Yeah, that's right - I randomly stumbled across the Japanese translation of "The Wizard of Earthsea" in the library today. The title is "The Battle with the Shadow: The War Chronicles of Ged, (Part) I" because the Japanese don't have a word for a male magic user. Japanese is so innately chauvinistic that pretty much anything evil is associated only with women - thus, there are witches, but no equivalent of warlocks or wizards. Most of the characters used to write negative words also have the symbol for women in them; is it any wonder that Japanese women are prized for their submissiveness?
Browsing the CD store yesterday was an interesting and frustrating experience until, after about a half hour of looking, I finally broke the code of CD alphabetization. I was having trouble determining whether or not the CDs were arranged by English order or by Japanese order, and nothing seemed to help in figuring it out. Turns out they are arranged by Japanese letter order, but the key is ignoring what the roman letters say and only going by what the Japanese pronunciation would be. For example, the band "Glay" was alphabetized under "Gurei", the nearest approximation that Japanese has for that band name. Naturally.
More interesting information in that Japanese politics class. From what I could understand, it seems like most Japanese are either pathetically non-commital about Taiwanese independance or they actually support reunification. I don't think I've ever met an American who has supported the One China policy, and if it weren't for the cowardly machinations of Bill Clinton our policy towards China would still reflect that. But I guess campaign donations are more important than the struggle for independence from an oppressive state.
The one girl who was going to go on the Temple Adventure next weekend bowed out, so now it's just the three Americans and the prof. I can understand her reticence about being the only girl going on a two-night trip with three guys she has met about twice and a prof she's only ever seen once, but it's still a shame. I would give you more details as they become available about the trip, but frankly there aren't any details so none will come available. I guess I'll just tell you how it was on Sunday. I'm fairly excited to go, not least because I have no clue what we're going to do - besides doing Buddhist things, how does one spend the day at a Buddhist temple? Anyway, it should be great fun.
Guess what CD I'm listening to. Oh yeah. "Long Gone Before Daylight." Oh. Oh, yeah.
