Preoccupied with Occupation

It's been a while since I updated this blog, so rough as it is, I'm giving it the old college try.

For those of you who have seen 'Love Hina' (bareta!) the scene on campus today would have been deja vu. But not quite. Today after all was the day entrance exams are conducted for the incoming 2005 class, and for that very important reason, campus was locked down pretty securely. The big red gate 'Aka-mon' was shut, except for a slim little door to the left, where staff with official armbands checked IDs. So much to be won or lost on this day . . . But oddly enough the students (some still in their highschool uniforms) I came across seemed in rather high spirits, chatting and flirting.

Also kind of reminds me of Maison Ikkoku, which by the way is being resurrected from its original 1980s run by its publisher for one more reprint. Just in time, I'd say, for the 'PURE LOVE' boom. That term, jun'ai, has achieved vortextual status now on the heels of such sentimental dramas as 'Winter Sonata', 'Sekai no chushin de ai wo sakebu' and 'Ai ni Yukimasu'. Does the term denote a new aspect of Japanese society, or just a new way to talk about Japanese society? Here, I defer to Kaori Shoji of the Japan Times who does a remarkable job explaining the 'phenomenon' with a straight face. And yet, through her obsessive use of quotation marks for all the 'so-called' 'phrases' 'Japanese' people employ, I can't help detecting an ironic smirk behind the earnestness. Surely she must think it's silly; the quotation marks seem to put plenty of distance between what she herself thinks, and 'what people say'.

So 'pure' love is back. And so are the 1980s. Though they gave love. . . a bad name (bad name).

In other news, I'm doing some heavy-duty translating for my advisor here, who has somehow amassed a large cache of WWII Japanese propaganda. It's rather sad, and unnerving work, but at times hilarious. Makes you wonder if our own occupation of Iraq is really drawing on the correct historical metaphors. Instead of the 'successful' occupations of Germany and Japan, maybe we should contemplate the short-lived Japanese occupations of Manchuria and China as well. By the way, I've been helped a great deal by a new dictionary on the palmpilot: Plecodict. It's the only portable solution I've found that lets you enter traditional hanzi (characters) by the pen/stylus, and get pinyin romanizations (and definitions) out of it. Needless to say, that thoroughly streamlines using my big fat Xian dai han yu ci dian paper dictionary. Finally, the tools that I need. . .