Japanese Culture

I learned alot about anime and manga at the presentation. I can't really say I've ever been into it, or that I'm inspired to get into it now, but it was still good to learn some of the basic framework of the genres. By big questions was what was the difference between the two, which I think is obvious to most people, but I researched to find the answer. Manga is written, in books, like a comic book. Anime is the movie or cartoon. It seems that Anime are very often taken from manga, like superhero movies are taken from comic books. The research I did tells me that diehard fans prefer manga because manga develops characters more thouroughly. I understand this perfectly, because I usually like a book better than a movie based on a book. Overall, good presentation, very well researched.

http://innocence.kuroi-hoshi.org/animevsmanga.php

Rashomon
by Fay Kanin and Michael Kanin

25-29 October
(Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 pm, Sunday at 2:00 pm)
directed by Annie-Laurie Wheat
Johnson Studio Theatre

Set in 12th century Japan, Rashomon retells the story of a double crime from the perspective of the participants and a witness. The contradictory accounts of these events explore the nature of truth and the conflicting world of reality and illusion. The play is based on stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Akiri Kurosawa’s film masterpiece.
Limited Seating
Box Office open 11am-3pm, Monday through Friday, starting 23 October!!

Call 803-323-4014 or email boxoffice@winthrop.edu for Reservations
Tickets: $8 with Winthrop ID/$15 general public
Visit us online at: www.winthrop.edu/vpa/Theatre_&_Dance/default.htm

---------------------
San Jose Taiko http://www.taiko.org/
Thursday, October 26 at 7:30pm

McGlohon Theatre at Spirit Square
For 30 years, San Jose Taiko (SJT) has been mesmerizing audiences with the powerful, spellbinding and propulsive sounds of the taiko drums. San Jose Taiko has broadened and embellished the historical art form into a style that joins the traditional rhythms of Japanese drumming with the beat of world rhythms including African, Balinese, Brazilian, Latin and jazz percussion. The resulting sounds are contemporary, exciting, new and innovative, bridging many styles, while still resonant of the Asian soul in America.

Company members also study both traditional and contemporary dance with leading choreographers, producing performances that are fully choreographed, and theatrically lit extravaganzas of musical sound.

If you prefer to buy tickets($22-) over the phone, please call:704.372.1000
http://www.blumenthalcenter.org/events/detail.asp?id=295

Hokkaido Island is located at the north end of Japan, near Russia, and has coastlines on the Sea of Japan, the sea of Okhotsk, and the Pacific Ocean. the Capital is Sapporo city, Population 5,702,131, it means 4.4% of Japanese are located in Hokkaido. That number includes the Ainu people, which is around 23,830 people.
Hokkaido’s weather is pretty cold and snowy. In the winter the average January weather is -12 degrees C to -4 degrees C and cool in the summer the average in Augustis 22 degrees C.
Japan is 377,812 square km and Hokkaido is 83452 square km, it’s like 22% of Japan.
Hokkaido is almost same size as South Korea.

There are many volcanoes in Hokkaido.
The most famous volcano is Showa shinzan. Accompanied by earthquakes, the mountain suddenly rose from a flat wheat field to its current height of 290 meters between 1943 and 1945. According to the contemporary reign of Emperor Showa (1926-1989), the mountain was named "Showa New Mountain". Still venting sulfurous fumes today, Showa Shinzan stands directly next to Mount Usu, which bears responsibility for the new mountain's birth. You can get good views of the young volcano by taking the Usuzan Ropeway.
There are many lakes too in Hokkaido. The most famous lake is Mashu lake. Mashu Lake is a lake formed in the caldera of a dormant volcano. It is located in Akan National Park on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. Mashu is famous for the clarity of its water, and the fog that envelops its surface. If you visit Mashu lake and you can see the lake clearly, you will married late. That’s a superstition.
Goryokaku is famous place to visit for sight seeing. Goryokaku fort, a special histrical site at Hakodate City of Hokkaido, was Japan's first and largest Western-style fort. It was built in 1866 to house government offices for the administration in Hakodate and to deal with commerce and foreign affairs related to the port of Hakodate that opened to international trade in 1859.
The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan's largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year.Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park,the grounds at Satoland, and the main street in Susukino.For seven days in February,these statues and sculptures(both large and small) turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow.The Snow Festival began in 1950, when local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. in 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and built the very first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has become famous for now. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido's winter events.The Snow Festival is considered to be a festival of international-caliber.
There are a lot of farms throughout Hokkaido. Therefore, Milk, cheese, ice cream and butter from Hokkaido is really popular and taste good. In Supporo, we can see Noodle town. There are many Ramen(noodle) shop on the street. You can eat really delicious Hokkaido noodle. Also, Hokkaido is near the sea, so you can eat fresh seafood at the restaurant.
Hokkaido is a really fun place where you can see lots of sights, and eat good food. In addition, Hokkaido still has a rich natural environment too. You can relax if you visit there.

This is my tea ceremony class in Japan. The lady with gray clothes is the teacher. Her manner is おもてせんけstyle. せんis from せんのりきゅう(the founder of tea ceremony)けis family, おもてis front side. There is another style called うらせんけ. うら is back side. One of Rikyu's sons created Omotesenke, another son created Urasenke, the third son moved Tokyo (used to called えど)from Ktoto and named his style えどせんけ. These are the most famous three tea families.

I really enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It's a strange sort of plot, one that we don't see very often, it's not romance, not overly comedy, not too much drama, it's kind of a mix of everything. It really shows that Japanese people are normally very polite, they don't get hostile and offensive very easily. Minbo also showed how humble most people in Japan are.
I think this would be a very interesting movie for Hollywood to do a remake of, with a couple adjustments.
This movie also reminded me that Japanese people are less skittish about nudity. It's a bit alarming to Americans, but I noticed not in Japan. At a hyaku en store in Japan, you could buy a plastic, colored chest plate of naked pregnant woman (belly and chest). I never understood it. Anyway...Yeah, I liked the move.

HOMG!! I really enjoyed this movie :D!! It is soooo funny. It was also interesting to watch the dancing part of it all. I'm sad that i didn't get to see the end. It really kept my attention too. Some movies lack that element but this one didn't. Dancing movies are always cool. I like to watch them. I took tap, jazz, and ballet when i was smaller so I can relate a little. I'd like to take dance classes again some day. The romance element was nice too. It was different from your typical romance movies. The wife looked like she really wanted him to be happy and to learn to dance herself. Hiring a detective was hilarious XD!! How many people do you see doing that? I haven't seen many or heard any, but that's just me :D!! I tend to be out of the loop sometimes. I give this movie an A rating and i'd definitely recommend it to others :D

HOMG!!! This movie was great :D Of course the females enjoy the strong leading lady role. The way she carried herself was just awesome!! She always kept a pleasant look on her face. She always had her information straight and knew her enemy well. The way the Yakuza raised their voices amused me greatly XD!!! It was funny how the yakuza would back down just as she told them they would. I'm very curious how the ending of this movie will turn out. I give this movie 5 thumbs up XD!! Again I can't tell you enough how much i enjoyed it :D

I was really excited to see a movie completely in Japanese. Although it was sometimes difficult to keep up with (espeically if you had to look away from the subtitles for a minute), it was really interesting to test my understanding of the language and to get more familiar with it. I found myself picking out a couple of words here and there and trying to figure out how they fit in with the sentence, then guessing what some of the other words meant based on what I didn't know. I noticed that the subtitles were a little off when the same phrase (ex. nani ka?) was translated as "May I help you" and "What do you want?" I think that if after you have a small understanding of a language, then fluency by way of complete immersion isn't that difficult. I thought it was really strange that even in a completely Japanese movie the characters sometimes counted in english, and used english works like "quick, quick, slow." I can't wait to see the last few minutes of the movie.

I thought the tea ceremony was very nice. I enjoyed wearing the yukata :D My legs died while I was sitting. It's kinda painful sitting like that for long periods of time. I guess it takes some getting used to. I didn't learn until after I got up that there was a proper way to get up. I feel dumb u_u;
The american version amused me greatly. The power stirring of the tea was very american like. The tea was awesome. Normally I sweeten tea like a mad man, but I guess the sweets really did make a difference. The conversation during the tea ceremony was quite interesting. Overall I really enjoyed it :D