cimorene

I bought a movie yesterday that I've been wanting since I first heard of it: Kamome shokudo is "the first Japanese movie filmed in Finland", a sweet and off-beat story about a Japanese restaurant in Helsinki and the Japanese and Finnish people it brings together.

Because of my long interest in Japan and my less long, but more immediate interest in Finland (and the situation of foreigners living in it), I found it especially wonderfully compelling, although I think it stands up quite well in its own right. I kept thinking I should rip and upload it for people, but then I remembered that the film's in Japanese and the subtitles are only in Finnish and Swedish, which rather reduces its audience, although since it does have an international title and was screened at the Montreal film festival, it must have been subtitled in English already somewhere.

Satomi Kobayashi in the lead role was really adorable, almost as striking as the beautiful Marimekko clothes, Iittala dishes, and Artek furniture.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: peaceful

Okay, I'm sure it's not a secret really, but it wasn't in the recipe in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Cooking that we got our standard from when I was growing up.

Then I spent a summer in Japan when I was seventeen, and on the way home from an idyllic trip to some famed giant iris gardens we stopped at a little Chinese cottage restaurant with a formal diningroom atmosphere, and I had the best plate of fried rice ever in my life. (I also sampled some spicy red soup so hot it made my eyes and nose stream, and I saw my first teenaged Japanese guy dressed in gobs of blue eyeliner, holding hands with his girlfriend under the table.)

Anyway, I had paroxysms over this fried rice, and when we got home again Mama said she thought she could duplicate it, but hers wasn't quite as fantastic (I think she used some crab sauce, among other flavourings), and no other that I've had since ever has been.

But tonight I was struck with inspiration. After adding the soy sauce and vegetables back to the frying rice, I mixed up a pinch of ground ginger and chili powder in some more soy sauce and diluted it with water, and sprinkled it over the whole mixture for the last five minutes or so of frying time. Then I served it all with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

It's the closest I've ever come! I think it might be better with a bit more soy and ginger, and even a bit more chili (I only used about half a teaspoon to a whole 2 breasts of chicken and cup and a half of rice), assuming the fried rice isn't meant for those of wimpy tastebuds (eg Wax).

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Aladdin - A Whole New World

Learn something about Japanese culture and/or Japanese story-telling before you attempt to apply your culture-centric Western aesthetic to a Japanese narrative (yes, this means anime and manga and dramas). This applies perhaps more so to Japan than to somewhere closer like Sweden or Spain, but it applies there, too.

The fact that you are reading a work of literature in translation should never allow you to forget that you are looking through a window into an alien worldview. All those little threads that lead off into associations in English (and, in fact, in much European) literature not only don't lead there in literature in translation, they lead to somewhere completely different , somewhere that you could never anticipate.

Current Mood: impatient

this is mainly for

aeslis: rather lengthy commentary, episode-by-episode, on ( yasashii jikan (05-11). ) now with bonus ohmiya AU conversations! you can't go wrong with ohmiya.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: Sarah Slean - California

ate kung pao chicken. it was spicy and contained peanuts. then frozen blueberry pie, which was gelatinous and processed and just generally suspicious. my stomach is already starting up with the complaints, along the lines of "peanuts. wtf?", and "oh, you thought i wouldn't NOTICE the gelatinous character of the blueberries, did you?"

bluh. don't like. don't like! *whimper*

in other news, am packing tonight as soon as my stomach calms down, and leaving tomorrow around 1 for home, where it's warm. i'm going to take pictures of family, dog, and self with parents' digital camera because i feel like it, possibly dressed in yukata (=lightweight cotton summer kimono) because it is green and because i so rarely have an excuse to wear it.

two years ago a japanese exchange student named mayumi lived with me, and then i spent the following summer with her. i miss her a LOT. a LOT. it's hard to get used to being alone again when for a long time, you never are. i could lock myself in my room, but then whenever i wanted something, i could go knock on her door. we went to the mall like twice a week just to walk around together and ate lunch together every day and in japan we talked about her boyfriend in the middle of the night at the kitchen table over keeki and milk yogurt and macha icecream and tea.

i miss her.

/rambling

one possible meaning of my [real] name in japanese is "hairy shore."

Current Mood: enlightened
Current Music: tori amos - mother

oooooh, the rebellion. am in japanese class. have successfully bruised [did i say bruised? no, blistered! blistered.] both ankles with the evil vintage boots. also: wood soles on boots? bad idea.

also, another edit, post-greek class: i'm so fucked. i might as well stop going to greek entirely. it's not like i don't pay attention! and it's not like i don't understand things. the problem is memorizing. i fucking suck at memorizing lists of things and i don't have the time or patience to sit down and recite greek verbs and nouns and adjectives, AND i've been feeling like shit, and i'm STILL behind in japanese from being sick last semester, and. guh. life fucking SUCKS. i have another greek quiz wednesday, and i have to take friday's tomorrow, because i don't have time to study AND take it before the japanese quiz i have to take at 1. --i'm clearly going to get no more writing done until spring break.

there is WAY too much pretentious literature out there. i have decided this. i do not want to do any more literary criticism, ever.

damn. forgot to take my medicine.

on the + side, cuteftp and rightthisway have kissed and made up. therefore, i have added new slash (and an eensy bit of het) recs. very oishii, for the most part.

gah. forgot how to say "20 yrs old" in japanese. hatachi. gah.

Current Mood: itchy
Current Music: cats - memory

1. museum visitor looked like sir ian mckellan. hee! (i have decided to bold random words. *alert, innocent look*)

2. took my shoes off while on duty and walked [about 2 ft. but!] without them! ohhhh! the rebellion of it all!

3. my japanese professor, who, unsurprisingly, is japanese, wrote our textbook, so it is full of cute adorable little japanese-person errors. she also wrote an english translation under some pig latin in the linguistics text she lent me--so did she work it out herself and write it in as a reminder, or did she go ask someone? either way. CUTE!

4. keep running into the least cute boy from my greek class in the dining hall. go away, frog boy. he always looks slightly displeased, and i wouldn't be surprised to learn he was a republican. furthermore, he knows the right answer sometimes when i don't, despite having been really long-winded about nothing in our class together last semester. now, if i could only run into startled! boy or julian bashir! boy every day, i could easily overcome this blossoming evil crush (no. go. AWAY.edit: crush is not on the stupid boy--this is a non sequitur.)

[edit: my hair smells like food. this disturbs me. either that or my nose is just smelling food without discrimination, including when hair happened to blow in front of it, but either way, it's disturbing.]

Current Mood: overworked
Current Music: like dylan in the movies - belle & sebastian

saw fox. cute little red fox running outside after horrid squirrel. yay. fox cute! <--has never seen fox before

my grandpa was bitten by a rabid fox once and had to get 10 shots in the stomach.

it is raining. ick! ick! --making up for the beautiful weather yesterday, i guess. [edit: it is now snowing--was all ready to hate massachussetts--then a big dry flake drifted by my nose about the size of a nickel, big enough to make out the details of the ice crystals and i relaxed. life is beautiful. i can handle my hair being full of snow.]

the naked editor walks under my window, frowning. wearing a sweater. a sweater! helLO? NAKED? grrrr.

i love my cool greek professor.

*floats away, reciting "what is on your desk" and "oh really? i don't want money" in japanese*

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: ch6 japanese speaking practice

isn't it wonderful how sometimes things happen that surprise you so much you just can't stop laughing?

1. in japan two years ago. walking with host parents and na-chan (sister) down the hill from kiyomizudera, the temple, past the little shops. stop and buy green tea/vanilla swirl icecream (the best). mama is wearing green shirt and white jeans, so i say, "mama, you match my icecream." mama: oh, great, i'm icecream. papa: *laughs* mama: papa, i am icecream. have some! *picking up the edge of her shirt* papa: *laughs* me: *fall over from shock* papa: no, i don't like it. mama: [says in japanese what i later find out means "please lick"]

2. my japanese prof. (otherwise known as the coolest advisor in the universe) wrote our textbook. my drill partner* and i are going over the speaking sections for all the old chapters today, and laughing at errors. prof. asks us to mention any we find, so i say, flipping the page, "there is this really bad one..." of an instance where a line got assigned to the wrong speaker, resulting in much confusion. prof: really bad! don't say that! bad girl! *hits my shoulder, laughing* me: *die of shock* prof: *to my partner* i think we will make her write a textbook, huh? and then we will pass it out and everyone will say it is really bad. partner: *no help at all* prof: *keeps hitting my shoulder--seriously, like 10 times* me: *can't stop laughing to save my life, or to explain more carefully what i was talking about*

tonight, i spent more than 3 hours on 20 japanese sentences and 6 greek sentences. the greek sentences took about 2.5 of those hours. ...does something strike you as strange?

*drill partner looks a lot like julian bashir, the dr from star trek: ds9. not quite as cute. but def. close enough.

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: studying! mozart

so today has been a wonderful, wonderful day. there is no feeling of accomplishment like that which follows fishing dirty bottle tops and unopened tampons and shit from under roommates' desks and vaccuuming up pounds and pounds of shit from all over both rooms. yay. --there's so much shit in here--it's amazing, behind the tv, under the desks and the futon and matted in the carpet, under the beds and the fans and... ew. just. ew.

and almost all of it are these tremendous nasty dust bunnies made out of tangled wads of shed hair (at least we're all brunette, so there's no blame being assigned) mixed with these little clouds of gray crap (ie, dust). predict i will start sneezing at any moment.

but. yes. put all my shoes back in the Corner of Shoes under the window/broken radiator; rescued dirty slipper from certain death under the desk, along with the better of two spanish dictionaries and an invitation to a reading from my professor's new novel--crybaby butch (lisa: what's it called? me: the book? --duh. crybaby butch. lisa: *eyebrow* me: yeah, well, it's not a very promising title, but she's witty and nice so it might be good). oh. and also threw away lots of pieces of various bandaids.

god, we're gross.

<--sweaty and happy and sneezing. open window? hm hm hm hm.

in other news, i know how to say "i want a lot of chairs" in japanese, in the distal (/formal) style. for some reason i find this highly amusing.

Current Mood: kick-ass
Current Music: christina aguilera--cuando no es contigo

english statement made by japanese person. / actual meaning in american.
____________________________________________

i see. / no.
ah. / no.
ah-hah. / no.
yes. / no.
that is difficult. / that is completely impossible.
that is very interesting. / that is the stupidest thing i have ever heard.
we still study your proposal. / we will feed your proposal to a goat.

--from Dave Barry Does Japan, by Dave Barry

Current Mood: i hate snow
Current Music: clips from she-ra pilot ep

that means "poor," and by "she" i mean mai kuraki. am listening to j pop despite not actually speaking japanese, so when she says words i recognize it's cause for celebration ("takara," "watashi," "boku no," "taisetsu," "kimi"...).

in other news, i lost my j textbook. went to copy store to buy new one (it's a course packet, as my advisor, the coolest of her species in the world, wrote it herself and hasn't had it really published) and it cost $37, which was $2 more than i had in my checking account. i was forced to pay partly with cash. you should have seen the look the lady gave me.

speaking of my norwegian exchange student, anneth, i want to say the following to lisa's boyfriend: hälvetas ylva forpunto dletunya. bear in mind that i don't remember how to spell norska--and yes, lisa's boyfriend is not newt gingrich, who was who i was supposed to say that to, if anyone. otoh, maybe that injunction expired when i reached my majority? oh shit, is majority 21 and not 18???? ...nevermind. well anyway, she won't read this.

oh, and it means "go to [the worst form of] hell, you fucked-up piece of shit." anneth says it to boyscouts, and i'm only supposed to say it to newt? [edit: apparently norway has more than one hell. i don't know if this is like seventh heaven, or if they have a christian hell and an opposite of valhalla hell, or if it's just some roped-off corner of hell that really sucks, like looking at chris and justin being all cute and not being able to touch. whatever the case, i'm sure they reserve the worst hell for swedes. swedes, newt gingrich, and now my roommate's boyfriend, who for some reason wants to have sex in our bedroom and not in the empty room that somone loaned them.]

also: it really does sound like those parodies of swedish, you know, duh-da-duh-da-duh-da. the emphasis falls HALvetas YLva forPUNto dlETunya. as far as i remember. i also know how to say "life is good on the telephone," because i had a boyfriend when she lived with us and i spent my life on the telephone so she gave me a t-shirt that says it. livet er herlig i telefonen.

the most mysterious word in there is "telephonen," i think.

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: mai kuraki - secret of my heart

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Cimorene

May 2025

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kamome shokudo/ruokala lokki (the seagull diner)
I've finally discovered the secret ingredient in Chinese fried rice!
Literature in Translation, or: The Culture Barrier: Not Just for International Travel Anymore!
yasashii jikan
whisper to the night to hide her starry light
virulently important language update
class
touch me, it's so easy to leave me...
after the museum... comes... the walking back outside with the scarf on. :(
fox!
weirdness, life, japanese people
cleaning shit
dave barry rocks. so does japan.
she said "kawaii soo!"

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multi-fannish American queer cat & bunny owner in Finland

Entries tagged with japan & japanese

kamome shokudo/ruokala lokki (the seagull diner)

I've finally discovered the secret ingredient in Chinese fried rice!

Literature in Translation, or: The Culture Barrier: Not Just for International Travel Anymore!

yasashii jikan

whisper to the night to hide her starry light

virulently important language update

class

touch me, it's so easy to leave me...

after the museum... comes... the walking back outside with the scarf on. :(

fox!

weirdness, life, japanese people

cleaning shit

dave barry rocks. so does japan.

she said "kawaii soo!"