Well its official, I will be back in England from December 13th to January 6th. Im looking forward to seeing you all!!!

I have been just watching an interesting Japanese drama about the lives of a Japanese family living in Brazil. Its interesting to see how people from a totally different culture managed to assimilate through tremendous hardship. I was talking to a Japanese academic who has lived in south america for 15 years and he says that in fact in many ways Japanese immigrants in Brazil have maintained traditional values of the old Japan much better than the mainlanders. This would seem to ring true for many immigrant minorities such as Italian Americans who very much represent old Italy and who are much more protective about the nuclear family than European Italians .

Sometimes I wish I could have seen the old Japan of pre meiji. Even when my grandparents lived in Kyoto during the 1930s its was a startingly different place. The Japan of today does feel lost in many ways, I ask my students about traditional japanese culture and a lot of them are apathetic or observe traditions without consciously knowing why they do them. "I do it because it is tradition." It almost seems as if Japan is eating itself in some ways, Kyoto for me really epitomises this for me as the cultural heart of Japan because its ugly and modern for the most part. Gazillions of yen was spent on erecting a horrible tower and shiny train station but not on preserving the old quarter of gion which is slowly being entrenched upon by the demonic construction industry which has helped make every japanese city look as about as sexy as a big grey rhino turd.

Speaking of this, one thing that is of great detriment to mankind throughout the world I have decided is the shopping centre. They are souless cathedrals of banality and must be crushed. The reason for my ire in particualr is because I have been working in one for over a year and I cannae take it no more! In Japan they are an especially vigurous assualt on the senses. Every morning I enter the shopping centre feeling like a pig has shat in my head to the chorus of "Happy Day Lalalalala lalalalala Happy Day Lalalalalala, oh Happy Day! Leaving for the supermarket for my lunch break im assualted by a thousand tape recorded messages trying to get me buy random crap " Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!" "Fishie Fishies are Yummy Yummy! Buy Buy Buy"　"I love Toilet Paper, my botom feels so great, Hooray!. Can you imagine walking around Tescos and having to listen to songs about Marmite or ditties about the benefits of eating HobNobs? I cant. Leaving the centre is the worst because I am always forced to listen to the cheesy synth muzak whilst getting the lift, listening to a rendition of Living on A Prayer or an ACDC song a la Tomy Playschool music box makes me want to puke my guts out.

So I have decided to quit my current job at last. Hooray! The final straw was when I asked one of my students for his news and he returned with a blank look on his face. "Come on you must have done something exciting?" Continued blank stare..... " Well I went to a soccer game... two years ago"
I put my hands in my head and burst out laughing. He smiled, and at that moment I think he realised that he was the most boring man in the entire world.