ヤンサンと日本の人々

Educational videos are captivating pieces of film material, they display foreign languages and cultures in a naive and unintentionally humorous way. Most of them follow some sort of unwritten code of educational video filmmakers, it seems, trivial scenes of quotidian resolve in a volitionally comic and therefore listless punchline.
Let me tell you, Yansan to Nihonnohitobito (Yan and the Japanese people) takes a totally different approach to the whole subject matter (Apparently, parts of the series have been incorporated into an American Japanese-learning course called Let's learn Japanese).

The series is sure off to a slow start, Yansan, alledgedly German of Pakistani descent (that combintion alone is auspicious), gets picked up at Narita Airport, runs into his love-to-be, spills her oranges (the orange - the single most expensive aliment in Japan, and also a symbol for death, at least in the Godfather), blablabla - tedious convention from the director so far.

But with the begin of the second season for more advanced speakers, the whole serious gains such momentum, Yansan seems like on coke the whole time. In the most recent episodes we were watching today, he learned that his beloved Okadasan is going to marry some random co-worker of hers. Yansan's heart shatters into pieces (yeah, a graphic scene), he gets trashed beyond any maintainable level, and starts a fight with another guests in the bar (it's more like a sake stand) he seeks to drown his sorrows at. The trigger for the altercation at the sake stand is his obvious foreigness. Blatant, sociocritical, inconvenient!
In the follwing episode, Yansan doesn't show up at work (architect's office), doesn't answer the phone and decides to drink some more sake instead. After a couple of days he shows up at work, but is so crestfallen that he decides to not finish his blueprints and just boards the next Shinkansen. Yansan finds out that the train is going to Niigata, so he gets off there stays at a Japanese inn, and mingles with the local crowd, helping them to shovel snow from their roofs.
Awesome performance. I mean, we're still talking about an educational video here. If there was any prize to be awarded to an educational video, Yansan should definitely get it. Most definitely! Let alone the plot lines, the acting is also very professional and convincing. if you have the chance to somehow get hold of this series, I highly recommend it, especially the end of the second season. I'm actually trying to have my Japanese teacher lend me his copy, so I might be able to post some samples....

Working ourselfself to death...

I will subtitle these pictures "Getting lots of work done...."

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"85% of all deadly accidents happen in the kitchen"

It's all over!

Finally, four crazy weeks have come to an end. And arguably, it was "the best World Cup ever organized" (Kofi Annan). I have to say, it was pretty sweet. Even though Germay only made the third place. But then again, we've won our last match. Probably better than losing it, who knows. At least it was a final reason to party for a last time. I had lots of fun.
I somehow can't shake the impression that Italy won the tournament thru improper means. First the penalty against Australia, the so-called video proof of Frings attacking an Argentinian, and then the whole Materazzi-Zidane thing. By the way, Zidane is an "awesome player" (Kofi Annan) for having head-butted Materazzi in this game. I mean, honestly, the best French player ever in his last match ever, that also happens to be a World Cup final, and he just knocks this guy down. I shall predict presage: Noone is going to remeber that France made the second place, but Zidane will go down into the annals of football history. Or, to quote Kofi Annan, "awesome performance". That's football.
(click the link, click the link !!)

Back on the i-net!

Yo! My blog's experienced some neglect in the last couple of days, which was partly due to some downtime (my roommate upgraded our internet contract without telling me beforehand, plus the phone company send the wrong modem), and due to some visits I had to pay to my doctor. Anyways, I tried to post everything I've gathered so far in order to update this mother.
Yeah, with Germany out of the Cup, the World Cup is virtually over. But it was fun. Really was. The lost match against the Italian women's team ;-) really was a shock. Basically, everybody thought that Germany would win this cup, there was hardly any doubt about it. The moment all the hopes and dreams were crushed really became manifest. Disappointment was in the air for one night. But that's football then again. And South Africa is coming up in 4 years.
Anyway, from now on, I'll try to be online some more, also on MSN and everything......

Fairplay on the autobahn

I encountered these signs on my trips to Kiel and Hannover, and I cannot put the finger on it, but somehow they are remarkable. On my way to the Poland match I also encountered traffic checks on the autobahn for the first time. Since there's no toll booth or speed limits or stuf like that on the autobahn, it was a strange feeling. Speaking of going as fast as you can.......

Public viewing n stuff...

What do you do if you don't happen to have a ticket, but still wanna enjoy the feeling of watching a game in a huge crowd plus exprerience the thrill of getting trampled to death? Right, you go to a place where they show the game in public, and which is hence called 'Public Viewing'. I went to such an amusement, right on Kiel Week, which is not only the biggest sailing event on the world, but also the largest fair in Northern Europe (the biggest fair in the world, and thus also the biggest fair in Southern Europe is the Oktoberfest, indicating that the line between Northern and Southern Europe has to run somewhere across Germany. Even I learned something here.) Other than the beer, it's pretty much the same, even though the Kiel Week is somewhat more international and feature lots of foodstuffs that contain fish. Culinarily, I opted for Fufu at the Ghana stand (without mosquitos <- that's an insider).
But actually I wanted to watch the Germany-Sweden match. Which I couldn't at the Public Viewing spot, because the public part was cool, the viewing part was not. I could virtually see nothing but other people and 1/8 of the screen (needless to say I could hear nothin other than screams and whistles). Whoever tells you, that Public Viewing comes closest to actually attending a match in a stadium is a big liar. Do not listen to these lies! In the end, I was watching the game at a stand of Kieler Stadtbräu, a tasty local beer brand. Not only could I see the game, the beer flow also was uninterrupted. The rest of the night continued accordingly......... (+_°)

P.S.: BTW that female police officer in the picture is one that was featured on one of those "Cops" knock-offs, I can't recall her name, but it was something like Sylvia or sth......

The dark side of the World Cup

With friends like these, you don't need enemies - isn't that how the saying goes? But he's really cool, that kid, and a good friend of mine, although he obviously is Dutch! And Holland left the tournament earlier than Germany; comforting enough to tolerate this obvoius aberrance in taste....:-) Plus Holland in her glorious history has won so many other things, let me think........... I reckon there was something cheese-related.