On February 23rd, 2009, the Oscar for the foreign language film went to the movie Okuribito (english title: Departures), by director Takita Yojiro.
At the time, I was studying in Tokyo at Sendagaya Japanese Institute (千駄ヶ谷日本語教育研究所) and one of our teachers, Heya-sensei, told us about the Oscar and suggested to go see the movie in theaters as a school activity. Being a movie lover as I am the idea pleased me immediately, also because it would be my first time in a japanese theater seeing a movie in japanese language, and I was honestly curious about my ability to understand it. Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago I finally got rid of my old cellphone (Sony Ericsson K800i) and got a Motorola Milestone, a smartphone based on the Google OS, Android. I took the Milestone for two main reasons: it’s the first coming with version 2.0 of Android, and it’s also a good bargain for its price (I got it at 478 euro), since similar phones equipped with Windows Mobile 6.5 or for example the iPhones have prices way more obscene.
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Since this new blog is still new, I’ll take some time to explain what is the small cat holding a golden coin you can see over the logo in the middle column.

In Japan that is called 招き猫 (maneki neko) and it litterally means beckoning cat, or welcoming cat. In the present days it is just one more clearly recognizable symbol of the japanese culture and traditions maybe, but its origin goes back in time. Supposedly it originated in the late Edo period (1603-1867) but the first documented evidence is dated 1870; by the beginning of the 20th century, the maneki neko was already popular.

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