I checked out ふしぎな図書館 (The Strange Library) from my local library without even opening it. Murakami’s name on the spine was good enough for me. I brought it with me on my first attempt to go to China, and ended up reading the whole thing on the train on the way to and from the airport.

The book hasn’t been translated into English so I don’t feel bad divulging portions of the plot since few of you will likely be reading it. A boy goes into a library, is sent down to the basement to ask an old librarian for help, is tricked by the librarian, and ends up spending a great deal of time locked up in a cell of sorts deep beneath the library.

Some of Murakami’s common themes show up here, even though this book is somewhat different than normal for him. Like his other works, the symbolism makes the reader think. Beyond those aspects, I found Fushigi Na Toshokan rather entertaining just because the setting is so much like the library at Waseda University. Perhaps that is where Murakami got the idea (as he was a student at Waseda many years ago).

At the Waseda University library you enter on the second floor. When you go down a floor you are forced to remove all of your belongings and put them in a locker (which wouldn’t be so strange were it not for the fact that you don’t have to do that on other floors where there are plenty of books one could possibly steal as well). You then show your ID to obtain a pass to go into the basement. The basement includes a huge collection of books. Below the basement is yet another basement with another huge collection of books. This basement below the basement is where I normally go as some of the books are in English. The ordering is rather bizarre for the non-Japanese books. They aren’t grouped by language, so on a single shelf you will find a book in English next to a book written in Russian next to a book written in Spanish, etc. Nor do they use anything like the Dewey Decimal System, although they are numbered. For instance, I found Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World on a shelf and proceeded to explore the books around it, hoping there would be other guidebooks or books about Japan. Instead, there were marketing textbooks and other books with the word “market” in the title.

Anyway, under the second basement of the Waseda University library is yet another basement. This third basement is roped off. I suppose this third, unreachable basement could have been fodder for Murakami’s imagination, resulting in this book.

One other strange thing about the Waseda University library is that many books must be “ordered” online while you are in the library. The ordered books mysteriously appear at the first floor desk 10 minutes later. I always want to look on the shelves around the ordered book I know I want to see what else may be of interest. This is especially true of works in English since there are so few English titles available at other libraries. I’d like to browse the shelves where these books came from, but that isn’t allowed. This is similar to what happens in ふしぎな図書館 as the boy can’t look for his own books. Instead, the librarian retrieves them for him.

I like how Murakami shows how quickly us humans can turn the craziest of situations into “normal” in a short period of time. It doesn’t take long for the boy in the story to get settled in to a life of bondage on the one hand and having a cook who is half boy and half sheep on the other. The initial shock wears off quickly, and it doesn’t seem so strange that someone can be part boy and part sheep. I ponder this, by the way, as I sit in a Japanese restaurant next to Waseda University on a cushion on a tatami floor, slurping soba, while Frank Sinatra plays in the background. Someone who has never been to Japan before would find this scene extremely odd, perhaps even Twilight Zoneish. I now find it “normal.”

ふしぎな図書館 by 村上春樹 is actually a picture book (絵本) of sorts as every few pages is a picture. I’m not sure who ふしぎな図書館 is aimed at, as it is pretty creepy to be a little kids’ book, but there are furigana next to many kanji, even some that aren’t that difficult. Murakami is fairly easy to read in Japanese to begin with. This book, with the pictures and furigana, is an excellent choice if you are looking to improve your Japanese and can read a few hundred kanji.

Posted on March 8th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: book review, haruki murakami, Japanese Language Study Methods, waseda university. Comments: None

Fall semester ended at Waseda University early in February. The entire campus was immediately transformed into a giant testing center. For most of February there are daily entrance exams for high school students (and some college students looking to upgrade schools) trying to get into Waseda. Most of the normal entrances to campus have been closed. The one or two that are open feature tight security.

For the few of us walking around campus it is rather bizarre. Just a few weeks ago there were tens of thousands of students. Now you can do several laps around the buildings and see few, if any, people. Regular students cannot enter campus.

The other morning, a Sunday no less, I happened to arrive just as some test takers were. We were greeted with shouts of ohayo gozaimasu (good morning) and ganbare (good luck/hang in there/do your best) from a cheering section of people. Not only did I have to show my ID to several people in order to get to my office, I had to show my ID to leave campus as well. I’m guessing they had a problem with someone pretending to be someone else to get that someone else into school at least once in their history. Why else would they have this ridiculous amount of security?

The sign above says test takers are not allowed to leave campus until the last test has been completed.

Personally, I prefer the normal campus to the February “prison” campus.

Posted on February 24th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: buildings, signs, waseda university. Comments: None

I have finally figured out how to take this shot. How many times have you wanted to take a picture of someone indoors in front of a bright, outdoor background only to have one of the following three things happen?

1) Person comes out OK; background is completely white
2) Background comes out OK; person is completely black
3) Flash bounces off window making the background look like it just got sucked into a wormhole

I have had the above three items occur on many an occasion. Through trail and error and error and error… I have found the solution. First, make sure your flash is on. You may even need to force it to flash. Second, focus on outside target. Third, move so that you are not directly pointing camera at outside window anymore. (i.e., you should become more parallel to the window than your initial perpendicular focus required in the second part above) Finally, center the picture between the outside and your person and take the picture.

The outside should look good as it was your focus. The flash should not hit the window since your camera is no longer directly pointing at the window. Your person should also look good as the flash lightened them up.

By the way, this is Ellie on the 14th floor of a building on the Waseda University campus with the Shinjuku skyscrapers in the background.

Posted on February 9th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: ellie, shinjuku, waseda university. Comments: 1

The fall season and “back to school” go hand-in-hand in many parts of the states. In Tokyo the fall colors a delayed by not weeks, but months. Today’s photos were taken in December. The foliage on the Waseda University campus, although mostly gone now, was quite beautiful in late November and early December.

Once the leaves began to fall, the campus looked quite different in early morning, before the cleaning crews arrived. The place was blanketed in leaves.

Unfortunately, the Japanese are far too efficient at raking leaves. They do so on a daily basis so seeing the leaves on the ground is something of a rarity.

In the above photo you can see three grounds keepers removing the fallen leaves, pretty much as they fall. There were probably 10 people on campus doing nothing but making sure leaves were not under foot. I would have preferred to walk through a few inches of the stuff myself.

Posted on December 17th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: people, Tokyo, waseda university, 紅葉. Comments: 1