Tigers and Cranes

i have posted a japanese movie review. future japanese and korean movie reviews can be found on the right side of the column, under “pages”. please feel free to comment, and to post your own ratings, if you’ve seen the film. thanks!

excerpt from the review page:

“shin yukiguni” 新雪国, [new snow world, or new snow country] is a film by the director goto koichi.

it’s a story of a failed tokyo business owner kunio shibano sullenly played by okuda eiji. in his fifties, after his business having failed and a mountain of debt and creditors out for his blood, he sells his house, is divorced from his wife, and with what cash he can muster, decides to find a quiet place up north in the small town of tsukioka to blow his meager remaining fortune and, ultimately, to die…

read full review and screenshots

introduction of shiny new cellphones keep marching on in korea.

not content to have a bestseller on its hands with LG “chocolate”, LG has announced “shine”, a large-ish cellphone with brushed aluminum body and 1 gb of memory for your mp3 and photo needs.

the phone comes with a 2 mp camera, and pretty awesome for a cellie, the lens is made by schnider-kreuznach, a well known german optical company, which should allow for some decent photography. as well, it also has the ability to capture video and display it as a moving wallpaper.

it also includes the M-bank functionality, which is similar to japan’s FeliCa, in that you can pay for stuff using your cellphone.

from AVing usa

i received a comment from katana at hemmy.net, since the indivi store posting a couple days ago that i made linked to a website that pretty much stole katana’s posting. tsk, tsk. some people.

anyway, while checking out hemmy.net, i came across a link for a doraemon fishing game.

in this flash game, doaremon rolls out one of his magical mats that unfurl into an aquarium as he fishes for his next sashimi meal. just be careful you don’t grab the shark… even robot cats can get a heart attack.

play the game here.

i’ve been hearing something recently about… what was it, a nuclear bomb test of some sort going on in north korea.

generally, i don’t cover stuff that’s political, simply because there are other excellent blogs out there that cover stuff like this, for example, the lost nomad and the marmot’s hole. however, since this issue seems to be a fairly significant development, please allow me to report that,

1. i guess north korea has conducted an underground nuclear bomb test
2. nobody really likes this idea, not south korea, not japan, not america, nor russia, nor even the chinese
3. the test prompted some in south korea to declare that “well, we can build one too, in about a year.”

it is said that japan has the technology and the plutonium stockpile to summon godzilla… sorry, i meant create a nuke. now a law maker for the grand national party of south korea claims that south korea has the tech as well as enough fissile uranium(wussier nuke cousin of plutonium) to build some too.

“According to many domestic experts, South Korea currently has technologies enough to develop atomic bombs with uranium within a year,” Suh said.

“The experts also think it would take a couple of years for us to build up plutonium bombs and deploy them if overseas checks do not stand in the way,” the 60-year-old said.

source: the korea times

a nuclear bomb in south korean hands would be a purely a deterrent measure, as the country handily outclasses its neighbor to the north in terms of:

1. airforce

T-50 indigenous supersonic trainer, the “golden eagle”

2. navy

south korea’s navy is transitioning from “brown water” to a “blue water” navy

3. mobile warfare on the ground, namely tanks

K1A1 built by hyundai (yep, they make heavy stuff too), similar to american m1a2 abrams

4. command and control

only thing on paper that the north korean armed forces have an edge is sheer manpower, as their standing army is over a million strong.

both armies are armed to the teeth with some awesome man killing devices facing off each other less than 40 miles from south korea’s capitol. man, one can only hope things turn out well…

this is one clever advertising idea… surprised i haven’t seen it already.

at an indivi clothing store in tokyo, there are mirrors with popular clothing item pasted on them, as you can see, a dress, and a pair of jeans, etc. a shopper simply goes up to a mirror, and instantly see how that item would look.

i personally really like this idea, as i dislike whole notion of trying on clothes in a fitting room. first, i can’t really be sure what type of dirty weirdo has worn the clothes before me, and in the shoddy, harsh fluorecent light of a dressing room, i look like an emaciated zombie trying on a pair of ridiculous looking fashion puffery.

and what of the people who work at these dressing rooms? is it just me, or do other shoppers feel guilty when they try something on, and it looks totally ridiculous, but feel like they’re obliged to buy the said merchandise because otherwise you feel like you’ve been wasting the clerk’s time?

oh, it is just me? okay, then.

another reason i really hate dressing rooms, especially japanese and korean ones, is inexplicably, you’re forced to take your shoes off before entering one. the booth is small, and it’s carpeted, and once again you’re left to ponder the myriad of bacteria and fungi inhabiting the carpet. how is one supposed to appreciate how flattering a jacket or shirt or what have you makes you look when your mind is preoccupied with thoughts of micro biology experiments occuring beneath one’s foot?

so i say bring on more of these mirrors with portraits of clothes. it’s the only civilized way to go.

from creative advertisements around the world

myung dohng, [명동] (明桐) is one of my favorite destination for visiting seoul.

it’s centrally located, and it’s easy to get to, with a number of subway lines, buses, and taxis serving the area. on weekends, it’s jam packed with shoppers and diners thronging past the crowd and occasional delivery vehicles. it’s loud, bright, brash, and mysteriously, a huge time sink.

let me explain.

the district is laid out in a grid, no more than say ten blocks in any direction, yet, for one to navigate through the densely packed streets and numerous alleyways, one must have a sense of direction akin to a homing pigeon. perhaps it’s because on the streets, there are so many things to see, as well as loud music blaring from all the shops and promoters shouting for their store’s bargains. one can also be mightily distracted by all the street vendors that sell all manner of souvenirs and fun little knick knacks.

all these distractions will eventually wear down your sense of direction, and all the lights and sounds will surely start clouding your determination to reach your destination, be it the puma store, one of hundreds of drinking establishments, or one of the largest coffe bean and tea leaf cafe i’ve ever seen.

once i spent nearly an hour looking for “doutor” cafe, which was a bedeviling experience. as one of the few truly japanese coffeeshops in korea, doutor is a remarkable facsimile of the japanese cafe of the same name, even down to the “push button automatic front door” and split level cafe area, complete with smoking and non-smoking section.

mys suggestion for navigating the confusing maze that is myung dohng? grab a free tourist map of the area, available in many a travel info kiosks sprinkled around the district, and make sure you have a compass. usually the map will have names of all the big shops labeled in english and japanese, and using them as a landmark, guide yourself around using the compass for bearing. sure, you’ll look like a total tourist fool, but it’s better than possibly spending an eternity lost in this bermuda triangle of seoul.

myung dohng is also one of favorite destinations of japanese tourists, as many higher end hotels are around the district to cater to their vacationing. thus, you will see many shops that advertise in both korean and japanese, as well as many bilingual shopkeeps. hottest places for the japanese tourists seem to be the authentic bulgogi restaurants(korean bbq), shops that sell roasted laver packs(seaweed), and lotte department store and “lotte young town” that are also near by.

Myung dohng is also home to the grand catholic cathedral, and although it can’t match the splendors of, say cathedrals of ulm or munich in germany, it does boast many large plasma screens indoor for those who are attending mass.

also withing walking distance is the “nam dae mun” marketplace, an open outdoor market bustling with many street food vendors and souvenir shops that specialize in clothes and handbags and such.

there are hipper and trendier districts in seoul than the good ol’ myung dohng, but those who are tight on time or wanting to get a full blast exposure to korean night life will do well to spend some time here.

it’s often said that as far as korean cooking is concerned, you can tell a lot by the color of the food on the table.

for example, any red food is considered extremely dangerous, as many korean cooks like to pile on red pepper flakes to give the diners that rectum burning fun. (rectum? nearly killed him! sorry.) it’s interesting to note that this national addiction to spicy food really only caught on recently, relatively speaking.

it’s believed that red peppers were imported into korea around 1700s, and from then on, koreans couldn’t get enough of this fiery berry.

most representative of korean dish has to be kimchi, and probably the most popular is napa cabbage kimchi. they come in two distinct flavors.

fiery hot version and “melt your stomach ultra spicy edition”. i saw a TV show in which a chef takes her kimchi making seriously, going so far as to age the salt that is used to pickle the cabbages. when asked why the need to age the rock salt, she replies that by aging the salt in a special sack, it give salt a mellower, sweeter taste. a sweeter taste? from salt? that’s like saying you age sugar for saltier taste. but, i’m no kimchi master, so what do i know. she would put her finished kimchi in clay jars, and instead of burying them in the ground as is the custom, would put it in her special “kimchi storage facility” which is perfectly temperature and humidity controlled. she would then sell them in seoul, but her secret location for storing the said fermented cabbages is, well, a secret. she’d drive for hours to retrieve the jars.

if there are two korean foods that the japanese have heartily embraced, they’re bulgogi (yakiniku), and kimchi. bulgogi, of course, means “fire-meat”, and as such, the japanese have taken special liking to kalbi, which is marinaded short ribs called “karubi” in japanese. these are a bit different than the ones you get in korea, as the portions are much smaller, and are usually dipped in a sauce called “tare” before being munched. there are some restaurants that serve bulgogi with similar sauce in korea, but it’s not a common thing.

kimchi is pretty popular in japan too, with most markets selling either jars or bags of the stuff. i’m happy to report that kimchi sold in japan are not quite as spicy as the ones you get in korea, but the flavor is pretty similar. many restaurnats and izakayas also have kimchi on the menu, but i’m sure most koreans would be outraged at the fact that you have to pay. in korean restaurants, kimchi is always free, as are kimchi refills.

the odd thing about this is, and i’m sure it’s purely pyschological, but when you are having some yakiniku at a japanese resturant and you actually buy some kimchi, it tastes really good. much better than the stuff you get for free. in fact, i barely ever touch kimchi when i eat at a korean restaurant, but when i order kimchi and pay for it, i sit there and savor it properly. i bet water would taste better if you paid for it. actually, i do pay for water, now that i think about it, in plastic bottles. and yes, i think it tastes better than that swill you get out of a tap behind a mechanic’s garage. but that’s just me.

for your enjoyment, i found this odd video of kimchi cup o’ noodle commercial. if you’ve never equated kimchi with sexy, well, then, this little video might change your mind.

it’s interesting some of the specialty stores that form a neighborhood in korea and japan. for example, in osaka, near “den-den town” (den, as in electricity) in nanba, there is a neighborhood of shops called “sennichimae doguya suji arcade” (道具屋筋) that specialize in supplying restaurants. anyone can buy things like noren, knives, signs, plastic food models, kitchenware, uniforms, as well as countless other restaurant and kitchen accoutrements. it’s a fascinating place to window shop, and marvel at sushi knives the size of a small katana.

“watanabe blade”

near myung dong in seoul, there is a grimy working class neighborhood called “ojang dong” that specializes in scooters and motorcycles. everytime i’m in korea, i enjoy staying in this neighborhood, because it’s always bustling, and i feel like i’m in a game of frogger as i dodge crazed scooter riders and dudes on three wheeled motor contraptions.

most of these look like they’re cobbled together from parts in a scrapyard, but ingenuity and sheer audaciousness of these contrivances always leave a smile on my face.

on my recent trip, i walked by one of many shops that chops up a two wheeled motorcycles to convert them into a three wheeled pickups, and had to do a double take because of the coolness factor of one of these machines.

this particular sample was meticulously designed and fabricated, with custom chain drive for the rear two wheels as well as big lever for what i believe is a reverse gear. a reverse would be a fine thing to have when you’re hauling hundreds of pounds of produce, i’m assuming. also, notice the nice matching paint job on the fabricated rear wheel fenders.

the reason that these things are so popular, especially in a city like seoul is because unlike, say, a pickup truck, these things are maneuverable and allows the rider/delivery dude to zip in and out of small alleys, with the added bonus of ignoring traffic signals.

thus, if you were to get pancaked in seoul, chances are pretty good that these trikes will be the ones to do you in.

doraemon, the blue earless robot cat from future has been voiced by a woman, one ms. ohyama. there was an outrage few months ago when the voice changed for the latest doraemon movie 2006, as the movie used another voice actor to voice doraemon.

not only is ohyama perhaps the most loved voice actress of all time in japan, she also has another talent; she is an arkanoid master. remember arkanoid?

it’s a “breakout” on steroids, where the object of the game is to use a paddle to bounce a ball to break blocks. introduced by taito in 1988, it’s a game mastered by ohyama, who when asked replies “i can clear the entire game with one 100 yen coin… but i can’t play any other games.”

in this gootube video, ms. ohyama demonstrates her skills, interjecting occasionally using her trademark doraemon voice.

found on tech e blog

a really interesting article submitted from a friend of mine posits that katakana may have originated from korea in the eighth century and imported into japan.

katakana table

A Japanese scholar has discovered, in a Korean Buddhist text introduced to Japan in the early eighth century, letters that look like katakana, indicating the kana system could have originated in Korea.

Yoshinori Kobayashi, professor of Japanese at Tokushima Bunri University, announced his findings Tuesday at a lecture at Otani University in Kyoto.

Kobayashi said that while katakana script is believed to have been invented in Japan around the ninth century, his findings suggest it may have originated in the eighth century on the Korean Peninsula and introduced to Japan through Buddhist texts.

a quick review, japan uses three writing systems, making it one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn to read and write. there is of course, hiragana, which originated as a “woman’s” writing system, since it incorporated many curves and soft strokes, and is used primarily for japanese native words like “すてき” [suteki - cool or neat], or “ありがとう” [arigatou- thanks].

hiragana is also used as a grammatical syllabary, that is, it’s used for things like conjugating verbs, for particles, etc., usually used in conjuction with kanji, the chinese derived characters. usually, hiragana is first set of characters japanese children learn, since it’s the easiest to master and to recognize.
most sources say hiragana is originally created from simple kanji to help write sounds phonetically.
here are a few hiragana characters: あいおうえかくしすきも…

second set of characters, and in my opinion much tougher to master, is katakana, so called because the character strokes are “hard” and more angular. these characters are what is speculated as coming from korea many centuries ago.

generally, katakana is used for words that are of foreign origin, especially english, for onomatopoeia, like “boom or whack”, and also for emphasis, as well as names of animals and fruits and such.

here are a few katakana characters: アイオウエカクスキモ…

notice the more angular and straighter strokes. katakana is harder to recognize since many character look very similar from one another. for example, compare these characters: オネホ (o, ne, ho) and these: シツンソ (shi, tsu, -n, so)

what the hell were koreans thinking when they gave these characters to the japanese? was it a cruel joke? they look so similar, i still have a hard time deciphering their sounds by glancing at them. to make matters worse, some singers who aren’t pure blood japanese have names written in katakana, like Sonim, who writes her name like this: “ソニン” [so ni n].

of course, once you master the these two syllabaries (japanese kana system isn’t a true alphabet, in a sense that you can’t combine consonants and vowels to make a word. hence, it’s what’s known as a “syllabary”. korean han-gul, on the other hand, is a true alphabet), you have a mountain called kanji to climb, with its literally thousands of chinese characters one must memorize. the task is doubly confounding because unlike, say, korean, where each character has only one sound, for example “馬”, which means a horse and is pronounced “ma”, in japanese there are many different ways to pronounce this character, depending on what letters come after, if it’s read as “kun-yomi” or “on-yomi” or “nanori”.

thus, this one character “馬” can be read, depending on context and possibly your mood: ba, uma, uma-a, ma, ta, ban, me, and mo.

the subtleties and myriad of rules that kanji adheres to is beyond the scope of this humble little website, and those who are interested in learning kanji are encouraged to join a sect of monks cloistered in a mountain to fully learn to read this crazy system.

back to the original point of this posting is the fact that a japanese professor believes that katakana originated from korea. and that makes me scratch my head because katakana or anything like it isn’t used in writing korean. sure, some of the characters look identical to korean han-gul, especially the characters “ス” “ヲ” “ロ”, but they could have been easily adapted from chinese character. and korean system of writing, han-gul, wasn’t invented until 1444.

i have yet to see any writings by koreans or any korean manuscript that has any writing similar to katakana, since before 1444, all correspondence was written using chinese characters (hanja).

but, i’m no researcher, so maybe professor kobayashi is on to something here.

read the full article here (need registration).