Books Section Updated- Check Out The Page…

…by clicking here

or here: http://stevesayskanpai.wordpress.com/12-months-12-books/

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Zatoichi (2003)

Colour In Life

Linked from The Guardian. Taken by Poras Chaudhary, in Himachal Pradesh, India. From the Travel Photographs of the Year.

J Culture #2 – Matsuri

Matsuri – 祭り

This guy is wearing a ハッピ, or “happi” coat, similar to those worn by baseball fanatics. Matsuri’s are one of the great reasons to travel to Japan. My own former home, Okayama Prefecture (岡山県) had the Japan-famous “Naked Man Festival” once a year (裸祭り). I also really enjoyed the Kurashiki Summer Matsuri, where I took the picture below. The other festival I went to that was fantastic was the Sapporo Snow Festival (札幌雪祭り). Ice sculptures galore, this February festival is definitely worth checking out if you’re going to Japan. For more festival ideas while in Japan, check this out.

J Culture #1 – Samurai

This is an experimental pilot post of an idea I had following my reconnection with the excellent 51 Japanese Characters website, set up by Peter Machat.

Each post will begin with one of Peter’s excellent images. Then I’ll talk a bit about the character, the Japanese language it involves (if interesting), and more sources where you can find out about it. The obvious starting point seemed the samurai, so here goes…

Samurai – 侍

The character for samurai, 侍, literally means “to serve”. The samurai were on the one hand warriors who believed in the code of bushi, 武士, the way of the warrior. On the other hand they can be considered mercenaries, or private guards for hire. The samurai has a large role to play in Japanese history, and in Japanese culture. He reflects a total commitment to ideals, an interest in culture, and a martial spirit that leads almost to an embrace of the idea of death. He is honourable. The reality, of course, was quite different- but this is the image.

For more, see Wikipedia! Or the samurai programme of In Our Time, on the Radio 4 website (my professor was on this).

SNOW Magazine

Why promote a website you have no connection with, and for someone you’ve never met or conversed with? Because its shiny shiny, that’s why.

http://snow-mag.com

51 Japanese Characters

I almost bought a poster of this a while back, then decided I didn’t really need it. Well, now its out as a free app on the iTunes store. Check it out (search for 51 Japanese Characters)

歩いても歩いても/Still Walking (2009)

xx

Very good band, especially for hungover days. Google, or spotify. Osusume.