Our day today started at the post office. Crazy, huh?

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Watched Satoshi Kon’s 2006 movie Paprika at a local art theatre. It was about an hour and a half long, with subtitles running along the bottom. The story flows well, and the animation is happy.

I like the art style of his movies, and they appeal to me more so than Miyazaki’s work. (Not that I don’t like Hayao Miyazaki movies) This movie did give me some Miyazaki vibes during the parade sequences with all the characters involved. Satoshi Kon has also directed: Perfect Blue D:, Millenium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers.

Anyway, I watched it, enjoyed it, and thought enough to write about it. So go watch it.

Technorati Tags: japanese, paprika, satoshi, kon, movie, film

Tuesdays and Thursdays are more awkward now.

My Japanese class has a interview project which we will present at the end of the semester. We were to conduct interviews with Japanese people to learn more about Japan’s business environment. I had created a Sunday appointment with a person designated to me by my professor, and I went ahead and completed the interview.

Even before the interview began, I was required to speak only humble and polite Japanese to my interviewee. 尊敬語 (sonkeigo) and 謙譲語 (kenjyougo) are used to speak to people of “higher” class. By speaking this way, I was recognizing that she was above me, and I was below. Of course, she was also using the same speech to speak to me, but she’s Japanese so it’s easy for her. Anyway, at the end of the interview, I hoped I did not horribly butcher my Japanese and accidentally dishonor her entire family somehow.
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CVみたいけど、実は、このビヂオの理由が全然分からないんだ。豆の犬が出て、かわいい声で変なことをしゃべるんだ。見ればとっても面白い気分が出るよ。ヨツベの中に他の豆しばビデオもこの面白い感じだよ。

So there’s a bunch of these videos around, where a bean dog comes out with that child-like voice and says something totally random and awkward. I don’t really understand why, I just find them pretty funny. This particular bean says for 1 second of kissing, you pass millions of germs to and fro. heh.

Here’s some more:
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