Studying Economics in Japan is kinda interesting. The more I look at it, the more it appears that what helped the Japanese become a economicly competative very quickly is the same thing which is holding them back right now. It reminds my of Samuri getting stippends from the goverenment. Everyone knew that system no longer worked in the Tokugawa Era, but they also knew that they couldnt change it without destroying their current government/economy.

The Culture class's teacher is not very Nihonjin-Ron. Which means he believes Japanese Culture can be studied by the West, and doesnt have anything "mystical" about it. Reading the culture book really makes me wonder about certain parts of Japanese culture. Like the schools. Having your schoolbooks approved by the government just seems like a little too much governmental control. When the government also tries to cover things up. I feel the same way everytime the state of Georgia decides to fly in the face of logic. Its also not surprising that Japanese students arent as creative if a good chunck of their school system revolves around memorization. Ugh :(. Having college be really easy seems like a bad idea to me too. I want the dumb people who want to be Doctors or Engineers weeded out. I think Japanese schools primary purpose is to create good citizens for a society, not to educate its students sometimes.

 
Lit 2 is my class studying Japanese Literature from WW2 to the present era. This class is being tought by Mark Tiedemann. I also recently finished my 6 page paper for this class(Its why I have been slightly lax in updating this Blog). Its weird being done with your final project in a class half way through it. Japanese Literature also changed a lot in the recent time period. A lot of the stories we have been reading can actually take place anywhere, and dont have a lot of Japaneseism in them. If they do its usually one or two small ones.
For the most part we have also been reading Murkami. Murkami is like a watered down Neil Gammann. Not in a bad way, hes just not so out there.

My Japanese language class is different as well. I have three different teachers for the class, each teaching on different days of the week(Ono sensei teaches twice a week). So far I havent hit many new things in class, but it is really cementing in a foundation for my Japanese. I also watched the movie The Water Boys in class, which was really funny. I think we are going to be watching the Japanese version of the Ring next.

 
I decided to take 16 credits worth of classes in Japan. I have been trying to explain what I have been doing in my cultural classes, but I havent written much about my other classes yet. Again, they are different in lots of ways from American classes. Not having a sylabus and not being given handouts about what teachers expect in papers is kinda annoying. Especially when I have four 6 page papers that I have to write while I am here...

Lit 1 is my class studying modern Japanese Literature. By modern I think they mean from the meji period to WW2. I it is being tought by a german proffesor. So far the class has been interesting for two reasons. First it is kinda neat to finnaly understand some more Japanese refrences more. For example, in the Kenshin OAV's when Kenshins sensei is telling him why sake tastes good, that is actually a old Japanese poem by a priest named Dogen. That and the Hellboy comic that takes place in Japan actually starts like a No play should. Second, every class that we have had the students have gotten the teacher distracted on one subject or another. Not in a bad way. Its always interesting and its always something about Japan.

 
My host family has switched the house over to the winter style. What this means is that at night time they slide another panel over the windows in the front of the house. They also switched the table in the living room. The new table is made up of three parts. First is the table frame. Next is a electric blanket. Finnaly there is the table top put on top. Japanese houses dont have central heating. I dont understand why the pipes dont freeze. Its not cold enough to really bother me yet, but its still nice coming into a warm house.