Marcela's Musings on Japan

Still trying to flesh out my proposal--found some movies related to keitai and internet use so that's another possible angle. Today I went to TEPIA, hoping to use their library on Japanese technology, but it's mainly company videos, very few of which are in English. Their exhibit on the Next Generation IT Home with all this new and developing technology was really great. It reminded me of the Aware Home going on at Tech, so hopefully I can learn a little more about that. Some of it was familiar, like the makeover program where you could change the model's hair and eye shadow color. The funniest: Bowlingual, a special dog collar which "translates" your dog's barks into Japanese phrases such as "I want to be a hero" or "Gambate!" Some were very definitely aimed at women with the colors and ad fliers, but it wasn't necessarily clear they would succeed on the market. For example, one computer program would allow you to enter each item as you put it in the refrigerator which would take it off your "to buy" list, but then you would have to enter when you finished it, so would actually be more work rather than less. Another program would allow you to check a vegetable's bar code so you could get information about its age, what farm it came from, the farmer, and so on. Considering that farmers are not known for being high-tech and that Japan imports a lot of produce, I didn't think this would be practical.

Last night, I went to Tokyo Disneyland with Frances Wu, her sister and a few of her other friends. Small splurge of time and money, but it was fun. We got there around 6:30 because the rates go down after 6, so it was a bit rushed. Still got on a lot of rides and got to see the electrical parade. All the people characters on the floats, like Snow White and Pete, spoke English while the costume characters like Buzz Lightyear and Tigger spoke Japanese. During the parade I was approached by 4 junior-high school boys who had an assignment to ask tourists questions about Japan in order to practice English. Other than the narrations and a Bonsai tree, it seemed pretty much like the American version, down to the costumes and restaurants. Though here even the cleaning staff?@were friendly and fully bilingual.