Oh yeah, make sure you watch with captions on so you’ll get everything.

Hurrr, fire’s purty.

So what does it all mean? Why does a composition of metals and powder equal a beautiful display of sparks and how does the average Japanese person, an existentialist, incorporate this into their worldview? Although it might seem surprising to some, the displays of all of the festivals in Japan have the same meaning; fireworks are pretty. There really isn’t much more to it than that.

Now I’m not saying that Japanese people are dumb or shallow because they have festivals and shoot off fireworks for no other reason than that they’re fun/awesome/(positive adjective), just that they choose to do it for its own sake. There are times when they are used for a reason such as American Independence, Guy Fawkes Night, Canada Day, etc but a similar equivalent holiday in Japan (Founding of Japan Day, Feb 11, or Constitution Day, May 3) does not have any real celebration to accompany it. These holidays are low key events and everyone usually just celebrates having a day off and not the actual event. If there are fireworks somewhere it is because someone is having a festival with fireworks afterwards.

Right after this picture was taken we were all crushed by a massive 4×4 truck.

Ise city held their fireworks festival on the 17th of this month. I along with other scary and extremely dangerous white people went to go eat some overpriced food and watch things explode. Like many other festivals, people will come very early so they can put down a tarp and claim a spot for themselves and their family. If you don’t grab a spot early enough you’ll be stuck standing or all of the remaining spots are so bad that no one wants to take them. After you get a spot you’re going to need some food and a drink.

Food at a festival consists of the following: tomorokoshi (grilled corn), yakisoba, takoyaki (octopus pancake thingy), kakigori (shaved ice), fried chicken, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakce thingy), and yakitori. I had chicken and yakisoba surrounded by a thin omelette, delicious, but dangerously so. Festival fare, be it food or drink, is somewhere from 300-500 yen (with the occasional deviation). This means that if you want a beer at a festival you’re going to pay 500 yen or, do the reasonable thing, go to the convenience store; anytime there’s a festival the closest convenience stores always make a killing, why buy one beer when you get 2 for the same price?

Can you find all the chikan in this picture?

The fireworks? Yeah, they were nice to see. And even though there isn’t anything that is being celebrated that doesn’t mean that one can’t have a party just because.

Meet Mr. James; or for those in Japan, Mr. ジェームス. Apparently he’s a 43 year old American from Ohio who is promoting McDonalds for the Summer/Fall 09 set of burgers. From the ads in McDonalds and his blog he seems to really enjoy Japan, McDonalds, and Soaplands; actually, that last one might not be true, but let’s just say he does.

Captain Soap saves you from images of naked soapy Japanese women.

No problem with me so far, but some people have trouble with the next part. If you’ve been studying (I’m guessing no) and you’ve already taken a look at his blog you’ve probably noticed that he’s using a lot of Katakana. When someone uses Katakana it’s usually for a couple of reasons: non-Japanese words, emphasis, manlyness (yes, really), and showing badly pronounced Japanese. You can probably guess the reason why some people living in Japan, and the SF Chronicle, would frown on McDonald’s current campaign.

I can understand why a lot of people think that this is condescending, but I think a lot of people are going too far with this. I don’t feel this is any worse than some cereal commercials or another McDonald’s advertisement shown in the States. The campaign isn’t saying anything about people living in Japan or how good/bad their Japanese is so what’s all the fuss about? Another thing that I think has been forgotten about in all of this is that Mr. James studied Japanese from a phrasebook while he was still in the USA. Is it honestly that unrealistic to show someone who, until recently, had no real contact with a native speaker of the language they were learning and, therefore, had bad pronunciation? When you take into consideration how little people usually know about Japan/Japanese when they come to work/visit and also that there are people who live here for years without really learning any Japanese I’d almost say that this type of advertising should be encouraged.

Miyuki, meet your new father.

I know that things aren’t perfect here, nor anywhere else, but lots of people are overanalyzing this. Debito, a fighter for foreign rights in Japan is pretty zealous in his stuggle. However sometimes he goes a little overboard and I do believe this is one of those times.