Tuesday, December 9, 2003
Here is an essay written by someone.
Once at a mountaineering, we met an accident in pitch-dark yet wet jungle. We had had no way. In order to gain warmth, so I burned a book that I took with me. We never know if this could save us to survive till someone come. Each print that burns, which brighten my life before, is now warming my friends and me.
Something like that.
Before that, perhaps some explanation. In Japan, there is an "entrance exam" prepared by each company when to employ freshies. Normally essay is one of the main subject. Given a subject, and freshies write about what they think. Judgment basically stress on their thinking and opinion, rather than the scores. So, the subject given always related to current issue and common sense, which most of the freshies should know.
The above story was written by a freshy for an entrance exam. It brought up some talk in the company. It can't be real, some said. But as there isn't any rule written to say that "write only the truth but the truth, so "reality" wasn't an issue to reject at all. At the end, this student was employed. Now, (In Japanese language, there isn't a need to clarify the gender till I try to bring it into English,) the student has become a well recognised copy-writer in advertising line.
The subject given for the essay was, you guessed it, "My favourite book."
Ladybird in Tokyo Desert
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
So, at last I have helped Machilin-san to have her English blog up. Here it is. Give her some time, then when she gets her gear up to 3, she can drives you crazy with her bar-story at Kagurazaka, where she runs a cozy bar. I go there once in a while, just to have talk with her and have a couple of drink of sake. Yes, I mainly drink sake or shochu nowadays.
She is lovely, as sweet as Ladybird in Tokyo Desert.
Something About Literature
Friday, December 12, 2003
I wrote with the same title before, but it wasn't well written. Am trying to rewrite again. I know it will never be good, but hopefully better than the previous one.
Among the writers that I've read in Japanese, Ikezawa Natsuki is one of my favourites. I want to write more, discuss, or think about the topics he inspired me. Personally I think that more of his books should be translated into English as he is really a good writer that really writes. He has more German or French translation than in English, it seems.
Somehow, of no interest or of no economical value, I only found two English translation books that's available out there. No matter how much I talk here, people can't go further to seek more information about him in English, and that keeps me think what the hell I am trying to do here. Am I talking to myself?
I heard a lot about Murakami Haruki. Well, I do read his books, but his Japanese (language) is odd to me. Like his newest book Kafka on the Shore published sometime ago, In Japanese if you ask a negative question, aren't you? the way of answering is "yes I am not," or "no, I am." But in some part of the novel, his Japanese is the other way, just like the way in English. Reading his novel in Japanese but to convert the rhythm back to English is like driving on a highway and the engine keeps stalling. When can I get to the destination? So, what's that mean? May be he writes in English in his head for English readers right from the first place but not for the Japanese. He writes so that it is easy to be translated into English language (and others European languages as well). Could that be? How the hell am I supposed to know?
There are a few novelists who write the same, bad Japanese. Or, bad Japanese rhythm Japanese. But when it is translated into European languages, the translation sometimes even got awarded. That makes them popular when imported back to Japan. Normally people love imported goods than locally made product. That's what they called international.
And I found also that some Japanese are used to his (Murakami) English-toned Japanese, especially someone who can read in English (not have to be able to speak though) or been to overseas. Whereas someone who are brought up purely in Japan, ironically says, is he talking to me in Japanese?
Some says Murakami is global and not limited to Japan. I don't understand what product this people think Murakami is producing, we are talking about writing, not product. From literature point of view (of mine), the word global is so odd. Do they consume Murakami's novels like they consume electrical appliances, e.g. every household has a vacumn cleaner, a washing machine, a TV, and a set of "Murakami series"? So, does he represent Japanese? May be yes, but I don't know. Too big the question is that I don't feel like spending more time in knowing him and his philosophy.
Hey what's wrong with that? Nothing wrong.
Let's say I write a novel. In one situation, where a mother is teaching the kid how to hold chopsticks, and she says, "don't hold too high (from the bottom), because I don't want you to get married to someone far from home." If the mother is a Chinese, yes that makes sense because the Chinese chopsticks are long, me and my friends still talk about these thing, especially when they find that I hold my chopsticks really high, and I am really far from home now. Yeah, there was a sign that I was leaving home when I ate, huh?
But, if I write it in Japanese and having the setting that the mother is a Japanese, no one understand what it means. The length of Japanese chosticks is short and the part to hold is almost standard, so the above conversation will never come up in any Japanese dining room. If there is a chance, then people might think I am trying to write a suspense story, that may be the mother has a suspicious background kind of story.
May be there are people who fonds of this kind of writing. But, I find it smells too commercial, just exactly like the electrical appliances that fill up the Japanese household, which sometimes you really wonder when have they started thinking it is the way of life that it should have been all the while.
When you walk into a bookstore, and the books are trying to get your attention and ask you to "come on, just bring me back, you don't have to care what my contents are, everyone has one, so just buy me home!" that sort of books, I normally will not entertain these books at all. If it is a fashion, it will be gone soon. That's the fashion.
Everyone has its own definition about literature. To me, literature is what we read about different but real human being who live in another different world, but there is real life in it. And with people who live with real life is what makes it charming and worth reading. I can feel the novel is as if walking with its feet on the ground, not floating in the air, like a ghost.
Kurt commented on this post dated 02/19/2003.
Ken--first off, in a post about writing and translating and communicating the nuance of idea and example across cultures, you've done some great writing in English.
secondly, your post reminded me of an article I read awhile back which might be germane to this discussion. It's an article entitled "The Mysteries of Translation" and you can find it here:
About 7 paragraphs into the article, the author (Wendy Lesser) discusses Haruki Murakami, and specifically the differences between those books of his translated into English by Alfred Birnbaum, and those translated by Jay Rubin, and how she much prefers those by Birmbaum. Interestingly, the beginning part of Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" has been translated by both translators, and she does an interesting comparison of them in the article (the author thinks Birnbaum's is better, and I agree). But even more interesting is that Murakami's Norwegian Wood actually exists in two translations, one by Birnbaum in 1987, and one by Rubin when the book was published in the US in 2000. Apparently, the 1987 Birnbaum translation "was produced for distribution in Japan ... to enable students to enjoy their favorite author as they struggled with the mysteries of English." I haven't read either (the 1987 one is hard to find), but I find this fascinating, that this book would be translated into English but only for non-native English speakers, indeed, students of English. So your comment that perhaps he's already writing for an English audience from the get-go, or so his books can be more easily translated into English, took on an added angle after I re-read this article about translation.
And the interesting thing is, out of the two Ikezawa books in English, one of them is translated by, you guessed it, Alfred Birnbaum (A Burden of Flowers).
This is a reminder to myself. I want to continue writing about this topic.
Hey, Do You See my Point?
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Last october, after the yearly medical check-up conducted by company, I found that my eye sight has gone really bad. Here I am talking about the standard in Japan, You see, I don't really know if there is any difference between countries even compared to Malaysia, So, just imagine my situation.
When I joined the present company, I got a medical check-up as well. My vision was 1.5/1.5 at that time. As I was working full time in front of a computer, I felt my eye sight went bad after a year, but the result came out the same 1.5/1.5 too the second year's check-up. So I asked the nurse, I said I feel that my eye sight has gone really bad. But she said, in Japan, 1.5 is considered really good eyesight, and you are not even wearing lenses. So, no problem.
No problem??? Do you see the problem here? Which means that, the machine could only measure the best to 1.5 vision. It also tells me that, I might had 2.0/2.0 and the second-year I had 1.5/1.5, so it was considered good vision but the machine couldn't tell me anything more than that.
I told my colleagues about it, some of them envied my eye sight (most of the Japanese who wear lenses and still got 0.3/0.3 vision measurement). The machine used in Japan is not good, I complained to them. Then I was challenged with this story.
An African entertainer who used to appear on Japan TV, before he came to Japan, he was 5.0. And it fell drastically after came to Japan, some said because he doesn't need to see if there is any lion comes to attack his people anymore.
What is so called standard changes from time, situation, and the social value at that time. Vision text was important at war before at the old time, people were using raffles. Now? Even you wear lenses with 0.2 vision, you still can push the button.
One thing I think that in Japan there is something that destroys their eye sight badly is anywhere you go, there is this white fluorescent light turn on even in day time, and it is full of it everywhere the whole day. It's cheap and convenient but it is really bad for the eyes.
With that, I have moved my mail software to an older machine, powerbook 2400 that runs on Mac OS 8.6. It is still working well for mail checking, net surfing, and diary/blog writing. As it is slow, so I don't use it often. That keeps me away from computer, which is good for me, and now I read more as I got nothing better to do with the electronic box.
So, do you see my point?
There Comes the Crowd
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Dave, you were cute (sarcastic) recently. I have tones of questions to ask, but I won't post it, will keep it to myself so that I can keep thinking about it.
The main subject. I can't stop people from doing anything, but it seems someone has put me somewhere that caused some traffic directing to here these few days.
For those who have come over here via flyingchair, I am sorry to say that there is nothing interesting here. Sorry to disappoint you.
And for those who really know me, you know I don't need such attention. I can't even write properly in plain English! Don't drive me nuts. Besides, I don't know what authority it is. Put me under some spotlight will stop me from writing what I want to write.
Leave me alone.
She is a Yes-woman
Saturday, December 20, 2003
When we want to get the kids to go for bath, one of us will ask, who is going to take bath now? Usually 2-year-old Erin will reply yes. Sometimes when she is into something like watching TV or playing her own games, she ignores us.
My second girl Karin starts to "respond" to what my wife and me say. Few days ago, we got a hai from Karin instead of Erin. She is getting responsive.
Just now my wife took Karin for inspection. On the way to the hospital in the bus, the machine announced each station's name. The next stop is XXX-zaka, XXX-zaka.
"Hai!"
The next stop is XXX-bashi, XXX-bashi.
"Hai!"
Luckily she hasn't imitated to press the button. But, it is a matter of time.
Writing with a Pen
Saturday, December 20, 2003
Does anyone still write with a pen on a paper nowadays? I mean like diary? I know Jason writes on notes sometimes.
In Japan, there are a few weekly magazines that the circulations are in millions, bare in mind, per week. There are many writers, columnists who contribute to it. If it says publish every Thursday, it will be published every Thursday in the whole country except a few isolated islands. Besides, the readers are not the young one, but the old one, mainly the 40s and above. The contents are not novels or poem that last forever, more about the trend, the present incident, topic of recent discussion, so it cannot be accumulated pieces of artwork or writing that show too much a big gap between the contemporary interests.
Those who contribute articles in fact many of them still write on manuscript paper, send by express mail or fax to the publisher and the publisher typesets it and send it back to the writer for proofread (depends on the seniority and deadline, I think). The system runs the whole year for every week. There is only two week is holidays, August and December though bookstore or kiosk at the station or metro haven't any holidays basically.
The next week you go, for sure you will never get the last week issue. Think of the delivery system, the deadline, the numbers of people/party involve in the whole system. And the writers are writing with a pen? So does computer change the whole system? Getting faster? Nope, deadline becomes shorten. With mobile phone nowadays, editors can catch any writer anywhere anytime. So, what does techology means to a writer to be creative? He/she might get more "busi-ness" but not better creativities, I think.
Someone I know who is a writer in Japan, still using fountain pen writing on manuscript. And it seems he writes faster than those who type. This is not alphabet A to Z, it's Japanese with lots of chinese characters.
In English, when you want to get someone to learn something so that he/she will not forget, what do you say?
Learn by heart. Not with the keyboard. So, where has the heart gone to?
Somehow English only has 26 alphabet. May be that's part of the reason why Europeans tend to find something else to compensate it. I'm not sure of what is the "it." But, perhapss that's the reason also why contemporary civilisation has carried the world too far under the name of technology.
By the way, when was the last time you hold a pen or a pencil to express yourself? Or you are the new generation who think that keyboard is the "key" to civilisation? Goodness. I hope you don't go and open the backyard door, though.
The End of 2003
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Here comes the end of 2003, and tomorrow 2004 will be here. Anything to say? Nothing actually.
Sayonara, 2003! And hope the year to come will be a great year for you all!
Fruitful Crops
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Last year about this time, M shared her fruitcake recipe with us. I tried to get my wife to bake it as I enjoyed Christmas with fruitcake though I am not really a Christian. Well, the reason why I had it was because I lived with an Eurasian family before.
Fruitcake 2002. It was quite a bad one, seeing it from the point of view of year 2003.
There is no specific reason for me to do it every year, somehow I want to see how long can this go, how many years I can go on with making M's recipe, thinking of someone I have never met, and yet share lots of things in common with me. Or if there is a reason, I want to challenge something in future, one day I can say something like, "hey look, we have done this for years, and yet we are still doing it." Just to say that, I need to cultivate the earth, and take care of the little seeds I simply planted last year.
But, the fact that it grows, the ground has been moistened, and the little bud comes out. With what the reason I can give this up? Nope. And to continue, I just got to do my part, that's why I have made fruitcake again this year.
M, this is for you. Thank you. Merry Christmas! And for those who share and celebrate it.
