YOUKOSO!

エイラクの憂鬱にようこそ! Eiraku no Yuuutsu ni Youkoso! A sentence that explains much of what makes up my life, which to you who are intimately familiar with the current state of Japanese Animation and Manga, is the the direct result of a convoluted marriage two of the most interesting (in my opinion) products ever to arise out of "the Land of the Rising Number of So-not-for-the-kiddies-cartoons-and-comics". NHK ni Youkoso! and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Being a twenty-one year old teacher trainee in Malaysia does make it slightly strange (or at least for my colleagues) for me to have such a (almost unnatural) liking towards Japanese anime/manga and the Japanese culture in general. Some would go as far as saying that I have forgotten my roots as a Malay, but to me, since when being part of a certain race requires me to leave no room for the accommodation and assimilation of other cultures and norms. And all this cultural mixing and splicing would be impossible if not for the existence of the Internet. For a moment, let is ponder the quint beginnings of this almost invisible infrastructure that has supported the development of intercultural communications to this very day. ARPANET, the father of the Internet as we know it. Born sometime in 1969, it was around the ’80s - about the time that I was conceived (which my mother keeps on reminding me happened in the US) - that the interconnected network known as ARPANET began to be accepted into widespread use, forming itself slowly from that moment on to become what we now know as the World Wide Web. Boundless information is now at the fingertips of all that wish it. With every bit of knowledge and culture that you can put your hands on for the taking, it is no wonder that some - for the fear of losing their very selves in this glut of information - denounce the Net as nothing more then Globalist conspiracy, hell bent in subjugating the future generation to prepare the world for some sort of new global order. Although I myself do not deny that this (although far-fetched sounding to some) theory might be true, the Net for me is simply what it is for all those other people of there using it, a hugely important tool of communications and information gathering. Allowing this Malay teacher trainee from Shah Alam to meet his calling: watching cute, deformed cartoon characters from Japan do everything on TV that reality would deny them otherwise. Hail the power of the Net. And so, begins my third (yes, 3rd) delve into the world of Instant Thought Publishing, also known as blogging. First it was at Upsaid (lasted through something like 12 entries or something like that), then it was another blog here at Blogsome (under the name "paradoxicalities". Yes, I know nobody would bother to type that up). Again I can’t help but wonder how long this one would last. Watch this space.