Hi everyone. Things are almost back to normal.

I’m taking the bar in one week. My brain is too fried at this point to say much that’s productive, so I’ll just share this great cartoon with you again:

Big-nosed foreign acquisition

In a couple of weeks, that will be me eating Japan. Stay tuned.

4 thoughts on “Hi everyone. Things are almost back to normal.”

  1. You guys are missing a lot of things,like some TV documentary on Alex Kerr yesturday.
    Anyway good luck on your exams.

  2. Oh no I missed that! I was watching TV all day too. Now I kick myself for getting cable! Were they as fawning and uncritical as I would expect?

  3. In related news, I got a brand new internet connection last Wednesday, spent Thursday finishing up some translation and redoing the networking in my house, and then was away for the whole weekend to attend a high school friend’s wedding, but expect a resumption of proper blogging starting this week.

    Want to give us a quick review of the Alex Kerr documentary, Aceface?

  4. It was basically “Alex Kerr for beginners”type of documentary.It starts by telling who Alex Kerr is,what’s he been doing in the past and now.It is based more on the argument from the moderate”The Lost Japan” and not the one from harsher “D&D”which was written for foreign audience in shoot-anything-that-moves-manner

    The crew chased him down from his apartment in Bangkok and to Indonesia and then to Kyoto where currently he is doing project of gentrification of old machiya and turn it into tourist site for foreigners
    He talks about his disgust with concrete,bad modern architecture and telephone poles. Giving wake up calls to Japanese to stand up and fight to preserve their culture.Same old Alex-Kerr talks.The money shot for me was Kerr in the room with a half dozen of Indonesians and he was the only one in local folk costume…..

    I’ve found wikipedia that summed up my impression on the man and his activities.

    Wikipedia on “Gentrification”
    “Manuel Castells’s seminal work on gay men as “gentrifiers” in San Francisco has revealed a pattern replicated, to some degree, in other North American cities, as “many [gays] were single men, did not have to raise a family (in urban schools of questionable quality), were young, and connected to a relatively prosperous service economy”

    as I watch the program,Kerr seemed to be satidfied with his new role which is preaching Japanese through lecture circuit and becoming advisor for tourism industry.All these by manipurating from Thailand.According to his webpage,he seems to be spending more time in Japan than he used to and have some project ongoing.Which seems to be contradicting from what he had said by making comparisonment with cosmopolitan Bangkok and insular Tokyo.
    More from wikipedia:”Getrification”.

    “Many gay and lesbian people are forced to avoid their towns and neighborhoods of origin because of the need to start a new life and form a new community after coming out.[citation needed] Gay men tend to choose inner-city neighborhoods as places to live because of the lower cost of housing in these areas and social acceptance (which are generally found in inner-city cores) that may not be found in more conservative suburbs or small towns.”

    The real reaason for moving to Bangkok?
    Anyway,the documentary wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

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