Before we get into Jiufen and Spirited Away, though, let’s look at the history of this little Taiwanese town. It has had an interesting one, much of which is actually Japanese related, and will set the table for the comparison between the place and the film later in this article.

A Japanese-ish History

In 1895, Taiwan became Japan’s first colony, so Japan wanted to try to show off to the rest of the world that they could do the whole normally-Western-but-not-this-time imperialism sort of thing. They decided to make Taiwan a “model” colony for all their future colonies, so much effort and money was put into building up Taiwan’s infrastructure, industry, standard of living, and economy. They also made a big effort to change the culture and get everyone speaking Japanese. In fact, to this day elderly Taiwanese people still speak Japanese fluently, as that’s what they grew up speaking. I spent a good amount of time talking to one elderly Taiwanese person (in Japanese) and she was certainly a wealth of “Japanese Era” information… maybe more on that in another post.

Jiufen itself was starting to get popular even a couple of years before Japan appeared. Why? Gold was discovered. If I know anything about gold and the olden days, it’s that people like to “rush” for it. The height of Jiufen’s gold rush occurred during the Japanese occupation when (I imagine) the Japanese got really into mining for gold. Gold helps to fund war-related things, I imagine, and I hear the British POW labor from Singapore sent to work in the mines was top notch. Quite a bit was built up around here, and Japanese ryokans and bath houses exist in the town to this day. I seem to remember Spirited Away having one of those…

Jiufen And Spirited Away

While the story of Jiufen, its gold rush, its POW gold miners, and its rise to tourist popularity has nothing to do with the actual story of Spirited Away, many parts of the film do tear off some huge Jiufen chunks as inspiration for the characters and places that Miyazaki created. Unfortunately, having not seen the film recently, I was relying on some pretty shaky memories, so below are some pictures that I took as well as some pictures others took (these are the ones with a citation). I’ve broken it up into sections too, to help you to see exactly what parts of Jiufen made it into the film. Hopefully someday you can visit this place too and be able to say “hey, wait, that was in Spirited Away!”

Dragons

The dragon Haku was an important part of the film. This much I remembered. While this is true for much of Taiwan and not just Jiufen, there were dragons on top of the temple right when you get off the bus.

This alone is hardly enough to convince anyone that Jiufen was the inspiration for the places in Spirited Away, it’s a start. Let’s move on to something more connecty: FOOOOD.

Food

The spirits in the film ate tons of food (you know that from Fiona’s post about the foods of Spirited Away). The girl’s parents ate tons of food (and turned into delicious pigs). Food was a huge part of the film and Jiufen had plenty of it. Lining the streets were many stalls, and I’d say more than half of them centered around something you could consume. Certainly one of the main attractions of this place is the things that can be devoured.

Suffice to say, the variety and uniqueness of the food could have easily been a small inspiration for Miyazaki in making this film. While I don’t think I saw any of  the more unique Jiufen foods in Spirited Away (or in any pictures of Spirited Away), both places had numerous food stalls, food, and people/spirits eating the food. The vibe of the food stalls and the people eating the food was similar as well. Delicious.

Streets, Stairs, And Red Lanterns

The architecture and street layouts of both Jiufen and Spirited Away are quite unique yet quite similar. Jiufen has the whole Japanese but not Japanese thing going for it, due to the occupation period. Spirited Away has the Japanese but somewhat other-worldy thing going for it due to the other-worldliness of it. Not too far off from each other, I’d say.

Another notable similarity is all the red lanterns. Both Jiufen and Spirited Away are teaming with them. Just the amount you see in both the film and real place is enough to convince me that Miyazaki was here and taking notes. If that’s not enough for you, all you have to do is look at the winding roads and long staircases featured in both places.

Stairs.

And even more stairs.

Jiufen seriously had way too many stairs, but it made for a very unique looking place. I seem to remember stairs being a common occurrence in Spirited Away, as well. Up the stairs down the stairs, stairs in the background, egg and stair, bacon and stair egg, bacon, sausage and stairs with eggs, stairs stairs stairs stairs.

Buildings

The buildings in Spirited Away were incredibly iconic. What stood out the most (because this is where much of the story took place) was the Bath House in which the main character worked. This building was supposedly inspired by the Grand Tea House in Jiufen. While not as magnificent as the anime version, it’s difficult to not see the similarity:

Another thing I noticed were the tunnels all throughout Jiufen. It was a mining community for most of its recent history, so it’s only natural that there be tunnels. One thing that surprised me were the tunnels that you could go through in Jiufen. They’d lead you to new areas of the town, almost magically. One tunnel we went through (pictured below) took us out to a tea house and beautiful view. You don’t expect that kind of thing when you get into small, scary tunnels. Viet certainly wins this “More Meta Than You” photo contest.

The surprise and magic of coming out of a tunnel and into a newish world (in Jiufen) felt really reminiscent of the beginning of Spirited Away when Chihiro and her parents go through the tunnel and into the town. Luckily, on the other side of our tunnel all we had was a tea house, run by ordinary people.

I believe there were other tunnels in the film as well, though someone will have to remind me since it’s been a while. The tunnel up above supposedly has a tunnel in Jiufen that’s more similar to it, but I didn’t find it in my journey. Anyways, Jiufen had tunnels galore, and it rewarded discovery and exploration, making the place feel more magical. When you go through one, who knows where you’ll end up! Dun dun dunnn.

Characters

Of course, Spirited Away was filled with interesting characters… that being said, I couldn’t stop getting the impression as I walked through Jiufen that the real place had just as many odd people/spirits. Usually in Taiwan you don’t see this many odd people gathered all in one place. In Jiufen, these kinds of folks were a dime-a-dozen. This isn’t a bad thing – I think weird is great (where’s my “Keep Jiufen Weird” bumper sticker?) – what’s interesting to me is that there’s potential that some inspiration for Spirited Away could have come from Jiufen. Most people just mention the streets and architecture when making the Spirited Away / Jiufen comparison, but I think I’m onto something here.

Take a look at this guy, for example. He runs a leather shop in the middle of Jiufen, but he’s just in the back rocking out on his electric guitar, never selling any leather. I was the only one who stood there to watch, then clapped a bit at the end. He seemed a bit surprised by that, so I quickly moved on. Anyways, he’s a little bit odd, all things considered. It gets more interesting, though.

Take a look at this guy. He sells and plays (and maybe makes?) ocarinas. Of course, he runs an ocarina store so this makes sense. That being said, his personality and look were pretty unique to me yet a little familiar…

Maybe in twenty or thirty years? Haku does not age well.

Apparently, and you can see them in the background in the ocarina guy’s picture, he has some ocarinas that have a resemblance to No Face in the film. I’ll let you decide on that one, but perhaps this real-life character made a fairly big impact on Miyazaki?

The last guy I’m going to show you was the most direct correlation between the characters of Jiufen and the characters of Spirited Away. I have no clue if he was around when Miyazaki was here, so perhaps I’m just throwing this out there, but do you remember the three heads that rolled around in the movie? These guys right here?

Well, there was a mask exhibit, which was basically a place where this one dude who makes a ton of crazy masks/heads/busts displays his art. They immediately reminded me of this part of the film, just because they were unattached heads like the masks/busts that this guy made. Here he is in all his glory with a bust of… himself making a face. Actually, he made all the faces for us, but I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

It doesn’t end here. He had three and a half large rooms filled with masks/busts that he had made, usually not of himself. Just about everything looks like something from the mind of a serial killer / psychopath, though the guy himself was super friendly and nice (but aren’t they all?). Take a look at some of his other masks. There were too many for me to take pictures of them all and too many pictures to spam up on this post, so suffice to say there were a lot. I can only imagine the time he put into all of this.

Lots of masks, and lots of sources for possible character inspiration, wouldn’t you say? Whatever happened or didn’t happen here, though, I can easily conclude that this was my favorite part of Jiufen. I really like this sort of thing for some reason… Maybe Miyazaki stopped by to walk through this exhibit as well? Spirited Away was definitely one of Miyazaki’s most unique and interesting films character-wise, I’d say. If he ran across this place, there would have been no shortage of wild inspiration for him to draw from.

Getting To Jiufen

If you want to go to Jiufen, of course you’ll want to first make your way to Taiwan. Once there, go to Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT Station in Taipei and leave Exit 1. You should see Bus #1062 near the corner. Get on that bus, and prepare for a fun ride (remember, left side of the bus = “best” / most terrifying view!). If you get the bus driver that we got, you’re going to have somewhat of a lead foot on the ol’ gas / brake pedal. Oh, and did I mention there are plenty of steep ledges? It will make the food of Jiufen taste all the more better because you’ll feel alive (or you’ll just be dead from rolling bus syndrome).

Besides Jiufen, Taiwan is a great place to visit. It really does feel kind of like Japan in a way. Of course, it’s not anywhere near the same and a unique society and culture exists, but there’s that sort of background, white noise sort of feeling that Japan is subtly there, somewhere, watching you. There is still something remaining from the occupation years and it makes for an interesting mix of people, food, and culture. Definitely pop down to Taiwan sometime if you get the chance!

And lastly, if that wasn’t enough, I found this side-by-side picture comparison of Jiufen/Spirited done by Oh What A Day that I thought was quite good. It’s hard to not see the similarities when you see it presented this way!

Hope you enjoyed this post. Jiufen and Spirited Away certainly have connections, though I don’t know how much is real inspiration and how much is “reading too much into things.” Whatever it was, it was a fun trip and I highly recommend it. You can fly from Japan to Taiwan for fairly cheap, so if you have an extra week or so pop down to see what the fuss is all about. Hit up some night markets while you’re at it.

To fling poo, or not to fling poo. That is the question.

In previous “Obvious” posts, we’ve gone over both the idea of achieving and noticing more epiphanies (because all people need to have X number of epiphanies to level up your Japanese) as well as striving for confusion (because people who are confused are actually learning more than those who aren’t confused). We’re going to build on both of those in this “Making Japanese Obvious” article by taking a look at the idea of “Conscious Competence.” Don’t worry, it only sounds boring. It’s really quite interesting, I think, and something all Japanese language learners will (and need to) run into. It’s much better if you know about it.

What Is “Conscious Competence”?

When you’re learning something new (especially something like Japanese) you go through various stages. One of them happens to be Conscious Competence. Conscious Competence is a great place to be, which is why we’re talking about it. Let’s break up the two words:

Conscious: When you’re aware something’s happening

Competence: When you’re good / decent at something (i.e. you’re competent in it).

“Conscious Competence” is when you know you’re good at something. In the case of this particular article, you are aware that you are good at Japanese. Or, at least, you know what you need to do to get better. That’s good, because you can always move forward, one step at a time.

In order to get to this point, though, there are other steps everyone has to take, whether you’re learning Japanese or you’re learning underwater basket weaving. Conscious Competence just happens to be a really important step in the big picture of things. To help you understand this, we need to take a look at “the stages of learning.”

The Stages Of Learning

You go through several stages when you’re learning. They are the following:

Unconscious Incompetence: This is when you first start out. You have no idea what you’re doing, and everything is fun and exciting. You are unconscious of your incompetence (i.e. you have no idea you’re bad, and everything you do seems great).

Conscious Incompetence: This is when you’ve studied a bit, and you’ve learned enough to know that you’re not very good at Japanese. You finally have enough knowledge to look at yourself and say “omg, I don’t know this this this this and that. Crap.” This is where most people quit, because they think they’re “bad” or “terrible at learning Japanese.” The problem isn’t that you’re bad at Japanese, the problem is that you’ve learned enough (you’re learning, that means you’re winning, really!) to know what you’re not good at, so it only seems like you’ve gotten worse. Actually, you’ve gotten better.

Conscious Competence: This is what we’re talking about in this chapter. Conscious Competence occurs when you know enough to know what to do. When you don’t understand something, you know where to go in order to understand it. You know what to do, and you can solve any problems. Doesn’t mean it’s easy, but you’ve fought through the incompetence to get to the other side.

Unconscious Competence: This is when you’re so good you don’t even know you’re good. The Japanese language (and learning it) has become second nature, and learning has become easy and fluid. This is awesome-sauce stage. You really want to get here, though it will take hard work and persistence.

So why, out of these four, is Conscious Competence so important? Let’s find out.

Conscious Competence

Conscious Competence isn’t the end goal but it is the goal, I think. Unconscious Competence happens when you’ve gone through enough Conscience Competence. Conscious Incompetence happens when you haven’t built up enough competence to reach a conscious state of competence.

People generally quit before they get to Conscious Competence as well. If you reach Conscious Competence, then you’ve learned all you need to learn in order to get what you need when you need it.

Let’s take another look at the graph thingy.

Conscious Incompetence is the lowest of the low. You don’t have that initial excitement, and you don’t have the knowledge to be better at studying Japanese. If you’re going to quit at learning Japanese, you’re going to do it here, most likely. This, I’d say, is week two or three, sometime after learning hiragana, for most people.

Next Week: How To Reach Conscious and Unconscious Competence

So, I think the big question now is how do you reach Conscious Competence? There’s no one way to do it, but there are some great ways to help get you there. A lot of it comes down to consistency, perseverance, and a hard head, but there are certain ways to speed things up for yourself as well. It’s not easy, that’s for sure, but if it was everyone would know Japanese like the back of their hands.

Right now I’m putting together strategies that I’ll share with you next week on reaching these states of competence. Not everyone will get there, and not everyone is meant to get there, but we can do quite a few things to make your odds better as well :)

Have any of you seen yourself going through these phases? Where are you right now (or, where do you think you are…?).

Have no idea where you are because you’ve never started learning Japanese before? You should try TextFugu, where you get guided through the whole competence process. Want to know more about conscious competence, the above graph, and more? The Dip by Seth Godin covers all this and is a really interesting (and inspiring) book that covers this sort of thing.

See you next week!

P.S. We try to be consciously competent on Twitter

P.S.S. Our Facebook skills, however, are somewhat consciously incompetent.

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That Is So Obvious!

I should have known that big square thing was up to no good…

A few months ago I read an article titled “You Don’t Understand Something Until You Think It’s Obvious.” I’ve had a little time to mull on it, and I’ve been finding more and more examples of why this is important with Japanese learning (and not to mention any other language as well).

In the above article, Bassett talks about math and programming, but a lot of it is applicable to Japanese as well. I’d say the main point of his article is that when you’re learning or doing something (in his case math or programming) you struggle with a bunch of little things and have a bunch of little epiphanies until you reach the point where things are “obvious.” When things are “obvious” you can look back and be like “oh, jeepers, that was easy. I should have been able to do that much more quickly” (yes, I am assuming you talk like Shaggy from Scooby Doo).

The idea is that there’s a lot more to learning something and getting to the point where it’s “obvious” than meets the eye. To most people, it seems like a bunch of random actions leading up to the “obvious” result (if you even manage to get here at all, to be honest). The more I think about it, though, the more it seems to me that there are a lot of things all Japanese learners share with each other in terms of their journeys to “learning Japanese.”

On the other side of the spectrum, there are also a lot of things that a lot of people do that actually hurt their quest to make Japanese obvious. Like, a lot of things… not to mention really big picture things that can make or break the end result for you. I want to cover these things too, so that you run into fewer walls that could potentially end your Japanese learning career.

After realizing all this, I started writing one big “Making Japanese Obvious” post where I talked about all these different things. Then, I got to the 1000th word and was only about a tenth done. That’s when I decided I ought to break this post up (this here is part one).

So, over the next couple months I’ll be posting about “Making Japanese Obvious” in an attempt to help you to reach that beautiful peak yourself. A lot of the info actually parallels what I do in TextFugu, but now I’ll be writing these crazy learning theories out so that you can all benefit from them in at least a sort of abstract sense while you’re studying Japanese on your own. Either way, I hope it’s going to be incredibly helpful.

How We’ll Make It Obvious

I have probably 7-10 posts worth of content in my head around this subject, and I’m hoping to get it all up in the next one to two months. I’ll be posting at least one of these “Obvious” tagged posts every week (possibly more, though we’ll see) and they’ll all come back to the central theme of how to “Make Japanese Obvious.” Why? Because when it’s obvious, you know it. The hard part (and the part we’ll be covering) is the whole “how to get there” portion of things.

So, mull on that a bit. Over the next few days, think about things you think of as “obvious.” How did you reach that state? It might seem like magic… but there were certain things you did to get there. What are you good at? What did you have to do to make it obvious? How can you apply that to other things in life? Noticing little things like this that are normally hidden can really give you a boost – that’s exactly what I hope to do with Japanese learning for you with these “Obvious” posts. Because the more you know, knowing is half the battle…

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See you soon, obviously.

So, what on earth does this have to do with Japanese?

For years, people thought that running a mile in less than 4 minutes was just flat-out impossible. It was common knowledge that nobody on earth could physically run a mile in under 4 minutes. Professional runners had been trying for years, training to beat that time, but had failed every time.

Roger Bannister: Legendary athlete, bird poo target.

In 1952, a British man by the name of Roger Bannister set a goal for himself: to be the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. He trained intensely for 2 years and in 1954, Bannister finally broke 4 minute barrier. And you know what? Soon after that, more and more people began to run the mile in under 4 minutes. New world records were set almost every year following Bannister’s sub-4-minute-mile.

Nowadays, even a high school student can reasonably run a 4 minute mile. In about 50 years, the 4 minute mile went from impossible to professional to amateur.

But I guess I’m not really answering the question here: what on earth does this have to do with Japanese?

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When you have a goal in mind, mental barriers can be huge obstacles to overcome, and learning Japanese is no different. But if you’re dedicated enough and make your goal your top priority, you might be surprised at what you can do. Put everything else aside for a while, just go for it (see Koichi’s post on JFDI) and see what you can achieve.

After all, if somebody can accomplish something that people thought was physically impossible, then maybe learning Japanese isn’t so hard after all.

P.S.:  Are you a long distance runner? Let us know on Twitter.

P.P.S.: More of sprinter? Like us on Facebook.

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This is just a reminder to all of you out there that if you want to learn Japanese (or if you want to get better at Japanese), the key is to take action. Make something happen, you know? You can’t just think about learning Japanese forever, otherwise you’ll never learn Japanese. You won’t be able to look back and see all your progress six months from now (seriously, imagine how awesome that would feel, and how proud of yourself you would be).

If you want to learn Japanese, you need to Just do it… or, if you need a bigger kick in the butt, do what the image above says.

It’s better to spend an hour trying to learn something than to spend an hour thinking about learning something. Eventually, you’ll get good at learning Japanese, and it’ll get easier, and easier, and easier. There are resources out there that make the “how to learn Japanese” part a lot easier, I think (check out our reviewed Japanese Resources to see what other people tend to like) but really it comes down to how stubborn you are about taking action and getting things done.

So, every time you find yourself whinging and whining, just think “JFDI.” Then, you should JFDI. mmk?

Hugs n’ Kisses,

Koichi

P.S. Always available if you need help figuring out what you need to do to make action happen. Email me: koichi@tofugu.com

P.P.S. Also available on Twitter and Facebook, where we post things you can’t find here! 0_0