Blog – Page 145

December 12, 2002

Happy and fulfilled?

The search strings web users have used to lead them to your site is a fairly easy target, but trying to get back into blogging, I need easy targets.

So I bring your attention to Happy+and+fulfilled+foreigners+in+Japan.

I’m number two on the list (humorously number one belongs to a 1997 article from that old Web relic suck.com). So my question is this: was the person who searched on this pondering a move to this country and wondering how other foreigners have made out in the all-important “happy” and “fulfilled” aspects of life, or someone already here and perhaps plaintively searching for some foreigner, anyone, who might be possibly be “happy and fulfilled” in Japan?

As this very post is probably the first time in my life that I’ve uttered “happy” and “fulfilled” in the same sentence (don’t fact-check me, just take my word for it), I’m wondering what answers this person found on my site.

December 10, 2002

Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low

Still from Kurosawa's High and Low: click for more images

I was so taken with Akira Kurosawa’s Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low, 1963) when I watched it on DVD earlier this year that I created a page of dvd captures from the film, which I then forgot about. Listening to a bunch of natsukashii Japanese music from the 50’s and 60’s reminded me again of the film, and the web page. (Click on the image above to have a look).

I need to re-watch the film and comment properly on it, but as should be obvious from the captures, there is a wonderful sense of composition throughout the film, with Kurosawa using the entire widescreen frame to full effect, yet it never feels gimmicky, even 40 years later. There are some wonderful set pieces in the film (I particularly like an extended police briefing scene where a parade of detectives and officers — the film is centered around a kidnapping — run down the details of the investigation so far.)

December 9, 2002

An early snowfall

For the first time in 11 years, snow has fallen in the Tokyo area in December. The above pictures were taken with freezing hands this morning. For a Hawaii boy, there are few things as wondrous and exciting as falling snow.

In tribute, here’s a snow song by one of my favorite Japanese singers, Baishou Chieko, Yuki no furu machi o… (.mp3, 1.5MB) (roughly “In the town where snow falls…”).