaoke suits me just fine.

What I did Last Week (or, Sandpenis)

Today is the last day of 学園祭 gakuensai at Kwansei University. I didn't really get to go, which is to bad because I heard it was a lot of fun. But I did do a ton of other stuff instead.

On thursday a bunch of us went to a beach on 淡路島 awajishima, an island south-west of Kobe and famed, apparently, for its onions. (we didn't get to try any) It was a ton of fun, even discounting the fact that I got to go swimming in November. It was a touch cold, but who am I kidding, the subtropics are awesome.




It took us a little over an hour to get there, by train, and then another train, and then fifteen minutes on a ferry that takes you underneath the longest suspension bridge on the planet. I forget the name because it's really long and obviously in Japanese, but it involves the character for red. 赤



There was maybe some frisbee played, and some wine drunk, and some stories told, and some supermarket-bought food consumed. Jesse and Samuel and Eric built a sandcastle, around which they gathered a sandvillage, and Max, as I recall, added a sandpenis. That's Max for you.



Tragically the village fell prey to orbital bombardment, or a meteor shower, or maybe Jesse was just throwing sand. In either case the castle managed to stick it through, at least until the tide came up, by which time we had left. Me and the boys and Allie and Barbara hit up an お風呂 ofuro bath-house, which is different from an 温泉 onsen hotspring by the way, while some others went home for dinner. We'd been meaning to all go to the 温泉 as a group because there was a really terrific package-discount offered with the ferry-ride, but, what are the chances, it closes on the first thursday of every month. 残念。

We got to see that bridge I mentioned by night though. They light it up like a series of inverted rainbows, and it looks gorgeous until you try to capture it on camera. The pictures didn't turn out very well. We came back late, and tired, and with sand in our collective hair.

The next day I was off to a two-day choir retreat. Did I mention that I joined the choir? No? I'm bad like that some times. The students had a couple days off because of 学際 and of course if you're Japanese this means you go find something else to throw yourself into. It was fun, but by the end of it my head felt like it was going to explode from the Japanese. I did discover that I like He Trusted in God, the 28th movement of the Messiah.

I came back on Saturday evening and missed the fireworks. I'm not too dissapointed with that though, because today I heard they were pretty tepid. I am sad I missed the bands and the delicious food though, especially because I just spent Sunday lazing around at home. It was a good kind of lazing around, at least.

When we were at the beach I kind of took off on my own for a bit. I swam to this kind of random yellow pole that stuck out of the water a little further out. Kenta took a picture of me, and if you peer really closely, or just digitally enlarge it, you can even see me a little bit.

Nara Part I: Toshodaiji and Yakushiji

It was probably around ten in the morning when the five of us pulled into the parking lot at 唐招提寺 Toshodaiji, our first temple for the day. Toshodaiji was founded by a Chinese monk from the T'ang dynasty (618-907 CE) at the invitation of the devoutly-Buddhist Emperor Shomu (r. 724-749) as a centre for Nanzan, a Buddhist sect that I have never heard of. The monk Ganjin accepted the Emperor's offer, and though it would take him more than twelve years, require five unsuccesful crossings, and cost him his eyesight, he arrived in Japan in 754 CE, a half-dozen years after Shomu had abdicated in favour of his daughter. Ganjin would serve for some time at Todaiji temple, which we visited after lunch, before constructing Toshodaiji in 759 CE. He passed away four years after that.

There is a wooden statue of Ganjin preserved from this ancient time at Toshodaiji. It is kept hidden from the public except on June 6th, a day that corresponds with the anniversary of Ganjin's death on the old lunar calendar.

The temple complex also houses several more generic statues which are open to the public, and stunning to behold. Unfortunately, tourists are not allowed to take pictures of the images. I did manage to snap some shots of the gorgeous moss garden that the temple complex is nestled in.



Next on our list was another temple, 薬師寺 Yakushiji, which actually predates Toshodaiji by about six decades – it was planned by Emperor Temmu (d. 686) in the late seventh century, and was completed by his wife and successor Empress Jito in 698. The temple was moved to its present site in Nara in 718, following the relocation of the capital.



That's Patrick, doing his Patrick thing at the headstone outside the main gate.

Though Temmu was primarily interested in developing a form of Buddhism based on the Golden Light and Benevolent Kings sutras that would benefit the state, he was not above relying on the mystical powers of Buddhist rites and magics. Temmu started construction on Yakushiji in November of 680 as part of prayers for the quick recovery of his Empress from illness. Jito recovered, but when Temmu fell ill four years later similar rites were ironically ineffectual. Nevertheless, Jito continued construction of the temple, and in 697 the chief Buddha of the temples, 薬師如来 yakushi nyorai was enshrined.

The contents of the Yakushi Sutra indicate why the emperor should have turned to it at a time of personal crisis, for it tells of a perfect Buddha of Healing (Yakushi Nyorai), unsurpassed in wisdom, who vowed to bless individuals on the path to Buddhahood. The seventh vow must have been especially appealing, for there Yakushi promises to help “all ill and helpless sentient beings to achieve recovery, to be blessed with peace and joy of body and mind, to become wealthy, and to obtain the state of enlightenment by hearing his name.”

From: Sonoda Koyu, “Early Buddha Worship,” The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 1: Ancient Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp 395.

The Yakushi Triad at the temple consists of yakushi nyorai and two attendant 菩薩 bosatsu (Skt. bodhisattva). 日光 nikko (Skt. Suryaprabha) attends on the right side, and represents sunlight. On the left is 月光 gakko (Skt. Candraprabha) who represents moonlight. All three statues stand around three metres high, and were cast in sinuous and graceful bronze. They have been passed down from the end of the seventh century, though all three lost their gold covering in a fire in 1528 that destroyed most of the temple complex. The main hall of the temple, though resplendant, dates from 1976, and the Yakushi Triad it houses has been stained a glossy black.




If you look closely at the last picture you can see my Religious and Traditional Rites professor, he's dressed all in beige, leading a group of students from Conan University, at which he teaches a similar course.

I managed to find a statue of fudo myo-o out back. The myo-o are a set of fierce protective deities in Japanese Buddhism, each corresponding to an important Buddha. Among the five chief myo-o, fudo is the only one I can recognize on site – he is depicted as holding a rope in his left hand, with which he binds evil spirits, and a sword in his right, with which he cuts away clouding thoughts. He corresponds with rushana buddha, (Skt. Vairocana) whose giant statue is enshrined at 東大寺 todaiji which we visited later. Stay tuned!

This is fudo's ugly mug.

Getting back to the Bomb

Today is the start of a Kwansei Gakuin University's 学際 gakusai (school festival), a 6-day event extending through the weekend and all the way to monday. There are a lot of holidays at Kwansei, and I'm making use of this one to go to the beach tomorrow with a bunch of friends.

Yes it's November. Yes it's warm enough to swim. So there.

Let's talk about the DPRK again. At first glance things look promising, with the Six Party Talks purportedly restarting "soon". China, America and North Korea have already held one informal meeting yesterday and are promising to get down to business. Kim Jong-Il is doing his best to look repentant following mounting foreign pressure that looks ready to stove in the hull of his regime - this chiefly means that the blockade on luxury items that Kim uses to buy the support of domestic power blocs (i.e. generals) is putting a dangerous strain on his resources.

But Japan's foreign ministry looks set to blunt the precision instruments of multilateral diplomacy.

Japan cannot accept North Korea's return to the six-party talks on its nuclear program if it comes to the negotiating table as a country possessing nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Taro Aso was quoted as saying Tuesday.

While Japan welcomed the prospect of a new round of talks, it "does not intend to accept North Korea's return to the talks on the premise that it is a country that owns nuclear weapons," public broadcaster NHK quoted Aso as saying. (Mainichi Shinbun)

The Foreign Ministry has always been a bit of a wildcard in Japanese politics. Koizumi, the previous Prime Minister, enlisted his cabinet in attempts to reign in autonomous tendencies within the ministry in 2001 or so, but largely failed. It's therefore important to emphasize that this opinion is not held in the highest echelons of elected government.

Meanwhile, Kyodo News agency quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki as telling reporters late Tuesday that the six-party talks were the best framework to resolve the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program.

That doesn't necessarily make the remarks less worrying though. Especially when you put it in the context of, say, this article, also from Mainichi Shinbun: Top LDP policymaker says possession of nuclear arms permitted under Constitution.