I will have to post this with half a dozen other entries when I get some internet access. I’m going to be staying a few days with my friend Hiroshi in Kameyama, Mie prefecture, somewhere between Nagoya and Kyoto. I took the long and cheap way here (7,250 yen) using only local trains from Kichijoji, [...]
Once or twice a week I work part time at the Oriental Library (東洋文庫), mostly doing English editing and occasional small bits of translation from Chinese or Japanese. I spend most of my time helping edit a collection of previously published English essays by the author Etô Shinkichi, who was my own Professor Hirano’s mentor. [...]
I’m not sure what all this is about, but it is going around (can anyone tell me where this bizarre idea comes from?) and I just don’t want to be left out of a fun game: 1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 23. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post [...]
There is a store in Kichijoji which sells very cheap T-shirts and sweaters which I often buy for the very reasonable price of around 500 yen. I love this store because, in addition to its other surfer and hip hop theme items, they have a fascinating range of products covered in the most bizarre English [...]
When I eat dinner these days I have been playing over some great audio versions of the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series read by the author, Douglas Adams. As most geeks the world over know, these books are amazing and have spawned a whole set of bizarre references that only we can appreciate. [...]
I updated my open source JSFlash script to 1.1. This little Javascript program creates an interactive flashcard web page which works in most recent browsers. I have embedded the script into OWLS, Jii-chan, and the upcoming Fool’s House of Cards project for practicing vocabulary. I even put it into a timeline/bibliography/biography database project I am [...]
Jonathan Dresner wrote an interesting article on HNN which talks about democracy in Korea and Taiwan. In a later posting on Cliopatria he lists three “landmark moments” for democracy (first transfer of power to the opposition, first peaceful transfer of power to another party, resolution of first major constitutional crisis) and says Taiwan is struggling [...]
On a recent trip to Taiwan I picked up a copy of James Erwin Dew’s 6000 Chinese Words: A Vocabulary Frequency Handbook for Chinese Language Teachers and Students. 杜老師, as we knew the author, was a former director of the IUP Chinese language program in Beijing, where I studied for a year (it is also [...]
There has been lots of unexpected things happening today. In the ‘real world’ Japan is dealing with the fact that some of its nationals may be burned alive in Iraq. The courts have also dealt a blow to the Prime Minister’s visits to Yasukuni shrine. Much less tragic and controversial news hit me in the [...]
These days there are blogs for everything. One thing I enjoy seeing is that besides news, diaries, and link collections, there are also a growing number of blogs for language learning. I am not talking something like the fantastic Language Hat blog posting things related to the field of linguistics but people who are blogging [...]