Millennium Actress.

Saturday morning, 9.14am. I am sitting in my wonderful air-conditioned room, scratching mosquito bites, listening to Battles and trying to learn about 35 new Kanji for Monday. Kanji are the Chinese characters which absolutely have to be learned if I am to progress into the higher (and much more interesting) Japanese class. About 2000 Kanji are used in Japan and each one usually has more than one reading, depending on its context. Difficult, no? I actually already learnt 100 back home, which is a good start. But I need to revise a lot.
My first week of college is over. It’s been good! I want to write about everything, but I can’t. So here’s a round up:

- Japanese level one (easiest): consisted of learning how to say ummm and errr in Japanese (ehhhto, annno), knowledge which has provided me with no end of entertainment.
- The university made us all do a health examination the other day. I had my height, weight, eyesight, blood pressure, heart and lungs measured. And then they took my urine. And my blood. It was an afternoon of awkwardly avoiding the gaze of the person whose urine you just saw, and then out of boredom trying to make lighthearted-but-not-too-deep conversation with them.
- The AU phone company have devoted an entire building in Harajuku to promoting its new phone with in-built pedometer. At the top of the building (after walking round and round and pretending to be mildly interested in the products on offer) there was a free Purikura!! (プリクラ) this is a machine which takes a photo of you, and you decorate with cute stamps and then print out as little stickers which are really sweet! It has the strange effect of making everyone in the photo look really young, like super young. Maybe even under 18. I doubt I ever actually look as wide-eyed and fresh faced as I do in Purikura photos.

The other day I watched an animated film called Millennium Actress/Sennen Joyu (千年女優), as part of my Contemporary Culture course. This course feels more like some kind of fun after-school club. The assessment is any creative project of my choice. Why am I studying Geography again?! The freedom here is really inspiring. I need freedom to feel relaxed and happy and able to achieve things. Part of me doesn’t want to go back to stupid England. Maybe that’s what I was scared of before I came here...that I would like it too much.
Anyway. This film was about a young girl who helps an artist fleeing from the fascist government, who want him to join the army. As the artist runs away, he forgets the key to his art supplies. The young girl is in-awe of the man, and she promises to return the key no matter what. At about the same time she gets spotted by a scout to become an actress. These two moves shape her life forever. Her desire to find the mysterious artist spurs her on and her emerging life as an actress takes her all over Asia.
The film proceeds to mix reality with her film work as a way of telling the epic and lifelong journey she takes to return this key to its owner. What makes it magical and heart wrenching is that wherever she is; whatever role she is playing, her heart and mind are focussed on one thing: finding this man and returning the key.
The story exposes her naïve and optimistic personality, which doesn’t ever change, even when she is retired. She catches glimpses of the man throughout her life but instead of dampening the ache they only spur her on. In the end she dies having never found him, and the viewer learns that the artist had actually died too, many years before in a concentration camp. I found the film really difficult to watch in front of 60 other people. I wanted to curl up and sob! I suppose it struck a chord with me.
I’d forgotten how good Anime is at creating a sense of pure emotion. Since I watched that film I’ve been pretty dry in my thoughts. It’s a kind of dry and parched feeling you get when feelings have been exposed. When there isn’t anything left to fall back on, except harsh reality. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It’s not like I feel unmotivated or depressed, just a bit closer to the truth. Which can only be a good thing.

This weekend I’m hoping to enjoy a bit of rain and maybe even a night out. Ok one last thing:

What to do when one foreigner encounters another foreigner in Japan

1. Ignore them. They get stared at by everyone else, so it’s actually kinder to pretend they don’t exist
2. Ignore them. Stupid gaijin (foreigner) looks like they don’t know a word of Japanese. To associate with them would be so degrading.
3. Ignore them. This person looks/sounds like they speak fluent Japanese. To associate with them would be too exposing.
4. Smile and wave. Hey! Foreigner, look! We’re in Japan!

These are the basic options. You never know how one will react! I usually go with the first option: dragging oneself through a severely busy street can be exhausting purely due to having ones every move chartered. I always secretly want to choose option four And I think everyone secretly wants to choose option four.

Ja mata ne! Until next time!