April 19. 2004 13:55

Final acceptation... and deep thoughts

Spring vacation has ended there and it's cherry blossom season. Oh, how I'd love to sit under cherry blossoms... One other student from Turku Art Academy left to Kyoto Seika for the spring vacation. I wonder how she's doing...

I received papers from Japan last week. I got the formal acceptation letter, a visa application, some information forms and an application to the student dorm. Antonella, the international officer at Arts Academy, already applied for the AIEJ for me, so I didn't get that paper. (Actually, the verdict on that should be clear sometime soon.) Then I got a leaflet which had some general information on staying in Japan and what to take with you. There was the voltage I had wondered about, too, it's 110 V and 60 Hz. The envelope was funny, it said "The Post, the Best Choice" on the cover ^_^ I can't imagine there being any other choice than the post. It's going to be funny being in Japan if there are funny englisms like that everywhere. (Check out Engrish.com ^_^)

I also realized I'll probably be feeling a little lonely and lost because I can't read all the text around me. Even when in Europe, I'm used to being able to at least understand the letters if not the whole meaning of words. In Japan, it'll be just lots of lines that make up pretty kanji that have no meaning to me. I can read kana, but that too takes some effort, unlike reading any passing ad here.

Today I though about religion. I saw a girl wearing the "ohm" sign of hinduism. (It is hinduism, right?) That made me think about how we treat the eastern religious symbols mostly as mere oriental pictures that make nice decorations. Most people that wear clothes with hindu gods on them or have a picture of the Buddha in their home don't think about the meaning of the religion they come from. It's the same with Christianity and the Japanese. Christian Japanese are rare and I can imagine how little meaning christian imagery has in the east. Just think about angels: if you've seen any anime, you probably have seen a couple of angel wings here and there. To the Japanese they don't mean anything religious, they're just pretty. There's even the legend of a Santa Claus hanging on a cross at some supermarket during christmas. I don't really have a problem with that, since I don't count myself as a follower of any religion. But the thing is, wearing a shirt with the image of Buddha in Japan might give the same impression as wearing a shirt with Jesus on it in the Western countries. Makes you kinda think.