Personal/Blog News – Page 10 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Master Time

I’m already at Kyoto University as a “research student” on the Monbusho/MEXT scholarship, but having finished the application process to transfer into the Masters degree program on Monday and then finding out today that I passed, I will be in an actual degree course starting in April.

Photo festival part 2-B: Adjoined slum and cemetary in Taipei: Part B-Cemetary

This is the third installment in my rapid photo gallery posting series to prepare for my new camera, following Part 1 Osaku amateur photographers in Akihabara and Part 2-A: Adjoined slum and cemetary in Taipei: Part 1-Slum.

Last summer when I was in Taipei I stayed for a week and change at my friend Cerise’s house, located in a nice new looking development up the hill a bit from Xinhai Station, on the Muzha MRT elevated train line. The area immediately around the station looks to have been a center of carpentry and similar workshops since well before the station was built in the early 1990s (Muzha was Taipei’s first MRT line, built from 1988 and opening in 1996), and still surround it.

Behind the station are several of the aforementioned workshops, beyond which is a hill, upon which is a traditional Chinese cemetery of the kind popular in Taiwan. This is not particulary weird, but what is kind of weird is that in between the cemetery hill and the immediate vicinity of the station is a small cluster of private homes that I can’t describe in one word any more appropriate than “slum”. These photographs are of the cemetery itself, and Part 2-A: Slum is the gallery of photographs of the area from the station to the area to the cemetery proper.

All photographs here taken with a Canon 300D camera with 17-85mm EFS lens, on August 1, 2008.

Here are a flash slideshow, recommended for full-screen mode, followed by HTML for the flash challenged.

Here is the view from the path leading up the hill into the cemetery.

Continue reading Photo festival part 2-B: Adjoined slum and cemetary in Taipei: Part B-Cemetary

All applicated

I just finished my interview for the MA program at Kyoto University, the final section of the application which consisted of a written exam on the 3rd and a written application including a 20,000 word paper – with all of these parts done in Japanese. When I stop to think about it for a moment it really all feels a bit unbelievable that I am doing this in a language that 5 years ago I could never have imagined being sufficiently proficient in, and 10 years ago could never have imagined even studying in the first place.

Google Reader shared items meets the Adamukun blog!

Now my shared items are easier to view than ever — check them out as the top post on the new and improved Adamukun blog! I have also beefed up my sidebar.

As always I will keep my juiciest tidbits for the MFT audience (and occasionally Neojaponisme), but for right now I am having fun messing around with the Blogger settings and posting complete randomness.

While I am here, allow me to place the unqualified Adamu seal of approval on my new favorite band, Mates of State. I’ve been annoying my colleagues by humming this same tune for the past week or so:

Also, just curious: anyone else going to see Death Cab next weekend?

My illegal post about the image rights campaign

Here is the copy of an ad promoting the “STOP! Image Rights Violations” campaign that currently stares at me during my morning commute (emphasis added):

The names and likenesses of entertainment talent and athletes are important business property. They are shared property created through the tireless efforts of the talent and athletes and the business efforts of the production companies. The rights protecting this property against unauthorized use by others are called “publicity rights.” In Japan, there have been many court cases acknowledging the importance of these rights, but since there is no clear stipulation of these rights in the law, in reality there is no end to cases of infringement.

I don’t have a ton to say about this now, except (a) you could make the case that the absence of laws explicitly protecting consumers’ rights to reuse commercial material to express themselves leads to patently pathetic violations as I have noted before (here’s hoping the Fair Use initiative passes this year); and (b) interestingly, Johnny’s Entertainment does not appear to be a member of this industry association.

As usual, Wikipedia provides concise and interesting background reading on the topic!

YOU are invited to the Japan blogger confab Jan 17

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mutant Frog Travelogue is honored to be co-headlining the upcoming Japan blogger confab, to be held January 17 by the good folks at Transpacific Radio. Here’s what they have to say:

A gathering for bloggers and blog enthusiasts is being planned in Tokyo for the evening of January 17, and we would like to extend the invitation to any and all visitors who may wish to come. Bloggers from Observing Japan, Shisaku, Global Talk 21, Mutant Frog, Coming Anarchy, Trans-Pacific Radio and more will be amongst the crowd.

All of us are hoping to meet with other bloggers and readers for an evening of food an drink. If you would like to attend, please send an email to transpacificradio@gmail.com before January 8th. Please let us know how many folks you would like to bring along with you. Although we have a place in mind for the get-together, we will wait to see what the final numbers are like before confirming. We expect that the gathering will be held in either Shibuya or Shinjuku. After we have confirmed the numbers and location, we will send you an email letting you know exactly where and when (probably about 6pm) we will be meeting up on the 17th.

We hope to see you all on the 17th of January!

I hope some of you can make it, particularly our new friends at Infinite Cash Secrets.

Adamu’s best posts of 2008

Following up Roy’s latest, I thought I would post my personal favorites from 2008:

40% of Japanese blogs are spam — This wasn’t my own discovery or anything, but it was nice to see a reality check from the oft-cited “Japan is the bloggingest nation” myth.
The New Yushukan — Reflection on my trip to the war museum connected to Yasukuni Shrine. No pictures, but I was very pleased with the discussion it generated.
Why does Japan need more foreigners again? — I look at some of the recent arguments calling for calm, rational debate on Japan’s immigrant question, and conclude that Japan needs a comprehensive but conservative immigration policy.
No photos please, this is a press conference — I was shocked — SHOCKED! — to learn that pop stars don’t like fans taking unauthorized photos of them.
Japanese TV is full of dangerous frauds — I again express righteous anger at the prospect that the people on TV might not have my best interests at heart.
Where will all the eikaiwa teachers go? — Some tough love for all those unemployed English teachers out there. Again, if your best job prospects in Japan aside from English teaching are truck driving or electronics sales, it’s time to think about boning up your resume.

I also wrote some pieces for David Marx’s Neojaponisme project, all of which I am fairly happy with. In addition to a review of TV drama Change, I co-translated a series on the WaiWai scandal and contributed two essays to the site’s year in review, on Roppongi Hills and the lay judge system.

Though 2008 was a light year for posting, I feel like there was more substance to what I did end up writing. This year, I acquired a taste for persuasive writing (not sure how many people I persuaded…), and my experience with Neojaponisme in particular has made me a better essayist. My goals for next year are to keep up the stream of thoughts on both sites, read more books, and hopefully get a better grasp of the media industry, a topic I have really struggled to understand but will no doubt be facing new challenges during this economic recession.

Happy new year everyone!

My best posts of the year

With 2009 almost upon us, I thought I’d try riding the wave of cheesy end of year roundups. Here are my personal favorite five items I posted this year. (Adam and Joe can of course do their own.

Visas I have known. Scans of all the visas in my passport (key data blacked out of course) with commentary.
Remembering the Railway of Death. A chronicle, in words and images, of the afternoon Adam, his wife Shoko, and I spent at the oddest museum I have ever seen. As a bonus, photographs of the modern state of the nearby Railway of Death itself.
Mr. Chang – Mr. Oyama. Notes on a conversation I had with a dying man while passing the time outside a 7/11.
A visit to Lo Sheng. A travel diary, with photographic slideshow, of my visit to Taiwan’s Japan-colonial era Leprosorium. Sadly, it appears that the government has (unsurprisingly) gone back on its promise to preseve Lo Sheng and allow residents to remain. Here is some Taiwanese TV news footage of the police breaking up a protest outside. You can see my friend Em being dragged away at exactly 1:00.
Tamogami, Motoya, and Abe. An easy selection for my best post of the year. Also see Tamogami Update and Still More on Tamogami.

Any disagreements? Was there anything else I should replace one of these five with?

The Obama effect

An ad for a company offering security services for managing sensitive and personal information such as client lists or employee data. Taken on the train during today’s morning commute.

2008 year in review at Neojaponisme

Neojaponisme is finishing out its first full year of existence in style with a review of all the events that mattered. My first contribution to the project, wherein I post the question “Was Roppongi Hills Tokyo’s last good idea?” is up right now for your entertainment. Go check it out!

Link: 2008: Roppongi Hills at Five