Reader megosztásokon keresztül kaptam egy roppant érdekes cikket a japán városok és közigazgatási egységek emblémáiról. Ezek a félig sci-fi félig szocreál érzetet keltő általában stilizált jelképek engem inkább búzakörökre emlékeztettek eddig. A következő cikkben azonban elmagyarázzák, hogy gyakran a város vagy a terület nevéből formálják őket: Typographic town logos in hiragana/katakana.
Egyértelmű dizájnok is vannak, de néha igencsak nehéz kilátni az emblémákból a szöveget. Érdemes végignézni a cikk képeit, és elolvasni hozzájuk a magyarázatokat.
A legbonyolultabb esetben képek és számnevek segítségét is igénybe veszik. Kedvenc példám a hokkaidói Muroran: hat darab (mu) katakana ro (ロ) vesz körbe egy orchideát (ran).
Ezen felbuzdulva utánanéztem Kobe zászlójának. A képeimen már időnként felbukkant - és egyébként a városban mindenütt szép számban megtalálható - egymásba fonódó két ív nem tűnt túl bonyolultnak.
A város hivatalos oldala szerint (angol/japán) az embléma egyrészt Kobe város és Hyogo prefektúra (megye) kikötőit ábrázolja, melyek mint két kinyitott legyező fekszenek egymással szemben. Másrészt pedig Kobe régi írásmódjára utal, ugyanis 1907-ben, az ikon készítésének idején, még Kaube módon írták a nevét. Az embléma pedig egy stilizált ka (カ) is lehet.
"There's a diffrence between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is merely the absence of success. Any fool can achieve failure. But a fiasco, a fiasco is a disaster of epic propotions. A fiasco is a folk tale told to others to make other people feel more alive because it didn't happen to them."
Webisztánra kikerült a Google Street View (グーグル・ストリート・ビュー) adatvédelemről (プライバシー) szóló japán oktatóvideója, és annyira tipikusan a helyi piacra készült, hogy muszáj továbbosztanom. Ha a japánokat akarod megszólítani, akkor ilyet kell csinálni:
Az hogy lehet, hogy a hirdetés vízszintes változatában még tudtak helyesen írni (ti.: kötelező biztosítás, casco biztosítás de lakásbiztosítás, utasbiztosítás) a függőlegesben meg hirtelen elfelejtettek:
Viszont legalább utánanéztem, mit jelent a casco, és kiderült, hogy rövidítés, hanem egy spanyol szó, és sisakot jelent. Aki sokat Diablozott, az emlékezhet az angol változatra:
casque |kask|noun1 historical a helmet.2 Zoology a helmetlike structure, such as that on the bill of a hornbill or the head of a cassowary.ORIGIN late 17th cent.: from French, from Spanish casco. Compare with cask.
A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.
It's mostly about waiting. That, and packing the room up in rubbish bags. When I get fed up with the chores I watch an unhealthy amount of TV shows or go for a run. Not knowing doesn't help either. At the moment I wish I'd be going forward or crushed down - anything's better than idling. Ask me in two weeks I'll probably look back in hazy-eyed nostalgia to these days of course.
Getting rid of my stuff is not really working out as I have planned.
Yesterday I went to have my bicycle fixed. I had to get a valve adapter first because - obviously - my bike had a different valve than the Japanese standard. It was fairly easy after I figured out that my valve is called "French". (Ever tried asking for something at a store that you didn't actually know the name of?)
The bike was outside the whole winter and it looked like that. I am a pretty bad bicycle owner it seems. At least I managed to snatch one of the two stalls that have a makeshift roof - still almost all the screws were covered in rust. I spent an hour or so in the blazing sun cleaning the parts as well as I could then pushed the bike to the store to put some air in the tyres.
I haven't ridden fifty meters from the store when at a stop sign the chain broke. At least I was close to help: I crawled back and asked for the chain to be fixed. Funnily enough the store owner was either born with a frown or he hates foreigners but he regarded me all along as one might look at a particularly disgusting roach. It was quite a change after all the bowing and pleasantries of the usual Japanese way of treating customers.
I ended up paying ¥1.500. (He could have said five hundred or forty-five hundred for all I know - very convenient if you want to skin a rich American foreigner.) He also told me off for having too much grease on the chain. Like I said I'm not very well versed in bicycle maintenance.
Anyway, today I set off to look at stores that might buy some of my household appliances and books. I learned fast that no bookstore ever buys textbooks for some unfathomable reason so that option's out. And then on the way to the recycle shop my chain broke again. The closest bicycle shop I knew about was close to my ex-dorm but I only arrived there to find a notice that it has permanently closed business.
I locked the bike up at the dorm. (Conveniently it boasts the sticker that is needed to park there and the room number is nicely blurred.) I took the rest of the afternoon to take pictures for the daily photo blog and buy food at Sannomiya.
If life gives you lemons find a small child with open wounds.
Így hát nem is Tokyo "reloaded" hanem én magam vagyok az; kis híján tíz év után - akár az azt megelőző tizenegy ott töltött évben - én leszek újra a lövedék a Mátrixban, meglátjuk, most merre repülök ki és mit találok el... Addig is, keresem, lefényképezem, megírom, hogy mi az ami megváltozott és mi az, ami nem, megpróbálom kihasználni, hogy újra frissek a szemeim, élesebbek az érzékeim, fürgébb az agyam és talán megint enyém egy darabig a shoshin, a "beginner's mind".
I've already complained a few times about my new neighbour on twitter. He moved in a couple of months ago and he turned out to be very musical. He has a keyboard that he likes to play at maximum volume with the window open. He also plays the guitar. Often he backs the music up with singing. Apparently he hates silence so much that when he doesn't play he listens to various female vocalists. He also likes conducting lengthy conversations over the phone from his balcony. At first I thought he was Mongolian, but after yesterday's events I am fairly sure he's actually from China.
Most of the time I have my windows closed and set the AC to a mildly cool temperature. This also has the added benefit to filter out a lot of the noise coming from the primary school on the other side of the street and lately from the apartment to my left. However my artsy neighbour was making so much ruckus lately that even that wasn't enough. The music was as clear as if he was playing the piano in my room.
At first I thought of an eye for an eye method and whenever his noise levels reached excessive volumes I opened my window as well and started playing some soft melodic albums such as Year Zero or Demanufacture at maximum volume. Regretfully this didn't prove to be sufficiently deterring plus I was feeling sorry for my poor right hand side neighbour who had to endure both of us being absolute jerks.
A few days ago I couldn't even watch a TV show because of his damned racket and I ended up going over. I was trying the doorbell for about two minutes but he was playing so loudly he didn't hear. (The apartments have very loud bells.) A few kicks on the door later he opened up and looked absolutely intimidated. (Granted he is about 160 cm tall but still I am not that frightening...) With excessive sign language and resorting to English I told him off, which seemed to have worked well: ever since I didn't hear a single note from his place.
That is until yesterday. Yesterday evening he invited over some friends and they had a party. It started with moderate noise levels but around 2 am they started singing. Judging by their voices they were all absolutely wasted. I didn't really mind them until half past 4 when all hell broke loose. They must have had some argument escalate and started a fight accompanied by savage animalistic voices. They were slamming the heavy metal apartment door while beating each other to pulp. I was mostly enjoying the show from my window and hoping they broke the guitar and the piano while they were at it. According to the sounds they pretty much completely destroyed the guy's room.It was actually quite funny to watch.
This morning I found streaks of blood in the corridor and a set of red-brown footprints trailing from the guy's place.
