Powerful views - the edges of economy in Japan these days

The long-form essays of photo + video from Brian Storm's workshop, MediaStorm.com, will cause you to think.

Subtitles for the 日本語 audio.

Here are 3 episodes that play together as chapters (in total 25 minutes all together).

Japan's Disposable Workers by Shiho Fukada

 - Death by overwork

 - Depression (not to be discussed)

 - Internet cafe refugees

 - Homeless living

https://www.mediastorm.com/clients/japans-disposable-workers 

Maneki Neko at Gotoku-ji

Two stories connected to the "inviting cat,"

https://www.afar.com/magazine/inside-tokyos-buddhist-temple-devoted-to-lucky-cats

https://medium.com/@japankuru/gotokuji-temple-a-tokyo-oasis-of-lucky-cats-586c573f4278

short videos, "Japan Video Topics" channel

In the newsletter from the Consulate General for Michigan & Ohio this link to the "Japan Video Topics" was given, https://www.youtube.com/c/JVTen/videos

The Youtube channel has a few dozen short videos (less than 5 minutes). Students can browse & teachers can playback in class with no audio (English narrator) for getting students to observe and think of questions. Later the full playback, including narrator in English, can be shown.

Since so much of language learning comes from context, both visual and verbal, this collection of short topics is an appealing way to get learners in the habit of paying attention to culturally important details, both verbal and non-verbal, too.

Japanese modern language and society - the example of Metal & Hard-core Rock music

This video on Youtube documents modern life in Japan - and interesting discussion about Metal and Hard-core Rock music there & the emotional meaning for performers and audiences, https://youtu.be/q49kG0pV0Bg (about 11 minutes).

Short docu by 2 teens in Tokyo fitting into 2 cultures

"Ark & Maya: All Mixed Up" is almost 15 minutes and describes the growing up experiences of these two young women, dividing their time and their lives between USA and Japan, sometimes speaking more comfortably in English; other times in Japanese. The documentary appeared at the December screening for the Tokyo Documentary Film Festival, https://youtu.be/NWeg34noE0Y

"Salaryman" retrospective on workspace in Japan

Video (2 minutes) to show changes in middle-class work across ten decades.

The clips (from anime) portray some of the features that appeared and then disappeared.

Blurb for https://youtu.be/kNQMX--3E5Q

_________

It's been almost 100 years since the "salaryman" type of office worker first appeared in Japan back in the 1920s. As our society faces a major turning point, SmartHR decided to create a brand film to reflect upon how work styles have changed with time over the past century. We hope that by looking back on history, we inspire people to think about how they want to work going forward.

To learn more about each scene, visit our special brand film website Hataraku no hyakunenshi [A Century of Work] (Japanese language webpage) https://100years-movie.smarthr.jp