Fili’s world

It's the first time I got to really experience what Asian studies are all about. It's not all studying Chinese/Japanese and hearing history, after all

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I arrived a bit late, after a long high-tech style lunch in Hertzelia Pituach's Odeon with a friend who - as other friends before him - has failed to understand "what the hell" I'm going through. We moved very quickly from his "I don't have anything interesting, you're the one with the stories" to discussing his high-tech future. It makes it easier for both of us, I guess.

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Noam Orbach gave a lecture about the changing status of foreign unofficial religions in China. I recognized Noam from my early BA days since a female friend of mine who's now a big media girl had a crush on him, and have wondered how he managed to go from a computer science degree in Bar-Ilan to researching religions at Shandong University in China. It took me less than a minute to fully realize that even with the coverage of today's China and my extensive blog reading, there are so many things that go on in China which I know nothing about. I guess the religious trend in China is obvious, and it's interesting to hear how the party tries to both give the people what they're asking for but also control it so it doesn't get out of hand. Religion and beliefs are harder to control than Internet, but their methods and directions are quite extraordinary.

Michal Zalgal Lavid gave a comparison of Uigor, Mongolian and Tibetan literature to examine the sub-messages regarding independence vs. integration with China. Naturally, I was wondering about the Taiwanese perspective, even though it's not as "underground" as those minorities since Taiwan maintains a non-formal-never-say-it-outloud independence and doesn't have censorship from China. It's strange that somehow, in my own perception, and that of my friends - no body calls Mongolia China, especially due to their very distinct history, and I guess that's why when there's an attempt by the Chinese to lower their historic fame (like Genghis Khan's) inner unrest begins to rise.

Later on, I went into a very amusing session about today's Japan from Israelis doing research at the Kyoto University. Much of what I saw I could relate to stuff I've seen in Taiwan, only in an absolute extreme. Shiri Malci opened up with a great slideshow presentation of the very strange Idol culture and street fashion in Japan. The Japanese have created the Talento concept in which anybody can be an idol and without any specific talent, as long as they have charisma. The idols are kept very close to their target audience, an are being managed as products, way before anybody thought of doing that in the west (with obvious examples like Spice Girls, backstreet boys and that cr#p).

Helana Greensphon discussed "Starbucks" taking over Japan phenomena. I've seen it in Taiwan, and couldn't really understand it as they've failed miserably in the Israeli market, especially due to the fact that they're SO expensive. She's built a whole theory around the suggestion that Starbucks in Japan isn't about coffee, as it's about the concept of doing something away from your small house and outside the office. People come to Starbucks to study, talk, give private lessons, rest, hold meetings, and even sleep.

Nisim Kadush has shown the influences of Japanese culture on East-Asian countries. Damn him, as he had the absolute best research study I've heard about. For his research he has visited/lived-in 7 far-east countries to see the Japanese influence all probably supported by some research grant. Geeeezz, I need to think up something like that. Brilliant, fascinating.

Architect Itamar Ben Sade has shown the conflict of trying to maintain a dialog between city and nature within Tokyo. Still way behind New York and London, Tokyo is reinventing solutions to give their people more green space.

To wrap up the day we had a 2 hours Indian music concert. The guy playing the sitar has summed up the concert with a "now I can finally tell my parents I went to university".

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With the b@r#ng everyday routine that I have lately, I just -live- for days like this. Wonderful.

(TAU Far-east conference lecture summary can be found here)