Category Archives: Culture

Johnny Depp and the four Japanese Girls

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Johnny Depp was in Japan recently to promote the third rendition of Pirates of the Caribbean. For some reason, when he visits, he goes to the show Gakko he Ikou hosted by the Japanese Regis Philbin—Mino Monta—and Johnny’s V6. I like a couple of Johnny’s groups: SMAP because there are some talented and clever people in the group, and TOKIO because they do some very interesting things to promote traditional Japanese culture and raising awareness of the environment. The V6 group has none of the qualities above.

Anyway, Johnny is wheeled into the studio, and the above video is the result. You be the judge: interesting, weird, over-the-top, or ???

Joe is Japanese dot com

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Kevin Ryan, of LanguageJapan fame, just mentioned a new manga on the way: Joe is Japanese. There is a trailer at that link to get you started. The first part of the trailer is a major crackup, with the protagonist trying to get his family name understood while calling several places. The latter part is not for the younger kids since Joe is telling a story from the other side of the tracks. Japanese skills are not a requirement, as there are subtitles for all the Japanese parts. It could add a motivating factor to those of you working on your bilingual skills. The site includes links to the characters’ MySpace pages; here’s Joe’s. It all looks very promising!

It’s Official: South Florida Drivers Can’t!

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If you have been in South Florida, you know the deal. The drivers there are among the worst in the U.S. I drove in South Florida for a year, not including the two times I rented a car on previous trips. I guess I should start with those two times I rented a car to give you some examples.

The first time I needed a car for a couple days to finish up my first week of face-to-face class time at Nova Southeastern. On my second day with the car, I was driving into the Hess gas station next to my hotel in Davie to top off the tank before I turned the car in. Some guy in a small Toyota or Nissan pickup (with a huge bumper) backed up into my car without even looking behind him. I stopped and got out of the car to talk with they guy, and he was gone! Some nice person pointed to the condo complex into which he pulled. I spent the next hour with a police officer filling out paperwork. Good thing I bought the collision insurance at the rent a car place. Hit and run–unbelievable!

The second incident was a couple of years ago on I-95 heading south. A mid-80′s GM (think Toronado or something like that) was passing on the left and seemed to be trying to cut in front of our rented car. It was obvious there was not enough space to do it, but I guess the driver could not figure the physics of time and distance out. Instead she slowed down, cut in front of the car behind me, passed me on the right, and started yelling and swearing in English and Spanish! Her passenger, a dude with a butt hanging out of his mouth, took his lighter and tossed it up a la Magic Johnson, Baby Skyhook-style. Fortunately for me, this guy’s skills were nothing like Magic’s. He missed big time and lost his lighter in the process.

I wish I could say that those were the only incidents for the past year I spent in the area. The drivers in South Florida exhibited a wide range of skills and attitudes. One guy in a Jeep Cherokee in Plantation didn’t seem to want to be behind me, so rather than move over into another lane to pass me, he passed me with about 10 cm. of clearance, in my lane! Another guy in a BMW in Plantation pulled out in front of me as I was heading towards University one morning. I couldn’t slow down enough without getting close to him (I was doing the speed limit, he cut me off that closely), and he just stopped his car in the middle of the road! Unbelievable! Other bizarre behavior included honking horns after traffic lights had just changed, driving 55 mph. in the fast lane when the speed limit is 65 mph. (or even 70 on the Turnpike), constant tailgating—even when there is plenty of room in another lane to pass, drivers insisting on turning right at a red light, even if it means cutting off someone who has a green light, I mean the list is endless. Drivers beware (is there a word for driver in latin?)!

Loltun, Yucatán, México

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The photo is a little dark, but then again, so were the connected series of caves at Loltun (sorry, I didn’t find any decent sites to link to). These are located in the Puuc region of Yucatán, Mexico and were part of a Puuc region tour that we took last New Year. The others on the tour included Kabáh, Sayil, and Labná (I’ll save the links for posts on these sites later).

We drove up to the site (the only Mayan site on the tour with restrooms [keep that in mind]) and had to buy our own tickets. Read the small print on the signs carefully because the charge for the guide is included in the entrance fee. On the instructions of the guide, we moved quickly ahead of a huge group that was near the entrance. This turned out to be a good move because it could have been crowded in places (four members of our group were Mexican and were part of that larger group; it took them 45 more minutes to finish up).

Anyway, some of the caves were huge! There were lights placed in several areas, and virtually all of them shine in your eyes, rather than on the cave walls. Surely this can be taken care of! There are some figures on the wall in places, but they are hard to make out. I understand that not so long ago there were many very clear ones. Some stalagmites (as you may remember from your geology courses, they’re the ones from the floor up) in one room seemed to be hollow and made a kind of musical sound when hit (no hard instruments for this, please).

It turns out the caves were used as a last stand against the Spanish who were intent on controlling the area and the inhabitants. There were some large rocks piled up to close off one of the openings, but the Spanish got word that many were holed up inside. The climb up these rocks in very little light could prove challenging, so keep that in mind. I believe that climb and one other caused the delay with the other larger group.

The final large room, the one you see in the photo above, is like a scene from a movie. We understood that it was in fact used in a movie, but our guide was not sure which one. Maybe there’s an excuse to watch some potential candidates again.

One final note concerns the guide fee we had already paid that I mentioned above. As we neared the exit, our guide began to talk about how much other well-known tours cost, and that the usual fee was about $40 U.S. per family! There was one other family in our group; the father and I talked, and we decided to give the man $5 each. It was a good tour, and it took about an hour. A ten dollar tip for a job well done. Caveat emptor!

Back to the Future: Is Sumo Fixed?

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The Los Angeles Times is reporting on the current controversy going on in Japan over the possibilities that the ancient sport of sumo is fixed. I have no idea whether is it true, but this is not the first time that the subject has been broached. It is important to point out that one person, Keisuke Itai, a former sumo wrestler himself, is a source for the controversy in both the 2007 and 2000 stories.

Casa del Adivino, Uxmal

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Despite what Lonely Planet’s book on Yucatán says about Uxmal’s Casa del Advino (Magician’s House) (“it gives a rather bad first impression of Uxmal to the visitor” [p. 173]), this is one of the most impressive sites I’ve seen in the Mayan world. The photo above was taken from the Palacio del Gobernador (Governor’s Palace), which is itself impressive with its largely intact Puuc facades.

Anyway, back to the Casa. It was quite typical in much of Meso-America to build structures on top of existing ones, especially the larger pyramids. There appears to be some debate on the whys and whens, but I have heard numerous times that many of the add-ons were put up based on the Mayan life cycle of 52 years. What you see in the photo above is the fifth of these structures. It has been and is being restored. I climbed it in 1990, but now it is closed. The backside is in the midst of reconstruction, and you can currently see inside some of the exposed layers.

There is more to see at Uxmal, and the Puuc region. Time permitting, I’ll post more. Oh yeah, regardless of my disagreement of the comment in the book above, it helped us get around to many places and filled in several gaps we would have otherwise missed.

El Caracol, Chichén Itzá

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The observatory/snail shell is one of my favorite man-made creations on the planet. One look at the shape makes it clear what its purpose was. Despite what our guide told us (that it was “just used to watch the stars, not the planets”), it was used by the astronomer-priests to measure the movements of the stars and planets (a week before I visited there was a show on TV about how this structure was used to measure the various locations of Venus in the night sky).

I’ll leave it to your searching techniques to explore the various thinking on the sources of the architecture, but the Caracol seems to have elements of Toltec, Puuc and Maya. Unlike most of the structures at Chichén, you can walk up the two flights of stairs, but you can no longer climb inside the Caracol. I’m not sure when this was stopped (it was not allowed in 1990 either), but I did go up it in 1985. It has a spiral stone staircase with a very narrow passageway. I had to get really small to get in there, but at the time I knew I was doing something that would not be continued. There was just too much damage to the top of the structure.

I did my best to focus on the structure itself in the photo, but I have to say that the crowds were completely overwhelming on this day! When I visited in 1985 and 1990 (both in the summertime), there were relatively few people and no vendors along the pathways. This time the pathways were half-blocked by locals hawking t-shirts and carved goods laid out on blankets. Seeing all of this took away from the awesome and mysterious experience that is Chichén. Caveat salutor!