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| JET Adventures 50 - Film festivals, typhoons and learning Japanese |
| Monday, July 17, 2006 |
There are a surprising number of creative types in the JET community here. People are always writing books, getting poetry published in esteemed magazines, making beautiful glass sculptures (and burning their faces off), and making all kinds of music. But the most popular artform here is film-making. Last night I went to a film festival that featured films from two JETs here. Phil and Jaimee couldn't be more different; Phil's next movie is going to involve big explosions and getting marines to be extras. He's shipping in his friends from America to help him. I'm not sure what Jaimee's next film is going to be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it featured half an hour of a close up of a girl imprisoned in her own mind, within her own mind, within her own mind, shot in black and white. The film festival showed 7 of their films, back to back, so it was like one big film that alternated between light-hearted all American apple-pie romantic comedy and darkside kafa-esque despair surrealism.
People have been giving me stuff. Since my iPod died a lot of my friends have been donating music to ease the loss of my entire music collection. And a lot of people are leaving so there's been quite a lot of random presents too. This week the highlights were: some South Park dvds, CDs ranging from Detroit techno to West African hallucinogenia, a ridiculous amount of candles and incense, and a lava lamp. As a bonus, I also got the last episodes of Lost (hallelujah!) and Robot Chicken (thanks Tony :))
I also finally started Japanese lessons again - an hour and a half every week with a private teacher. She's brilliant! I just turn up at her house, drink tea, and attempt to speak Japanese (and fail miserably). I need it though - after a year here, my Japanese is still pretty rubbish. I know it's surprising, but I don't actually get much of an opportunity to use it. The only people I really speak Japanese to are taxi drivers and my students - and the conversations I have with them are a bit odd to say the least. Here's an example: last week some students came up to me. One of them said "Alice, you smell good, why?" I said I didn't really know and her friend said "Oh, she has that gaijin smell, you know, all gaijin smell good." Then they all nodded sagely and wandered off.
So in my first Japanese lesson I learned the word for season (shiki). I was like "oh, so the Japanese for typhoon season is 'taifu-no-shiki'?" And my Japanese teacher said "no, the Japanese for typhoon season is 'typhoon season'". I'm hoping to see a real typhoon this year, but my teachers are already doing that thing they did last year where they get all excited and jumpy about a potential typhoon that's coming (they spend all day on the internet, avidly watching the satellite maps), and then at the last minute, the typhoon dramatically changes course and goes off somewhere else. I'm going to rename 'typhoon season' and call it 'beach season' - today is Sea Day, where Japanese people get the day off to go to the beach. This week is the last week of term (yay!) before 'beach season' officially starts :) |
posted by Alice @ 10:48 am  |
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