Lunch at Grandpa’s on New Years

This movie shows 100% typical family life for me. It’s for everyone who said they were curious to see the inside of Grandpa’s house, and to those of you studying Japanese and can’t get enough of hearing the real language.

I slapped this one together as quickly as I possibly could, and still from start to finish it took over four hours. Subtitles are an incredible time suck; not only adding them, but they also make the video take forever to render. I’m either going to have to find better video editing software or upgrade my CPU and motherboard. Working with the timeline in Windows Movie Maker is painfully slow.

I’m glad blip.tv lets me cross-post to my blog so I can just hit the upload button and go to bed. It’s 2:40am right now and I have to leave for work at 7.

Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

22 thoughts to “Lunch at Grandpa’s on New Years”

  1. i always enjoy it when you speak japanese in your pod/vid casts. thanks for subtitleing them too :p

    is the grandpa somewhat of an artist? if he drew that dog and the calligaraphy himself, that is pretty cool.

    1. You’d think someone who’s been living in Japan for over 15 years would enjoy speaking Japanese…to me I sound like Tarzan if he’d been dropped on his head as a baby.

      Grandpa is an amazing artist. You’d never know it from talking to him. His nature photography is superb. He has an incredible eye. I’d love to make a flickr account for him, but trying to explain anything technical to him is…well, frustrating to say the least.

      1. Wow, very cool. It would be awsome if you could some how get some stuff up as long as he is cool w/it 😛

  2. Seaweed and fish eggs yummy :P, it’s interesting to see how differently some foods are used over there as opposed to here in the west, everything looks alien to me.

    1. To think of matsubazuke as sea weed and fish eggs is like calling pizza mashed tomatoes, cured milk (cheese) and spiced animal lips and assholes (a.k.a. pepperoni) on a sheet of baked flour and egg.

    1. I don’t put my kids on a guilt trip when they make an innocent mistake, so they don’t cry. When you spill something, you wipe it up and get on with life. The way everyone went, “Oooohhhh” annoyed me a little.

      Not sure what the next holiday is. I usually find out the night before.

      1. I agree with what you think, best not to make a big deal out of it. I thought for a second that maybe they were ooohing at something off screen, but you caught the fumble and handled it well.

  3. I was just asking because the tape was cut right after andy spilled the soup, I thought maybe he got upset and I never seen him like that. No biggie…you’re a good dad rich my dad would have …nevermind.

  4. Rich. That was the first one of your pod/video casts ive genuinly loved. Brilliant. Amemashite omedetou!! Please please slip some more of these “all Japanese” pod casts/videos in your future casts. Thanks. Happy New York!

  5. I too, am a big fan of the video podcasts. The typical, day-to-day stuff is the most interesting. The difference in the ordinary things is what is most striking sometimes. I’m unclear on who everybody was there. Is that your wife’s father or grandfather? Was that all family? Is one of those people Mrs. Pav? (I highly doubt that considering the threats of grave bodily injury upon being filmed).

    1. Grandpa is my wife’s father. My wife was on my right, handling the nengajo post cards and explaining the different kinds of o-sechi.

  6. Many of us appreciate the hard work and long hours you are putting into these efforts, Rich.

    Magpie, a free download from WGBH in Boston, might streamline the subtitle work flow.

  7. Rich,

    I learned so much about the real Japan by looking at your videos – thanks. I’m a die hard Godzilla fan – tell me about your Godzilla experiences or if you don’t have any – What can I expect to see about Godzilla where you live? Do your kids like him?

  8. rafael there is a small statue of godzilla in the ginza area of tokyo , pretty cool…BTW the newest godzilla movie Final Wars SUCKS. : ) have a nice day

    1. I agree with you, that movie totally sucked. The bootleg version I have doesn’t have him dying – I thought he was supposed to.

  9. Thanks so much for the video cast it was amazing. I’m surprised that it seems your family doesn’t mind you filming at such an occasion, do they ever?

    1. Tony whines when I film, but generally he enjoys watching himself (making goofy faces) afterwards. My wife likes me capturing moments for posterity–as long as she’s not in them.

  10. hey that was really cool to see the different lifestyle. man I wish i could go to japan for a week 🙁 can’t afford it btw I am from Canada, Greetings

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