No Smirking

Lately this blog has had little to offer my faithful readers besides smug remarks about geek culture in Japan. I had sworn to change to more refined, respectable topics. . . but then today Power Rangers ("Five Rangers" in Japan) was being filmed right in front of the language school. And there was no ignoring it -- look at the photo taken with my cell phone. No commentary here. Just some trivia:

• the stunt doubles (in fight scenes) for all of the Rangers are male, even for characters who are played by actresses in other scenes
• but, some of the villians are actually stuntwomen in masculine Storm Trooper-esque rubber suits
• fight scenes are shot in segments of about 5 seconds per take
• no live pyrotechnics, but the acrobatics are pretty respectable.

The things I do in real life are pretty different from what ends up on this page. Here's some of what I've been up to over the past couple weeks:

• Japanese class every day. Highlight this week was a discussion Monday about how Fascism in 1930s Japan differed from that in Europe. Also the role of the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria: those who controlled the Japanese government in the 1930s wanted to keep Japan itself traditional and conservative. So they set up Manchuria as a segregated locus where modernization and urbanization could happen so that the Japanese homeland could enjoy the economic benefits without undergoing social change that might undermine "traditional values."
  
• Graduate seminars in Tokyo on Chinese history, at least once a week. This one I have two: bureaucratic history (dull, but it's education) and social history (highlight of my week)
• Taken to a college concert where the highlight was Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony.
• Was going to join a Japanese-Korean team of runners in a 20-km relay race (an "ekiden") this coming Saturday, but one of our people decided she wasn't in good enough shape, so the team is waiting for a later race.
• Helped test the spoken English of employees at the luxury hotel next to the language school. Massage therapists were surprisingly good, waiters surprisingly bad. I was neither fed nor massaged, but paid in discount coupons for a few nights. Good reason to visit Yokohama again after I leave. . .
  
• Etc.