Category: Personal/Blog News

Osaka Nostalgia Part 1

When I was an exchange student in 1999, I spent a lot of time hanging out with the other exchange students in Osaka. Led by a wily and hep raver pimp who shall remain nameless, we galavanted about town, club-hopping, flirting, complaining about our high schools, practicing Japanese with our entourage of official groupies, and drinking a lot. Given its convenient location, the Osaka/Umeda station was our hangout of choice. In particular, we spent lots of time waiting for each other in front of Big Man, a giant TV in front of Umeda station, pictured here:

For the year we spent on the exchange , Umeda station was something of a playground, or more of a launching pad for our numerous antics and mayhem. Safe from the watchful eyes of our parents and tossed into a society too polite to tell us no, we exchangers (who mostly hailed from Europe, Canada, and the US but included souls from such exotic places as Brazil and Australia as well) scammed the trains big time (more on that later), took advantage of Japan’s strange legal loopholes, sat around for hours nursing one cup of Mr. Donuts coffee, went on violent drunken rampages, hooked up with each other, hooked up with kids from the schools, hooked up with host sisters, got people pregnant (or “took it to the house” as one of my Swedish friends put it) and that’s just scratching the surface. I didn’t perpetrate all of the above myself, mind you, but I just want to emphasize that Umeda station was the launch site for all this madness. (Go to this Flickr site or this awesome site for more of an idea of what I’m talking about).

That is why I am saddened to hear that, according to the latest eyewitness reports, the beautiful Hankyu Umeda station in Osaka is being torn apart as part of area renovation plans. Hankyu is planning a full-scale revitalization of its flagship store in Umeda, and in the process developers have scaffolded off the entire station. This story tells of people saying their last goodbyes to the Old Umeda Concourse:


Anticipating the loss of the station they knew so well, Osakans capture the final moments of the Umeda Concourse in Kita-ku.

Saying Goodbye to Old Hankyu Umeda Station Concourse Walls

Sept. 13, Asahi Shimbun

Starting Sept. 14, the old Hankyu Railways Umeda Station Concourse will see a construction fence go up around it as part of the renovation project of Hankyu’s Umeda flagship department store. That means that the mosaic murals that line the tall walls and ceilings of the station will no longer be visible. Those who came to say goodbye brought their cameras to “capture the elegant form” of the station.

The fence will go up directly over the 6-meter wide walking path. The ceiling will be removed within the fiscal year, but Hankyu Railways is considering saving the murals and chandeliers.

I had originally thought that this was talking about this gigantic hallway:

To get to any subway station from Hankyu trains you have to pass through this area, one of the few expansive, open areas that I encountered in the “beautiful urban jungle” of Osaka. I think the Old Concouse actually refers to an old area of the station located away from any trains or foot traffic. It has cool little murals like this:

But to tell you the truth I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER!! This makes me even sadder than hearing it’s getting redone!

More than anything, thinking back on all this reminds me that I can never go back to my salad days as an exchange student.

As my own way of saying goodbye, Here are some random pictures of Umeda station that I culled from Google Image search:
Continue reading Osaka Nostalgia Part 1

The many Adam Richardses of the world

I figure this is OK to post since my full name is right on the sidebar of this page, so here you go. Ever Google yourself? I have, and I’ve noticed that there are some pretty successful Adam Richardses out there:

The heavyweight boxer (“Adam Richards (9-1) outpointed John Dixon of Gautier in a four round heavyweight fight.” Way to go, man!)

The local pro wrestler. Holy crap I’m such a badass! Check this out:

Name: Adam Richards

Nickname: The Chosen One

Faction: The Texas Mafia (w/ Kyle and Michelle Richards)

Hometown: San Antonio, Texas

Entrance: The arena goes dark and the lights begin to flash red as “New Abortion” by Slipknot hits the BlazenTron. Flames explode when the first yell is heard and when the first lyrics are heard, Adam Richards appears on the stage. After staring at the crowd, Adam makes his way to the ring, slides inside and moves to the far right corner of the ring to pose. Adam then jumps down, turns around and waits.

Fighting Style: Brawler

Persona: Adam Richards loves to scare the fans with all the painful moves in his repertoire. He hates the fans and everything they represent.

Signature Moves:
– Tornado DDT
– Frog Splash
– Standing Shooting Star Press

Finishers:
– Pure Impact (Swinging Sidewalk Slam)
– The Apocalypse (Electric Chair Drop)

Quote: “I live for the thrill of the violent moment!”

Superstar History: Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Adam Richards, who was trying to follow in his brother Kyle’s footsteps, tried to find a job in the wrestling business with no success. Even though Adam was a virtual unknown in the business, the Epic Wrestling Organization gave Adam a chance to compete with their company. It was on November 13, 2004, that Adam Richards worked his first match for the eWo against Devin Washington and Shane Nitro and impressed, even though it was in a losing effort. After a long wait in-between matches, Adam Richards got his first chance at eWo gold in a battle royal on December 22, 2004. The match was for the eWo National Championship. Adam lost the match, yet again impressed the company in a losing effort. On January 5, 2005, Adam Richards would again have a chance for more gold, this time for the eWo Gutz and Glory Championship. However, before the show took place, the company was bought by Kevin Void and has not had a show since. Tired of waiting, Adam decided to try his luck elsewhere and joined the Blazenwing Wrestling Federation to team with his brother Kyle and sister Michelle as the Texas Mafia.

Title History:
– BWF Hardcore Champion (1)

Way to be a champion!

The British Stuntman:

FIT AND CAPABLE TO UNDERTAKE ALL ASPECTS OF STUNT WORK, WILLING TO LEARN NEW TECHNIQUES.

Fight Director: Bugsy, Lion Witch Wardrobe, Man in the Moon, Team One

Special Skills: Twenty five years experience in the fighting arts both teaching and studying.
British National Martial Art Award for coaching.
Founded own style KUEN TAO.
Gymnastic instructor, personnel fitness instructor, Fencing instructor.
Coach to two British martial Art Champions in Kickboxing and Grappling.
Full Driving Licence including Fork lift and motorbike.
Fight Director.
Chinese Lion/Dragon Dance.
TRAINED IN HONG KONG.
First Aider.

Sweet! I need to get this guy to teach me how to take a punch.

The Australian Rollerblade Hockey player (of the “Snipers”). Lots of athletes, damn. I am such a dork, the only “sport” I play is Dance Dance Revolution.



The Australian commercial landscaper with a TV show. Lame!

The Utah engineering student:

Adam Richards dreams of designing or flying helicopters.

US: If you were a superhero, what would your name be? Why?

Richards: Super Dusty. Dusty was my nickname as a kid.

US: What is your pet peeve?

Richards: People that park next to the curb when their “only going to be there for a second”.

US: If you could travel anywhere where would you go? Why?

Richards: Alaska. It’s not crowded. I worked there for a summer and it’s really pretty.

US: What is your personal philosophy on life?

Richards: It’ll be all right.

US: What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken?

Richards: Any number of the stunts I did as a kid. They were all death defying – BMX riding, walking the conduit across the ravine, jumping off buildings trying to fly.

US: What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Richards: Anything with a bunch of chocolate and caramel swirls.

US: If you could go on tour with a band, who would it be? Why?

Richards: Someone not on tour very long, I wouldn’t like it much.

US: If you had five hours of free time right now, and money was not an issue, what would you do?

Richards: Fly to Alaska and buy a plot of land. Then I’d figure out how to get back afterwards.

US: What were the last three books you chose to read?

Richards: “Fall of Baghdad,” “Ten Minutes to Normal” and “Plan of Attack.” They were just there at the library.

BOOOORING!!!! This guy can’t stop thinking about helicopters and Alaska… what gives?

OK, that’s enough for now… I’ll try and catalog some more Adam Richardses later.

Roll call: who can read Japanese?

The other Horie?

I’m just wondering how useful it would be for me to post Japanese-language links on this site. Take the following for instance:

Nippon News Network — Low-res videos of Japanese news stories. No ads, good selection.

Asahi Net News — Higher res, but the high res videos don’t seem to load well on my DSL.

The Diet NOW — A daily column by “citizen journalist” Hideo Hamada covering events in the Japanese Diet. His analysis has been indispensible for me recently as I try and understand developments leading up to the election.

Those are some things I’ve been reading. I’m interested to know how many people are out there who are like me (English native speaker who speaks/reads Japanese) and care about sites like that. Let me know!

I thought I had something to say but I lost my train of thought completely

1) Hip Hop Gospel Mimes — The best in the business. (Thanks SA)

2) Link to DPJ Candidate’s Website Goes to Porn Site Instead — Remember last year’s vice presidential debate? NO?! Well in it Cheney kept repeating some site name, and I thought it would be totally within the realm of possibility for the link he gave out to automatically forward you to goatse.cx.. You know, since he’s so evil and all. Well anyway, Hiroko Mizushima, an opposition party member running for office in Japan’s upcoming election, came close to fulfilling my fantasies. A link to her site posted on the Osaka Prefectural Chapter of the Democratic Party of Japan’s website mistakenly pointed instead to German site “Porn Diamonds” (LINK NOT SAFE FOR WORK). According to Mizushima’s staff, she had changed her site’s address after her provider went out of business, but the Prefectural Chapter just never updated it. Oops!

The face of international togetherness...

3) U.S. Targets Sex Abuse of Exchange Students — Think of it as a little like that scene in American Pie, only instead of an American supermodel faking an accent and stripping in front of a camera it’s a pathetic biology teacher (pictured above) sneaking into a girl’s bedroom and begging for head. Or it’s a fat Asian man feeding booze to Scandinavian boys and then trying to grab their ding-ding-dongs.

I wasn’t molested when I spent my senior year of high school in Japan, but I easily could have been, as the article explains:

Foreign students are among the most vulnerable minors because they usually do not know U.S. laws, are unfamiliar with customs, are dependent on host families or sponsors, don’t know what to do when abused or are afraid to act, according to Lt. Frank Baker of the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office…

“For a predator, this is the ideal situation,” Baker said.

Continue reading I thought I had something to say but I lost my train of thought completely

Help My Friend Masaco With Her English

I’m a little late in posting this, but here goes:

A friend of mine, Masaco (who has helped out with the content of MF several times, notably here and here), has opened a blog to help her practice her English. She is a highly-skilled Maki-e (traditional Japanese lacquerware) artist and eventually wants to be able to sell her wares on eBay.

Please take a look at her blog and feel free to comment on the English. You may get a chuckle out of some of the entries:

Gion bayashi(musical accompaniment in Japanese classical music at Gion festival) have expressed “♪Kon Kon Chikichin Kon Chiki Chin”．If you croon the Phrase after hear the Gion music, you wouldn’t hear except “Kon chiki chin”. It’s strangely. “Kon Chiki Chin” force out your original description.

The truth is that “Kon Chiki Chin” was only beginning.
I was once told by my father, The music at Aoi festival(one of 3 big festival in Kyoto) is expressed “Pii hyaaa la,hottoite”.By the way, “Hottoite” means “Leave me alone!!”. I could hear Aoi music “Hottoite” for sure, but somehow I can’t concent. Because…it’s too nonsense “leave me alone”.
Japanese has a lot of interesting expression, but I can’t concent that phrase “Chin ton shan”.This is sound of Samisen guitar.

I stray from the subject.At Gion festival, “Yoi Yoi saa! Yoi Saa!!” the reader’s word of command is 5/8 time signature……isn’t it??. Like a progressive rock or a jazz…..isn’t it???

Gambatte, Masaco!

New photos in Flickr

Some of you may have noticed that the links to my old photogalleries are gone, replaced by Flickr. For those who care, the old galleries still exist at the address Mutantfrog.com/gallery2/ but I was convinced by my friend Joe to try Flickr, and I decided that it was just an easier way to deal with uploading photos, and in particular a good way to avoid bandwidth charges.

That said, with the new service I’m going to try and post photos more often and regularly, and also with blog entries that provide more informative text.

Correction: Government only sort of asking people to use their real names on the Internet

Japan Media Review follows up on earlier Kyodo reports that the Japanese government was trying to end anonymity on the Internet by teaching them to use their real names on blogs from a young age, information that I passed along earlier.

Turns out the government has a slightly more nuanced take on the situation:

Later Monday, however, an anonymous blogger who calls his Weblog a “Diary of a Kasumigaseki Bureaucrat” (Kasumigaseki is the Tokyo district where most government offices are located) took the trouble of leafing through the panel’s draft report that had been published online earlier in the month and discovered that many of the Kyodo report’s descriptions didn’t match what the panel actually said in its report.

For instance, the blogger noticed that nowhere in the report did the panel actually advocate calling on people to use their real names in cyberspace, or to drop using screen handles. Rather, it outlined a more subtle argument. It noted that the prevalence of anonymity in Japan has led to an atmosphere in which many feel that it doesn’t matter what they do or say in cyberspace so long as they are not caught. To that end, raising the credibility of the Internet in Japan will require an improvement of general public “morals” online. Consequently, the report said, “It is necessary to teach [children] how to interact naturally with each other in cyberspace, using either their real names or some kind of assumed name.” Thus, he noted, the Ministry accepts anonymity, so long as it is practiced with good “morals.”

Moreover, business journalist Hiroyuki Fujishiro, writing his own column about the blogging world for Nikkei BP, checked the 86-page final draft of the panel’s report that appeared Tuesday. He noted that much of the rather inflammatory writing in the original Kyodo article, in which the Internet is called a “hotbed of evil” or “hotbed of dangerous information” and where anonymity is linked somehow to online suicide sites or to online information about bomb-making, does not appear in the report. He did find, however, that the panel displayed considerable concern about the “dark side” of the Internet, one feature of which was the irresponsible behavior that stems from anonymity.

I highly suggest that you check out Japan Media Review if they’re at all interested in Japanese and wants to read news about Japan or in Japanese. Their analysis is great and they offer a good set of links as well. Especially now that I don’t have the time to exhaustively check Japan news myself, I may end up depending on their coverage to keep up with media happenings. Thank god they’re funded by the US government.

Is blogging a good idea at all?

I get tremendously tired of all the self congratulatory talk about blogging that goes around on many blogs and don’t believe that I’ve ever posted anything of the sort, but there’s a first time for everything.

This column published today at the tech news and analysis site Ars Technica is a little troubling and raises some serious doubts about whether somebody who is even considering going into academia in the future should be blogging at all.

Blogging and job prospects: from the academy to the SCOTUS

Here’s the meatiest excerpt, but I would, as always, recommend reading the entire piece.

Ultimately, I think the answer to this dilemma is pretty clear: graduate students simply should not blog, and if they do blog they should never do so under their real names. As a grad student, your writing time is much better spent producing papers that will get you feedback from the folks who you’re paying to study under. Furthermore, anything that you have to say that’s even remotely interesting to anyone other than your parents and your best friend from childhood is not worth publishing online when it could easily come back to haunt you years later. And the more interesting and relevant your comments on the pressing issues of the day, the more you should keep them strictly confined to the kinds of everyday offline intellectual conversations that make academic life so rewarding.

Publishing edited content in an online venue is also very risky for graduate students, especially if you’re staking out a position on a highly charged topic. I know of at least one fellow grad student who failed the final round of a job search thanks to comments of his a on hot-button social issue that were published in the house organ of his denomination. Apparently, he came down on the opposite side of that issue from some influential faculty on the job search committee, and his candidacy was sunk.

Going to Taichung

I’m about to take a short weekend trip down to Taichung, the most central and third largest city in Taiwan. I’ll probably be back Sunday afternoon, but then I have a translation project to finish so I’ll likely be incommunicado until Monday.