137. Death Penalty

Oh, it has been a week since I posted the last entry (><) I was writing a new entry, which was supposed to be updated yesterday or today, but I will write about other thing because I watched an interesting TV programme.

It is called "The Execution of Gary Glitter". In Britain , the capital sentence was banned in 1969. However, in 2004, a campaign of the return of it began and it became bigger and bigger. It was brought to the Parliament and discussed. Finally in 2005, the death penalty (hanging) was re-introduced in the UK. It is carried out to murderers and sex offenders who raped a child under 12 years old.

Gary Glitter whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd was a former rock singer and was in a prison for raping 2 children aged 10 and 11 in Vietnam. He was quietly saying that he did not do anything and there was not a case. He was always quiet and calm as if he was making fun of people who he was speaking with. Against his will, his case was taken to the court and he was sentenced an execution. He was the first person since the death penalty was regained its lawful status.

You can watch the programme on 4oD. You will see a British court scene (I think it is a real trial of his), an execution place, the execution day and a moment of the execution as well.

In the programme, a group of people who are against the capital sentence appears and one lady was shouting human rights to live.

On the last day (execution day), death-row prisoners are permitted to leave a final statement after a last meal. Gary Glitter read a statement that he had prepared and it was tape-recorded. While he was reading it, he cried. I could not tell if his teas were real, but as I continued to watch him in the programme, I became sure that he was afraid to die.

I cannot say if I am for or against the capital punishment, or if serial murderers and rapists still have a right to live, but this documentary gives me a moment to think about it.

Although it is a 77-minute programme, I really recommend you to watch it. If you press "S" next to a volume symbol, subtitles will appear.

Momoko

133. British Winter Time

Here comes the British Winter Time! Have you put your clocks and watches back by 1 hour? We could stay in bed for 1 extra hour in the morning^^

It feels fast. I just changed the time for the summer time the other day, but again we have to change it for the coming winter. Refer to my old entry for the reason why the UK has adopted the summer time.

So, the time difference between the UK and Japan is now 9 hours, i.e. if the UK is 12.00 noon, Japan is 9.00pm on the same day.

As time has gone back by 1 hour, we see the darkness 1 hour earlier and I have to think about going back home 1 hour earlier. Hmm... I prefer staying on campus as long as I can because I cannot study at home.

Even if moaning, gloomy winter is coming anyway (@@)

Momoko

132. Subtitles

I was watching Jamie's American Road Trip last night. It is a TV programme that Jamie, a British celebrity chef, goes around America, communicates with local people by exchanging cooking and discovers unknown America. In the last night's show, he met cowboys in Cody, Wyoming, saw rodeos, tried their slow-cooked beef and cooked some British food such as baked beans for them. Yummy yummy! That is one of my favourite British foods.

He went to a stadium, where 8 cowboys tried to stay on a crazy horse for 8 seconds. If won, they can get $120 (= £73, ¥11,044). Then, when he spoke to one American cowboy and the cowboy began speaking, subtitles appeared on the screen! I knew the British TV subtitles when Indian people speak English (it is quite common. Maybe always put the subtitles on). But it was a first time to see the subtitles for the Americans. Having said that, there is no wonder about that because American English is one of the English dialects; even within a country, it sometimes requires subtitles. Though I have not come across the situation to do that for the British people in the UK, I have in Japan.

So, the cowboy's English was, to be sure, hard for me to understand (I tend to unable to understand American English, though :-)), but it seemed to be hard for the the British too. I wondered if Jamie could understand it because he was just saying like "Right... I see".

This programme was a repeat, so you can see all 6 episodes on 4oD. The last night's show was the episode 2 (second last from the bottom). You can put the subtitles on by pressing "S" next to a volume button.

If you want to try his recipes click here.

Momoko

131. Octopus

I was a bit surprised when I found small octopuses in a jar on Alex's shelf in a fridge. Western people tend to dislike octopus and squid because they are chewy. But of course, many eat them.

Japanese food is popular here. I have met 1 British who dislike green tea, but I have not met people who dislike Japanese food. If I was asked to make 3 Japanese dishes, I would make Maki zushi (< sushi), Nikujaga and Okonomiyaki. From my experience, these 3 dishes are accepted by almost everyone regardless of nationality and age.

When we have a potluck party (a party everyone takes a food or a drink and share them with others), at least 1 Japanese person always brings Maki zushi. I have a concern about this... Though this is also good traditional sushi, king of sushi is, after all, Nigiri zushi. So I worry that people might think Maki zushi is proper sushi. I learnt how to make Nigiri zushi long long time ago, but I forgot :-P Silly me (><)

Western people like Nikujaga because ingredients (potatoes, carrots and beef) and soy sauce are familiar to them.

The same to Okonomiyaki. But interestingly, opinions about Takoyaki (tako=octopus) split. One of my British friends and an American friend of my friend's and his family do not like it at all. My friend's friend and his family tried it and did not like it. My friend even cannot try because, he says, it looks like eye balls. Strangely, all of them like Okonomiyaki. For Japanese people, Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki are basically the same, aren't they? But this proved (?) that people eat food with their eyes! Visual effect is important!

Personally I prefer Takoyaki. To tell you the truth, when I went back to Japan last Christmas holidays, I wondered to bring a Takoyaki pan back...

Oops, I have not got a chance to ask Alex how he cooked octopuses.

By the way, a word "octopus" has 3 plural forms. One is "octopuses", which I used in the entry, the second is "octopi" and the third is "octopodes". According to Oxford English Dictionary, the third form is rare. "Octopi" sounds cute to me and also reminds me of a musical "Okepi"(Ochepi) (English, Japanese) (YouTube).


*** References ***

sushi day
About.com: Nikujaga, Takoyaki
Visual Recipes
Kateigaho International Edition
The Japan Foundation: Play of the Month, English, Japanese

Momoko

113. Bank Holiday Monday

Today is a bank holiday which is called August Bank Holiday or Summer Bank Holiday. According to British Life and Culture (Woodlands Junior School), England has 6 bank holidays and 2 public holidays. I thought Good Friday and Christmas Day were also considered as bank holidays, but those are public holidays. I did not notice until I saw a notice on the door of the departmental office on Friday that today was a holiday. Since a departmental secretary changed, notices about holidays and changes of time are not circulated by email. Maybe news on TV was telling it.

I had a quick search about Japan. There are 20 public/national holidays in Japan (Investment & Income.com), which is 2.5 times more than England's! Quite surprised!! I knew that Japan has more but was thinking that it was no more than 15 days.

Reference:
British Life and Culture by Woodlands Junior School, UK
Investment & Income.com

Momoko

112. Colourful Houses

When going to a countryside in the UK, you would notice that more houses are painted in colour than those in big cities. Pink, yellow, green, purple... it is good fun just to look at them. But it was perhaps only red other than white that was used for painting in old days. Do you know why it was red? In other words, what do you think was used to make the paint red? A hint is these houses are called "famers barns" (photo below). I will tell you the answer later. When it is semi-detached house, a different colour is often used for each residence as can be seen in the second photo. This cannot be seen in Japan. It is unique, isn't it?

Farmers barn

Semi-detached house

Not only the exterior walls but the interior walls are sometimes (often?) quite colourful as well. My friend used to live in a room with sky blue coloured walls. I asked him, "When you are in your room, do you feel you are in the sky?" I could not help asking him although I knew this was a stupid question :-) His answer was "no", of course. My room's walls are all white, which is good. When I was living in the university accommodation, the walls were light green. I did not like that because I somehow felt that I was in a cell...

Let's go back to the farmers barns. Did you get the answer to the question? It was red because people used blood of cattle to make the paint red.

According to some websites (refer below; I could not find proper sites on this) and my knowledge (could be wrong!), this goes back to centuries ago.

Farmers did not have much choice, so they made a mixture themselves. When European farmers sealed the wood in a barn, they used a mixture with a linseed oil and lime. A red colour was a side product of the linseed oil. There are two predominant theories that the oil mixture became traditionally red.

1. Rich farmers added blood of slaughtered cattle into the mixture (I heard it was mostly cows, and sometimes horses). When paint dried, it turned from bright red to dark red.

2. Some farmers added an oxide (rust). The rust kills fungi as well as mould and moss. If the moisture in the wood is kept due to these fungi, the wood gets rotten.

The European took this to the U.S.

Photos below are taken in Lavenham, Suffolk. Since this town preserves an old British town, it is often used for historical dramas or films (jidai-geki in Japanese).





Crooked house








== Reference ==
Steel or Metal Buildings
HowStuffWorks


Momoko

109. Evil or...?

We have hot summer days last few weeks. News tell "BBQ Summer Arrives". I like BBQ very much but it is a pity I do not have friends to have it together.

BBQ that the British people do is not different from the one that we do in Japan. They use beef, sausages, green or other peppers, corn cobs, onions, sea food, etc. Everyone gets involved. I heard that the Aussie style is men cook and women wait. Is that true?

Talking of the meats, Japan is criticised about catching whales. When I was a school girl, deep fried whale with grated mooli was served in lunch. Whale meat also goes well with dudhi in a miso soup.

Other kinds of meats I have ever tried are frog and emu. The former is usually deep-fried. I ate it in an izakaya (Japanese style pub) and I quite liked it. It tasted like chicken. The latter was served grilled in an emu farm in Australia. Emu is a big bird which looks like ostrich and cannot fly. It was a red meat and tasted like beef. I also liked it.

Emu	Ostrich

What else have I tried? Err... rabbit, which was served in an aeroplane. In some regions, people eat snakes, boars, dolphins, deer... anything they can eat. Are humans evil or is it just for living?


Momoko

-----------------

[EDIT]

I forgot to write about emu eggs. Have you seen them before? As you can imagine from its size, eggs are big! But can you imagine they are green?! When I went to the emu farm, I saw it and one of the stuff members allowed me to keep a part of the shell with me! It is somewhere in my room in Japan.

(Edited on 26th August, 2009)

99. Fireworks

I hear fireworks right now! I looked around through the window, but I cannot see it... Why do we have it today? I cannot think of any memorials or celebrations for today.

My second cousins (my cousin's children - "hatoko" in Japanese) call my father “Uncle Firework” because he often bought fireworks for them when we went to see them in summer.

In Japan, fireworks are one of the seasonal traditions in summer, but here in the UK, it is for autumn or winter! It is still strange for me to see fireworks in winter. Customs that you used to be cannot change easily.

Oops, while I was writing this, it became quiet outside.

Momoko


----------------------


[EDIT]

In the UK, it is illegal to sell fireworks to anyone who is under the age of 18 and to carry it in public if you are under the age of 18 (see Firework Safety by Department for Business Innovation & Skills). I do not think we have such legislations in Japan, don't we?

One of the biggest fireworks in a year in the UK must be the one for the New Year's Day. I have not been there because I am always in Japan, but it is fantastic! Watch it!





Other biggest fireworks would be the one for Guy Fawkes Day on 5th November. I will tell you about that when the celebration is coming, but if you want to know about it now, this would be of any help.

(Edited on 2nd August, 2009)

93. Toilet: Sit or Stand?

When Peter (British) and I were talking about my housemates, he asked me who cleans the toilet and how often it is cleaned. I said I do about twice a week or whenever it gets dirty. He knew that because all my housemates are males. He started talking about himself and his experiences, then.

He lives on his own, and so he has to clean a whole flat himself. But as far as I know, he is not enthusiasm in keeping the flat clean. I mean, he tries to reduce a frequency of the cleaning. Therefore, when he pees, he sits on the toilet seat. He said when his brother visited him, he also asked him to do as he does. Consequently, he cleans the toilet only once a month (well, I encouraged him to do more often).

He used to live in a student hall in Holland. He said there were 7 or 8 male and female students in his floor, and male students agreed to sit when they peed because female students did not like the dirty toilet and stinky smell coming from the pee which spread on the floor or walls.

This is exactly what I have been wanting to know. In Japan, some men sit spontaneously and some men sit because they were asked by their partner, etc. I was thinking this did not happen in other countries, especially in non-Asian countries, but it does in Japan because Japanese people tend to be very sensitive to hygiene.

He also told me, "I know people in Japan don't sit on the toilet." I thought we do, otherwise it would become a disaster, but I soon realised that he was talking about the Japanese style toilets. I told him the western style is now common, but we still have it. He said that it would be hard for the old. I added, "... and for pregnant women too".

I really had an interesting conversation.


Momoko

57. That is an Impossible Favour, I Think...

"You should correct your name."


I was told by a departmental secretary when I collected my mail. This is not the one I collected the other day (here).

Suppose my family name is Suzuki. An ddressee on the envelope was "Suzuki Momoko". The secretary told me that the name was not on the university database and they could not recognise who it was. In fact, she emailed all postgrads and asked to come to collect it if it was "you". When I was told that I should correct the name, I almost told her,


"ERR... I CAN'T BECAUSE THIS IS MY NAME! THE DATABASE MUST BE WRONG."


As you may or may not know, in Japan, a family name comes first and a given name second in names. She meant that it should be "Momoko Suzuki" so as to match it to their database. Well, I understand that students' names are input by family name and other names and that Western people are not familiar with Asian names. I also understand that the way I write my name just confuses them, having no idea that Momoko is a given name. However, I still think writing my name in an English way is wrong, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. What is more, since a person's name is a proper noun, I do not think it should be changed in any case. I do not like to write my name with a comma like "Suzuki, Momoko", either. Though it is not good to cause a trouble or a confusion, I felt that I was denied. Do American celebrities in Japan, for example, introduce themselves in a Japanese way such as "Konnichiwa, Camus Thane desu." or "Spector Dave desu."??? No. Why not? ... even though many of us can tell their family name from their first name. Why do you write your name in a Western way or in an original way?

Yes, I am stubborn and am really really particular when it comes to my name. I cannot conform myself to the Western way in this matter. So, I ended up writing my name in an important document as "SUZUKI Momoko" with the family name in uppercase.