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One time, during the spring break while I was going to Gaidai, my friend and I decided to go to the side of Japan that faces… the Sea of Japan. You know, just to see what’s over there. We visited the Tottori sand dunes.
I was recently looking through my old pictures from 06-07. I decided to make these sepia tone a la the movie, “砂の女" or, its English title, “The Woman in the Dunes.”
The film is about a woman who is the last person of her clan living in her village, that has slowly been consumed by the sand. A fellow (who we assume is a professor) kind of stumbles upon her one day while collecting insects in the sand dunes. He stays with her, and maybe even falls in love with her at one point, however, in the end, she and her house in the sand do nothing but continually infiltrate every aspect of him and his life... just like how sand… infiltrates… EVERYTHING. I remember watching the film for my Japanese film class, hoping that the professor was going to be able to escape from the sand lady.
Oh, and there are sand people in it that are eerily reminiscent of the sand people in Star Wars. (the film was made in 1964).
I think the Tottori sand dunes were the biggest expanse of wide open space I have ever seen in Japan outside of the rice fields here in Tochigi. In a way, they are kind of beautiful.
Otherwise, it’s just a great big pile of sand.
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Hey!
ReplyDeleteI saw your post @ Galadarling's site and I had to send you a line.
You were talking about the weight issue in Japan. It's so true! If you look into teen's magazines, such as Popteen or Egg or something like that, they all have dieting pills ads at the back, where there are girls, maybe 5 ft. 2 who are 37 kilos!! I don't know what that is in pounds, but it's really, really low, and way below healthy, and this is what they're actually promoting! (For comparison I think about 45 kg is 100 pounds) At least in the "West" they just have skinny girls, no ads for pills that make you that light. And then on the opposite page they have the "boob cream" to make your breasts grow larger, so you can look like some sort of character from an anime porno or god knows what.
Especially if you go to a Japanese high school, all the girls are so skinny! And their lunch is one of those 5 kcal salads you can buy at the kombini and then just green tea, and some even puke after lunch, and as you said, there is no discussion or education about eating disorders at all, since this is considered normal. One of my friends in a Japanese high school was 1,67 (metric system) and 46 kg. And she actually lost more weight during summer vacation. Always when we were given candy or something all of them tucked it away and gave it to someone else later instead of eating it themselves.
Someone should really bring attention to this subject!