After two weeks in China, two days in Tokyo, and a number of days spent fighting jet lag, I haven’t had a whole lot of energy to post anything. Especially in China, where I wasn’t interested in drawing attention to my choice of career – if you know what I mean.

I saw only one movie in Beijing anyway, and it didn’t have English subtitles. Titled “Warlords,” it was a historical epic starring Jet Li that was getting a lot of promotion in China’s capital city. But even if I couldn’t understand what was being said, I can recognize a melodramatic turkey when I see one.

In Tokyo, where we stayed in a “Lost in Translation” type hotel set squarely in the busy ward of Shinjuku, we ended up seeing two Hollywood films with Japanese subtitles: the Will Smith action flick “I Am Legend” and the Nicolas Cage effort “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” Other than the fact that neither film impressed me much, what struck me the most was the difference in the two moviegoing experiences.

Not that watching one film indicates a trend or anything, but watching “Warlords” in Beijing was similar to watching anything in Spokane. Three cell phones went off during the film, and all three viewers just went ahead and talked.

At the Wald 9 in Shinjuku? Both movies were filled with stylishly dressed movie fans, many of them carrying trays of treats (popcorn, nuts, sandwiches, soft drinks, beer). And yet when the house lights went down, not a sound could be heard. They were the quietest two audiences I’d every sat among.

And we Americans think we’re so civilized.

Below: Street life in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

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