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Examining Tokyo's Media Immersion Pods
the terminal of geoff goodfellow writes "The New York Times has an article on the Bagus Gran Cyber Café in Tokyo, where customers rent so-called media immersion pods. From the article: 'At first glance the spread looks officelike, but be warned: these places are drug dens for Internet addicts outfitted with VHS and DVD players, satellite and regular television on a Toshiba set, PlayStation 2, Lineage II and a Compaq computer loaded with software, all the relevant downloads and hyperspeedy Internet. In the nearby library were thousands of comic books, magazines and novels.'"
So why aren't these in the US yet?
Japanese people do not use these spaces because they are actively seeking out media, but because they are using the space as a refuge from long commutes and cramped, shared, homes. Japanese people often work very late and live over one hour from the city, making it almost impossible to visit each others homes. To have any privacy, couples have to meet outide the home, and places such as Bagus, karaoke boxes and love hotels are all geared to this market.
Oh, they exist, and have done for at least a decade. They're known as "ime-kura" short for "image club" -- which is a very very very nice way of saying "role-playing brothel". Most of them, in an effort to skirt under the law, don't allow "SEX" but allow everything but... meaning, no outright penetration, but anything else goes. Even "labiel" sex. Most imekura stick to normal fettishes like nurses and airline stewardesses, but many take on anime and video game characters as well.
1) No, your instructor is wrong. It's not because he's Chinese he knows about Chinese history. I know more Japanese history than Japanese people themselves for example. Simply because I study the country at university in more detail than they did in high school. Han refers to the area Hanzhung. The people from Hanzhung simply refered to themselves as Han. Now when the characters came via Paekche to Japan I'm sure they were referred to as "Han characters" or "the writing of the Han", but "people's writing" is simply wrong. That would be "Min2zi4". I don't know if that term actually exists or not.
2) There is no "uu" and "ee" in any transcription system. Just "u" and "e". A cursive writing style was not seen as feminine (non-cursive writing of characters is just very slow due to having to lift the brush time after time), it was specifically the hiragana, because these were used by "uneducated" women (they were uneducated because higher education was forbidden for them). However due to such works as the Genji Monogatari it gained popularity and replaced katakana and Chinese as writing in official documents. Also, the hiragana were NOT developped from JUST the radicals. When you're writing in cursive you don't just write the radical and omit the rest of the character...
3) You're wrong. The two alphabets were developped independantly. The more educated folk simply used man'yogana instead of onnade. Katakana was developed by monks to aid in the reading of kanbun (Chinese texts annotated by Japanese). The similarities you discuss such as the kana for "u" is simply because they were derived from the SAME man'yougana, this is the case for "ka" and "u" but not for "e". The syllabaries were developped from the same source, but it is completely WRONG to say that one develloped from the other or vice versa. This is a FACT.
4) The Japanese goverment held some kanji reforms themselves after WW2, where complex forms (kyuujitai) were simplified into variants (shinjitai) that were already used in handwriting.
"The Japanese system of competition for education, career and social esteem, Dr. Kimura explained, forces young people to obsess over self-presentation, which costs them both fantasy and anonymity, the privileges of childhood... The Gran Cyber Cafés now serve this purpose, he said. "Nobody cares what you do, which enables you to be absorbed in whatever fantasy you want to indulge in through Net surfing, Web games or manga. Yet you can satisfy your timid desire to belong."
...I consider to be a symptom of the health of Japanese culture as opposed to US/ UK culture where...
In other words, the basic argument of this article is "the Japanese are sick and manga cafés like this are an interesting symptom of the disease - by comparison with the robust health of Western culture". What nonsense.
Two key elements...
* the seamless blending of sexual content and other forms of entertainment
* the enthusiastic embrace of new forms of culture
* sexual content lives in a ghetto in which only those who are talentless or desperate will work, while ultraviolent content is fine
* new forms of culture are treated with suspicion - even games, for God's sake, after all these years are still disdained.
So my response is please stop treating this sort of manga café as a kind of boil that reflects some underlying disease, and let's open a chain of these in the west right now.
But of course, I only think that because I'm sick...
Hiragana and Katakana developed independently, as the other poster mentioned. The basic reason for both was the need in Japanese to record sound symbolisms (such as verb inflections) not needed in Chinsese; put shortly, Hanzi was a great fit for Chinese, but not all that great for Japanese (as evidenced by the difference in the way "original" Japanese words and chinese loanwords are written). Hiragana and Katakana were developed during different times of close contact, and were in one case a shorthand of Hanzi commonly used for phonetic spelling, and in the other, as common subcomponents with a well-known phonetic use (though these were different from radicals). In a few cases, and over a millennium of confusion, they resolved to nearly the same shape, but that is incidental.
More to the point, there was not one single time that Hanzi crossed the sea and became Kanji. That has happened in multiple waves, so some characters are of younger origin than others - and this is also part of the explanation why some characters have so many readings; being common, they had changed over time and picked up new readings and meanings every time there was a new burst of cultural exchange between the countries. Also, a few characters have gone the other way, originating in Japan and being used in China as well.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
It's MORE than a Manga Cafe. I've been to TWO of them. They also have Play Station, I think X box IIRC, and VCR/DVD combos. If you go in there with the right gear, you could **probably** bootleg the hell out of DVDs and other media. Not that I support/condone that.
But, if those existed in the US, you'd have some form of illegal sex, human fluids, spilt drinks, and maybe even drug activity. But, aside from THAT, the MPAA? and RIAA and BSA would demand copying of license or IDs and installation of anti-piracy tools.
The anti-porn legislation types would demand installation of video cameras to deter sex and abuse of children.
Cities hard up for tax revenues would impose harsh and draconian "arcade" permit requirement upon each machine. I suppose Internet cafes already pay these. IN Stockton, California, any such business would have to pay these arcade fees via the police department.
They places would lose money, and go out of business. All because of church groups, drug dealers, sex addicts, and the RIAA/others complaining about piracy and loss of revenues.
But, yeh, most of all, here in the US, we don't have the "crowd effect" of 10 million to 20 million (I forget the exact number, but the pop and density are high...) people in the size of Tokyo pushing to get out of the house and stay out as long as possible. The main Shinjuku station probably moves more people in a week than NYC might in a month or two. The per-square foot of utilization by shops, eateries, jewelers, and more is mind-boggling. Not a space is wasted, and most of the shops and such all seem new, abuzz, and entrepreneurial, tho there are some larger chains or big-budget stores present. There is a certain "energy" in the air I felt in Tokyo, and I NEVER feel that here in the US except on occasions of HUGE parades, shows or concerts., and THAT is mostly all due to "herd mentality", not a daily occurrence.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
INDEED!
I had to use the toilet in one (in Japan, in English, one asks for "the toilet", not the "bathroom") and there were all sorts of meticulous posters explaining not to shower in the toilet room. Instead, rent the shower...
I think the shower was priced around Y300 or Y500 (roughly US$3.30 or US $5.50 at the time. For that, and a $10 movie, though, about every 2 hours, it could be pricey. So, I think some people just used the desk area, where some "overnight" spaces were dedicated. I don't think overnighters had a "cubicle" or "pod" in which to sleep. There were resting areas. In the open. At least in the one in Shibuya I went to.
But, it could get pricey, tho one still could save Y300 to Y2000 per day on travel costs. Just buy some undies and socks and toss out the soiled/used stuff or recycle it. Even THAT can get pricey, too. But, time being very priceless probably is a strong motivator for some to say in town and not worry about missing the last train, only to be able to have 5 hours of sleep and home and turn around and sleep an hour on the train on the way back to work-- if waking is not a problem when having to transfer to another train.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"