Rental DVD's--Changumu

My family rents on average one DVD a week. Friday is movie night at our house. After dinner we all sit down and watch a film. Otherwise, the TV is hardly used, because what is on offer is such incredible trash. We have taken to renting two DVD's recently, though. One a feature film, and the other a Korean TV series, Changumu. It is produced for viewing in Japan by NHK, and they do the dubbing of the voices into Japanese.

Changumu is a great drama about a real woman that existed in the 16th century. She led a really difficult life, on the lam with her parents as a child, raised in the royal household as a cook, exiled to Cheju after being framed for poisoning the king, and then returning to the royal household as a doctor. NHK has also attached some interesting cultural segments, covering a variety of topics from historical to modern.

I don't know anything about Korea, really, and I don't know how accurate the NHK translations are, but it is a fascinating series that has increased my understanding of Korean culture vastly. I highly recommend it.

Abe calls for education reform to raise moral standards - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

Abe calls for education reform to raise moral standards - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

Here we go! Abe and a bunch of other politicians think that schools are the place to teach morals.

Japan needs to reverse a moral decline and better motivate students to create "a nation with dignity," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday.

Maybe the politicians should put their own house in order before they start trying to saddle the already over burdened education system with the chore of moral indoctrination. Schools are a place for the three R's, and they aren't getting that right by the looks of Japanese test scores as compared with those of other countries.

There was another relevant quote today at Japan Today.

There's a lot Buddhism can offer modern society. It's just a matter of what temples are going to do about it.
Keisuke Matsumoto, 24, a monk and owner of the Kamiyacho Open Terrace cafe situated inside the Komyoji temple. It is one of many Buddhist temples in Japan offering new services, such as concerts, discos and yoga classes, to try and stay relevant in an increasingly secular society. (AP)

How about temples fulfilling their obligation to society by doing what they are really best at, too, being a religious institution which, along with the family, should be where children learn morals.

Junk news

I was listening to radio news this morning, and the top international news was a bus accident in Pakistan. What in the world has a bus wreck in Pakistan got to do with me or any other person in Japan? What incredible junk! There is alternative news in the rest of the world. Where is it here?

This is a drink machine that spoke to me today. I drove into the farming cooperative to buy a hot bottle of green tea, and when I put my money it wished me a good morning. Then as I reached down to take my tea out of the slot at the bottom, it profered a greeting used when a person is leaving home, or something like it, "itteirashai." Both were very natural, considering the time of day. I responded to both greetings, as if a real person were speaking to me. Wonder how many other people respond.

LDP's policymaker says noisy teachers protesting license renewals should lose them - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

LDP's policymaker says noisy teachers protesting license renewals should lose them - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

There is no other profession in the country that has continuing education requirements, not doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, nobody. Yet the government wants to make life for teachers even more difficult, muzzle them even further, and inforce the policy line by threatening people's careers.

" Japan says it has no plans for nuclear weapons"

Japan says it has no plans for nuclear weapons

I guess Condoleeza Rice was told that Japan "has no plans to develop its own nuclear weapons..."

At the same time, it's already considered to be a de facto nuclear state by many of its neighbors.

Successive Japanese governments have achieved this status through a nuclear energy policy based upon the production and use of plutonium, and an ambitious if flawed commercial space program. It is this nuclear policy that will soon lead to the commissioning of the world’s most expensive nuclear facility - the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant. (Asia Times, The unthinkable: A nuclear-armed Japan)

Cold Comfort: the Japan Lobby Blocks Resolution on WWII Sex Slaves (Harpers.org)

Cold Comfort: the Japan Lobby Blocks Resolution on WWII Sex Slaves (Harpers.org)

Well here is the answer to the quandries that I posted in "Remember this..." America might actually say something if they we weren't so morally bankrupt ourselves.

Community College cycle finished

Last night marked the end of another six-week cycle of classes at the Community College. I taught two night classes, one entry-level English, and one advanced class. I have been teaching these classes for several cycles now, and though I have become comfortable with them, there was some doubt about what the participants were thinking, so I did an evaluation.

In the entry level class, I was interested in two things one was the pace of the class, the other was the amount of Japanese that I use in teaching. For me the pace is S L O W. My intention is to move at a pace that they are comfortable with, not one that I decide is appropriate. My concern was, though, that it was too slow. There were 24 people on the register, and in the end 17 people were attending regularly. I know for a fact that one person had dropped out because it was too slow. (The participant's significant other was in the other class.) The results were surprising. All of the respondents were happy with the pace, and several students asked me to speak (English) more slowly. I try to speak at a normal speed, because it has been suggested to me by a colleague that my speaking speed has slowed over the past few years.

My plans for the next cycle, which will start in two weeks, will be to continue at this pace, and include an explanation why I speak English as fast as I do.

L1 in the L2 classroom is an issue that I struggle with in class and as a theoretical issue. I have received very very few evaluations that have suggested that I use less Japanese in class. I use some Japanese in nearly all of my classes, with the exception of the advanced classes at the Community College. No one in this recent evaluation suggested that I reduce the amount of Japanese that I use in class, and several respondents wrote comments expressing their appreciation for the use of their L1.

I plan to continue using Japanese at about the same levels that I have up to now.

The Japan Times Online - English at early age finds favor

The Japan Times Online - English at early age finds favor

This article says that 80% of respondents in a survey believe that English should be taught at an early age. How early? About 37% think it should start in nursery school.

These surveys are all really interesting and it will be even more fascinating to watch how the Basic Education Laws are restructured

triceratops

Went to a high school culture festival the other day. I was chosen to evaluate some poster presentations on international culture there. This was one of the styrofoam dinosaurs that the kids in the natural science club had constructed. This beast was actually so big that it didn't fit in the room standing up, so the legs were slightly askew. Cool stuff.

triceratops Originally uploaded by Yokkaichi 1.