October 25th - Miguel

     At firs this weeks like theme(?) of the readings had me a little lost just because I was confused on what exactly would the readings focus on. However a lot of them to me focused on the environment part of the weeks topic. Or at least for the readings, The Little Woods in Fukushima and The Easy Life in Kamusari to me read more on environment due to the mention of foresting. I honestly really liked the Kamusari reading, at first I was very lost because of the way the narrator spoke. It was like he was breaking the 4th wall by sometimes speaking to the readers, but then saying how he doesn’t believe anyone would ever read this story. However, the way he spoke and thought felt very modern and relatable in a sense, not that I have ever been in his situation. The Little Woods in Fukushima being revolved around the natural disaster that hit Japan on 3/11 was also why to me it was more focused on the environment part of the theme. I feel like after reading the Kamusari reading this one didn’t really leave much of an impression on me due to the different writing styles. “ there are things that will never be restored and there are people who will never be made whole again” I did want to share this ending quote from it. I don’t know why this stood out to me so much, but I just think my thoughts sort of align with this quote. Like the thought of rebuilding, but yet something’s can never really go back to the way they originally were(?) something along those lines. The Memory police was scary at first when I saw the 48 pages but then realized they were single paged. The story’s plot(?) was really eye catching to me, I liked the idea of things disappearing and people forgetting about them when they do, but there being people who can resist this phenomenon and there being s police that enforces these disappearances making sure no one remembers. I liked how the narrator decides to hide R as a way to resist herself on this monotonous life she describes due to these disappearances despite the danger that this would put her in. Although I didn’t like reading the letter R for his name cause it just felt weird reading R as someone’s name. For Scattering All Over the Earth, the narrator being a refugee and Japan being a disappeared country follows the distopic part of this weeks theme. I don’t know what I expected when I read Knut speaks as the chapters title, but him being a linguistics student was not it. This journey they go on to find someone with a connection to Japan feels so unreal to me, but I know its just part of the story’s plot even though I feel finding someone who can speak Japanese/has a connection to Japan today wouldn’t be that hard.