First Post

Well, I meant to set up a fieldwork blog and with DK being so diligent... I better start writing something!!!

While I am still getting used to this blogging about life, I'll just be a bit ramble-y.

I've been in Tokyo just over a week now. Here's my main thoughts on "fieldwork" so far, though it's hard to say really whether I am really doing "fieldwork". For starters, I'm still waiting to be able to start at my laboratory in January, as well as various visa issues, and trying to set up my academic affiliation. On the other hand, I need to do something with myself, so I try to at least go around (to places where there might be robots especially!) and take notes. We're told that we should take notes on everything, and take a lot of notes. Which is strange. Because on the one hand there seems to be so many things I could write down all the time. Especially in Tokyo, there is constant bombardment of shapes, colors, people. And that's with the inability to really read most signs properly and to understand the conversations going on around me!　But it's also very exhausting to be taking notes about things all the time. It also seems trivial and sort of silly. A strange feeling, trying to observe all these things which might occupy your mind for a brief second and then be forgotten. Like on the train, I write down various gadgets that people are using as well as a description of the person using it. I write down interesting advertisements. I write down descriptions of pachinko parlours. It's also difficult I find to be very detailed about these things. How do I explain a pachinko parlour other than loud, smokey, and an overload of flashing lights and colours?This actually works better when you are kind of anonymous, as I can sit there and write in a notebook and nobody really cares. Of course, in a conversation with a person it is not all that easy to pull out a notebook and start writing. I suppose it is also an interesting exercise in memory... trying to put these things in mind and be able to recall them later.

The other thing is how much you feel like a spy, like you are somehow being dodgy! I mainly find this when observing people's behavior. For instance, I found a service robot that moves around a mall so I followed it around while browsing the shops in order to record people's responses. It's just very strange to be half-pretending to look at Lacoste sweaters or Japanese language magazines while I try to note down people's body gestures and interest in a robot that looks something like a giant vending machine.

But as I said, I don't have my laboratory yet and I'm also working on the language. So, it will be interesting to see what "fieldwork" and "note-taking" feels like when I have people who I interact with regularly as my "informants"!