yakihito

Discovering Japanese Rock Music

On a recent trip to Tokyo, I was drinking in Golden Gai with a friend of a friend. The tiny bar played great song after great song, and all of it vintage Japanese rock. I mentioned how much I was enjoying learning about all the great bands from back in the day that never got any exposure in the US, but lamented that—Julian Cope's book Japrocksampler not withstanding—finding a good English-language source for information on these bands was tough.

That's when my friend told me about Jrawk. Run by an obviously knowledgeable and dedicated fan, the site intends to be nothing less than a repository (or database if you will) for Japanese rock music. It has interviews, album reviews, live show reports, and more, and all of the music covered is at least worth a listen. If bands like Flower Travellin' Band, Nagisa Ni Te, or Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her is your thing, or if all you know about  Japanese rock is Cornelius or Boris, you should really check it out.

The site is pretty new, but it's filling fast with content, so don't let the sparseness deter you.

(Note: I originally published this piece on Japundit but figured some of you might also be interested.)

Daily Oita

I started a set on my Flickr page called Daily Oita. I figured people might want to see the normal things I see everyday. Of course, I'll keep taking pictures of the exotic and ironic, but I'll update this when I can.

Check it out.

How Much Can I Make?

When I finally get my degree in Japanese, how much can I expect to make at a job utilizing my language skills?

According to the site CBSalary, the average salary for a language translator in the United States is $40,000 per year (there's no way to specify the language). Not bad, I suppose. When I narrow it down to San Francisco, the place I'd be mostly likely to live in the US, the number jumps to $90,000 (but the cost of living is a lot higher too). How about Los Angeles? Only $43,000. OK, New York? A little less than $50,000.

Looks like San Francisco is the place to live if I want to do translation work in the US. There's no information for Tokyo though, which is where I really want to settle.

Now Posting on Japundit

I'm happy to let you all know that I've been accepted as a contributor on Japundit, one of the bigger blogs about Japan.

Here's a link to my first post, Lucky Number Seven?

I Faced My Manga

What do you think, does it look like me?

Made at Face Your Manga.com.

I'm Twittering, Baby

Because I don't already have enough websites to update (yakihito, Slash and Burn, Facebook, Myspace), I'm now up and running on Twitter.

Visit, please:

http://twitter.com/yakihito

Yeah!

My Keitai

Everybody knows Japan has the best cell phones. What you're talking on in America is already like 10 years old here. Even little kids have better phones than you. So it is with great shame that I reveal to you my cell phone, or keitai as they say here.

I knew I couldn't afford one of the really cool phones, like the ones with TVs. (You think that antenna looks oddly old-fashioned for a cell phone until you realize it's to pick up TV reception, not phone reception.) But I had no idea that even the cool-looking, feature-bereft phones were still way out of my price range. And given that I'll be leaving after 10 months and will have to break a contract, I had to go with something that wouldn't cause me too many financial headaches come next year.

So this is what I got: a DoCoMo Foma L7041. It was free. It slides open. It has a camera and web access. And it's a bitch and a half to use. Even the girl setting it up for me complained how difficult it was to use. Features are buried in sub-menus and the keys are too small to effectively text.

But hey, free right?

Yeah, but now it's starting to die on me. At least once a week I have to pry open the back and pop out the battery to get it re-started. I see an awkward visit to the DoCoMo store in my near future.

You get what you pay for, I guess.

Oldify Your Pictures

Came across this Japanese site that makes your digital photos look really, really old. It seems to work best with pictures of buildings and things, rather than people, as modern clothing and stuff throws off the illusion of it being old. Compare the picture of me there to the right with the ones below. The ones below are much more convincing. Although I have to say the picture of the girls in kimono works, probably because they're not wearing modern clothing.

The site is only in Japanese but it's still easy to use. Hit the "browse" button to find a picture on your computer, and then the light blue button below the browse box.

All Look Same

I got 6 out of 18 on the All Look Same faces quiz. The average is 7.

How about you?

Beautiful Photos

Found this Flickr page while randomly trawling the Internets: Eric Lafforgue. He's obviously a professional, because these are magazine-quality photos. Lots from Japan plus other places like Burma.

I have to say, I'm a little burnt out on all the Harajuku girls photos. It's getting kinda boring. However, there are lots of non-goth pics too, like that of the lovely sleeping lady to the right.