Week 3 respond

  I heard a lot of confusion during the class when we discuss the J-Horror. Since I am an Asian myself and I have interested in japan culture long time ago, I think I do understand a bot more about J-Horror.

  First, I think both the novel (I read A Wild Sheep Chase) and the movies we watched are not typically horror for them. In Japanese, these kind of stories are called ”怪談”. The word means a strange and weird story. It is kind of close to horror but not really. Since Japanese traditional culture believes that there are “soul” for every thing in the world, these kind of story are kept produced through out the history. There are many different kind of purpose of the story. It could a scary story for kids, it could be story that teach lesson to people. Most of these may relate to the fear and respect of the nature. And also, sometimes it may helped  Some may be connected to the moral and royal concept at the time. The book A Wild Sheep Chase are kind of a new type of ”怪談” at modern time Japan. The ungiven names for all the character in the books increase the mysterious feeling for the readers. This is another aspect of the word ”怪談” since ”談” only means a story or a talk. It should be the little story that whisper between peoples. Therefore, don't give character a name is make A Wild Sheep Chase enhance the story. Another interesting part in Japan culture that affect their movies and TV shows is they believe that no one is true evil. They believe everyone has their own reason to do something even it is a bad thing. Therefore, there is not always a bad guy or good guy in their novels or movies. The metaphor is also another interesting part I noticed in the first movie. The female character was called YUKI which means snow in Japanese. This gave viewers a lot hint and also reduce the level of horror.

Week 2 vampire writing:

  It is actually really kind of new experience for me to read a book about empire because I never read a vampire book before. All my knowledge before this, it is coming from movie and TV series. The vampire I most learned is the classic one----evil, strong, pale and thirst for blood.  The TV series Twilight got pretty popular for a time and the series did portrait a different vampire image. However, compare to human, the vampires in the series are still a lot different form human. They have many different culture and traditions. However, it is a real surprise for me when I read the Interview with the Vampire since the vampire in the book is human like. It gives people a new way to think of the vampires. In the book, vampires are not the true evil anymore. They share the same kind of thought with human. They live like human too. The vampires does have conflict with each other, they do revenge and they also enjoy their spare time. 

  The relationship between Louis and Lestat could never be good since they have different purpose at first. Louis become vampire all because the death of his brother. He is kind of good person at the start. Therefore, He is always guity about his brother’s death and others. The belief in god make him scared of the penalties and future. He is kind of not clear what he want when he become a vampire. However, Lestat, he lives too long and all he want is another “person” with him. Therefore, we might see the end of their “friendship”. At the end, Louis is mad enough to attack “the boy” since the boy asked to turn him into a vampire. He is mad that the boy doesn’t learned anything from his story. However, it is such ironic since he is one had the dead wish at first and he become immortal at the end and prevent others who eager to. The book Interview with the vampire isn’t a book just tell a story about the vampire but also some deeper ideas we should think of between life and death.