Ulfuls Tortoise Matsumoto’s “Miitsuketa”

February 3rd, 2010

Since my family and I returned to the United States, we’ve found ourselves listening to more and more Japanese music. Although I left the majority of my CD collection in Japan, we still have my iTunes library and the wonders of YouTube to help us get our fix of Japanese pop culture.

One song my kids often request is “Miitsuketa” by Tortoise Matsumoto. (Many of you may know him as the front man for the band Ulfuls… younger people may know him only from his appearances in TV commercials in Japan. I will seek to remedy that with later blog posts about Ulfuls.)

While my children and I were watching excerpts of some Japanese tv shows on YouTube, we came across the full version of Miitsuketa with Japanese subtitles.

I think this is a great song for Japanese learners, parents that want to expose their children to music in other languages, and of course fans of the NHK educational show “Miitsuketa” for which this song is the closing theme. The words and rhythm are easy to pick up, and despite having a nice rock and roll sound, the lyrics are just right for children or people learning Japanese.

The song is about that beautiful feeling of discovery, wonder, and imagination that we see in our children and struggle not to lose as we grow older.

The first video below is the official full version. The second video is a shorter version performed by the “chair characters” from the show on NHK.

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Durkheim’s Suicide on the El in Philly

January 20th, 2010

OK, OK, you got me… I know that Emile Durkheim did not kill himself on the Market-Frankford line in Philly. That’s not what I meant to imply at all… what I’m actually talking about is back when I was still a young college student riding the El and trying to get some of my reading done for an Intro to Sociology course.

A few days after taking a trip up to Port Richmond from West Philly, I got a call from my sister asking if I was OK. She told me about she and her friend spotting a guy on the El reading Durkheim’s “Suicide” with it’s stark red and white cover, and wondering if the guy was thinking about doing something drastic. Her friend even suggested walking over to talk to him. My sister looked over at the guy, laughed, and said, “Oh, that’s OK. It’s just my brother.”

Not only had I been reading a book called “Suicide”, but it was the edition with the bright red cover and the word “SUICIDE” in large white print (pictured at the top of this post).

Needless to say, I now own quite a collection of book covers.

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Reading Literature in a Foreign Language Part One – Choosing A Novel

January 18th, 2010

The first full-length novel I read in Japanese was Battle Royale, Koushun Takami’s tale of a futuristic Japan in which students are forced to participate in a violent game to the death.

Before reading Battle Royale, I had read several short stories in Japanese, not to mention countless academic articles on education and educational law. I put off attempting a thick novel for a long time partly because I was afraid that if I gave up, it would negatively affect my desire to read another. Finally, in the Summer of 2003, I bought Battle Royale and a nice leather book cover and took the plunge.

The only novel I had attempted before Battle Royale was a Japanese translation of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. Although I am a huge Twain fan,  this proved to be a poor choice. If I know what’s going to happen, and am overly familiar with a story, my desire to read the novel to the end is hampered a bit. Simply put, there isn’t sufficient pay off for the effort if I already know what’s coming next.

Here are some things I think people should look for when choosing the first full-length novel they attempt reading in a foreign language:

  • a fast paced story – a great plot can motivate you to press on through difficult passages
  • frequent chapter breaks – I know this can be a tough bill to fill, but when the chapter breaks, so do you. Endless blocks of unbroken text can be pretty daunting.
  • a lot of dialogue – Dialogue tends to be a little bit easier to read, and for languages like Japanese, a little casual dialogue can be a welcome oasis in a sea of kanji. Also, paragraphs are shorter when there’s dialogue, this means the page has more white space and feels lighter.
  • someone to discuss it with – it helps if you have a friend who’s read it or someone reading it at the same time, especially if you are worried about missing some of the major plot points.
  • the fewer characters the better – names are hard enough to keep straight in the real world… this is one item for which Battle Royale strays from the ideal, luckily however the characters were all very different and easy to keep track of.

For me, the most important factor is the plot. Even though I now read Japanese as well as I read English, I find that I have less tolerance for a bad Japanese novel than English. Because of my love for writing fiction, I have often read through to the end of books I didn’t enjoy just so that I could experience them in their entirety. Part of my own development as a writer is exploring my likes and dislikes as fully as possible.

In Part Two of the Reading in a Foreign Language series, I’ll discuss some of the strategies that have worked for me when attacking long or difficult reading materials in a foreign language.

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