Job hunting in Japan البحث عن عمل في اليابان

فيديو رائع يجسد معاناه الشباب الياباني في عملية البحث عن عمل وكيف أنه في معظم الشركات على الفرد أن يفقد استقلالية شخصيته حتى يندمج مع الأغلب السائد و يجد لنفسه مكاناً في المجتمع 

A real piece of art ! 
A little bit sad and funny at the same time but his is what job hunting in Japan is mostly about.

ما يفتقده الفن العربي

:موضوع في بالي من زمان 
الأعمال الفنية من أغاني ومسلسلات ودراما في مجتمع ما ، هل هي إنعكاس لواقع ذلك المجتمع أم أن بعض ثوابت المجتمع قابلة للتغيير تأثراً بالأعمال الفنية فيه؟

 :نحن العرب، معظم اعمالنا الغنائية تصنف إلى 3 اصناف فقط

1) أغاني وطنية/اناشيد دينية

2) أغاني عن الحب والعشق بحلوه وعذابه

3)الصنف المنحط والذي يشكل جزءًا كبيراً

ماذا عن المسلسلات ؟ أغلبها يعالج قصص الحب أو مشاكل الزواج والخيانة الزوجية والغيرة والجرائم وما إلى ذلك من قضايا تعتبر الهم الأول لسكان كوكب العالم الثالث.

لكن هنالك صنف مهم جداً أراه بكثرة في الأعمال الفنية لدول ناجحة وأراه مفقوداً لدينا نحن العرب .

سأسمي هذا الصنف ب-"الصنف الإيجابي"، وهو النوع الذي يشجع على الإقبال على الحياة والصمود في وجه المصاعب والتحديات لتحقيق الطموحات و الأهداف.

برأيي هذا النوع من الأعمال لو كان موجوداً لدينا فهو قادر على إحداث تغيير في طريقة تفكير الناس لتصبح إيجابية أكثر مما سينعكس على المجتمع نفسه .

はーやく来い来いお正月～♪

桜前線情報：：Sakura forecast

Today's weather forecast：　The Sakura wave will start moving gradually north the country. This will be accompanied by sakura that start blooming on the days shown on the map for each area. The wave will reach its peak after one week of the dates shown. After that it will gradually weaken and light rains of sakura petals are expected.
..(I made this up but it has a lot of facts)

The sakura wave front map

The Japan meteorological agency released the sakura forecast recently. Click here to check.
In this season, you can see information about sakura blossoms and the degree of blooming after each weather forecast.

A picture from the web

Autumn leaves as well as Sakura blossoms have their own forecasts in Japan. Especially sakura trees, they have a very special place in the heart of all Japanese people. And of course in mine~

Most areas are still in the initial bud stage

It's the season where people start checking forecasts and planning their Hanami.
Here in Tokyo, most Sakura is still in the TSUBOMI = bud state, but some single trees here and there are already in full bloom. Different types I guess.

I can't believe that one year has already passed since I was last checking sakura information sitting on my desk in my room in Jordan..then to find myself after few weeks doing a real Hanami..

Anyway, I'm planning to take a lot of great sakura pictures this year so look forward for this!

Summer Memories 2 :ターマヤ～！隅田川花火大会

Sumidagawa Fireworks Display July 26th 2008

As I mentioned before, summer is the festivals season in Japan.
After the last Japanese language course lecture, we(class 3) decided to go to the fireworks display of Sumida River; which is considered one of the biggest and the most amazing firework displays in Japan.
花火（はなび= HANABI） means fireworks in Japanese.
The literal translation means "fire flowers".

＊＊

Usually people go to such fireworks displays in traditional Japanese Yukata and Jinbei . But you can also find a lot of people going in casual clothes.
In this festival, Firework manufacturers compete to display it's best products.
You can see fireworks shaped as Smiley, Micky mouse, Heart, Cat, Planet..etc. It was really a nice display.

＊＊

Someone we all know is being very noisy behind the camera =p

And it was a good opportunity for us as foreign students to have an all-class-go-out in traditional clothes!

Proudly introducing Class 3 members in Yukata and Jinbei.
This picture doesn't show everyone, since 2 members couldn't come that day.
And I know we do look like a group of Japanese but no one is! ^^;

Sumida River in the background

It was very very hard to find a place to sit! We arrived at 3:00 pm thinking that we were "smart" coming this early but we found out -late- that normally people come to the place very early in the morning of that day, reserve their space by marking it's boarders and writing their names by sticking tape on the ground and come back later at the display time to find their space waiting for them as they left it.

Also the stations close to the display place were very very crowded before the show. Streets near the river are closed and no cars are allowed in.
This is to accommodate the large number of people attending. You would really feel that some 2 or 3 million people were gathering in the area around the river. (2 or 3 million are nothing compared to the population of 12 million in Tokyo city alone)

I was wondering why were all these people sitting under the bridge where they can barely see anything...But when the street was closed..I understood.
I saw people holding their picnic mats and waiting VERY carefully for the policemen to give them the OK sign to advance to the street..then when the policemen gave the OK, you suddenly see them run all at once to reserve a sitting place on the street...
I was really amazed. It was truely like a scene of AL-HOSON (Takeshi's castle) Japanese game show!!（^▽^）
I wish I could have taken it on video!! But it just happened in the blink of an eye.

＊＊

It was also my first time to see "PORTABLE TOILET ROOMs" （＾▽＾） Alot of them are placed in the display area for the convenience of people.

When it was time to go back, we were stuck in the station for some time before we could finally arrive to the platform and ride the train.
And I arrived home dead tired but happy for enjoying a nice Japanese summer experience~

Pictures with ＊＊　are provided by V!W! チュウさん.

See you next post~!

Summer Memories 1 : Tanabata

Here I will start a series of posts about the events that were worth posting while I was away from my blog. I will try to finish them asap before I drown into the business of the toudaisei life.

Tanabata the star festival is an occasion based on an old Chinese story about 2 stars that are separated by the milky way but are only allowed to meet once in a year.
In this occasion people hang their wishes on a tree hoping that they will come true.
See Tanabata on wikipedia here.
The Tanabata season starts around a week before the actual day that the story refers to.
In Tokyo, this day is the 7th day of the 7th month. (July 7th)
By the beginning of July, you start to see many bamboo trees in public places waiting for people to hang wishes on.
We had a tree in the International center of the university where I used to take the Japanese classes.

The tree in the International Center.
It was still new, only a few number of hanged wishes and other decorations..including "Fanoos Ramadan" if you notice well =p


My very smart wish=p
It says “I hope all my dreams come true “
You can hang any wish you can think of.."I want to be a panda" is also valid （＾▽＾）

The tree in the summer party of the Faculty of Engineering

In some shop I passed by

In a building in Shinjuku.
I had a reunion with my environment course friends I met last year.

The best part about it is writing with the brush on the tanzaku..I love writing kanji with brushes and if I get a chance I want to take shodou (calligraphy) lessons!!≧ω≦

That's all for today. See you next post.

五月祭＠東大：：May's festival @Toudai

Summer is the festivals season in Japan.
This time's festival is different. It is the May festival of the University of Tokyo, sometimes better translated as "May's Fair".

A lot of people infront of the AKAMON




The festival Mascot .. I think that it's very fuuny

In front of the Yasuda auditorium.. A lot of preparations were being held in front of it.

A lot of booths for food and games were there..a lot of performances all over the campus. It felt that I was in an amusement park w!
But..I ignored all these and was looking for one thing..only one thing, the Taiko(Drums) performance!

I LOVE TAIKO performances! They really can build energy inside me.. and can easily reach and move my "acquired" Yamato spirit! w

The first performance I ever saw was in Jordan's most famous festival, "Jerash festival", when a Japanese group from Osaka made a great taiko performance..this was like 5 or 6 years ago, when I was still a high school student.
At that time, my motivation to go and see that performance was only because its a Japanese performance, but after it I became deeply interested in Taiko! .. And really wanted to "Hit" one!

But I was lucky to have a chance to drum on the taiko in summer last year... and I did it with passion! To get a better understanding of what I meant by "with passion", watch the video below! (JULY 2007 - Kyouto)

...Back to our main topic!
The festival spans 2 days. Today was the 2nd. I was planning to go yesterday, but I found the weather not encouraging..

The TAIKO group in front of the General Library, Toudai Hongou Campus

See the videos of today's performance, they are just GREAT!!!!

That was, again, GREAAATTTTT!
Of course the festival included a lot of musical and other performances..but this is the most nihon-ppoi thing I found! :) Once it was finished, I headed back home to finish the mountain of study that I have ^^;
永久 天日(AQ. Amani)Signs out!

SANJA Festival@ASAKUSA

*Edited : Info added on the fish game

The foreign students support club in my university arranges activities and trips nearly once each month to famous places inside or close to Tokyo.

This month's activity was visiting Asakusa (浅草) to see the famous SANJA MATSURI (sanja festival 三社祭).
Actually this was not my first time to Asakusa and sensouji(浅草寺) since we went there last year, but for today, it was my first time to see a Japanese Festival.
(Most festivals in Japan are rather religious celebrations).

It was really an interesting experience.
The place was crazily crowded... smells of food being cooked/grilled/fried is filling the place..traditional matsuri games for kids..kakigooriかき氷....and of course, a lot of omikoshi!神輿(portable shrines)
All these things would make you feel the matsuri(festival) atmosphere!

On the way towards sensouji ..kiosks and shops on both sides. They sell interesting nihonppoi stuff..so if you want to make your room so, this is a good place to buy such stuff!

Since it was a traditional festival, it felt OK to put on the hachimaki (I once was told that putting such hachimaki with Japan flag on it is not very much appreciated, since it has something related to the WW and being an extreme nationalist or something... but I took the advantage of being a gaikokujin and pretended that I don't know! :p )
One old man that I encountered even told me 「お！日の丸、、かっこいいですね！」　="o!Japan's flag, that's cool!"
I'm not sure if he meant it ^^; But anyway, I have my own meaning for putting on the hachimaki, and it has nothing to do with history ^^

Carrying omikoshi

Before I come and see everything, I was thinking that it would be nice to participate in carrying one, and take a picture too...but after I saw with my own eyes how heavy it looks and how many people it needs to be carried..I changed my mind!

I posed here last year w

Actually seeing this and remembering that senseouji is a Temple and not a Shrine has "corrupted" my information a little at first.
I know that the festival is a Shinto matsuri so I was thinking why would there be a Shinto matsuri in a Temple.
Then I realized that this festival does not belong to the sensouji, rather it belongs to the nearby ASAKUSA shrine , which was built to honor the people who built the sensouji.
lol Am I making it any easier this way?

The traditional fish game. 金魚すくい(SAKANA SUKUI)
The principle is that you have to catch a fish with a tool that is made of thin paper that melts easily in water, so you have to be quick.
I saw a lot of happy kids walking proud with their caught fishes put in a plastic transparent bag.




The Anpanman(الرغيف العجيب) mask is so cute, I wanted one just to stick to my room's wall, but... cough! :p

So now! What is a festival post without...VIDEOS?!
I took a lot of videos and I want to share some, so you can FEEL the matsuri!
(Sorry for the low quality, I had to make them smaller in size so I can quickly upload them..Also I don't think that you want to download a 2 minutes video of size 200MB !!)

Carrying the OMIKOSHI (In this festival, 100 such omikoshi are carried to begin touring the town) :



Gotta see this one! :
Kids can also participate by carrying a smaller and lighter omikoshi.
They were really cute!

That's all for the SANJA MATSURI!
I hope it was informative and enjoyable~ comments people! ^_^
K-chan logs out!