Fall Adventures in Japan - 2008 Retrospective

Here is a short video I put together to document the fun we had during our Fall semester in Japan during 2008. Thanks to Sean Kelly and Kunjel Chawda for their contributions!

Good luck to all of the future ETC Japan students!


- Bennosuke

ETC-Global-JP Gets a Visit from Ira Fay, Game Designer, Electronic Arts

September 15, 2008... On Monday, September 15th, ETC-JP welcomed Ira Fay, a major supporter of the ETC and an alum, (class of 2004). Ira was on his way back from Shanghai where he was working with a team on the newest casual game for the Pogo Division of Electronic Arts where he works as a Game Designer.

Ira, on holiday for a few days in Japan, made it a priority to stop at ETC’s newest campus in Osaka, Japan. He came to meet and give a seminar lecture to the SHARP student team...imparting his wisdom gained from his experiences working at Electronic Arts. His focus was on casual games in general and more specifically as they pertain to his current position as Game Designer in the Pogo Division.

Present were Kunjel Chawda (via SKYPE from Seattle), Sean Kelly, Heejun Kim, Benjamin Taylor and faculty advisors, Dr. James Kuffner and Michelle Macau.

- Michelle Macau

Danjiri Matsuri

Masako Terahara, Heejun Kim, Benjamin Taylor, Sean Kelly, Michelle Macau

September 14, 2008... The ETC-JP team made its way to Kishiwada, a city south of Osaka and joined thousands of spectators from all over Japan who came to view the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri Festival.

Described as the “running of the bulls” except with portable shrines (danjiri), the 300 year-old festival began as a spiritual time to pray for an abundant harvest. The 34 shrines or floats, from individual neighborhood guilds, are hand carved by local carpenters, and weigh upwards of 4 tons. They are paraded through the town of Kishiwada for two full days in mid-September.



Not motorized in any way, each shrine is pulled by long ropes by 500 to 1000 citizens of Kishiwada. Men, women and children of all ages join in this celebration. Working both front and rear levers in unison, the danjiri teams literally skid their heavy floats around each street corner…done quickly to the beat of drums and shouts of the pulling team, corner turning is one of the most dramatic elements of the festival.

The excitement was made all too clear when in the late afternoon, one of the floats turned a corner and, right before us, several people stumbled. Quickly, the danjiri team working together pulled on the ropes and was able to slow down and control the heavy shrine. Meanwhile, those who stumbled were assisted by other team members and the tragedy was happily avoided.



The ETC'ers, escorted by Japanese language sensei, Masako Terahara, also had the opportunity to visit the Kishiwada castle and try on happi coats at a nearby second hand kimono shop.

- Michelle Macau

Nintendo museum Arashiyama

We took a trip on Sunday to Arashiyama to see the Nintendo history museum. It was great. Just to the right of the entrance they were selling DS systems and a game I haven't seen anywhere else. Just to the left of the entrance were lockers in which to check your shoes, bags, and expectations. The history of Nintendo, you must remember, is about 30 years of video games preceded by a long and rich era of traditional Japanese poetry playing cards.


That isn't to say the influence of modern Nintendo wasn't present. The first 20 minutes of the museum is an interactive room with a floor full of HDTVs. Specialized Nintendo DS units provide 2 interactive exercises- navigating a bird's-eye map of the area and locating specific cards from Nintendo's original game, as well as location-sensitive detail on each card on a wall display that spans the periiter of the room.

The next room has another pair of interactive experiences- a 2-screen immersive session of a simplified version of the actual card game, and round standing consoles with a series of minigames based around the cards and poets, in a peaceful virtual koi pond.

The second floor of the museum is a card showcase, with multiple decks from various eras and a giant tatami room containing a series of manequins representing poets featured on the cards from various eras in Japan's history.


The DS software for sale includes the 2-screen card game and a version of the map exercise. I bought a copy for myself if anyone wants to see it when I get back. Michelle could be convinced to buy a copy for the ETC if anyone expresses an interest. Unfortunately, it's only available in Japanese, and thanks to Nintendo's recent push to include more educational incentives in software, it includes a fair bit of kanji and requires a significant knowledge of classical Japanese poetry to play well.

Games

A couple weeks ago, I died and went to heaven. It turns out there are a lot of classic video games in heaven, which is more or less what I expected.A lot of classic games. No, really. A lot.

As in walls completely full of things that haven't been seen in the US in decades, if ever. All for quite reasonable prices.
I'm not entirely sure what happened, the details get kinda fuzzy around the time I found Star Ocean: Blue Sphere mint in shrink-wrap, but I woke up $90 poorer with an entirely too cute PC Engine, half a dozen games, and some nice pics. I hope to find my way back some time.

Danjiri Matsuri

A couple weekends ago we attended a local festival called Danjiri Matsuri. A Danjiri is a giant wooden shrine on wheels. Matsuri apparently refers to "over a hundred people from the particular town hauling something all over creation and taking the corners at ridiculous speed." In addition to the danjiri themselves, there were plenty of vendors and festival food to try- roasted squid tentacle, grilled whole fish on a stick, fried Pikachu, you name it. We also spent entirely too much time with a wonderful if potentially crazy kimono shop owner. He gave us all discounts, which was nice, and he loaned Ben a pair of real-looking katana to have him stand in front of the shop and do publicity stunts... I'm still not sure how to assemble a slide show here (the whole back-end is in Japanese), but I'll try to transfer our pics from the trip onto Randon in the near future.

Towels

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels...

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

quotation from The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams www.douglasadams.com

Unsurprisingly, the same holds true for getting around Japan. A towel is one of the more useful things you can have in your possession at most times. It is useful for, among other things, fashioning an impromptu gaijin twist-headband or turban, placing in your lap as a substitute for the traditional western napkin (Japanese napkins are tiny rectangles of nonabsorbant tissue paper measuring perhaps 6"x8" unfolded), mopping the sweat off your face after a few hours running around one city or another in the hot muggy pseudo-summer months, sheltering from the rain when you accidentally leave your umbrella at the office/apartment, or simply drying your hands (the bathrooms near the ETC office are strictly bring-your-own-towel). Traditional Japanese towels are not incredibly absorbant by western standards, so bring your own bath and beach towels if you want them. A small Japanese hand-towel, however, will suffice for day-to-day keeping-with-you, and should run no more than $3 (300 Yen) at a local convenience or souvenir store.