The Margit Bridge (Margit híd) in Budapest is scheduled to be closed this summer for about a couple years due to greatly needed and overdue renovation works, (the opening of the Colbert Bridge to the north is supposed to happen first).

I snapped this picture just to show people what’s currently keeping the bridge from falling onto cars travelling below it.

I had the mixed fortune of watching the The Fast And the Furious – Tokyo Drift some time last year and was struck by something I for some reason didn’t think to talk about till now – that whoever wrote the script had probably never experienced the use of the word “gaijin” firsthand. Now many Americans have some sense of the word as discriminatory, which is generally correct, but also apply to it the assumptions that they’ve accumulated in a lifetime of hearing American discriminatory language, which is not the same, at least in the modern era, as “gaijin”.

The character in the movie uses it as an explicit putdown, as some Americans might use “Jap” or “Gook”. In my experience “gaijin” is never used that way. Precisely what makes it so troubling is that it’s exchanged and accepted by level-headed people in polite discussion as an accurate description of 99% of the subject’s relevant character attributes. It’s more like calling someone an “urban” musician or calling a dish “ethnic” in character. It’s a term that trivializes, ostracizes, pigeonholes, and invokes a host of unwarranted assumptions – but it’s not understood as inherently insulting. The irony therein is actually stronger testament to the deep-seededness of racism (which also isn’t close to being consistently recognized as negative) here than the widespread use of a known ethnic slur would be.

I do know one interesting ethnic slur in Japanese though – バカチョン, or “stupid Korean”. The phrase itself is rather lacking in lyric inspiration, but when you consider that 20 years ago products were described in phrases such as バカチョンカメラ (stupid Korean camera, as in so easy even a Korean could use it) it makes a little more sense, maybe in the vein of “Dutch courage” but far less charming.

This must be the midget section of the Stoke Newington Cemetery.

This is London Fields? Where are the fields?  All I see are a bunch of ugly buildings. No wonder Martin Amis’ novel is supposed to be depressing.

This is just a random scene from Camden High Street in Camden Town, basically London’s equivalent of Venice Beach in Los Angeles. It’s where all the freaks congregate and the rock-oriented bohemian subculture of the city basically exists, (alongside Shoreditch).

But, as usual, a bunch of developers want to come in, since it’s a trendy area, never mind that their presence will basically undo the coolness the area possesses.  It’s kind of like when you and your buddies are hanging out, and your Dad, going through a mid-life crisis, wants to be cool again, and wants to hang out with you, but the very fact that he will, will basically undo any credibility you’ve managed to gain.

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Scorpions Fashion has nothing on this.

My special someone also has a liking for this color, although I’d never expect to see her looking like this. Ever.

There are a lot – and way too many that simply try to “explain Japan” in a single volume, always in contrast to a monoethnic West. Apparently a lot of English speakers here read Dogs and Demons just as part of the process of disillusionment, which is important, but I just wish people back in the US would read it too to prevent the illusion from forming in the first place.

Polite Lies is a much more personal book, and because it’s not supposed to be an attempt to explain all of Japan via comparison with everyone who uses the Roman alphabet, it’s rather full of very generalizable personal insights. My favorite passage is one where she describes her public school teachers in Japan as both strict and lax – strict about enforcing the rules of the system and maintaining their own authority, but lax about actually making students better at the subject they’re assigned to teach. I see something that reminds me of that little insight at least a few times a week.

I’m sure more than one or two random Americans have entered this pub thinking “oh yeah!” only to find that it’s actually, well, just a drinking establishment. I can imagine their disappointment as they go in, expecting some kind of fully nude pole dancing, only to find some dude standing there, asking what they’ll have to drink.

Unlike the Spread Eagle in Shoreditch, which actually used to be a strip club, this one is just, (sadly, depending on your perspective), a pub. A very misleadingly named pub no less.

This was at Poznań Główny Train Station at 5:30 on a Sunday morning. The place was packed with kids who I’m guessing were heading home.

You know it’s true love when you let the girl sleeping on the ground next to you use your thigh as a pillow.