My focus for this week was to read my novels, so I haven’t done many non-bookish things for my Japanese immersion.

Japanese Songs

This being said, I did work a little on my immersion with music. I already mentioned it in a previous post, but I have difficulty finding Japanese songs I like. The Japanese artists I loved before learning Japanese are mostly in the instrumental sphere. Now that I am learning Japanese, I am looking for songs with lyrics, but I am starting from zero and slowly building my Japanese playlist. (If you are like me, check these recommendations, they are a good starting point!)

Here are two songs that I have discovered this week and like very much:

https://youtu.be/MXLofOeCT64

『夜の流れ』by Cantaro IHARA (井原寛太郎). The first time I saw the artist’s name, I thought it was a great name for a singer because it meant “let’s sing”. Then I wonder why on earth I was thinking that, and I realised that I was mixing Spanish “cantar” (to sing) and Japanese grammar -おう (let’s sing), haha.

街の中にこっそり
風が吹いたらどこまで思い出す
ハイウェイ オレンジの額

街の中にこっそり
風が吹いたらどこまで行けばいい
緑の地図 うごめくライトたち 流れ行く夜

言葉は魔法のようだ 傷つけるも笑わすも全部
青いガラスに ぽたり 月が落ちて
僕らの頬を撫で下ろした

街の中にこっそり
風が吹いたらどこまで行けばいい
光の粒追い越し更けて行く 流れ行く夜

全てはいつも通り あどけない声 だらしない癖も
夜の流れと僕らの声の色 合わせて

言葉は魔法のようだ 傷つけるも笑わすも全部
青いガラスに ぽたり 月が落ちて
僕らの頬を撫で下ろした

The second song is ムーピーゲーム by AltA:

https://soundcloud.com/user-437420598/slssjpxypgzf

I could not find the lyrics for this one.

I also like the band キリンジ, especially the former albums when the band was composed of the two brothers: Yasuyuki HORIGOME (堀込泰行) and Takaki HORIGOME (堀込高樹). The group reformed itself in 2013 with Yasuyuki leaving the band and 5 other members joining it.

This is the song “Sweet Soul”:

You’ll find these three songs on iTunes.

LDP election

Even if reading the news was not the focus of this week, I did follow the election yesterday. You can easily find videos of the whole process (the Diet members voting, the count of the votes and the results) on Youtube but it is not very interesting.

What I found interesting, as usual, is this critical article by Mainichi: 「１強」への不満直視を.

Even if Abe won the large majority of the Diet members’ votes, he only got around 55% of the local votes. The article underlines that a significant number of party members sympathise with Ishiba. Even if Abe and Ishiba have slightly different opinions on the Constitution, Abenomics and so on, their position is still relatively close. What differs the most is their political standards (how they see politics and how they think politicians should act.) As a result, we can imagine that the voters who chose Ishiba sympathise with his ethical position on what politics must be, i.e.「正直、公正」and what the LDP must seek, i.e.「自由闊達（かったつ）に議論する自民党を取り戻す」.

On the contrary, Abe avoided any comment on the Moritome-Kake problems, taking refuge behind a formula repeated again and again: 「謙虚に丁寧に政権運営を行っていきたい」. But, our article says, words are not what matter and Abe should work to regain the people’s trust.

Finally, the article criticises Abe’s resolution to work on the Constitution as soon as possible (he will submit a plan for the amendment during the extraordinary session of the Diet -臨時国会- this autumn). Mainichi says that the Constitution is hardly a priority and what should be done first is to answer the people’s fears concerning the future:

“最優先すべきなのは、９条改憲ではなく、国民の将来不安に応える議論と実行だ。”

Conclusion

So that’s it! One of my September challenges is achieved! I wanted to follow the LDP election in the news in Japanese, and I have done it. I think that defining a topic and restrict yourself to articles on this topic is the best way to start reading the news. Soon enough, you get familiar with the persons involved, the set of vocabulary always used and of course, what happens. It then becomes easier and easier to read and understand articles on your topic.