being on Japanese TV

I spent last Monday as an extra for a Japanese TV drama, filming at St John's College. I was one of a group of 1920s Cambridge students and wore a stripy tie, a stripy shirt, a V-necked jumper (which I put on the wrong way round until this was pointed out to me by the chief haridresser), cords with braces and a tweed jacket. I got a free hair cut too. It wasn't as scarily short as I feared and was more or less as I have it cut anyway. I felt the look quite suited me, and we didn't look hugely out of place in the surroundings. More info on the filming is available from the university website.

The drama is about the life of Jiro Shirasu, who studied in Cambridge and went on to be a key player in mediating between the Allied occupiers of Japan after World War II and Japanese politicians, playing an important part in the drafting of the new Japanese constitution. In the national archives is a letter by Jiro Shirasu to an American official contrasting, with the aid of diagrams, the American "airway" route of reaching an objective directly with the Japanese "Jeep way over bumpy roads" of reaching the same destination indirectly - an insightful analogy which resonates with my own experience of Western and East Asian modes of thought. Among other accomplishments he was apparently the first Japanese person to wear jeans.

The day mostly involved walking round the same courtyard for hours on end in the background of the action, but I also got a scene in the library talking to the lead actor. You may see me on Japanese TV next year if you look out.

In other news, I've moved house and my brother and family have moved to Texas.