Ah, I enjoy the time in covering Philip K. Dick's great little short story "Human Is" (1953) when I get to point out that I, too, ladies and gentlemen, am an alien, and show them my old Alien Registration Card which enabled me to live in Japan for many years. . . and zoom in the OHC view on the word "alien" on the card. The kids usually get a kick out of that. My point is that in Japan I am an alien, as they would be aliens were they to visit America or any other country, that "alien" (which means "other") is a matter of point of view, that aliens in science fiction stories like "Human Is" are usually metaphors for human beings who are different or who come from different cultures, and so on.
I also tell the class about the time I was on a flight from Japan to Los Angeles and had been sitting by some middle-aged Japanese ladies who were in a tour group, and we got off the plane together, and in LAX airport I heard them say (in Japanese), "My, aren't there a lot of foreigners here," without being aware that at that point THEY were the foreigners... As usual, I ran out of time and couldn't finish the story and related topics comfortably, not being able to hit all my other examples of similar stories in sf and other genres, in which one consciousness is put into (or invades or is invited in etc.) a different body, or even the most similar story which isn't even sf, The Return of Martin Guerre, which was remade into Somersby with Richard Gere playing Jodie Foster's "husband," who returns after being away at the Civil War for a few years and is completely different, so much so that the neighbors start getting suspicious as to whether he is really the same man or not. And yesterday was my last day of classes for 2017! Hurray! Because I don't teach Mondays or Tuesdays, I won't have to go into school on Christmas Day (unlike all my colleagues who have classes on Monday) or the day after. Mind you, the school year sure ain't over, cause we have one more set of classes in January after the new year holiday, on Friday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus over a week of exams, and so on and so forth, but I do have about two weeks of vacation now, so that's nice indeed. I need it. I'm running out of energy more and more as I get older, and needing more time to regain it. Whew.
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In last Friday's Introduction to American Culture and Literature class we covered (almost...) the first 80 paragraphs of Philip K. Dick's neat short story "Human Is" (1953), in which Jill Herrick decides to leave her thin, inhuman, cold-eyed, machine-like husband Lester, because he only cares about his work, doesn't want kids, and has been getting worse every year of the five years they've been married. Lester is a government toxicologist, working on new poisons for Terran military to use in their constant wars against "alien" civilizations. As the story begins, he tells Jill she'll have to stop letting her nephew Gus visit, receives a message informing him that he'll be traveling to Rector IV as part of his poison research work, and refuses to let Jill accompany him. While he's gone, she tells her big brother Frank that she's going to leave Lester cause she knows he'll never change. And then Lester comes back two weeks later a new man... Warm, kind, tender, romantic, playful, and totally lacking interest in his work. What's happened? Jill doesn't really think about it, so pleased is she by her "new" husband... But Frank, who works for the Federal Clearance agency (FBI/CIA/Homeland Security), is suspicious...
ANYWAY, having the kids read the story gives me the chance to tell them a bit about American culture: how American scientists use tens of thousands of monkeys for research (cause Lester uses animals for his toxicology work) and how Americans divorce a lot. It also lets me give them some marriage advice relating to the importance of communication and respect, citing some statistics about how little married couples talk to each other and about how lower income couples tend to love each other more than higher income couples, and telling them what my best friend from high school's mother told me before my marriage: "Never go to bed angry." I hope the students get the idea that literature, "even" science fiction, reveals the culture that creates it and provokes conversations relevant to our lives. . . We're into about our twelfth week of the second semester now, so there are just about three more weeks of classes to go this school year (but we'll be going well into January because of the New Year holiday and exam period etc.).
So things are shaping up and getting close ... One thing that has been a lot of work--and a lot of reward for me, and, I hope, my seminar students--has been editing and advising eight of my fourth-year seminar students' graduation theses (sotsugyo ronbun). The first edit for each person, of course, was very time and energy consuming... The papers needed a lot of work on their English, as well as a fair amount of encouragement for the students to think more deeply about their topics. But I've finished all those first edits. The second edits were much easier.... And now I've started the third ones! The deadline for them to submit their theses to the office is December 20 at noon. I think, I THINK that all eight students will finish comfortably... Their topics are pretty varied:
I've had a good time learning or remembering or thinking about their topics with them! I am glad that so many students challenged writing graduation theses: eight of my thirteen seminar students did it, when in the past I've been lucky to get one or a few... On a lighter note--in the first year Introduction to American Culture and Literature class, I was able to introduce my Buzz Lightyear and Woody dolls at the end to demonstrate the presence of science fiction elements in fantasy stories.... ANYWAY, the semester and school year are finally (finally? it really seems to have been the blink of an eye...) drawing to an end.... And Christmas is coming! What a bizarre, surreal, nightmarish, comical turn of events yesterday!
Yikes-- There I was, about an hour into the 90-minute Introduction to American Culture and Literature class about fantasy and "The Girl and the Chenoo" (a cool Native American story about a girl who's in the far forest hunting with her stupid and boastful and cowardly older brothers when a giant cannibal monster called a Chenoo shows up at their camp, and she turns it into their grandfather by calling it "Grandfather" and giving it some stew), when suddenly as I was walking round the room reading some fun lines out loud like, "Granddaughter, I am glad you are my relative because I was going to eat you," all 90 or so of the students' smart phone alarms went off at the same time in the same little chime, in unison. I was taken aback, as you might expect. They know not to have their phones on in class, and though sometimes one person's phone might make a sound to make us all laugh, never in my wildest dreams would I imagine hearing ALL the phones make an alarm sound at the same time. Then a weird alarm sounded over the university PA system, and a woman's cold and no-nonsense voice said (in Japanese), "This is a missile attack warning. Move away from windows immediately. Evacuate your buildings and find a safe place to wait outside now. This message will repeat." Etc. What the what? I thought that the class would be over and all the students would stand up and walk out with me, but I saw them strangely calm and even almost laughing, seemingly at me for some reason. I went to the door and peered out and no other classes were evacuating. I looked at the students and they looked at me. My helpful TA Sheryl told me that it was just a drill that had been planned, while a girl in the front row, spunky Runa, asked me, "Didn't you hear about it?" And then it turned out that all the kids KNEW it was going to happen because they all have smart phones (which i don't), and their smart phones had been telling them about it for a while now. They were quite impressed that I didn't know about it. then the whole thing repeated five minutes later. All in all, it probably took about 15 minutes at least out of the class, time I could ill-afford to lose, being, as usual, too behind schedule... in truth, I am rather oblivious too often, and it also turned out (I heard from a colleague during a meeting later that afternoon) that there were posters up all over campus warning about the drill this morning. ANYWAY, apparently the mayor of Fukuoka City decided to run the drill supposedly to get us prepared in case of attack by North Korea. Really I believe it's just way to show off and to make everyone here scared and pliable and willing to support changing the constitution to permit an army and war and so on, and generally to support the current administration's agenda. I think there is little value in simulating a missile attack to get us to recognize the special alarm sound and words for such an event, because if we got nailed by a nuclear missile, say, there'd not be much we could do about it in a few seconds. It was really bizarre, and unpleasant, and disruptive. and that was just in our class! What about the people commuting at 10:00 or trying to work or go somewhere, because I think the trains and so on were stopped then, too... And note that Fukuoka was the only city in Japan to do this. But it is still also strangely funny that all 90 or so of the students KNEW it was going to happen, so I was the ONLY person in the room to be surprised like that and to wonder if possible North Korea had really sent a missile to Fukuoka University (for a few minutes). Maybe I should get a smart phone? |
Jefferson Peters (JP)
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December 2023
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