Guilty Pleasure: “Zuiikin English”

I don’t know who exercises to those morning TV shows anymore. In the 80s they had those Jane Fonda videos. Local stations still put on those programs where you do simple things like do 45-minute runs to warm up, then a bunch of exercises. Fair enough. But who would have had the gumption to combine exercise with other forms of daily exercises, as in language exercises? The good folks at Fuji Television in Japan, that’s who.

But let us heed the words of Tina Fey, who gave us this bit of wisdom on the dangers of combining two good things at once. In her phenomenal autobiography Bossypants, she said:

“It’s the same reason I don’t get Hooters. Why do we need to enjoy chicken wings and boobies at the same time? Yes, they are a natural and beautiful part of the human experience. And so are boobies. But why at the same time?”

Created twenty years ago in 1992, Zuiikin English debuted to absolutely no fanfare on early morning TV. The purpose of the show was simple and twofold: get your morning exercise in, and learn English at the same time. The program consisted of three women in skimpy exercise wear performing stretching activities while reciting English sentences that have nothing to do with the activity in progress. In an effort to combine two activities, the purpose of both seems to have been defeated because the phrases are not often used in daily conversation, and no one explains how to perform the exercises. This is the danger of multi-tasking in TV: you can’t go about it half-assed, because you won’t succeed at it.

To give you an idea of the rather useless sentences that the women leading the exercises chant in a happy monotone (if such a thing exists), here are a few choice clips:

“I have a bad case of diarrhea.”

“How dare you say such a thing to me!”/ “I can’t stand the sight of you!”

“Take anything you want!” / “Spare me my life!”

“Lovely golf weather today!”

More clips after the jump.

Art on Ice: Yuko Kavaguti

Meet Yuko Kavaguti. At one time, she was Yuko Kawaguchi. Let me explain.

Yuko Kawaguchi was born in Aichi, Japan in 1981. A competitive figure skater for Japan, the story goes that she saw the inspiring performances Elena Berezhnaya delivered with Anton Sikharulidze in pairs at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and was inspired to switch disciplines to pairs. Not one to do things halfway, Yuko contacted their coach, the legendary Russian skater Tamara Moskvina, asking that she become her coach so she could be like her idol. Eventually, Moskvina relented, pairing her with Russian skater Alexander Markuntsov. Yuko moved halfway around the world to train in Hackensack, New Jersey. Despite being the first Japanese pair to medal at an ISU (International Skating Union) championship, rules dictate that to compete for the nation you represent at the Olympics, you must be a citizen. When Markuntsov was unable to secure a Japanese passport, the partnership dissolved.

Not one to give up on her career, and with changes in pairs partnerships not uncommon, Yuko was matched with two different American partners and even relocated to St. Petersburg to continue training with Moskvina, even though she didn’t speak a word of Russian. Again, not one to do things halfway, Yuko enrolled at the State University of St. Petersburg and graduated with a degree in International Relations, learning Russian along the way. She now speaks it fluently. Although these initial partnerships did not work out, in the spring of 2006, Yuko was paired by Nikolai Velikov with the strapping Alexander “Sasha” Smirnov and, after initially training with him, they both chose to go with Moskvina. This match turned out serendipitously, as they captured three consecutive Russian national titles, two world championship bronze medals and the European championship in 2010.

During this time, Yuko faced a difficult decision. As the top-ranked Russian team, they were expected to compete at the next Olympics. As Smirnov would be unable to obtain Japanese citizenship, if she wanted to compete at the Olympics, Yuko had to acquire Russian citizenship instead. As Japan does not allow dual citizenships, she had to give up her original passport, leading to the name change that resulted from the transliteration from Kanji to Cyrillic. She cannot get her passport back until at least 2018, and requires a Japanese visa just to visit her parents there. Some media outlets viciously labeled her a “traitor skater”, but this was in 2008, and by then she was already collecting several medals on the ISU Grand Prix circuit (it’s the world cup season in figure skating) and the pair's sheer excellence managed to silence some critics. To this day, Yuko has a following in her native Japan and is greeted with warm, appreciative applause whenever she steps onto the ice in competitions there.

The duo faced disappointment at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Despite being one of the favourites to medal, they made several mistakes in their free skate and finished off the podium. While a fourth-place finish is an impressive debut in the Olympics, the fact that this was the first time in 50 years that Russia did not even place on the podium was, over there, considered the equivalent of the Chicago Bulls not winning the NBA championship in the 1990s over here. Or for a more local example, that’s like the Oilers not winning the Stanley Cup every year like they did in the 1980s. In Russia, figure skating is considered a fine art as well as a sport and is supremely respected: in other words, I am not speaking out of hyperbole. Undeterred, and despite intense media scrutiny from both the Japanese and Russian press, the pair soldiered on, and are still competing at the highest level in the sport.

Modern Film Classic: “Departures (Okuribito)”

They say you can’t go home again.

In Yojiro Takita’s 2008 film Departures, Daigo Kobayashi has finally realized his dream of becoming a cellist with a major orchestra in Tokyo. The orchestra disbands, and Daigo is in debt by 18,000,000 Yen on the top-of-the-line instrument he purchased when he has finally achieved his goal. Heartbroken and sobered by the limits of his own talent, his wife suggests that they return to his hometown, to live in the childhood home his mother left to him. He grew up in that house, you see, which was a coffee shop his father ran, until he ran off with the waitress and abandoned the family. Daigo’s mother raised him alone and ran the home as a pub. Daigo and his wife, when they settle in, eat at the kitchen bar where his mother once served customers.

He applies to a company that advertises a high-paying job with flexible hours in the “departures” industry. Thinking that the employer is a travel company, he is shocked to find out that a misprint in the ad inadvertently hid the fact that they are in the funeral industry, specializing in “the departed” (oops). The job is to perform the pre-burial ceremony at funerals, which is done with great ceremony and dignity in Japan. Daigo hides his profession from his wife for as long as he can, all the while becoming a skilled mortician, and slowly realizing that the issues he faced when his father abandoned his family long ago are still there, surfacing slowly but surely.

To understand the film’s subtext, it helps to understand that death in Japan is still a taboo subject, not one openly discussed and always hidden beneath the surface. This, despite the fact that funerals are done with great dignity and a sense of theatricality usually reserved for the stage. The fact that the film opens in media res with Daigo washing a female body during a funeral, only for him to discover that the girl is really a transgendered male, further heightens the film’s taboo subject matter. Takita frames the shot, and in fact every funeral, with close-ups and with a decorum that lends respect to each dearly departed.

The funerals in Departures show a variation on the grieving process, at least in Japanese culture. The ceremonies are accompanied by mourners but as Daigo becomes better at his job, he sees how his clients regard their dearly departed. It’s telling that at the end of their lives, descendants not only bid farewell, but they say to those who came before them, “thank you for everything. We’ll see you again soon.” The departure is an opportunity to show true gratitude for all of the hard work and sacrifice of a life’s work, and to thank them simply for being there. That is how one leaves with dignity and grace.