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六地蔵

“Blessed are they who do not too much fear the gods which they have made!…

Descending the shadowed steps, I find myself face to face with six little statues about three feet high, standing in a row upon one long pedestal. The first holds a Buddhist incense box; the second, a lotsu; the third, a pilgrim’s staff; the fourth, the beads of a Buddhist rosary; the fifth stands in the attitude of prayer, with hands joined; the sixth bears in one hand the shakujou, or mendicant priest’s staff, having six rings attached to the top of it, and in the other hand the mystic jewel, nioi houjiu, by virtue whereof all desires may be accomplished… Archaic, mysterious, but inexplicably touching, all these soft childish faces are.

Roku Jizou — “The Six Jizou” — these images are called in the speech of the people…” (Lafcadio Hearn, 1894, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 35, 43)

Posted on December 6th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, japan pictures, jizo, lafcadio hearn. Comments Off on 六地蔵

Garden statue maker

“Most of us who now call ourselves agnostics can recollect the feelings with which, in the period of our fresh emancipation from a faith far more irrational than Buddhism, we looked back upon the gloomy theology of our fathers…

Japan has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity, either morally or otherwise, but very much to lose.” (Lafcadio Hearn, 1894, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. xii, xvi)

Posted on December 5th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, japan pictures, lafcadio hearn. Comments Off on Garden statue maker

Once again I have some issues of The Nihongo Journal available for the first reasonable offer. One issue is from November of 1993. The other is from January of 1996 and includes a cassette tape and case that goes along with it. The cassette has six different dialogues, training sessions, and JLPT oral practice quizzes on it ranging from 3 to 16 minutes each.

Posted on December 4th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: nihongo journal. Comments: 1

Read the Kanji

I’ve been playing around with the site readthekanji.com for a few days now. This site is a nice tool to improve your skills in reading Japanese (not just kanji) and in preparing for any level of the JLPT.

The registration process is painless and free. It doesn’t even require an email address. You do want to register as doing so allows you to track your progress. You will be shown the characters you are having the most difficulty with so that you can focus in and master them.

If you are just learning hiragana and/or katakana you can start at that basic of a level too. Otherwise you can choose to start at JLPT 4, JLPT 3, JLPT 2, or JLPT 1. Even if you start at a higher level (like JLPT1 or JLPT2) you will still be tested on more basic kanji. I recommend you read this page before beginning.

Happy studying!

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japanese language, Japanese Language Study Methods, japanese links. Comments Off on Read the Kanji

Mangajin

Once again I have finished reading a number of Mangajin that I’d like to send to you (as my shelves are overflowing). The six issues pictured are 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 47. All are in great shape except 31 which has minor water damage and a crease in the cover. It is still completely readable though, and there are no torn or missing pages. There is no writing in any of them.

Make me an offer if you’d like them.

Posted on December 2nd, 2008 under Japan. Tags: mangajin. Comments Off on Mangajin

Audition

I’m not sure how this movie made it into my Netflix queue. Perhaps I saw it in a list of “recommended Japanese movies” or maybe Netflix recommended it when I gave positive feedback on other Japanese movie titles. In any event, I had no idea what the movie would be like when I put it in my DVD player.

At first it seemed like a cutesie, chick flick with this perfect man and perfect son looking for the perfect female to enter their household to replace their long lost, and much beloved, okaasan who had died many years before when the teenager was just a small boy. I even called my wife in to watch as it seemed to be something more fitting to her tastes than mine. (She didn’t make it to the end.)

About halfway though the movie, or so, things suddenly took an abrupt turn to a darker and far more sinister undertone. My ten-year old daughter walked in the room just in time to see a sack lurch on the back of the screen. There may have been a strange sound emitted as well. I’m not sure. All I know is my daughter sprinted out of the room, and it was clear that this wasn’t just a chick flick.

Without giving too much away, I can say that you will have to be a fan of twisted movies to really enjoy the latter half of Audition. Takashi Miike borrows a page or two from David Lynch’s Lost Highway, one of my favorite movies. Movies like Audition and Lost Highway weigh on my mind for several days after viewing.

If you have seen Audition and want to understand it more, check out this. This movie isn’t really a horror movie, at least not in the classical or even modern sense of the word. It is different. It isn’t just for entertainment either. There are lots of uses for this movie. Here are a few that come to mind:

1) Use it on a bachelor when they decide to marry if you want to quickly convince them never to marry.
2) Use it on a child abuser to get them to mend their ways. Forget prison. This is way more effective.
3) Use it on someone who is into S&M for “fun.” They will no longer be into S&M for any reason. Period.
4) Use it on a person who sleeps too much. After this movie they will never want to sleep again.

Enjoy!

Posted on December 1st, 2008 under Japan. Tags: reviews. Comments: 1