There are very few anime that I would actually blog about - I found many of them enjoyable, now and then one makes me wanna go into bath and keep myself in the fetal position. Finally, surprisingly many made me wanna find the writer and ask for the time that I wasted on their trash of a story back.
The target market for this anime was aimed more at teenage girls and I only wanted to watch this particular anime because of an AMAZING music video made using its scenes and a song by Nanne Grönvall called Hold Me Now (Håll Om Mig). In essence the entire Princess Tutu plotline was explained in 3 minutes 15 seconds AMV (Anime Music Video). I was pretty impressed with myself for guessing about 90% of the plot line from it, but browsing online I found that I was by no means in the minority in that regard. This is without a doubt one of the most under-rated animes I've seen, I have not heard anything about it at all till the AMV by Roman and even then it took a while before I saw it available on bakabt.
The ending was what made this excellently executed anime into more than just your run-of-the-mill "good" anime. Despite the "fairy tale ending" that was achieved through blood, sweat and tears and the cheerful presentation of the "happily ever after" I felt a profound sadness. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I kept trying to scream - "This is a happy ending?"
I can't help wanting to classify it as a tragedy and in many ways it was. The last time I felt so conflicted by an ending was watching Tom Hanks in "Castaway" after he lost "Wilson" after the storm. A part of me wanted to laugh at the absurdity of crying over a lost volley ball but at the same time my heart felt his pain.
Finally even though I thought it was one of the strongest anime storylines in recent years the story could easily have done with half the number of episodes. It dragged on in the middle and they could have done away with at least 7 episode of the 26. I almost lost interest halfway around episode 13 when each episode ran by the same formula but I'm glad that I persevered till the end. The story promised many things right at the start and then came back right at the end to deliver on their promise.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
My Grandmother and Life After Death
I don't believe in life after death. Never did and almost guaranteed to never will.
However, the same can't be said of my family espeically my grandmother who is still with us in Luisha. Like I said in a previous post, I enjoyed her company and conversation. Due to her age the contents of our conversations never change, most of it revolves around how embarrassing both me and my father is to the family and how we should improve our appareance - in the last five or six visits I don't think there has been any new material that enters our conversations except for the odd rumours and scandal that temporarily catches her attention. However, one new topic that did crop up during my last visit that left a profound impression on me - offering to the death ancestors.
In Chinese mythology or religious psyche - it's believed that once someone dies they leave this world and enters a spirit world and society. One that is almost an exact mirror of our current world, and from what I can understand is that new comers arrive with nothing except the cloths on their back and a need to consume earthly food through smell. They will never starve to death - they are of course dead but however will feel hunger.
Therefore the well being of the dead is totallly dependent on the dedication of their children and family. Customs dictates that during New Moon and Full Moon and some feastive days the children will prepare feast and set out a table for the family members and offer a ritual to summon them. Often the living family will cook and prepare the favourite dishes of those passed away. Certain ceremonies and ancestoral worship also applies here and the family members normally ask for the protection and guidance of those who have passed on. At the end of these ceremonies, paper money, paper gold and scaled paper replicas of houses, cars, radios and anything else that might be needed to continue their life in the netherworld are burnt as well. On a more amusing note - the notional amount on these paper money goes into the tens and hundreds of billions in unit and had been the largest before the hyper-inflation of Zimbabwe.
I can see a emotion on her face that I have never seen before - worry. She is worried that her "life" and wellbeing in the other world would be compromised by our generation of children not following with tradition and was trying to appeal to me to follow it. Since I'm the only male grandchild that she can actually communicate with I guess I was the only one that she can make such an appeal (though it irks me that I'm by no means her favourite grandson, in fact 3rd and last favourite)
These things were never given much thought and I realised that as I reassured her of my dedication to the traditions that it's actually true. I reall do want to continue these traditions not because I believe in their supernatural expectations but rather how such traditions are what bind to my culture and differentiate me from other cultures.
Without realising when, I have become proud of my culture, guess it's a lot easier when the country is strong and other nationalities speak of your country of origin with both respect, fear and disgust; rather than just disgust. I'm proud and I want to continue to being recognised as Chinese and Confucious would be proud when I say these ceremonies are what defines me.
I pledged myself there and then that I will continue with these traditions and that I will learn about these ceremonies and as the Chinese expressions go: "the incense will continue to burn"
However, the same can't be said of my family espeically my grandmother who is still with us in Luisha. Like I said in a previous post, I enjoyed her company and conversation. Due to her age the contents of our conversations never change, most of it revolves around how embarrassing both me and my father is to the family and how we should improve our appareance - in the last five or six visits I don't think there has been any new material that enters our conversations except for the odd rumours and scandal that temporarily catches her attention. However, one new topic that did crop up during my last visit that left a profound impression on me - offering to the death ancestors.
In Chinese mythology or religious psyche - it's believed that once someone dies they leave this world and enters a spirit world and society. One that is almost an exact mirror of our current world, and from what I can understand is that new comers arrive with nothing except the cloths on their back and a need to consume earthly food through smell. They will never starve to death - they are of course dead but however will feel hunger.
Therefore the well being of the dead is totallly dependent on the dedication of their children and family. Customs dictates that during New Moon and Full Moon and some feastive days the children will prepare feast and set out a table for the family members and offer a ritual to summon them. Often the living family will cook and prepare the favourite dishes of those passed away. Certain ceremonies and ancestoral worship also applies here and the family members normally ask for the protection and guidance of those who have passed on. At the end of these ceremonies, paper money, paper gold and scaled paper replicas of houses, cars, radios and anything else that might be needed to continue their life in the netherworld are burnt as well. On a more amusing note - the notional amount on these paper money goes into the tens and hundreds of billions in unit and had been the largest before the hyper-inflation of Zimbabwe.
I can see a emotion on her face that I have never seen before - worry. She is worried that her "life" and wellbeing in the other world would be compromised by our generation of children not following with tradition and was trying to appeal to me to follow it. Since I'm the only male grandchild that she can actually communicate with I guess I was the only one that she can make such an appeal (though it irks me that I'm by no means her favourite grandson, in fact 3rd and last favourite)
These things were never given much thought and I realised that as I reassured her of my dedication to the traditions that it's actually true. I reall do want to continue these traditions not because I believe in their supernatural expectations but rather how such traditions are what bind to my culture and differentiate me from other cultures.
Without realising when, I have become proud of my culture, guess it's a lot easier when the country is strong and other nationalities speak of your country of origin with both respect, fear and disgust; rather than just disgust. I'm proud and I want to continue to being recognised as Chinese and Confucious would be proud when I say these ceremonies are what defines me.
I pledged myself there and then that I will continue with these traditions and that I will learn about these ceremonies and as the Chinese expressions go: "the incense will continue to burn"
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tanzania - A First Impression
Left for Tanzania on Monday, the plane punctually left at 3pm and we also arrived very puntually - a good start my other trips to African countries don't always go so well.
The flight was pretty uncomfortable as we traveled in a small Beoing 737 128 seater and there was little if any leg room in normal seats, however we got the seast right at the back of the plane and so it was even smaller and the seats can't tilt back to give us a better posture. Otherwise it was a smooth flight. We sat next to a white woman who has lived in Dar for almost 14 years and my boss was keen to get some local intel on the city. We asked many questions from politics to ecnomics and the price of real estate.
As far as we can tell from what she has told us, Tanzania is very much like every other country in Africa (we exclude SA from this classification for various reasons), the government policies are temperamental, people will try to cheat us, government officials are corrupt and generally speaking the population has started to take a dislike to more Chinese presence. Fun. More importantly it seems being a "outsider" trying to buy real estate can be rather challenging due to red tape and other rather opaque issues, we can also expect more than frequent power failures.
We arrived at the airport in Dar Es Saleem, the biggest, most populated and centre of economic power in Tanzania, however as we flew over the city we can see that there are little light lighting the city and I was a little surprised by that. The city was what I had expected after seeing the night lights. The traffic and roads are choatic with little or no rules much like parts of China and most of South America. Traffic lights can only be found in the central districts and we took a long time getting to our hotel in the Embassy district.
We were picked up by one of my bosses associates from China Steel. Apparently while there is a large Chinese presence here in Dar, little of them are there as individuals most of them are with big Chinese construction companies such as himself.
We arrived at the Golden Tulip hotel - it's more than adaquete, everything here tells of past glories that once was. Everything is still rather impressive but signs can be seen everywhere that renovations and upkeep of the buildings are kept to a minimum. It was a rather impressive swimming pool and we're right on the beaches as well, our room costs $135/night and including breakfast it's not bad at all. The room is what I would expect, two beds, tv, shower/bath, fridge and something that not everyone would appreciate toilet papers. :P
Went for dinner at the Chinese restuarant next door, and impressed by the selection and quality of the food. On par with JHB and with the added benefit of having good seafood fish selection.
The next day (today) we met with the Director of the TIC (Tanzania Investment Centre) and we organised the schedule for the next few days, gathering data and stuff. I also phoned up a few estate agents to get a rough idea of what the market is like here. I'm actually waiting for the first one in another 45 minutes at our hotel room. This will be interesting.
The flight was pretty uncomfortable as we traveled in a small Beoing 737 128 seater and there was little if any leg room in normal seats, however we got the seast right at the back of the plane and so it was even smaller and the seats can't tilt back to give us a better posture. Otherwise it was a smooth flight. We sat next to a white woman who has lived in Dar for almost 14 years and my boss was keen to get some local intel on the city. We asked many questions from politics to ecnomics and the price of real estate.
As far as we can tell from what she has told us, Tanzania is very much like every other country in Africa (we exclude SA from this classification for various reasons), the government policies are temperamental, people will try to cheat us, government officials are corrupt and generally speaking the population has started to take a dislike to more Chinese presence. Fun. More importantly it seems being a "outsider" trying to buy real estate can be rather challenging due to red tape and other rather opaque issues, we can also expect more than frequent power failures.
We arrived at the airport in Dar Es Saleem, the biggest, most populated and centre of economic power in Tanzania, however as we flew over the city we can see that there are little light lighting the city and I was a little surprised by that. The city was what I had expected after seeing the night lights. The traffic and roads are choatic with little or no rules much like parts of China and most of South America. Traffic lights can only be found in the central districts and we took a long time getting to our hotel in the Embassy district.
We were picked up by one of my bosses associates from China Steel. Apparently while there is a large Chinese presence here in Dar, little of them are there as individuals most of them are with big Chinese construction companies such as himself.
We arrived at the Golden Tulip hotel - it's more than adaquete, everything here tells of past glories that once was. Everything is still rather impressive but signs can be seen everywhere that renovations and upkeep of the buildings are kept to a minimum. It was a rather impressive swimming pool and we're right on the beaches as well, our room costs $135/night and including breakfast it's not bad at all. The room is what I would expect, two beds, tv, shower/bath, fridge and something that not everyone would appreciate toilet papers. :P
Went for dinner at the Chinese restuarant next door, and impressed by the selection and quality of the food. On par with JHB and with the added benefit of having good seafood fish selection.
The next day (today) we met with the Director of the TIC (Tanzania Investment Centre) and we organised the schedule for the next few days, gathering data and stuff. I also phoned up a few estate agents to get a rough idea of what the market is like here. I'm actually waiting for the first one in another 45 minutes at our hotel room. This will be interesting.
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