Chinese Geisha...

Well I don't know if you have seen the new Harry Potter ('Goblin on fire'...meaning Dobby or sth. similar) yet, but you will find my review of the movie here somewhen next week.

Besides the trailers for Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong there was this one trailer for 'Memoirs of a Geisha' which at the time (1997ish) was a must-read novel. Well I didn't read it but the trailer itself looks promising. The only little problem that I had with it was that 3 of the main characters (Geishas respectively) aren't played by Japanese Actresses but by Chinese ones! Now don't get me wrong, I love good-looking Chinese actresses [god my own girlfriend is sorta Chinese] but the American directors are inviting trouble:

I don't know if you have followed the recent conflicts of these two Asian countries, mostly centered on a Japanese history book that plays down their cruel military acts commited during the second world war on chinese civilians. Now there was quite some more screaming when the Chinese public learned that Zhang Ziyi would play a 'japanese whore'. Contained within this statement are several misconceptions:

[Photo]

First of all it is suggested that the otherwise gorgeous Zhang Ziyi could 'play' this role. Obviously she can't, her acting isn't well enough to play such a role!!! Ha ha - gotcha! Nahhh of course I meant that she can't play this role in a metaphorical sense, since she is that good that she actually becomes the character she plays as long as she's acting (portrayal of the blind dancer in House of the flying Daggers was that great). Since she is gorgeous and strong and well-of she could never become a whore, so the statement is void already.

Second 'geishas' aren't prostitutes in the traditional (yep long tradition!!!) meaning of the word. 'Gei' means art and as such they are women of art. The art of entertainment (that may include sexual entertainment, yes, but is never obligatory and happens out of the geisha's free will or desire - much like at prom night), music, dancing, conversation or the well-known tea-ceremony. So that makes the statement wrong aswell.

Third, Zhang Ziyi's Geisha will have the special and remarkable feature of having blue eyes! I don't know about you, but I don't know any (pure-blood ~ Oh god a Harry Potter reference - shame on me) japanese girl with fucking blue eyes; as cool as this may prove to look in the end. So third point that's wrong in there.

In the end, I do think it might become a great movie to the likes of Last Samurai, especially due to having only Asian main characters. Zhang Ziyi will play the protagonist with the given name of 'Sayuri', the wonderful Michelle Yeoh will feature as her mentor and Li Gong will play a rival geisha by the name of Hatsumomo. Enjoy these chinese ladies, speaking English with their sweet accents, alongside Japanese actors like Ken Watanabe speaking with their Japanese accents. I look forward to finding out, IF the chinese actors got lessons to acquire a Japanese-English accent.

Let's close this treatise with a truly marvelous picture from last years oscars. Now ain't she beautiful?

[Photi]

Well she doesn't always look THAT good, especially without make-up, but then, who does (plus she's still cute) >;o)

Japanese Games are like Japanese TV...

Well howdy, my fellow Erthicans. My two week writing break has to be justified by the utter lack of exciting things happening over here in Germany or the Game-Scene in general. France has burning cars (not that I would think of that as good, but it's at least something to write about!) we have foggy, rainy and already bloody cold weather.

Gladly then I found something that is worth reporting. My ultimate target is though not publicly displayed on this site, but one of my common targets since my childhood days, the Japanese Game Industry and the dubious stuff they tend to call 'games'. One such Playstation Portable Games has recently come to my attention.

"Yawahada Eigo Juku" is its title. It is, following the description on the box, a program for learning conversational English, or 'EngRish' as the 'L' does not natively exist in the Japanese language. The game offers the TVs standard method of teaching english: Videos are played with sub-titles, first doing a conversation in Japanese, then reperforming the same conversation in English. Bad English AND subtitles in this case however as the following picture of the protagonists of this little piece of software will make clear:


Yup, you're seeing right my conversative American protestant, those are half-naked bikini girls (thank you Japan!!!). Nice japanese chicks with big boobs (as rare as that might be, they found three role models for this disc)! Their ability to actually speak English while dancing on the screen, finding silly reasons to start hopeless 'conversations', is to say the least utterly horrible. Another site referenced this bit of 'EngRish' girl-talk: "KUDO YUU TERU MII HAU TSU GETTO TSU ZA GUDDO RESUTORAN NIA HIA?!" (meaning "Could you tell me how to get to a good restaurant around here?").

My good religious parents, some of you must have thought it: "Will they strip and shake those jumbos around and then have a shower and touch each other?" just like you used to love in those porn-flicks, when you were around the same age your kids are now? (I know while back than that was cool, you now have to protect your poor kids, even from erect nipples under a shirt, while you cannot stop staring yourselves... go and pray in church on Sunday!). The answer however is "NO"! No they will always keep their nice bikinis on, but they sure as hell love to dance around the screen, giving you as much chances to see the rest of their perfekt skin, listen to their little Japanese manga-voices raping the English language and being perfectly cute while doing so.

Use this UMD as a chance to show your kids that Asian girls are indeed hotter than the fast-food fed barn-queens they may jump onto on prom-night (or more likely not...). If you may spot some small criticism between the lines, then yes, my dear reader, I don't think the Japanese company selling this is doing anything wrong (except they should hire gorgeous Japanese Girls who speak English properly, though that might be rare and thus expensive), not even buyers are doing anthing wrong (except if they actually want to learn English with this trash, which would be a waste of money really).

No the only ones who are wrong are those who think the idea behind this Software is dirty, since even her in reality-land, looking out of my window onto the parking-lot, I see all the parked tanks (refer to Shiratami's blog for the Japanese view of what the typical German is like) and the hot bikini-girls scrubbing all the dirt off them and in the process drenching themselves in soapy water. Believe me it's better than HDTV - I can see ALL THE DETAILS! While my mouth now fills with the same kind of substance, hoping not to be beat up by an enraged girlfriend, I send you these words:

"Are we lost (have you seen her die in the series last week? now Ana-Lucia may be hated even more, if it really was her...) Daddy?" the boy asked, "SHUT UP!" his father explained!

Think about it and see the truth! Oh and Steve get me a copy of this as long as you're still in Japan >;o)