All I could remember of watching the TV SERIES "oshin" from my childhood were
a/radish rice
b/wooden slippers
c/nappy washing in the river
d/kayo and a scene where an adolescent oshin serves her some brownish
black (alien looking) dessert to kayo
e/some old lady using this wooden abacus
f/paper doors being slided often
Now, 20 years later when I am rewatching it,
First off I realize that I am 33....whoa....not bad..
still feel like a kid, but so many things have happened to me
since when I first watched oshin at the age of 11 or 10
When I first watched it, I now recall that i watched the US ENGLISH
DUBBED VERSION OF IT.. Now I am watching the japanese version with english subtitles.
A totally different experience...both in terms of language but also
perception because I am noticing so many more things that a child
normally may not perceive or understand or notice...Me as an adult,
watching it again, I am noticing a lot.
I am blogging along as I am watching the series, coz each succeeding episode
stands the danger of erasing the previous episode details
THINGS I NOTICED WHEN I WATCHED OSHIN THIS TIME AROUND ARE
a/The mother of oshin actually went and sat in the snowy river , in an
attempt to ABORT her child (much like American women trying to hurl
themselves off the stairs to abort a pregnancy that was FORCED upon
them pre EQUAL RIGHTS era -which btw stands the danger of getting
erased if American women don't continuously fight for equal rights)
b/The grandma keeps constantly saying that she can't eat coz she is
old and useless ( If you watch japanese movies that are set in an
ancient time period, there are dialogues where one member of the
family is asking other members to eat them up coz there is such
scarcity of food-geezus -cannibalism in the time of famine?)
c/I also notice ,
Radish rice,
snow,
the picturesque beauty of japan,
an era before plastic coated nappies,
and
suddenly
My thoughts go to "
what does japan do for garbage disposal ?" given
that the current day population continue to breed like rabbits,
use a lot of plastic containers that are SINGLE USE and
there is such electronic waste too and
their tiny islands have so much of POPULATION PRESSURE ,
IT BOGGLES MY MIND... Surely they are dumping in the sea and surely it will all float and reach the US WEST COAST , much like how all the fukushima nuclear disaster waste has reached US westcoast after a year
d/Gender discrimination has been a big part of the history of japan
and it still continues to this day, more so in the form of women
speaking and giggling like children instead of confidentaly talking in
adult voices, manga porn and japanese school girl porn and short
skirted jap women being groped in subways and so on and so forth
e/child labor was rampant as recent as 1907 ? really?Hmmmm
f/The ceramics and darkwood tables and cabinets, the paper doors, the
beautiful gardens all are to die for
g/In the first episode of this series, they show scenes from 1983 and
there is this scene where this women first pours out tea from a
THERMOS FLASK into a ceramic tea pot and then proceeds to immediately
pour it into drinking teacups..I am like, " she could have directly
poured it from the thermos to the cups and saved up on washing more
dishes...LOL"
p.s:As I watched further episodes I realize that they use thermosflask to have HOT WATER ready and on hand and then they have leaves in the ceramic pot and then merely pour the hotwater from flask into ceramic pot and thus ensuring FRESHNESS in the brew...mmm...good idea that!