Edo Period Japan and the White Man: a lesson in closed empires.

This is a slight departure from my normal posts, which discuss things that are awesome. Today we are going to discuss (nerdily, with examples from my thesis-- you know you want a history lesson!) why a certain TV show (aimed at nerds) needs to pick up some of the (nerd) slack. Yeah, that's right Heroes, I'm looking at you.

Last season that show was all anyone could talk about (well that and Meredith's drowning on Grey's Anatomy, but we do not speak of that show) and as a Japanese major, I did find the fact that a good five minutes of any given episode was entirely in Japanese to be awesome. Granted, at times it was interesting Japanese (since apparently Masi Oka does all the translations of his lines? Which kind of just makes him even more adorable.) but Japanese nonetheless.

The season season premiere was basically half spent in subtitles, and you know my little language loving heart LOVED IT. What it did not love was the fact that David Anders (SARK) was somehow inexplicably running around in Edo period Japan. Has no one on the show done their historical research?

Granted, I wrote a thesis dealing with Women's Travel in Edo Period Japan, so I may know a bit more about the time period than the average Heroes watcher. However, almost anyone who has taken some Japanese or World history should know the following information:

"In the Edo period, a culture of warriors and warfare found itself a country at peace due to the emergence of what was to become the Tokugawa bakufu, or military government. Not only was the country free from civil war for the first time in over a century, it was also almost free from outside influences, due to the isolationist policy implemented by the Shogunate in 1639. Foreign threats to the Tokugawa reign were thrown out of the country, with only a handful of traders from the Dutch East India Company allowed in a sectioned off area in Nagasaki. Any other foreigners who came to the country were contained and interrogated by the government, and not allowed into the country."

-ME, from my thesis: "Historical and Literary Representations of Women Travelers in Edo Period Japan."

While it may be a bit of an over-simplification of history to say that all foreigners weren't allowed into the country (in fact, the Dutch traders were expected to travel along the Tokaido to pay homage to the Emperor, just as the Daimyo (samurai landowners) did,) the vast majority were not. So how in the world is Sark, with his baby-blues and peroxide blonde hair and his British accent running around in 1671, 32 years after the isolationist period began? I mean, according to Wikipedia, "Other Europeans who landed on Japanese shores were put to death without trial." While we may have discovered that (SPOILER) this might not be a huge issue for David Anders, it still does not explain how the white guy is running around Edo Period Japan being a huge drunk, and no one thinks it is weird.

So, Heroes, can you throw a girl a bone and pretend that David Anders is Dutch, or working for the Dutch East India Company, or has magical superpowers (in addition to his actual superpower) that allow him to appear to be Japanese, horrible foreign accent aside? Also, did they even have peroxide back then? Surely on a show were everyone and their mom has superpowers, you can come up with some plausible explanation for a white dude to be running around a period in Japanese history where no white dudes were running around?

Also, stop making Masi Oka do all the heavy lifting on the Japanese culture front. Hire a translator and a history consultant. It is not like you don't have the budget. If you don't, just off one of the Petrellis and then you will.

And no, even your clever ruse of a shirtless Petrelli will not distract me from my quest to discover why David Anders is running around in Edo Period Japan, being all white. Please answer my questions/hire a history consultant before I have to write yet another blog entry bemoaning the fact that this otherwise enjoyable show is making me angry that I went to school and got an education and now I am too smart for TV. I don't want to be too smart for TV, Heroes! What would I blog about then? So please, sort out this problem asap so I can get back to enjoying my shirtless Petrellis and Japanese speaking David Anders in peace.


If anyone is curious to learn more about Edo Period Japan, I'd recommend watching the excellent, if poorly named, documentary from PBS: "Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire." or visiting their website here.

Image from NBC.com.

Gym, Rats!

The gym is a tough place for a woman, particularly the weight room--if you ever notice, most women stick to the cardio machines hardcore. If they can withstand the testosterone stench of the weight room, some ladies make it to the thigh ab/adductor machines, but that's about it. For the past four years, I worked out in an all-female facility at college and lived in a single-sex environment, so the wall of animal stink that hits you when you walk into the gym is particularly upsetting to my olfactory senses. At my new city-run gym, I have observed a veritable parade of weirdos and nut-jobs. Surely everyone else has seen similar cases, but it may be helpful to you the next time you're all set in a sports bra and tennies to categorize your new gym friends in some of the following ways:

1. The Too Old: Maybe it's my neighborhood, I don't know. The gym rats over age seventy, men and women, I salute you for your vigor and stamina. I hope to be as sprightly as you when I am your age. Older ladies, good on you for strength training, it fights the osteoperosis, but good god! Take it easy! Some of you older ladies are skinnier than greyhounds on the racetrack, lifting weights easily three times your body weight. I worry about your health, too, older men, but please stop talking on your cell phone earpieces while lifting weights, it is disturbing to everyone around you. Sure, men can father children at any age past puberty, but it is HIGHLY inappropriate for you to be eyeing the young women around as if they're chattel. Naughty, naughty!

2. The Too Young: Don't most gyms have rules about kids fourteen and younger being banned from cardio and weight rooms? Why are these tiny little girls who can't possibly be many years past menarche exercising like their lives depend on it? That can't be good for your growing bodies, children. Also, your little terrycloth pants and sweatshirts with things like, "PINK," or "JUICY" emblazoned on the ass, so cunningly folded down to show how perky and young you are, make me feel incredibly old at the ripe, saggy age of twenty-two. You stop that. And stop giving me the evil eye, yes I do have a few pounds to lose, unlike your stick bodies, that's why I'm here.

3. The FOSsies: Or, as I have dubbed them, the Fresh Off the Streetsies. This category mainly consists of young men working out with the heaviest weights of all, but wearing baggy jeans, sweatshirts, and regular old Vans shoes. Really? Jeans at the gym? Of course it is understandable that you are coming to the gym from work, school, what-have-you, but is it all that difficult to pop a pair of workout pants in your man-bag in the morning? Everyone else seems to handle it well enough. The bunch of you look like a teenage gang, in grave danger of getting your baggy pants caught between weight plates. BUY SOME PANTS, end of story.

4. The Exercisaholics: You. Yes, you. Stop hogging the machines, stop sweating up everything, why are you always here? The particular kind of exercisaholic that is frustrating to me are those gym rats who will yell at you if you so much as make a move toward "their" machine, take too long on a certain machine, leave their towel on the machine seat and then walk around, expecting that stinky, nasty towel to maintain their control in that small area. If you are lifting such heavy weights that you can't do your sets in one sitting, or that your body can't handle it without a long, strolling break, perhaps you SHOULDN'T BE LIFTING THAT MUCH. Also, you're using that machine the wrong way and you look ridiculous.

5. The Random Oddballs: Crazy Clown-Lips Lady. The Naricissus in Disguise as an Adonis (think a cross between Guy Pearce and Michael Vartan, only a GIANT ASSHOLE who peers at himself in the mirror and touches himself). Weird Old Lady Who Works Out in a Full Fur Coat and Jewelry (who are you?). The Boys I Go to School with Who Don't Acknowledge My Presence. Smelly Nick Nolte Lookalike Invariably Wearing Ugg Boots Without Socks, A Leopard-Print Leotard, and Daisy-Dukes.

Such characters at the gym! Who's at yours?