Raise The Red Lantern - a short review
In an attempt to relieve my boredom at work today somewhat, I decided to bring in a film to watch. I’ve got quite a few films I bought and then never got around to watching, so I was well overdue to watch Raise The Red Lantern, a film from director Yimou Zhang. If I remember correctly, I bought this film because it was rated by others and starred Gong Li (see below). Voted “Most beautiful woman in China” in 2006 (no mean feat in a country with over 1.2bn people), Gong Li is a hugely underrated actress in my opinion. Western audiences will probably know her best as Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha, but she has been in many other films and is well established in China.
But onto the film itself. Raise The Red Lantern is set in 1920s China and revolves around Songlian (Li) as a 19-year old girl who has recently lost her father. Dropping out of university, she decides to marry into wealth, but has an indifference to becoming a concubine. She becomes “Fourth Mistress” in the Chen household and acquires a maid who works for her, albeit secretly dreaming herself of one day becoming a mistress to the master of the house. Being close to the master means more power, and there is strong competition between the wives. Each night, the master chooses who he will spend the night with, and lanterns are lit in the chosen Mistress’s house. As the competition becomes more fierce, the story takes a number of surprising and deceptive turns.
Car parts ready to be installed
Monday was an exciting day for me, with news that a big package had arrived at my friend’s house to pick up. Inside the package was the rest of the things I needed for the next stage of upgrades to my car. So, for those of you that might have any interest, we have:
A Treadstone TRV185 intercooler (which you have seen before), rated to 720hp. I am going to get my tuning shop to fabricate me some custom piping to go from the turbo to the intercooler (60mm) and then from the intercooler up to the engine (70mm). Should help cool down my intake temperatures a lot and help me make some more power. And I know the intercooler is upside down in this photo, but that’s how it’s going to have to be positioned when it’s mounted on my car!
Making students pass in Japan
Something happened at work this morning which got me thinking. Now for anything to happen at my workplace at the moment is something of a revelation; the students have their summer classes at the moment and my services are not required for those. In addition, today is the last day of summer classes before the summer “holiday” for students. I use the quotation marks because it’s called a holiday, but the students get 10 days off school maximum, and a lot of them will be in school each day doing either clubs or extra study of some sort. Not like the 6 weeks or longer that students in the UK get. It is even busier schedule for teachers. The local government (and this is the case throughout Japan) is of the opinion that, seeing as they are getting paid during the summer, they should come to work each day, regardless of whether or not they have any real work to do. The longest time teachers in Japan have off work is usually 4 days break over New Year, although a lot of teachers from my school went into work at about 7am on New Years day this year as the students had tests that day. The summer and spring “holidays” is when the majority of teachers use their paid leave. They have just over 20 days of paid leave per year but it is very rare that a teacher will take time off during term time. I think they would be allowed to if they wanted, but it’s just not the done thing.
But I have gone off on a bit of a tangent. Anyway, a fellow English teacher approached me this morning for some help with marking homework they had been set. As we chatted, the conversation moved to a student in the 2nd year who wasn’t great at English. She wasn’t a bad student, but everything we did in class went over her head. Consequently, despite doing what I could her homework and exam scores suffered accordingly, culminating in her actually failing this term. Now when a student fails at a subject, you usually think that they would have to repeat that particular subject, or it would just be noted down in their report to be discussed with the student’s parents. But we are in Japan, where things are just a little bit different. Here, students are not allowed to fail. So additional questions were being made for this student so she could answer them, and be made to pass the subject this term. It sounded like whatever this student wrote, they would be given a score that meant they would just get a passing score. I believe that it is because it is seen as a very bad thing if the student fails a subject. The subject and homeroom teachers are made 100% responsible for any students that fail, and understandably do not want any of their students in this situation. It’s one of those things that I don’t particularly agree with, but I’ve got to respect it as I’m in no position to go changing the school system. I recall a year or two ago, we were grading a group of students and had come to a final grade and percentage for them. The problem was that average score for these students was deemed to be too low (or that too many students had fallen below the 40% pass mark; I forget at this time). So it was decided that each student should be simply given an additional 10% on their exam score, as it had been “a difficult test”. We ended up with the farcical situation whereby one student got 102% in their exam! The bizarre thing was that I was the only person who thought this was a problem. It’s been a while since I was a student but I was sure that 100% is the highest percentage you can get in a test.
Another TV announcer caught in scandal; this time no action taken
Another week goes by, another figure in the public eye in Japan is caught doing something they shouldn’t. And this story offers a nice juxtaposition to the story about Mona Yamamoto a couple of weeks ago. This time we have Fuji TV Kazuhiro Watanabe, one of the announcers on Mezamashi TV (a daily morning TV show which isn’t really worth saying any more about as it rarely covers the news stories that should be on the front pages, and reports the more fluffy stories of the day… kind of like a Japanese GMTV!). Anyway, it was reported in the Shukan Asahi (a weekly magazine) that Watanabe had been physically involved with a woman who was not his wife.
The Fuji TV damage control people were quickly mobilized and came out defending him, saying that he would not be withdrawing from any of his TV appearances. Watanabe also came out and made a statement saying that, “A magazine today published details about me concerning a very private matter. I apologize for causing trouble and I hope that I can regain the trust of viewers.” Note that he has not made any comment about the alleged scandal and whether it is true or not. He apologised for “causing trouble” and not for anything he may have done, losing the trust of his wife etc. I am surprised that the word “regrettable” wasn’t used but the way this scandal has been seen in Japan is amusing, especially when you look at it in context to Mona’s encounter with Yomiuri Giants player, Tomohiro Nioka. Mona was removed (well, the reports said she withdrew but it was probably a case of jump or be pushed) from her TV engagements and her co-presenter made a formal announcement on the show, showing the shame she had brought onto the show. Maybe, like Nioka, Watanabe is seen as an important person in the announcing team and so he will be let off from any scandals he is involved in. Who knows, maybe he’ll get his wife making a press announcement, apologizing for the trouble that has been caused!
Mona Yamamoto remains on temporary leave from TBS.
Japan buying sport access to the Olympics
With only 11 days to go until the Olympics start in Beijing, the world media is getting whipped into a frenzy. American news stories seem to still be circling around Beijing’s skies and air pollution, despite Dr Patrick Schamasch, the IOC’s medical and scientific advisor stating that ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide all fell within World Health Organisation limits set in 2005. Japanese news is touching on this, but mainly focusing on its judo stars and table tennis star, Ai Fukuhara (commonly known as Ai chan). That’s natural as they have the biggest chance of coming up with medals for Japan.
But the BBC is reporting a story that I doubt will get much coverage here in Japan. This is the result of an investigation into a Japanese domestic cycling sport called the keirin, and it is believed the organisers of this sport have paid sums of money to the world cycling body to promote the sport and eventually give it access to the Olympics. The BBC story from Matt McGrath is below:
Sport ‘bought access to Olympics’
A BBC investigation has raised concerns that a sport may have bought its way into the Olympic Games. Documents given to the BBC suggest that $3m (?f1.5m; 1.9m euros) was paid by organisers of a Japanese cycling event to the UCI - the world cycling body. The payments were allegedly made in the 1990s. The sport, called the keirin, was supported for inclusion into the Games by the UCI, and admitted in 1996. The UCI and its president at the time, Hein Verbruggen, deny any wrongdoing.
The keirin is a rapid and exciting track cycling event an event where riders are initially paced around a track by a motorcycle before sprinting for the line. It is big business in its country of origin, Japan, commanding tens of millions of dollars in gambling revenue every year. But despite its financial clout, the one thing keirin has always lacked is an international profile.