February Hibernation

Compared to the bedlam that is March Madness and the all-sports nature of October, February is a very dry month for sports. The NBA is in its dog days (often sandwiched around a lackluster All-Star Weekend), college basketball is still in its pre-March Madness days and thus irrelevant, football usually wraps up with the Super Bowl very early in the month (if at all), and does anyone actually watch hockey? This year we’ve been blessed (or burdened, depending on the perspective) with the Winter Olympic games, but to be honest they’re nothing compared to the Summer Olympic Games, especially since China and U.S. aren’t the auto top-2 medal winners. Bo-ring. O and baseball is barely picking up with pitchers and catchers reporting. What do pitchers and catchers do between reporting and spring training starting up, by the way? Does it really take 20 days to warm up the pitchers’ arms?

This winter, “February Hibernation” is even more appropriate for most cities in the U.S. as pretty much every city in the Midwest/East Coast and even places like North and South Carolina are being hit with snowstorms. Although part of me wishes I can experience some of that in L.A. (just a dose), I fully appreciate how nice it is not to have blinding flurries flying at my face every time I go outside or trying to shovel a half foot of snow just to get out of the driveway. Here’s my typical day in L.A.: get up, enjoy the bright summer sun, go to work, walk from parking lot to office building in 60-degree weather, the faint smell of cherry blossoms lingering somewhere, grass as green as it can get in L.A. (not very, doesn’t have the lush texture of northern states), enjoy the view of downtown L.A. as the sun rotates from east to west, go home with a pink/red/purple sunset depending on the day, run around the Hollywood sign in shorts just as the sun is setting, play some tennis in the evening on outdoor courts if feeling up to it. Winter in LA is like getting away with a crime…….enjoy it while it lasts and boast about it to people on the East Coast. (Until it catches up to you, which I’m sure it eventually will). It’s like a winter fantasyland, where it’s Summer in January every year.

This last half year, I’ve been trapped in another kind of fantasy land.  I’ve kind of lived through Japan vicariously through its TV shows. I mentioned Great Teacher Onizuka last summer, but since then I’ve engulfed 2 seasons (and 2 special movies- the Japanese love to do just 10-11 episodes of a TV show per season but then do a 90-minute “special” movie at the end of each season) of Liar Game, 2 seasons of Legal High, one season of “Nihongo no shirinai Nihonjin,” one season of “Hanzawa Naoki,” random episodes of “Gokusen” and “Hana Yori Dango,” one season of “Attention, Please” and various short Japanese webisodes/ movies. These TV shows are mainly dramas, and many are very popular (Hanzawa Naoki in particular reached MASH-like level ratings in Japan, or like the last episode of Breaking Bad). Not only do these shows help me learn Japanese, but they’re also (believe it or not) really good. I think the shorter nature of these seasons in Japan force them to put more into each episode and move the plot along, something that U.S. TV shows can learn a thing or two about (Ahem, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead). And the programs reveal a different lifestyle/culture in Japan than in U.S. There’s some inside jokes I still don’t understand. But here are some trends about Japan I’ve learned from their TV shows:

1.)    They love their Manga- almost every tv show I just named in the above was based on a manga. Also, manga artists are portrayed as a very profitable/reputable profession that might carry the same weight as like a talented writer/artist/movie producer.

2.)    Love when people get other people’s names wrong- a constant theme in most of these TV shows used for comedic relief.

3.)    Lot of human values- Hanzawa Naoki preaches honor and getting along with others, Attention Please preaches self-development, Liar Game preaches consideration for others.

4.)    Villains easily are turned good: Much like a good Disney flick, Japanese values rarely have truly “bad” people. Usually these bad people are shamed into admitting the error of their ways and totally reformed by the end of the episode/TV series, which while not very realistic, goes to understand why Japanese are mostly respectful to everyone they meet.

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan