Off topic...

Less than three hours ago, Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity.

I'm not mourning the passing of this man, but the way in which this has happened has left me feeling odd. President Bush has described the trial as "fair", but I don't agree with him. Surely, the former dictator would have received a less biased hearing at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, rather than an Iraqi court, and that's without mentioning the three Judges and three Defence Lawyers the proceedings went through.

A cynical man might point out that this sudden execution, announced hours before it occured, has come very soon after the ISG report.

Beards

No berd hadde he, ne nevere sholde have, As smothe it was as it were late y-shave; I trowe he were a gelding or a mare.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

There, Chaucer was describing the Pardoner, one of the Pilgrims to Canterbury. He refers to the characters' lack of facial hair, comparing him to either a horse that has been castrated, or a female.

Beards have commonly been seen as a sign of virility. Hercules is often depicted as bearded, whilst pretty much the whole Canon of Norse Gods sported vigorous efforts.

For Romans (variously adopting or rejecting the beard several times in their history), the bearded man was a model of virtue & simplicity, or he was a slave. In some periods, they wore beards in imitation of the Greeks; in others, to distinguish themselves, they didn't.

Clergymen in 16th century England were usually clean shaven to indicate their celibacy, or bearded in order to demonstrate their acceptance of Protestant Reforms. Sikhs regard the beard as sacred, as it is part of Gods' design of mankind. In a similar vein, St Clement of Alexandria, himself possessed of a fine specimen, had plenty to say on the subject of beards.

"How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest--a sign of strength and rule."

"This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of the superior nature….It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness.”

Bearded men are also frequently cast as sages, a pantheon of fictional wizards cementing the image of the mystical old man. This element of mystery can cast suspicion or doubt over the bearded man,

Ned: What's wrong with my moustache?
Homer: Makes it look like you got something to hide.
Dialogues III, 8F16

and it's important to consider the horrors of the beard of Mr Twit, said to contain sardines, stilton cheese and cornflakes, which he would eat later at his leisure.

Before going to war against the Persians, Alexander the Great commanded his army to shave,

"...for there is not a better handle to take a man by than the beard."

Whether this proves to be my downfall at school or not is another matter.

End of year party.

This time of year is the season for enkai, feasts, banquets, celebrations, drinking. Last night, a gaggle of elementary teachers I've been teaching English to for the past year or more, congregated at a Teppan-yaki restaurant not ten minutes away from home.

Teppan-yaki is that entertaining genus of Japanese food which requires you to cook it at your table on a huge hot-plate, the teppan. On a night as miserable as last, the very notion of sitting around a large hot thing and cooking food on it is very appealing.

Until last night, the most interesting food I've had out here has been okonomiyaki (cook it as you like it), a savoury pancake with a variety of fillings. My new love is monjayaki, essentially the same thing as okonomiyaki, but considerably thinner, not making a pancake so much as scrapings of thin batter with an intense flavour.

Whilst okonomiyaki and monjayaki are quite elaborate, what I really love about Japanese food is the simplicity. One "course" was a cabbage on the hot-plate, fried in butter. It might sound bland, but with a little sprinkle of dark vinegar, it was one of the high points. One other plus for Japanese style feasting is that it consists of lots of little dishes, often acting as ostentatious beer snacks.

Another feature of the enkai is vast quantities of alcohol. I will say no more on that subject.

Particularly pleasurable was the company, specifically the lady (of an indeterminate age) who is the ringleader of this operation. There are many reasons to admire her, an impressive command of English being the least. Her spirit of adventure has had her out of Japan every year for the past twenty, visiting a new country each time. To be as well traveled as her is something to aspire to. What I also like about her is that she's a strong and independent Japanese woman, which considering the reputation this country has for sexism and flouncy ladies, is refreshing.

Whilst waiting for the other ladies to don their glad-rags, she mentioned to me her disappointment in young people who abandon duty to their fellows, and focus on one path of work and goals. Although she is by no means elderly, it was interesting to hear this inversion of a common criticism.

How about you? Is there somebody you work with or you've met through work who you find inspiring, or is there anybody you want to bitch about?

Yet another entry wherein I bewail a timetable that leaves me scarce opportunity to blog...and some announcements...

I seem to be absurdly busy this time of year. This is not to say I have run out of ideas, no, no, no, rather, I am gradually coming to realise that a sure sign of getting old is constantly having stuff to do, and yet never seeming to get anywhere.

Something has to give, and I'm afraid it's the blogs of Anger and Lucidity. Since November, I have only recently been inspired to write something in that bleak little corner of cyberspace, and now I'm having second thoughts about the idea.

The original plan was to have a foaming blast of pure anger and then a calmer counter-argument...recently, I've found it difficult to separate the two sides into two different pieces of writing, thusly they're both for the chop...having two less blogs to manage will no doubt allow me to pay the attention I promised to this one, and let me concentrate on learning this damn language.

...but it's not like I've been idle in terms of writing. My efforts for the Design Festa have finally seen the light of day, and I've encountered my first ever buzz-word - on-spec, meaning on-speculation, which means that I've sent something to the editor of a magazine, and he's pondering whether or not it's going to be published...I think...

Hayley, me & eighteen kids.

How did that happen? An entire week has gone by without me doing an entry...Christmas is approaching, Hayley and I have done the mother of all clean-up operations, and I have fulfilled a (hitherto secret) life-long ambition.

Design Festa 24 & The Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 4

My, what a busy weekend this has been. As part of my resolution some posts back, I've vowed to do as much writing as I possibly can, so on saturday, I volunteered at the Design Festa, interviewing artists, visitors and writing it all up for the website. At the time of writing, the event is still in full swing, but I have had totemo ooki sakana wo furai*.

For the past couple of months, I've been kicking myself for not going that bit further and taking level 3. Since then, I've bought the level three text book (how many kanji?) and come to the realisation that this is the first exam I've taken for ten years...maybe I could do with getting used to that situation again.

So today, myself and another couple of hundred ex-pats hot-footed it over to a temporarily vacated University building to take our test. Our besuited monitors didn't speak at all. The instructions, in very slow and soothing Japanese, possibly narrated by a kindergarten teacher, came from a stereo. Something I don't remember from my GCSE's is that the monitors had a series of cards to issue warnings to misbehavers; yellow for "watch it", red for "in the shower!"

The test was divided up into three sections - writing and vocabulary, listening, reading and grammar. I stormed the reading and vocabulary, even if I do say so myself. The listening was a bit ropey, and the grammar, uncertain...

Japanese students of English have tremendous difficulties with articles (at, on, in, to etc), and I myself struggle with their equivalent, particles.

The particle ni for example, indicates movement.

"Ie ni kaerimasu."
"Return home."

It also indicates a place of existence...

"Tokyo ni imasu."
"(I'm) in Tokyo."

...and the subject towards whom an action is directed.

"Yamada Sensei ga Gaikokujin ni Nihongo wo osheteimasu"
"Yamada teaches Japanese to foreigners."

It's fairly easy to work out how ni is used from the context of the sentence (vanquishing supernatural warriors for example), but my confusion comes with the particle "de, which is also used as a place of existence,

"Kissaten de kaimashou."
"Let's meet at the coffee shop."

Of course, now that I have my books with me, and I'm reading up for this entry, I realise that de indicates a place where action is performed, whereas ni refers only to location. Which I'm sure you all wanted to know.

So, it's done. The only thing left to do is start studying for level three. Results in February, see you then.


*Very big fish to fry.