AKB 48

Not the new model of the ever-popular Russian rifle, but a Japanese pop band.



48 girls, dancing in short school skirts, and singing catchy pop songs about their misdemeanours.



One classic lyric "お父さん、ごめんなさい" - 'Father, I'm sorry'



This is Kayo Noro.



She's an attractive girl.



I am one month older than her.



But I don't think that would be too much of a problem.






And this is Aika Ohta.



She performs onstage several times a week with Kayo Noro and the other 46 girls of AKB.



She is 12 years old.



In fact the girls of AKB run right up from 12 to 22 - older than that, and you get 'graduated'.



They dance the same moves, wear the same clothes, appear on TV together.



You don't have to be Mary Whitehouse to realise that this is not a good thing.

Fading Light

In the mid to late nineteenth century, as the Meiji Restoration finally allowed foreigners into Japan after centuries of enforced isolation, a new economic influx emerged - tourists. To feed the growing interest of wealthy, curious foreigners, early photography flourished in Japan, seeking to give a taste of the exotic orient to well-paying customers.

The result is, to me, absolutely fascinating.

There are a lot of reasons why I love each of these photographs, all around 150 years old - their perfect stylised poses, lurid yet flat colouring, haughty exoticism - but I don't want to patronise your eyes. Just take the time to look at them all. Click on the image to see a bigger version.



















I think this last one is my favourite.

I found these photos on this Japanese website.

Gaijin vs Nippon

I've decided to change the name of my blog, after finding out a bit more about the word 'gaijin'.

Gaijin is a short-hand term - the proper word is gaikokujin, using the characters 外国人, which means (outside - country - person, which translates very easily as foreigner). But the shorter word of gaijin, it seems, is much less polite.

Times I've heard people use 'Gaijin':

1) Sitting on the train one day, with three empty seats around me. A group of three middle-aged Japanese people get on to the busy train, but in the rush for seats one of them stutters over taking the seats next to me. Her husband pushes her into the seat, and sits down opposite her. He asks her in Japanese why she didn't sit down, and asks if it was because of the 'へんな外人’ (henna gaijin - weird foreigner) sitting beside her. Which I considered a little unjustified, sitting as I was in a suit quietly reading a book. I stared him in the eye. '日本語をわかるの？’ roughly asking me if I understood Japanese. 'うん、わかる,’ - yes I understood. No one said much after that.

2) Walking in the street in central Fukuoka, a crazy old granny shouted at me with a chipboard voice, "外人、外人、背が高いね!" - 'foreigner, foreigner, you're tall aren't you!"

I must stress that these are very isolated incidents, and the people I've met here are on the whole the politest I've ever met. But when the more xenophobic side filters out, it generally gets associated with the term 'gaijin'. I thought of our English equivalents, as when in the past westerners have used shortened terms like 'Japs' or 'Nips' - or at worst 'pakis'. 'Gaijin' is certainly not that extreme, but the connotations aren't great.

So, I've decided to shift this blog to Nippon Lamford. Nippon is the Japanese name for Japan, as is Nihon, the two words being largely interchangeable. But Nippon Lamford sounds better, so that is what it shall be...