Japonisme...

Japonisme is a word from France originally about about the effect of Japanese

culture on art. Japanese culture has influenced Western art and fashion (this is a Christian Dior cocktail dress and a "Japanese-style" teapot).

Can you find an image of something that has been inspired by Japanese culture?

Advice for improving your English...

Listening
- watching movies
- listening to the radio or internet radio
- watching TV drama series
Speaking
- talking to foreign people whenever you have a chance!
Reading
- newspapers
- magazines
Writing
- writing a blog or diary or journal (use illustrations or photos to make it interesting!)
- writing e-mails or letters to friends in other countries

Sports movies (part 2!)

After writing about sports movies I remembered an old British movie called Chariots of Fire about runners at the olympics. Actually when I searched for images I found this poster on a homepage ONLY ABOUT RUNNING MOVIES!!! (http://www.runningmovies.com/)

This movie won some oscars and as well as great acting and a good story it had a famous instrumental soundtrack by Vangelis.

Last weekend was the Tokyo Marathon. The days before and after were sunny and beautiful. But just for that day it was raining and cold. It must be difficult anyway to run 42 km, but if you`re wet and and cold it must be really bad!!

What do you think about running and the marathon? Let me know!

Good sports movies

There aren`t very many good sports movies. The problem is the stories are all kind of the same. One nice movie about soccer (and dancing!) is Mad About Mambo.

A more serious movie is Coach Carter. It`s about a basketball coach who wants his students to become good human beings - not just sports players. It`s a good movie and it`s interesting because it`s a true story. Coach Carter the real person has a homepage: http://www.coachcarter.com/. Samuel L. Jackson plays him in the movie. Have you ever seen a good sports movie? Tell me the title and why you like it! That`s all for now!

Global warming!

OK now the scientists finally tell us what all of us knew already. The earth is getting warmer every year. And it`s our fault! The biggest polluter is the USA, and the USA didn`t sign the Kyoto agreement to help stop global warming because American companies told George W. Bush that it would cost too much. Al Gore is an American politician who nearly became president. He just made an interesting movie about global warming called An Inconvenient Truth. I want to see it. What do you think we can do to help the environment? Tell me your ideas!

The coolest movie ever...

This is the coolest movie ever. Actually it`s in German, not English. But I recommend you rent it. I gurantee you`ll like it. The title is Knockin` on Heaven`s Door. It`s directed by Thomas Jahn. It`s funnier and cooler and has more humanity than Tarantino movies or British gangster movies like Layer Cake.

Lost Memories...

Recently there have been two popular movies about Alzheimers disease. If you get Alzheimers you slowly lose your memory.

The first one was a Korean movie: An eraser in my head, and the other one was called Memories of tomorrow, with Ken Watanabe. He is famous now in Hollywood because he was in The Last Samurai.

These movies are about people getting this sickness while they are still quite young, but usually older people get it.

There`s another kind of sickness people where people lose their memories. A man in Dallas, Texas walked out of his house one morning and forgot his name and where he lived. A few weeks later just by chance someone who knew him saw him and helped him. That is called amnesia and it`s not usually for ever, but Alzheimers is a very sad sickness. It gets worse and worse and eventually memories are lost for ever.

What are your best memories?

And if you found out you would lose your memories what would you do? Maybe it`s important to make each day special. Tell me what you think!

Finding Neverland

My son likes Peter Pan, and my wife and I like Johnny Depp, so we decided to rent the movie Finding Neverland. It`s the story of the man who wrote Peter Pan. It`s a little sad, but it`s a wonderful movie. Please watch it if you have the chance.

What movie made you cry or made you laugh recently? What was it about? And why did you find it moving?

By the way we call them movies because they used to be called moving pictures. And we say something is moving if it touches our emotions and moves our hearts!

Sunny winter days

In Europe winter days are usually dark and cloudy, and many people feel dark and cloudy too! Winter in Japan is bright and sunny nearly every day. So it`s easy to feel happy! What`s your favorite season? And why do you like it?

Happy new year...!

Why do we say 2007? Because it`s 2007 years since the birth of Jesus Christ. But what if you`re a muslim, or a buddhist, or a hindu, or if you don`t believe in a god?
Well in Japan it`s Heisei 19. And in different parts of the world they use different calendars.

We should have a NEUTRAL system for the whole world that everyone can use without any problems. What do you think? Why not start with year 1 now! It can be the first year everyone agreed on a year name!