Thoughts from Kyoto - January 30

The weeks really seem to blow by quickly when you get used to the subtle (or not so subtle) changes that affect your life. In my case, it’s the differences you find between semesters. Typically, it’s just different classes or something mundane like that, and you’re accustomed to it as soon as you memorize your schedule and where the buildings are. Then when it comes to weather, as you come to terms with the fact that yes, Michigan wasn’t designed to be hospitable to humans, then you’re fine. The same goes with summer. Even here studying abroad, the long travel distances and consistent dinner times are a part of my everyday life, and it just goes by without me really thinking about it.

If you told me that I was going to be heading to bed before 12 and getting up before 7 every day (except for weekends) before I came here, I probably would’ve smirked and said, “No way.” I guess it really goes to show the power of your surrounding environment. In order to get up and actually function effectively during the day, you just have to get enough sleep at the right hours. However, there are exceptions. So for example, yesterday I found the manga of an anime that I had watched while growing up in Taiwan – Kodomo no Omocha/Kodocha (玩偶遊戲) and simply had to read the whole thing before going to bed. I have to say something about the Shoujo genre – it really does cover some material that Shounen manga really don’t. I won’t go so far as to say that Kodocha is *deep* or anything like that, but as far as what characters are thinking and going through, it greatly surpasses action series like Naruto. At a certain level, it’s also easier to relate to just because there tends to be less of a fantasy or sci-fi element. Every genre has its strengths and weaknesses.

At any rate, I brought this up because it reminded me of a class I’m taking. (Must *everything* be related to school? ^_^ ) Something we’ve been talking about in translation class is the best way at going about transferring original author intentions and nuances, rather than simply the words. The English fan scanlation that I read didn’t express this particularly well (there were actually various lines of dialogue where the original Japanese was left untouched, which actually helped me in this ironically), but the Taiwanese anime adaptation of Kodocha was interesting, particularly in the way that it chose to portray dialect. I hadn’t actually remembered until now, but the character Fuuka (風花) was originally from Osaka, and thus has a different way of speaking Japanese. (I mentioned this a bit in a previous entry regarding the character Osaka from Azumanga Daioh – her name is Osaka precisely for that reason) 

In the Taiwanese version, this was done by actually giving her a Taiwanese-Mandarin accent (台灣國語), with minimal rolling of the tongue for “r”s, and more of a “th” sound in some word pronunciations. I thought that was an interesting decision, and something that fascinates me – how countries localize accents, and decide on the most appropriate ones. For example, I probably wouldn’t have liked it very much if they had given her a Beijing-Mandarin accent with its heavy “r” rolling, or a “foreigner” accent either. Now what I want to know is if this nuance was captured in the Chinese manga version, using written words. In Japanese, it isn’t a problem, as the different forms of speech are expressed by different hiragana spellings or different vocabulary, but in written Chinese it’s harder to make that distinction.

On a side note, another translation issue was that of her name. In the original, there is an amusing point where Hayama (羽山) mistakenly thinks her name is “Buuka” rather than “Fuuka”. In Japanese, this is a very small difference – just two dots next to the hiragana will change it. In the Taiwanese version, it was a difference of “Buhua” (布花) and “Fonghua” (風花). This is correct as far as the pronunciation of the Japanese kanji is concerned, but the difference is significantly larger. Just a random thought.

I went karaoking with some KCJS friends in the afternoon, and the song selection was AMAZING. You could get free drinks, and they had all sorts of songs in different languages – the English selection was even better than places in the States that I’ve seen. Of course, it was quite amazing to see the Japanese katakana used for English songs – perfectly depicts a stereotypical Japanese accent, if you actually pronounce it that way. All in all, it was 600 yen for 2 hours, which is basically $3 USD for an hour. Holy crap, no wonder Japanese people love karaoke so much.

I also want to comment about Japanese TV, and the variety of things I see on it. Now, it’s not nearly as developed or diverse a media as manga, but as far as the “game show-ish” things they have on are concerned, it’s quite interesting. A few days ago there was a show where various people would sing solos, and what was striking to me was the fact that many of them were quite fat and thus unattractive in the contemporary beauty sense. This is interesting in context of the media ideal of beauty and body shape that we are told to aspire too constantly – the contestants weren’t perfect at singing either, so it wasn’t simply a matter of “because you’re fat, you have to be so much better than everyone else that it doesn’t matter”. I liked that. Now, it seems quite likely that this was special in of itself – fat people singing on TV, but the fact that it wasn’t mocking, or only showing off amazing singers was refreshing. This is particularly interesting in the context of all those TV dramas where all the actors and actresses are ridiculously hot.

On that note, while this may seem odd and perhaps offensive, I don’t think I’ve seen a single Japanese girl who I would consider “正” yet. (It’s a bit difficult trying to translate this meaning to English. Pretty doesn’t exactly cut it, and cute isn’t perfect either. Maybe a mix of both) I don’t know why. Maybe I was expecting too much because I HAVE ALSO BEEN BRAINWASHED BY J-DRAMA TO BELIEVE THAT EVERY SINGLE YOUNG PERSON IN JAPAN IS HOT. At any rate, I will continue searching, but so far it seriously has been surprisingly disappointing.