Music

It seems, unlikely, I know, but Japan's rock music industry is huge. Since I've been here the quality of the music is one of the things that's really struck me. Actually I've decided to write my dissertation on it next year. But anyway, what I wanted to do was introduce a couple of bands I've come to know, because really, if some of them had been born American, they'd be world famous. I find it a real shame that generally, if people can't understand the words straight away, they don't even try listening.

One thing - I know some of them have strange, messed up English names, but look past that. Anyway, here's a few bands I really recommend looking up on Youtube (most of them have official legal channels):

Radwimps

Well, I can go on about this band for hours, as my friends here know. One of the best bands, musically, I've ever heard. These guys have, over the course of six albums so far, covered almost every variety of music you can think of, all while keeping a distinct Radwimps sound, with picky guitar lines, genius lyrics, and most of all the singer's very unique high clear voice. The singer (Noda Youjirou), as it happens, is also the sole composer, writing all the music and all the lyrics. His voice isn't the strongest, I'll admit, but he knows how to use it, and he writes music for himself in that knowledge. And, best of all, I'm going to see them live in June *jumps around in excitement*.

Songs to look up: おしゃかしゃま (Oshakashama), セツナレンサ (Setsunarensa), 狭心症 (Kyoshinsho, 'Heart Attack'), 揶揄 (Yayu, 'Ridicule')... Well, there's a selection, but all the ones on Youtube are worth listening to.

ONE OK ROCK

These guys sound like a cross between about five punk-pop bands I used to listen to when I was in secondary school. They're brilliant. The singer, hilariously, was an original member of a cheesy pop boyband called Kat-tun, who are still very much at the top of the charts, but couldn't be more different to what he gave it up for. Thank goodness he did, though.

Songs to look up: アンサイズネア (Answer Is Near), 自分 Rock (Jibun, 'Self Rock'), Keep It Real.

シド(Sid)

Okay, this band are in the genre Visual Kei, which is an almost exclusively Japanese thing, and can seem a bit weird to people who haven't come across it before. Basically they have a very distinct look, which involves over-done hair, makeup and clothes. Actually these guys are pretty normal compared to some other ones I could name (cough cough Vidoll cough), and their music is really good. Also, it's worth looking up The Kiddie as well - they have a slightly different more in-your-face visual style (it's called Oshare Kei) but their music is also pretty good.

Songs to look up: 乱舞のメロディー (Ranbu no Melody), レイン (Rain). The Kiddie: Smile, Elite Star+.

Acid Black Cherry (ABC)

This is in fact less a band and more a vocalist with backing musicians. The vocalist in question, known simply as Yasu, was the singer of a very very famous and popular Visual Kei band called Janne D'Arc, and when they split up he went solo with new band members. He's one of the strongest Japanese male vocalists I've heard and he has one heck of a stage presence. The band's music is heavier, around the middle of the Visual Kei spectrum I'd say. One note: ABC rather like dressing up as their alter-egos, girls and geeks, and having very silly music videos.

Songs to look up: Black Cherry, 眠り姫 (Nemuri Hime, 'Sleeping Princess'), 20th Century Boys

Doping Panda

Stepping away from the rock for a minute, these guys are a bit different - punky electro dance pop, is how I can describe it. But they're fantastic. And mad. And they have a name which makes people on youtube find them accidentally while hoping to find a video of a panda on drugs. Not me, I'd like to point out, other people on the internet. Oh, they also write a lot of their stuff in English. Well, not perfect English, but you can forgive them for that.

Songs to look up: Beat Addiction, Miracle, Nothin'

I could come up with more, but I think that's enough to be getting on with. Oh, just one more thing - the song 'Tonbi' by Androp is absolutely divine, but unfortunately is their only notable track. Still very very much worth listening to, though. I had it on repeat for two days.

Lecturers

We started lectures again two weeks ago. Due to bad scheduling, almost everything I wanted to do clashed with something else I wanted to do, so I ended up with very little choice. Timetable wise, I have Wednesdays and Fridays free, with four lectures in a row on Thursdays and three spread between Mondays and Tuesdays. It's probably the worst timetable I've ever had. Yes, I have a lot of free time, which might sound fantastic, but in a tiny little country town like this, there's nothing else to do but go to lectures.

Apart from that, the lectures are much the same as last term: generally boring, with a few rays of sunshine here and there, and very very easy to pass. One of my classes requires 60 points to pass, and gives 60 points if you turn up to every lecture. As we've found, Japanese universities don't put too much emphasis on actually studying. It's bad for me; I've become very lazy since being here and going back to England is going to be a shock.

Grumbling aside, what I was going to write about was a trend we've noticed among Japanese lecturers. Basically, they ramble. I don't mean they go walking over moors looking at flowers, I mean they spend 90 minutes of a lecture talking about everything except the actual subject.

My level 4 Japanese language teacher is a fairly good example (he once spent twenty minutes at the beginning of a lesson teaching us about palm reading), but the worst I've experienced is my new Classical Japanese teacher. In the first lecture we had with him, we did around ten minutes of actual work, and spent the rest of the 80 minutes listening to him air his views on a range of topics. His name, as we learned, can be read both Tawata and Tawada, but is indeed definitely Tawata, and any poor soul who gets that wrong must beware the consequences. Korean characters, as well as Japanese ones, are also derived from Chinese kanji. The phrase "I think, therefore I am" is said in old-fashioned language in Japanese, English and French.

The second lesson brought us discussion on the stupidity of English plurals, particles in Russian, and Japanese puns. If the rest of the term is the same, I will come away with absolutely no knowledge of Classical Japanese, but a large range of fascinating and entirely random facts, mainly based on Languages of the World.

Well, it should be fun, at any rate.

Spring

Japan is famous for its cherry blossoms (sakura).

For the last four days in a row, I have been to four different sakura-viewing parties (花見, hanami, literally "flower watching") in the same place. My mother, on hearing this, responded with a sarcastic comment about the wild life of teenagers these days, so I felt it was important to explain the concept of hanami to those who are less in the know.

In Japan, the sakura obviously have a massive significance, although exactly what, I'd have to look into. Every year they all come out at almost exactly the same time; in fact, a friend told me that on our campus, the sakura trees along one particular road purposely all have the same DNA, and therefore flower at exactly the same time every year. So, couples, friends, families and other groups go to sit among the trees and admire their beauty.

I got the idea, from a rather rambling teacher, that traditionally hanami is quiet reflection, revelling in the beauty of nature, poem writing, that kind of thing. Nowadays, however, at least among young people, it usually involves a lot of alcohol, snacks and general merriment. I say among young people, but today while we were sitting there, a group of middle-aged men came and set up a barbeque right underneath a sign which said "Barbeques prohibited".

So I hope that clears things up for my mum.

Safety

It's something a lot of people know about Japan and it's something I've noticed a lot since being here: Japan is an incredibly safe country. To the extent that I can walk home from a bar alone at 2am and know that no-one will even look at me. To the extent that when I went back to Sheffield I noticed how unsafe I felt walking down the high street and into MacDonalds with a huge overnight bag.

Today, though I got an extra reminder of it. I got very very bored of sitting in my room and decided to walk to the big second-hand DVD/CD/bookstore in Saijo (which takes about 50 minutes). By the time I came to walk back, my foot, which is still injured from a previous outing, felt like it was on fire, so I waited for a bus. Except I missed one, and ended up sitting at the stop for about half an hour.

While I was waiting, the elementary school (shougakkou, ages 6-12) behind the bus stop ended its day, and a steady stream of about two hundred small children suddenly appeared. As they got to the double crossing, half of them went across straight, and half of them turned right. As I watched them get further away I realised that there was not one adult with them. It was so different to the end of my day at junior school (for you Americans, that's ages 7-11).

When our lessons ended, we used to go out into the playground, where mummy or daddy or both would be waiting to take us home, whether it be walking or cycling or driving. Only the oldest kids with the closest homes used to walk by themselves.

I began to wonder about the reasons for this. Perhaps it's partly because Saijo is such a small country town that all the children live within twenty minutes' walk of their school. Perhaps the schools arrange it so that the children who live near each other walk home together. Or perhaps it's because Japan is such a safe country that the parents don't feel like their children will be unsafe walking the streets alone.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone living in a different area of Japan - do young schoolchildren walk home alone in Tokyo, for example?