Tuesday 22 September 2009

Japanese 'Book of Tea' translated into Arabic..

Abu Dhabi's KALIMA project announced publishing the translation of Japanese Okakura Kakuzo's "The Book of Tea" into Arabic for the first time.

The Japanese book is considered to be one of the most important classic works in the world, and has been translated since it was first written nearly a century ago to dozens of languages.

It is thought to be the first book dealing with the tea ritual and its philosophy in relation to Oriental culture and spirituality. In the book, Kakuzo shows how tea has affected nearly every aspect of Japanese culture, thought, and life.

The 1906 book had attempted to correct the lack of knowledge by Westerners regarding the significance of tea ceremonies in Japanese culture. He also sought to defend Japanese culture from wide misconceptions at the time.

"This book offers us a key lesson that motivates us to pay more attention to our deep-rooted identity, which is what the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) sets to achieve in general, and an aim of KALIMA in particular," said Dr. Ali bin Tamim, Kalima Project Manager.

"The translation is only a thorough understanding of ourselves through the diverse contexts of others," he added.

The work, published in elegant copies that include pictures and illustrations, is translated by Samer Abu Hawwash, who has worked on a number of KALIMA translations. KALIMA, a translation initiative by ADACH, aims to provide Arab readers with the latest publications in the international scene.

It seeks to translate at least 100 books every year from world languages into Arabic.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Famous Japanese cartoonist disappears

Popular Japanese cartoonist Yoshito Usui, whose manga and animation series 'Crayon Shin-chan' has attracted a worldwide fan base, has gone missing on a hiking trip, police said Wednesday.

Usui, 51, left his home north of Tokyo Japan last Friday for a day-trip to mountains in nearby Gunma, a prefectural police official said.

But he has since been unaccounted for with calls to his mobile phone left unanswered, the official said. 'We are searching for him in the mountains.'

Usui made his debut as a manga author in 1987 and gained popularity in the 1990s with 'Crayon Shin-chan' featuring the daily life of Shinnosuke, a mischievous five-year-old Japanese boy.

'We are seriously worried,' said a spokesman for publisher Futabasha Publishers Ltd., which has released some of his comics.

Thursday 10 September 2009

Japanese fishing village goes ahead with dolphin hunt

A Japanese coastal town has gone ahead with its controversial dolphin hunt, shrugging off protests from animal-rights activists, local officials said Thursday.

Fishermen in Taiji town caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales on Wednesday, in their first catch since the fishery season started on September 1, Wakayama prefectural official Yasushi Shimamura said.

They plan to sell about 50 dolphins to aquariums nationwide and release the remainder back into the sea, while the whale meat will be sold for human consumption, an official at a local fishermen's cooperative said.

The Japanese town's annual dolphin hunt drew international attention earlier this year after the release of award-winning eco-documentary 'The Cove', in which a team of film-makers covertly covered the event in graphic detail.

After the film's release, the Australian coastal city of Broome ended its sister-city relationship with Taiji to protest the hunt.

Town officials said they would not slaughter any of the dolphins caught on Wednesday, but denied it was due to international pressure.

"We didn't release the rest of the dolphins because there have been protests against dolphin hunting from animal rights activists," said a fisheries cooperative official, who declined to give his name. "From the viewpoint of resource control, we've been occasionally releasing them on our own judgement in the past."

Hunting dolphins and small whales is not prohibited by the International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, but Japan's Fisheries Agency restricts the practice by handing out annual quotas to several fishing towns.

This year, Taiji was allocated a quota of about 2,300 small cetaceans including dolphins, prefectural official Shimamura said. Cetaceans are largely- hairless aquatic mammals, such as dolphins, whales and porpoises.

The southwestern Japanese town has strongly defended its tradition of hunting whales and dolphins.

"People in Taiji, as well as Wakayama prefecture ... hope that animal rights activists understand the cultural difference between them and us," Shimamura said.

Thursday 3 September 2009

Japanese film captivates audiences

“Ponyo,” the latest film from Academy-Award-winning Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is a charming, family-friendly film. Packaged as an old-style animated movie, “Ponyo” uses the dying technique of traditional hand-drawn animation to tell its story. This process makes the film feel older than it is and adds a level of realism and humanity to the movie. The eccentric characters, Japanese themed musical score and larger-than-life story contribute to the magic of “Ponyo.”

The film’s plot centers around three characters: Ponyo, a talking goldfish who wants to become a human girl, Sosuke, an adventurous little boy who loves the ocean, and Lisa, his hard-working mother who longs for her seafaring husband. One day before school, Sosuke ventures down the cliffs surrounding his house and finds a goldfish stuck in a glass bottle — a peculiar sight. He heads into the water to rescue the fish and gets more than he bargained for. The fish he finds, which he names Ponyo, becomes his great friend right away.

The Japanese creation is one of the few recent hand-drawn films in theaters. Also, the animation isn’t super-detailed. Instead of blurring out objects in the background of the frame, the characters and scenery in “Ponyo” become less detailed and minimalist. Technically speaking, this film is not groundbreaking. The biggest surprise is that it was made in 2-D format. It is a laborious process, and the movie was in development for more than three years. However, the movie’s story fits the visual style, so it’s hard to miss the lack of CGI.