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uldn t want to be under one of those things if it gave way people began arranging themselves along the walls a few were still oblivious happily snapping away and had to be shouted at and it just kept shaking even those who weren t normally fazed by tremors were getting decidedly uncomfortable at just how long the thing went on the hanshin earthquake of 1995 seemed like about 2 minutes but was actually about 30 seconds time expands when you re in a situation like that this one went on for well over a minute and seemed like five when it eventually petered out there was an eerie silence as people waited for what if anything would happen next another reason for the silence the great unasked was where did it happen nara kobe again eventually iphones were whipped out headlines checked tohoku but that s on the other side of tokyo hundreds of kilometers away must be wrong but no it was right 2 the above was written a week after the events in tohoku i had planned to write about the shocked reactions the people lost and all the rest but that would have been dishonest that came later for the most part since it was too much for most of us to comprehend we did nothing a few of us left the hotel went to the sherlock holmes nearby and over pints tried to figure out where miyagi was i had confused it with miyazaki nearly as far away but in the other direction periodically a pa announcement from the building management told us that there appeared to be no structural damage to the building we wondered if anyone had been killed but didn t think much of it because the image of tohoku to people in kansai was of an empty rural expanse the earthquake aftermath was nearly as much of a geography lesson to urban japanese as it was for the rest of the world whew we thought that was a close one then i went off to see a tango performance as previously planned i found out later that the performers had debated whether or not to cancel but concluded that like in wartime you had to keep up people s morale so dance they did the place was packed as though all were trying to preserve a sense of normality for as long as possible it was a good show excellent music i then continued on to have a drink with the graduates at hub as we talked i noticed on the television in the background scenes of seawater lifting up what looked to be toy vehicles in a diorama town and washing them away and it dawned on me that it wasn t a movie or animation or an artist s conception of what could have happened it was the real thing there had been a tsunami and sendai was being flooded and we began getting emails from friends in tokyo saying the city had shut down and people were having to walk home for hours and we talked some more and had another pint and the place was full it was only when i got home close to midnight and turned on my computer and saw my mailbox and facebook full of messages from around the world that i realized the magnitude of what had happened how many towns had been obliterated how many tens of thousands had been washed away i had actually felt the quake and seen snippets of activity on tv sets here and there but had never seen as those who had seen the headlines and heard the newscasts elsewhere the big picture i sat up until two answering messages calling home still in that suit which when the day began had been my biggest concern 34 605533 135 517849 heisei 26 1 13 coming of age day monday january 13 2014 monday january 13 2014 nagaijin leave a comment today is the day japanese 20 year olds put their best suits or kimonos on and go to the local city hall to meet friends and listen to dull speeches it s a national holiday and having a mild cold i celebrated it by acting as old as i possibly could i even had prune flavoured yogurt on my bran flakes this morning i browsed the internet for home hints three of which i tried i had leftovers on toast for lunch i put away finally my christmas and new year s card paraphernalia i washed a scarf in the sink i read on the sofa for a few hours and if i m really ambitious soon i will make a pot of tea and read for a few hours more i ve got bbc radio 3 on in the background and i m wearing a chanchanko i don t think i ve left anything out every christmas fred and i send each other secondhand books i m presently getting tucked into one of them now halfway to hollywood michael palin s second collection of diaries i was surprised when it arrived because it appears to have been a library book along a scribbled out barcode on the front cover i can make out mesa county public library district and on the inside cover a boldfaced stamp in red ink withdrawn now a quick google shows me that mesa county is in colorado i think fred ordered the book from a shop in seattle via amazon it s now in osaka and i can only imagine why it was withdrawn this edition is only from 2011 it s in excellent condition and still has the cellophane dust jacket over the dust jacket that all hardcover library books have there can t have been a surplus of michael palin diaries in mesa county colorado so how did i end up with it a library closed a local republican grandee came across the word bum several times and had the book banned being a python palin does quite freely use the word bum and there is some discussion among the pythons early on about the making of a short film called penis apology to show at the beginning of life of brian in which you do see graham chapman s willy for about two seconds but that wouldn t be it for all the benefits of ebooks and i did read about 20 of them last year they don t have the story behind them that old books do is it dinner time yet 34 605434 135 517942 interlude tuesday september 10 2013 tuesday september 10 2013 nagaijin leave a comment the baby cries and howls on the stopped train until then it was almost cosy sitting here on the local appreciating the autumn light on the tracks listening to a podcast about louis mcniece 1907 1963 uncrowded seats of mostly elderly men calmly in panama hats and baseball caps listening to the grammatically elaborate apologies of the conductor for the inexcusable inconvenience caused to us by that person who jumped 9 sept 2013 between ibaraki and takatsuki it takes two to tango sunday august 14 2011 saturday august 27 2011 nagaijin leave a comment from amagasaki to buenos aires this originally appeared as an article in the august 2011 issue of kansai scene from august 16 th 30 th the city of buenos aires will host its 8 th annual international world cup of tango representing asia in this event will be a pair who both live and work in hyogo at the qualifying round in yokohama this past june hisako iwamoto and hiroshi takazaki both of kobe handily beat out competing pairs from japan hong kong korea the philippines and taiwan in their category stage tango see sidebar the duo have performed professionally for the last four years as chako tacky チャコ タッキー the common nicknames for hisako and takazaki in japanese although they both have day jobs in the evening they perform teach and still study argentine tango at the alma de tango academy in amagasaki i spoke to chako and tacky at the dance studio where they were already beginning to rehearse for buenos aires i expected when asking about how they got into tango in the first place to hear stories of years of childhood dance lessons and demanding stage mothers of course i have lived in japan for years and had also just seen black swan happily i was wrong neither were dancers prior to discovering tango and it was only after immersing themselves in the music that they decided to take the next step as it were like many girls growing up in hyogo prefecture chako was a fan of the takarazuka revue one year when she was a teenager she saw the troupe perform a musical number involving she realizes now argentine tango she had never heard such music before and was immediately impressed around the same time yo yo ma s album libertango became a big hit in japan that clinched it she wanted to do more than just listen and when the alma de tango academy opened in 1999 she was one of their first students one day in his mid 20s tacky or hiro as he was then and is now when not performing or teaching was listening to some cds in the world music section of a music shop after listening to flamenco for a minute maa maa he switched to the next cd which happened to be a tango compilation i just said wow and bought it immediately although he didn t know any spanish he was struck by the deep feeling and drama of the music and singing an antidote to j pop he noticed while walking home from work a year or so later the very same tango studio where chako was by now an instructor on a whim he turned up one evening spoke to the owner ryo ikemoto and asked to join a dance class his first question on being told to lead a dance was what does lead mean you re putting me on right was the sensei s stunned reply fast forward several years in 2007 chako tacky began performing professionally as a team at private events hotel dinner shows and concerts and over four years entered the asian competitions both in stage and salon categories in 2010 after furious training and high hopes they narrowly came 2 nd discouraged they considered retiring after honoring some prior performance commitments earlier this year they began wondering if it was all worth it remember if you see a perfectly executed dance lift it s the sum of countless drops tacky and kicks and bruises for every look of passion there are the rehearsals in which the all important passion goes astray chako shouting matches it became harder for them to follow their sensei ryo s prime tango directive don t be strong be passionate they didn t feel either however ryo and his wife hazuki a formidable dance team and themselves asian champions and runners up in buenos aires in 2005 finally convinced them that having come this far they should give it one last try ironically the decision to make this their grand finale freed them up to show the judges what they could do in a way we had nothing to lose says chako as long as we could always say we did our best to their astonishment this zen like acceptance along with the usual rehearsals and master classes and bruises and holding down day jobs resulted in their winning and winning decisively in yokohama so it wasn t a finale after all speaking as someone who rather likes tango music but has trouble tapping his feet let alone dancing i asked them whether it was necessary to be as completely committed to tango as they were in order to enjoy it they both said nearly at once no no way you can begin dancing they agreed at any age the key is to relax said chako to which tacky added it s surprising how many people can t do that relaxing doesn t mean you don t have to master the basic steps of course you do but until you let yourself go and just try them you ll just be stiff like a wooden doll ningyou and you ll never gain the confidence to rise to the next level which is improvising with a partner they implied that in a society somewhat weighted to say the least against improvisation it takes a special person to want to lose themselves in that all important first step but there are such people and as teachers it gives them great satisfaction when a student finds as they did that special place within themselves the alma de tango academy is located near jr tachibana station in amagasaki for more information http www alma de tango com info alma de tango com http www youtube com watch v oyq5udjhhea the world festival of tango will be held from august 16 th to 30 th in buenos aires argentina http www tangobuenosaires gob ar sidebar in western countries outside of south america the tango holds a sort of nostalgic image of rudolph valentino gauchos and exaggeratedly controlled passion like most clichés there s a grain of truth to it but it s a homogenized hollywood view all the same argentine tango is a dance which evolved mostly in the working class dance halls milonga of buenos aires around the end of the 19 th century what distinguishes it from most other forms of social dance is that past a few basic steps and conventions which must however be mastered precisely the tango is mostly improvised at the moment of performance which requires both a knowledge of and feel for the music on the part of both partners the later european version which you might have learned at a dance school along with the waltz and the cha cha cha and other social dances is the one we so often see in the movies and is so different from the original which has actually been declared an intangible part of world cultural heritage by unesco that argentines refer to their dance hall version as salon tango to avoid confusion in competition salon category contestants dance around the floor while keeping their embrace abrazo however since they don t know in advance which piece of music they will be dancing to judges are looking to see how smoothly the couples adapt and improvise their steps in contrast stage tango is intricately choreographed and pairs are judged on the skill of their dramatic flamboyant performances at the 2011 asian championships chako tacky won in the stage category while lily cheng raymond chu a couple from hong kong took the salon category and will be accompanying them to the finals in argentina the view from the tatami sunday july 3 2011 nagaijin 1 comment this originally appeared as an article in the july 2011 issue of kansai scene yasujiro ozu 1903 1963 is famous among film students as the traditionalist director who broke all the rules he would happily move props around from shot to shot if he thought it would enhance the composition he rejected the over the shoulder conventions of conversation scenes and shot the actors face on looking directly at the camera if two actors are in the same shot they are usually looking in the same direction his camera angles were so low shot from the supposed perspective of a person watching the action from the tatami floor that his cameraman often had to shoot scenes while lying on his stomach in his lifetime ozu was beloved and respected in japan like few other film makers as much for his carefully crafted affable old uncle persona as for the movies he made the persona was as much an illusion as anything he created onscreen he died of throat cancer from incessant smoking his once tough body already ravaged by heavy drinking when he was only 60 in the 1960s a later generation of japanese directors reacted against ozu s seemingly complacent well crafted home dramas sneering at their celebration of middle class family values it later became clear that they had missed the point ozu was in fact documenting the breakdown and dissolution of the traditional japanese family few of his works though beautifully composed and filmed are full on feel good movies in story after story people earnestly do what they think is right and in the eyes of japanese society it usually is bu...