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Japanese Television Sunday July 6

I just can't understand Japanese television. Sure, the little bits that make it on to YouTube about folding a t-shirt in 3 seconds end up crossing over and convincing everyone that television here is wacky, entertaining, and different; there definitely are some redeeming aspects. Human tetris was also entertaining, I can't take that away from them.

However, as a discerning consumer, I fail to see the overall value proposition on Japanese television. This morning, Adam and I were sharing breakfast and coffee, and the programming consisted of the following scene:

(1) Old Japanese male show host (required for any Japanese show),
(2) Cutesy but not hot female co-host (required, usually half-Japanese or holds an otherwise interesting trait),
(3) Gallery of attractive, young Japanese women whose role is to overreact to any item discussed on the show,
(4) The particular "main event" for a given show.

(1) and (2) will introduce (4), who will thereby interact with (3) about the topic that (4) is knowledgeable about. Today's theme, and no, I am not lying, was that (4) was holding an electric guitar and playing, at the request of (3), various commercial jingles that he had penned for a marginally-well-known bean sprout producer in Japan. Apparently, he had written over 100 jingles, all of which were rejected by the president of the bean sprout company, but they were nevertheless assumedly entertaining, so he was playing them for (3).

I'll put this one out there so I don't need to repeat myself: bean sprouts. What? I mean, seriously, what the...?

Second, Japan really needs to outgrow this idea that company presidents control everything. This comes from a deeply-rooted cultural instinct that normal people like you and me cannot start our own company, we cannot be successful, and that only company presidents and directors are allowed to lead the special, privledged lives that they lead. I am not sure if this is a by-product of WWII or even the class system of the pre-Meiji era, but it's definitely very evident in modern culture.

The whole thing is a sham, I am sure that the marketing department of the bean sprout company is paying the television channel for this sham they are calling programming, and that the whole thing is ridiculous product placement (which is the key to any television show in Japan).

Maybe it is possible, though, that the president of this company himself personally insisted on approving every jingle to be used in a commercial. It would fall in line with the news we've heard recently about the ex-president of Nova, the shady English school, who was arrested. There were reports that he was in such tight control of the company that even wastebasket purchase orders had to be personally signed off by him.

Why, you ask, would I choose to live in such a city?

You are not worthy of this cab ride Saturday April 19

One of the best things about my company is that approximately once every six months, most people in the company who have been there for any length of time (there is a qualification, yes) convene and talk about management-assigned topics. Essentially, the senior management says, "we have identified these points as things that need to be explored in our future, now talk amongst yourselves," thereby allowing most people in the company to have a say in the future direction. That's cool.

Even better, this meeting usually takes place on a Friday, whereafter we usually have a great dinner and drinks. Last night was no exception. I found myself in a karaoke room at 1:30am with a few brave souls, slightly tipsy, rocking out to my colleague's excellent rendition of "Me and Bobby McGee". No, really, she's a professional singer. I'm not being sarcastic. It is really good.

As anyone who has been in Japan longer for one Saturday night should know, 1:30am is well past the time the trains stop running, so anyone who stays out that late must be in for an all-nighter until 5:00am, or must take a taxi home. In the middle of the night, from Ginza, where our office is, it's about 3,500 yen to get home. That's about, at the current rate, $35. Split down the middle with a colleague, it's not so bad.

So, 3 of us were standing in a slight drizzle at 1:40am, searching for a cab. There are plenty of cabs in Ginza.

Finding one that will pick you up may be another issue.

We were on a back street, and there was a cab slowly approaching us. I attempted to flag it down; I could see the driver's face. He was focused straight ahead, hands slightly tense on the wheel, to the extent that it was unnatural and clear that he was avoiding us. The light at the intersection turned red, so he stopped. I walked towards the vehicle and looked at him again. Still nothing. I then got in front of the cab itself, and flailed my arms with a smile on my face. By this point, I had given up on getting in this cab, but I just wanted to make my point.

He rolled down the window and spoke.

"What are you doing? Get out from in front of the cab... it's dangerous!"

"We'd like a ride. Your cab indicates that you're accepting passengers," I shot back.

"I'm going home--" he said.

All cabs in Japan have an LED in the front window that indicates their current status, and it is very easy to see the difference between "out of service" and "empty".

"Your sign says 'empty', if you're going home, why doesn't it say 'out of service'?" I asked.

"I'm going to Chiba, I'm going home," he said, assuming that we did not live near Chiba, so we would have to accept his answer.

During this whole time, I continued to stand in front of his cab. He cocked the wheels and attempted to inch past me, but I moved, and my knees were on his bumper. This aggrevated him further, but like my father, don't mess with me when I am right. As a licensed cab operator in the city of Tokyo, you have an obligation to pick up anyone who wants a ride. Period.

Back to the Chiba excuse, it turns out that one of the 3 of us does in fact live in Chiba.

"She's going to Chiba," I said, pointing to the Japanese co-worker who was with us. I figured he would take her, as she is Japanese. I was wrong?

"I'm going home! Get out of the way!"

I couldn't let this clear discrimination stand.

"What? You don't like foreigners?! Is that it? If you're out of service, put that on your sign. This woman is going to Chiba, and you're going to take her there."

By this point he had inched the wheels to the extent where if I didn't re-position myself, he could "get away". I'd already decided I wouldn't want to reward this jackass with my money anyhow, so I moved back and he went off on his way.

We caught the next cab. He was a nice guy, and I made sure to tell him the full story. He sounded sympathetic, and I truly believe he was. He tried to explain it away: "you probably live in the city, and he wants someone who lives far away so he can get a higher fare," he offered with empathy.

Like many other things in Japan, there are rules that everyone follows, with little exception. At the same time, there are rules that no one follows, with little exception.

I decided yet again after last night that as long as I can possibly avoid it, I will never ride in another taxi in Japan again. Sadly, this isn't the first time I've promised that to myself.

Broke into the Old Apartment Monday January 28

As you know, the blog has been offline for awhile. We apologize for the inconvenience. Hereon begins the story, the excuse, or the events of the last two months.

Simon told me over six months ago that someday, he would propose to his then-girlfriend, and at that point, I'd probably need to move from my cozy 6-mat room to bigger and greener pastures. I had just moved in fall of 2006, so needless to say, I wasn't particularly exciting about having to repeat it. I had already discovered it to be time-consuming, fruitless, and aggravating process as a foreigner.

To make matters more complicated, Simon had spent a long time finding our apartment. The rent market in the area I was living is a sizable 10-15% higher than what we were paying, and there are a minimal number of layouts like the 3-bedroom plus combined living/dining layout we had. I was later told by a real estate agent that the "rate of return per square meter is higher when landlords divide up a unit into smaller studios". Thus, in an expense neighborhood such as mine (which I had never known it to be), 3-bedroom apartments are rare.

Thus, to begin the search meant looking at housing websites for months, finding nothing. An occasional phone call to a real estate agent either found (a) the place already gone, (b) the place did not rent to foreigners, and/or (c) they wanted 4-6 months' of rent up-front. And more than half of that never comes back to you in the form of a "deposit". Faced with the idea of paying so much rent up-front, I decided it was best if I get roommates to help cover the costs immediately.

December 2007. I am soon to go back to the States for a trip, and Simon has pretty much told me that he'd like to have his girlfriend move in by the time I get back. Slightly desperate, I posted an article on a "roomshare" group on Mixi, or Japanese MySpace, looking for suckers who'd want to live with me. To my surprise, I received a mail from a Korean guy who was, appropriately, looking for a place to live at the same time I was. He is 30, pretty straight-up, and seemed like the kind of guy that I could live with.

We met on a Saturday morning in mid-December, and we searched for apartments all day long. This is one of the most annoying tasks I can think of. As if seeing many, many places with some annoying real estate agent wasn't enough, I also had to consider the feelings of a person I barely knew in finding an appropriate place. Yet, somehow, by the end of that day, we had found The Perfect Place. 3-bedroom, cheap, in a beautiful, quiet area in one of the nicest areas of Tokyo. 10 minutes from Shinjuku, 15 minutes from Shibuya. Yeah.

So, I forked over a month of rent, signed all the paperwork (save the contract), and went back to the States for a holiday. During the break, I coordinated with the real estate agent as to when I could move in. That's when the trouble began to start.

I was scheduled to return to Japan on January 4th, and despite making a down payment on December 21st (the room was empty, mind you), the real estate agent was telling me I couldn't move in until at least the 7th. That would be 3 days of no-place-to-live. He made it very clear that around the New Year, it was hard to assemble the staffs necessary to clean and put the place in order (a seemingly-required process for moving in Tokyo, as all of the real estate agents have contracts with these vendors with built-in kick-backs. If you are wondering who pays for the cleaning, take a guess).

So, when I came back to Japan, sure enough, I was sleeping on the couch. I had told Simon I would move out, so I found my room no longer. All of my stuff was in boxes in the living room, and I was sleeping on a small fold-out bed in what was now "Sayaka's (Simon's fiance) office". The 7th became the 8th, and there it was -- the day before I was supposed to go pick up the keys and sign the final contracts.

The phone rings, which is never a positive sign. Seriously. Whenever the phone rings, something's going to happen.

It's the real estate agent.

"I just got a call from the landlord, he said that he wants to see me at the place; I am not sure what it is about but I am going now. When I find out, I'll give you a call; I am sure everything is fine," For those of you that don't work in sales, "I'm sure everything is fine" means "I have no idea what is happening right now but I am just praying that this sorts out cause I need that bonus, hey, pass me the joint".

The next morning, i.e., the day I am supposed to pick up the key, I called the real estate agent to ask what the meeting was about.

"Oh, I think everything's fine. There's just one thing that needs to be sorted out, and I am meeting the landlord today at 4pm to discuss. I'm also meeting the rental company at 1pm." (Yes, the rental company and the agent are different companies, which means you pay even more in commission and fees!) I asked if there was any problem with my situation. "Oh, no, it's not a problem for you at all; it is just something we need to sort out before you move in," he said. Fine enough. I went back to work.

To cut to the chase, I got another call at 6pm. I had intended to pick up the key after work. The van with all of my stuff was loaded.

Apparently, the landlord of this place owns 3 other apartments, and has refinanced each multiple times. He is about to go bankrupt. The debtors are going to repossess his properties in an effort to collect on their debts. This means that in a few months' time, he may not own the apartment any longer. As a non-owner, he can't very well rent it to me.

Now, the real estate agent works on commission, so he had been promising me the moon to keep me warm, as he needed to buy time to run around between the rental company and the landlord to see if there wasn't some way that he could make it work. For example, if I were to move in immediately, it may give the landlord the burst of capital he needed to pay off some creditors, for example.

Legally, if I did move in, I would have 6 months' to find a new place, should I be asked to move by a new owner. With all of my stuff in the van ready to go, and not having a place to live, I told the real estate agent "fine", but he told me that as an agent, they collect a fee, and he cannot very well collect a fee on a property that may be repossessed in 2-3 months. It's against their principles, he said. So, it's against principle to do something (rather, to allow something, as he had already done the work) to help me out in the short term, but it's fine to neglect your job, not check up on the landlord until the day I am supposed to move in? What a work ethic. That's a fine time to be taking the high moral ground.

I knew from the beginning this guy wasn't that smart. Lesson learned to go with your gut feeling. I should have kept looking. Lucky for him that he introduced me the perfect place (which, it was now clear why the rent was cheap: the owner was doing anything and everything to get someone inside).

So, there I was. No place to live, no prospects, and a full work schedule. That was January.

Free Speech Saturday September 22

I just saw this video on YouTube about a student being subdued by police officers at the University of Florida with a taser. There have been a flurry of comments in both directions, but I saw many that suggested that his freedom of speech was restricted, and that this is yet another indication of how America isn't really "free".

As a former venue employee and facility manager, I have experienced this many times before: controversial speaker, daring student, question and answer session. Student takes the microphone, goes on a tangent about His Issue, lectures the audience before asking a question, and then asks a incendiary, loaded question.

The speaker, however popular or unpopular, is up on stage to be heard, seen, and understood. They're not there to have tomatoes thrown at them: this is part of the social contract of asking someone to come speak. While there may be difficult questions that may come up in due course, the manner and nature of such questions should fit the paradigm in which they are being asked.

This student clearly had not only an agenda, but likely never expected to get his questions answered. I am sure he would have liked to have them answered, but should have been able to assume that his mic would be turned off, questions deflected, or otherwise. He was conducting a stunt such that you and I could talk about it. He succeeds in that regard.

However, we regularly hear "freedom of speech" bantered about as if we have a right to run our mouths off wherever and however we like. I believe this to be a gross misinterpretation. Let me say it in clearer words: you are not special. The world does not care about you. Okay. There we have that.

If I walk into a cafe, order a sandwich, and then climb up on the table and tell everyone who votes Republican where they can shove it, I'd be a pretty dumb fool to wave the "freedom of speech" flag when the manager asks me to leave.

This lecture was a public event, but was held in a private forum by a private group. Sure, if only prescreened questions were allowed to be asked, or if the speaker him or herself had to restrain their expression for fear of punishment, then I would believe there is an issue at hand regarding the First Amendment. However, what we have here, is a common affiliction in the US: just another asshole who has a point to raise and thinks he is right with little regard for public order or common courtesy.

Damn.

Another one?

Japanese Disneyland Wednesday September 12

I met a British gentleman yesterday who has been in Japan for approximately 17 years. For my job, I often meet these so-called "lifers" who, for one reason or another, have committed to living (and dying) in Japan.

The first time he went to Osaka, he hated it, he said. The second time, he also hated it. Then, the third time, he got married. Add seventeen years. I had to laugh a little at that; I am well-familiar with the slightly self-deprecating attitude taken by many Westerns who have, adopting Japanese culture even in English, chosen to live in this society. It's never as bad as they make it sound, but it's not necessarily good, either.

This gentleman said one of the best things I think I've ever heard to describe Japan, though, so I thought I would share it. He felt that Japan is like Disneyland: everything is clean, sparkly, interesting to look at. Behind the scenes somewhere, it's actually much dirtier, but there's no reason to show that. Moreover, and here was the best part -- when Japanese people go abroad for vacation, it's almost as if they are entering "a different land" in Disneyland. It's as if the United States was Country Town USA, and then you suddenly walked into the Arabian Nights land.

Japanese people never really "leave the theme park" when they are overseas. They're just in a different "land".

Of course, this is excepting those who live overseas for a long time: long enough, and you'll probably start to see Japan Disneyland as it is: a themepark in the middle of the rest of the world where other things are happening. Once you have that perspective, you're less likely to want to stay here: it starts to feel small and confining.

That's exactly where Yuiko is. She told me the other day she finds it "hard to breathe" in Japan. It's her home country; her family lives here. What would cause her to say such a thing?

Anyway, I don't have a concrete point here. I just wanted to get this down on the blog before I forgot about it.

Maybe I haven't really changed that much Wednesday August 29

While I believe that humans change based on their experiences, I often believe there is this core portion of someone's personality that really never changes, or at least, not all that much. I have four great parents, two of which happened to be directly involved in my birth. Those two share some characteristics that, as I have grown up, have become endearing:

• My Dad: I Don't Care What Your Policy Is As I Am The Customer, Damn It
• My Mom: Take Care Of Your Own Stuff Because The Fairy Isn't Going To Clean Up For You

But I digress. It would be simplifying the human experience to boil down my personality to the net sum of my parents' personality traits.

My parents, however, have both been known to be persistent in their opinions at times. I have received this quality without any disintegration in quality, it seems. I am stubborn. If I am wrong, I will give up -- that's fine. However, the problems of how we define what is right and what is wrong, well, that goes back to my Dad's ability to get Customer Service Representatives to give him whatever it is that he feels is necessary.

It could be generational, but one notable difference between my parents and I is the active interest that I take in making environmentalism an everyday part of my life. I don't say that my parents don't care about the environment -- that is a false conclusion -- but I do imagine that I think about it more than they do.

Recently, outside of our building at work, there have been delivery drivers sitting inside their vans, windows shut, ignition on, sleeping, and it's really been bothering me. There are taxi drivers and individuals doing this as well, but I can't very well tell an individual how to go about living their life. They paid for the gasoline, so I imagine that they will exhaust that gasoline into the atmosphere however they so please. That is, if I am not mistaken, part of owning a car: doing things your way. It's the personal individual freedom that it unlocks.

Delivery drivers, on the other hand, frustrate me. They are wasting their company's money, unnecessarily, and more importantly, raising the temperature of my Earth unnecessarily. Also, in the short term, the heat generated by their cars is contributing to the heat island effect that is Tokyo. When it is ninety-two degrees and I am wearing a full suit in the 2:00pm sunshine, it is an understatement to say that I am unhappy about these individuals' decision to unnecessarily heat up the neighborhood.

So, rather than be Japanese, which I find to be largely passive-agressive, I have decided to start taking a more active approach to these people.

I take a sheet of paper (which I have used the other side of, I am not wasting paper) from my bag and write the following in Japanese: "(We) ask for your cooperation to not idle your vehicle (here)." It's very Japanese, but it gets the point across. Then, I put it under the windshield wiper of the vehicle, such that the driver will need to exit the vehicle to remove it. Making the driver exit the vehicle is key, as they must understand What Ninety Two Degrees Feels Like.

I did this twice yesterday. Today I didn't see anyone there, but I could have missed them.

Simon recommended the Beverly Hills Cop trick: stick a banana in the tailpipe as to stall the vehicle. If the problem continues to escalate, I may be forced to such measures.

The old man at the public bath Monday August 20

When I lived in Yokohama, there was a public bath down the street that I'd often frequent. In the middle of summer, a quick soak would be so refreshing. In the middle of the winter, ten minutes in the sauna would keep me warm for hours. For 400 yen (USD$3.50), it was a deal. Sure, we use the word "public bath" in English, but this is more-or-less a spa with a sauna, shower area, hot-tub, and lounge area.

At the front of any public bath in Japan, there's someone to collect your money, and if you need it, sell you the odd shampoo bottle or mini-towel. I got to know both people that ran the front -- I saw them every two weeks or so for eight months.

Towards the end of my tenure in Yokohama, the old man started to talk to me more. Really, he wasn't that old: glasses, a warm smile, large streaks of gray appearing in his otherwise black hair, he was maybe only fifty-five or sixty. One night, I went right before close, and I was one of the last people there. As such, on my way out, we struck up a conversation. He wanted to know the normal things: where I was from, why I speak Japanese, so on so forth. I am good at that conversation.

Then, he did something that a lot of Japanese people do: talk negatively about Japan. I shouldn't say "negatively", as that makes him sound like a bitter, senile man. He is far from it. Gentle is the best word that comes to mind. Maybe I should say that he spoke lamentingly of a Japan that was, that is no longer.

I've lived long enough to know there's danger in believing people's recollections of the past: people shape their memories how they want them to be, and as their values change (particularly with age), so do their attitudes about the way things were. They may naturally begin to forget the otherwise-conflicting experiences that no longer match their value system. I don't believe this to be a cognitive process.

That point aside, this man's recollections of the Japan that used to be were clear: people had spirit (Japanese: 精神). They had a will for life that no longer exists in young people today. Young people today, he suggested, have grown up spoiled in a society that emphasizes material possession and, more than anything, money.

His conjecture is that this individualistic, money-hungry generation is ruining his Japan. This is why he spoke so somberly, I imagine. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do on the other end of this conversation.

The old man's final plea to me was along these lines: "Mark, you've come here to learn this language, to learn this culture, and to expand yourself and lead a fuller life as a result of a greater understanding of the human condition; please do not let what you see in front of you today block your vision of what Japanese culture should be or where it came from. There is more than you can see," he suggested.

I really respected this, as this man with whom I barely spoke other than to exchange currency for towels had suddenly an insight that was simply well-thought, well-put, and so pertinent to my situation. It could have been chance, or it could be my romanticization of the circumstances, but he had a great point.

The Japanese populace emerged from WWII cast as a test-case (democracy), a victim (of pre-war and wartime fascism), and a failure (of an ideology). I'll leave the scholars to debate whether or not it is fair to allow the Japanese to consider themselves, too, as victims, considering someone had to do all of the raping and pillaging (literally, not just as an expression), I've included "failure" to cover myself on the point. Certainly, you are better than the rest of the Asian races, Japan... as long as you have enough oil and forced-labor Taiwanese and Koreans.

But I digress -- war is hell, and I'm not here for a rehash.

I'm here to say that given these circumstances: failure, ruin, victimization, and poverty, it makes wonderful sense that Japan was set up in the way that it was post-war. Industrial education system. Focus on manufacturing. The rise of the salaryman. Fair wages for everyone. No one minds that you make the same as the guy next door, because everyone's in it together, and if we just work harder, we'll make some money, make the country rich again, be great, and be respected on a world stage. And that's exactly what happened.

Now cue the loss of the collective spirit. There's no need anymore: Japan is a rich country. Today's children grew up with The Things Their Parents Never Had. Why join in a collective spirit with the next door neighbor? We don't know him. We don't need to know him.

In the absence of a consumerism-driven society, people are left to their social networks and their status (yes, I do mean class status) as a means of driving identity (as identity was based on the group). Consumerism leads to patterned consumption: everyone has the same x or y. Identity driven from ownership. This is just the Keeping Up With The Joneses, and this is not Japan-specific.

The next step is product diversification: my x has more y's than yours. Soon enough, people begin to diversify their identities not by what they do for a living (and I do mean outside of work as well), and they start diversifying their identities by what they buy and what they own. A production-based economy moves to a consumption-based one.

The old man at the public bath tells me that Japanese youth have traded their souls for money and things. It hurts him. They no longer produce their own identities; they mix-and-match them from preselected templates. I need to go visit that old man sometime soon. I want to tell him that I still try my best to derive my identity from who I am, not what I own. I think he'd like that.

My camera: an unchanging classic? Saturday August 18

Around six years ago, Todd introduced me to a web page of one of The Coolest People You Will Probably Never Meet. His name is Pete, and he is funnier, smarter, better-looking, has more Game, and, generally, is cooler than Mark or Todd would ever be. At least, that was Todd and I's consensus at the time.

One of Pete's brilliances was his eye for picture composition. He sang the praises, though, not of his talented eye, but of his trusty Canon PowerShot, one of the sleekest digital cameras on the market in 2001.

So, when Todd and I got our first digital cameras, we did what any right-minded person would do: we emulated the success we had seen on Pete's blog. We both owned Canon PowerShots. I had two versions, as I was lucky enough to get the Best Buy warranty plan, so when one little plastic tab broke on my camera, thereby ceasing its operation, I just got a new one, and I traded up models. Never mind the fact that the camera was fixable, and operable with well-applied Scotch Tape.

My PowerShot SD110 lasted for years: it lived in my bag with my keys, my wallet, and many other items that had blemished its surface, but the optics have been good enough, and I like to think it's taken some damn good pictures over the years.

Recently, though, I've just felt that it's not quite up to snuff. 3.2 megapixel seems like nothing when I hear about today's cameras at 8.2 or more. Many of the models in Japan have a function that auto-corrects "blur" from your hand when you don't hold still and take a picture without a flash (this happens to me pretty often).

What did it for me, though, was the trip to the Great Wall of China.

I don't think many people know, but I will be flying to China in two weeks for a trip to a tourist-secluded portion of The Biggest Stone Fence Which Is Not Visible From Space. I don't know when the next time I'll have such an opportunity is, so I decided it might be just about time to get a new camera.

Today, I went to the Shinjuku Yodobashi Camera and bought myself the Canon IXY, which is really just the same thing as the PowerShot, but in Japanese marketing, this is what it's called.

What I was surprised about, though, is that while the megapixel difference is quite large, if you scale down the resolution of my new camera to the highest resolution of the old camera and take the exact same picture, they are essentially the same quality. This was a little disappointing, having just spent 30,000 yen (=USD $250) on the device. Did I just buy a bigger LCD screen, a new case, and the same old optics?

That said, the Canon PowerShot is an unchanging classic. Just ask Pete.

The Japanese obsession with packaging Thursday August 16

Why are the Japanese people so obsessed with packaging?

I'd like to believe that there is a simple answer to this question; much like the answer as to why there is excess infrastructure due to the Japanese construction industry: a government subsidy creates unnecessary things on purpose as a measure to maintain budgets and to infuse cash into the less-educated levels of society to keep the wa stable and everyone "equal". I could understand a simple answer like that.

Walk into any of the five main coffee chains in Tokyo competing for market share: Starbucks, Doutor, Tully's Coffee, Cafe Veloce, and Excelsior Cafe, and order an iced coffee (the implication is "to-go"). You get much more than an iced coffee: a plastic cup with lid, straw, napkin, nasty fake creamer, gum syrup sugar, and a stirrer, all placed neatly into a small paper bag. I'm sure if you look at the training manuals for these places, though, that's not just it: you have to fold and roll down the top of the bag three times over again, creating a nice little "tote" for the customer to carry.

Then there's the corner-fold.

It would be shameful, embarassing, and probably just flat out rude if you were to give a customer what they ordered -- an iced coffee -- without faithfully discharging one's filial duties to uphold the "corner-fold tradition". What an insult to the customer to receive a non-corner-folded paper bag that they will summarily throw away upon arrival to their office in approximately 90 seconds!

For those of you not in Japan, what you do here is seal this beautifully wrapped... iced coffee. Use your left hand to secure the portion (the "lip") that you've just folded down from the top three times, and then take your right hand and create a triangle by folding in the top right corner downward and to the left.

Only then, my friends, only then may you pass the iced coffee to the customer.

This is all just too much for me at 8:13am on a Tuesday. Just give me my damn coffee. I said coffee! Now! (You know how it can be.)

Accordingly, one of my favorite things to do when I encounter The Silly Things Japanese People Do Without Thinking About Them is to purposefully cause an interrupt in the system so that I can test their error exception handling procedures.

While I usually go to Cafe Veloce, as it has the cheapest iced coffee (by a margin of 50%, that's how bad this iced coffee is), I at first decided to adopt the Starbucks-asshole-order method:

"Iced coffee, medium, black, no cream, no sugar, no stirrer, no bag, no straw, no napkin please."

However, I could rarely get all that out before one of the four people behind the counter had attempted to give me something extraneous just to put themselves at ease. I was pretty sure I was going to get plastic forks or something just so they could feel like they gave me something. The straw was always the difficult part. You could always see the confused expressions written on their faces:

"How does he drink iced coffee without a straw?"

They wouldn't cut it out with the straw, even when I'd hand it back to them. Eventually, after about two weeks, everyone at the store learned my order, and everything started to run smoothly. Life was good, except for the occasional new employee who had to unlearn what they had learned when handling my morning order.

Call me an anarchist, but that's one of the problems with status quo: it can get boring. Let's have some fun.

About three weeks ago, I brought a travel mug that I had brought back from the States with me in my bag (while travel mugs are sold in Japan, they are not the everyday item that they are in the States). As I ordered my black, no napkin, no bag, and no stirrer iced coffee, I reached into my bag for the goods. Pandemonium ensued.

"We don't know if that is a large or a medium size," I was told.

"Charge me the large size! I don't care! I just don't want any packaging! Please! No more! I can't take it anymore!"

A sea full of dumbfounded faces.

One brave gentleman decided to get smart: he poured a regular large iced coffee into a to-go plastic cup, and then proceeded to pour these contents into my travel mug, and to everyone's great relief and surprise, it was a Large! "Thank God! We are saved from the wrath of the hairy, mug-wielding foreigner!" Never mind that we had to throw out a perfectly good cup to win this battle, which makes the entire point of me bringing my own mug a moot one.

And this is just coffee. You should see the candies.

Scope Saturday June 30

For awhile, I've found it difficult to produce a post. I think this stems slightly from being busy at work; not wanting to deal with the question looming in my mind: does this blog suffer because I only write about things that can appeal to a general audience, not a Japan-specific audience? Living in a Japanese paradigm, do I suffer from a forced writer's block -- or rather, "the blog as an emotional outlet and thought pad" fails to work when most of your emotions and thoughts are, in some way, directly connected to an environment that not everyone knows or understands?

I have always been writing for myself, though. My goal is to preserve pieces of myself and my life throughout time so that later, I can reflect and understand that changes in myself, and the forces that has brought, and will bring those changes. Entertaining readers has always been second, but I've always felt that if wasn't writing something of value to someone, then there was no reason to make it public: I'd be better off with a private diary.

However, in writing a diary, you can literally say whatever you want -- on a blog, I may be judged by the outside world, and thus I must constantly think about reinforcing my arguments, referencing, and not being hateful, spiteful, or otherwise adopting a generally negative tone. In a diary, if I had a typical bad day, I may be inclined to do so, taking solace in said diary which would never argue with me and always convince me I am right.

Speaking in public is opening yourself to criticism and comment, and I believe that, like the FOSS movement, my thoughts are best expressed not in their first incarnation, but after they have been qualified and critiqued by a third party. Whether or not that third party is actually commenting is irrelevant -- what is is that I am writing while expecting and welcoming opinion.

In plain language, it keeps me on my toes.

Recently I've been struggling with many Japan issues, and I haven't felt quite comfortable expressing them here -- in an English language format, for one -- and I've often felt my blog readers were, by and large, not in Japan. Site statistics support this argument.

Nonetheless, as an experiment, and to reduce my reluctance to post, I've decided to alter the scope of this blog. I will continue to write about international and personal issues - these are Japan-independent -- but I will also choose to write about Japan topics (in English). This marks the beginning of that initiative.

Summer is here: it's wedding season Monday May 21

Next weekend, my college colleague and study abroad travel partner Richard is going to get married to his mid-long term girlfriend-turned-fiance, Hiromi. While they met at the University of Illinois, Hiromi's parents live in Kyoto, and thus they'll be holding the ceremony there.

In three weeks, my first cousin will be marrying in Pennslyvania, and I'll be venturing out to New York and back to Tokyo in one weekend. All I need to do is add Milan to that list (maybe I'll return via there?) and I'll feel like a total fashion diva. Or should it be Paris? Please advise.

In September, my friend Charlotte will be marrying. The verdict is undecided as to whether or not I can go. Someone, please, start humming the anthem of the summer: Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".

But in all this wedding madness, it could be worse. I could have received an e-mail from Richard this morning, five days before the big affair, asking me to write a speech about him and his soon-to-be-wife to be presented in front of family and friends I've never met. I could have also been asked to write said speech in Japanese.

Oh wait, I was. Right.

Maybe I should write two speeches: one in English, one in Japanese. I'll deliver the English one at Richard & Hiromi's wedding, and no one will get it, and then the Japanese one in Pennslyvania next month. Both will probably sound cooler, and I'll run the least risk of offending anyone.

A post on Iraq: I just can't help it Wednesday April 25

I try to keep this blog very apolitical and uninfluenced.

Part of my daily reading is Google News; it keeps me up to date on what is going on in the world and what is going on in the Western media. I don't see it to be comprehensive, but if I were to start this post by going on about the number of untold news stories out there that deserve telling, we wouldn't really ever get to a point.

Anyway, the reason I like Google News is that it filters many sites, floating the most popular stories up to the top. This way, rather than actually see world events, I can keep track of the American public consciousness of world events. I am not going to claim liberal media bias or media bias at all -- rather, watching the daily news only teaches us of specific events, leaving the analysis of the trends to "the analysts", as we are too busy going to work every week day, driving our cars, going to the bars on the weekends, and eating late-night Mexican food to really take any sort of social responsibility about world events. I'm equally guilty of this, so I'm not chastizing anyone here.

I read one article tonight that compared Iraq with Vietnam, which is not a new story; we have all heard this comparison before. The original administration that entered the affair failed to grasp the potential consequences and scope, and the operation slowly expanded (we call this "scope creep" in the project management domain, and it is a very important factor to keep in check), eventually spiraling out of control.

This article commented that entering Iraq was akin to "punching a hole into a hornet's nest", as much like Vietnam, we are not seen as liberators, but rather forces that get in the way, aimlessly trying to help one side in a power struggle. One key difference, though, is that the enemy last time was a political idea -- communism -- and now it is Islamic extremism. Well, I'm glad to see that America has gotten less xenophobic.

Something about that expression with the hornet's nest got me. "Man, this is really what happens when you let a small number of self-interested unicultural men and women rule the most powerful military on Earth," The result? I don't think that I need to explain that.

I'm not mad. My father is plenty mad, and I fully expect him to leave a comment about how angry he is. I understand his anger -- Iraq has cost the United States over 3,000 lives, and we cannot even count how many Iraqi civilians have died. Certainly, the argument that they would have died under Saddam Hussein's rule would also apply here, but without hard facts from either side, it becomes an inarguable, moot point, and thus I will only discuss the American lives for the time being. Couple the deaths with the tax expense to the American people, which my father is one of, and I can understand his anger. No one wants to pay to have their own country's citizens killed for an unworthy cause.

But me? I'm not angry. I cannot be angry about things that have happened in the past. My own father has told me that life is ten percent of what happens to me, and ninety percent of how I react to it. If I am angry, I lose my ability to be rational (as I did when I visited the DMV last week), and when I lose my ability to be rational, I am no different than the self-interested individuals who created the mess in the first place. I don't want to be like them.

Karl Rove was pretty upset when Sheryl Crow touched him on the arm. Have you seen Sheryl Crow recently? I wouldn't be upset if I got any sort of attention from a woman looking like her. Using one square of toliet paper, though, is absolutely ridiculous. A much better idea, if she wants to be economical in the bathroom, is to use greywater for toliet water, or to turn off the showerhead while soaping/shampooing.

Just think for a second how many hundreds of gallons every second would be saved in your local municipality if half of the people did that while taking showers in the morning. In this way, let's not be angry. Let's get to work on the problems at hand.

As for Karl Rove's poor attitude, is it just a sign of a sourness resulting from failed policies and a more-or-less ruined political career? Possibly.

Not such a good week in the news Wednesday April 18

I keep up with "world affairs" by looking at Google's summary of news headlines. This tends to be US-centric, as one might expect, but I must say, the world has seen its fair of bad news in the past week or so. Lots of violence in Iraq as the country falls further into the depths of what may easily become a civil war, and now 32+1 people dead in Virginia, all but two of which were just trying to get an education.

I really don't get it. Really, I don't. Crazy people, people who have snapped, I get that. Humans are, by nature, fallible.

What I don't understand is a country that allows the clearly-fallible human, specifically weak regarding matters of the heart, to possess guns that will so-clearly take the lives of innocent bystanders.

This isn't the first time such a thing has happened, and it certainly won't be the last. Wake up, America. The 2nd Amendment is 200 years old. Accept the changing times. No one really needs handguns for hunting.

My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their loved ones.

Monday: Lost in Translation Monday April 16

Today was a Monday. American English speakers already know what I mean. Unfortunately, Japanese does not seem to have the same translation.

I'm not going to run through the laundry list of things that happened today as a measure of garnering sympathy, but rather as a way to express just how ridiculous today was, and how much I enjoyed it, for what it was worth. Life is only 10% what happens to me; the remaining 90% is how I react. Cheers to Mr. Swindoll for coigning that one.

I really don't even want to recount what happened this morning, because it's just going to make me very angry again. Long story short, I was at the DMV. That should be enough. I was remarking in a raised tone in Japanese to a helpless woman and her very incompetent manager about their inability to interpret the Illinois Rules of the Road that were clearly written, in English, in a little book right in front of them. How is it my fault you can't understand English, yet this is the foreign licenses counter? Is this a joke?

Having wasted two hours at the DMV when I was supposed to be at work, no farther along in getting my license, I went to a nice Chinese lunch with my placed candidate, myself, and the cockroach from the kitchen that decided to be dead and in my food dish. Awesome. Protein!

Did I mention it was rainy and cold all day long?

Or that I forgot 100% to meet a candidate that I had scheduled time with?

My one client meeting went rather successfully; I did the whole thing in Japanese with little issue, but at one point had some trouble expressing myself. I wanted to say, "Forgive me, I'm having a bit of a Monday," but no one likes a complainer -- especially in sales -- and moreover, I was staring at a sea of dumbfounded faces. My test audience had no idea what it meant to say that it was a Monday. How Japanese.

Yup, it was one of those days you were best off coming straight home and going to bed. While I'm not in bed, at least we don't have cockroaches, DMV incompetents, or rain in my bedroom.

Fuel on the fire: Climate Change Sunday April 8

I've seen a lot of articles recently on global warming and climate change. There are a lot of people in different camps here: the "it's all a bunch of bull, we'll be fine" camp, the "the world is ending and I never even got to do fill-in-the-blank", and the pragmatic, but somewhere in-between, "if the climate changes we can expect these phenomena to occur, how shall we react?".

I think I'd place myself firmly in the third.

If the ancient Greeks taught us anything, it should be that hubris is a no-no. We do not own this Earth, and the ecosystems that run it are, despite what you may initially consider, more powerful, uncontrollable, and destructive than any weapon human can conceive. With such a threat -- living or not -- at hand, I would like to just flat-out write off the "everything will be fine" approach. Normally, I would justify such a write-off, but I think I can safely end this point by posing the rhetorical question: "when was the last time everything worked out perfectly when you just said, 'oh, don't worry about that, I'm sure it's just nothing, and it will go away if we ignore it for a little while longer'?"

I'm not also a fan of the "oh my god the world is ending yesterday" approach. Nothing is ever as good, or as bad, as it seems. Thus, I think the best, and most enlightened approach, is the third: we must accept that the climate may change, anticipate those changes, and be ready to respond to them (as a human race) if we are to continue to survive as a species with the best possible outcome for all parties involved (namely, living human beings).

I'd like to extend this group to "living beings", but you and I both know that if it comes down to it, the world is going to choose homo sapiens over canipus lupis if it has to. What animal would not look out for number one?

The best way to tackle any problem is to define the endpoints, and start working in both directions as soon as possible to find the middle ground. Endpoint one: where are we right now? How many tons of greenhouse gases is each country generating currently? Given our current forestation and ecosystem, how many tons of greenhouse gases should the environment be able to sustain with zero change due to such emission?

Define an equation based on those two. How much more forestation do we need? How much energy is spent in making forests, and is that counter-productive? If so, how much do we need to cut emissions? Sure, there are a lot of difficult-to-answer, heavy questions here. I know for a fact there are a lot of smart people in the world. If we've come this far, we can definitely salvage this situation.

Endpoints 2a, 2b, 2c: after 10, 20, and 30 years respectively, incorporating growth anticipation, how much more efficient does human existence have to become in order to maintain sustainability? Once everyone knows where things are going, it becomes very easy to get there -- this is what governments and world order exist for in the first place.

The key is getting people in these key positions to make these issues a priority.

This is the age-old politics problem: abortion stances, healthcare costs, and fuel prices on the election trail make for better material to get votes. The real issues are the ones that exceed the average consumer, thus making the average consumer a very poor source of decision-making authority (i.e. voting) on who should be in power to make decisions.

I do think that democracy is the best political system the world has experienced yet, but those societies have a tendency to be reactionary as opposed to preventative -- a path that cannot succeed when tackling an enemy that has an ultimately stronger position than you. The only path you can take is avoiding the conflict all together.

The power of each of us turning off a light is one thing -- it may make a small difference.

What the world needs is a reevaluation of its major energy systems. Coal power plants must be replaced immediately unless they can become as carbon-free as the cleanest power source available -- solar or wind. Certainly, carbon is generated in the production of the materials for these, so I do not insist that they are carbon-free, but infinitely better than coal plants.

Also, transportation. For goodness' sake, sell your car and buy a hybrid. Seriously. Now. It is good for the economy, too. Be patriotic.

One of the best people I have ever known, Keith Schasko, sold his car after the first Gulf War and committed himself to riding his bicycle to work every day -- even in the cold, Illinois winter. He had a motorcycle for long trips. Anyone who knew Keith well enough would probably list him in the top five most respectable people they've ever known. I certainly do.

So, what are you doing to put pressure on the Powers That Be to keep us out of the red and in the green?

Tokyo: Redefining bizarre murder cases since 1869 Thursday March 29

Japanese news doesn't regularly make it to the global headlines, and since I only read the "Wall Street Journal" of Japan (it's not the WSJ, by the way; I use that phrase as a matter of comparison), I don't really catch the latest pop-gossip or odd murder/death/kills that happen in the area.

For example, when I was away in the States on holiday last December, a woman cracked a wine bottle over her 4am-returning drunk husband's head and killed him. This was literally down the street from my apartment; a 5-7 minute walk. What may have been an accident (she claimed it was not premediated) became increasingly difficult to claim manslaughter when she (a) went shopping at the local hardware store for saws and peat moss, (b) dismembered her husband's body parts, and (c) spread them around the West Tokyo area.

Quite gruesome, actually, when I write it all out. But how else was a tiny woman going to dispose of her husband's heavy body undetected? It makes sense, in the way that it doesn't make sense. There's a word in Japanese for these kinds of murders, because every defendant seems to believe they can somehow get away with it if they just put all the parts in small enough sizes and throw them away in discreet areas (side note: most of these murders are women killing their husbands).

I looked on Google News tonight to see what was going on in the world; apparently we've had another incident: a British English teacher was found on the balcony of one of her student's apartments, totally naked, buried in sand inside of a bathtub with only her hand exposed. The manhunt is of course active for the 28-year-old gentleman who lived in that apartment. The article had a picture of her as well: quite a nice looking woman.

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking Tokyo is safe. I've seen at least five times on TV since I've gotten here where a man or woman sets fire to their own house with their family still in it.

And the Toei Asakusa subway line was stopped this morning because of a jumper. So don't tell me Japan is safe and normal. It's just as f-ed up as anywhere else in the world, and I can tell you why: it's full of human beings.

Transit without thinking: Suica and Pasmo Wednesday March 21

What a poor performance this website has shown recently. I've actually scribbled out a few posts in the past few weeks, but scrapped them for lacking content. No excuses.

Today's post regards possibly the best thing to come to Tokyo since I've gotten here.

On Sunday March 18th, private and city railways, the bus companies, and the JR railway corporations cooperated on the launch of the long-awaited Pasmo, an integrated system for riding buses, subways, trains, and monorails without ever taking a card out of your wallet. JR has had Suica for quite some time now, but because JR has to be difficult, it never worked on any of the subways (which is what I ride most frequently). Newer mobile phones contain circuitry to support RFID, the underlying technology for both Suica and Pasmo, and thus consumers can now purchase mobile phones that act as bus/train passes as well as electronic debit/wallet solutions.

You touch your card (or wallet, whatever) to the sensor for a second, it calculates everything for you.

It is now time to shortsell on the company that manufactures the magnetic tape that has been used for Japanese train tickets until now.

In a large metropolis, public transportation is a way of life, part of the culture, and an absolutely essential for the area itself. Certainly, things got interesting in New York City during the transit strike, but I don't recommend this as a general state of being for a large metropolis. I don't ever think such a strike could happen in Japan, anyhow.

Michael has often said that the logical solution to population issues is to have mega-dense, large population centers, and then turn the rest of the world into a natural wildlife reserve. I often think this is why he is yet again in Japan.

But true, when you think about the fact that I commute exactly 32 minutes to work every day door to door with an error of margin plus/minus one minute, I pay approximately $65 for this luxury monthly, and that I am contributing likely less than one-hundredth the energy consumption of a fossil fuel-based vehicle, one must wonder why it is that the United States is having such a difficulty getting away from cars.

Now, I don't even have to fiddle for change to get on the subway, either, I slap my wallet down on the pad and the gates open. I even have two cards in my wallet, one for work and one for personal. At the end of every month, any ticket terminal will print out a list of where I went, how much it cost, and the day -- everything I need to do my expense accounting. Life just got better. And there's no wasted ticket paper as there was before.

Sure, Japan still isn't a great country when you think about waste: it is the land of double, and sometimes triple, packaging. But at least they've figured out public transit.

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test Saturday December 9

My room was huge, and had four proctors. There was so much downtime in between sections of the test. Since I was up front, I entertained myself with the proctors. I imagined it like it was Pac-Man, as there were four of them, and they all had distinct personalities.

First, there was Hangover. I noticed him first. His face was red, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was ripe and ready to go for this Sunday morning test. As any good Japanese boy should, though, he held it in, and he gradually came around during the day. Someone got up early after the first section was done and left the room; he chased them down like a hawk. Either that, or he was running to the bathroom himself. Good work, Hangover.

Next was the Good Samaritan. She was nice, and she was clearly in charge of the operation. She counted all of the tests at the end to make sure no one had stolen any, and that they had recollected the proper number. She held up all the yellow/red cards during the explanation, and even added a nice plead right before the Listening section: "If your cell phone goes off during the Listening portion, you will fail the test, so please check once more that you have turned your phone's power off," in an earnest voice like she was almost worried she was going to have to give a red card, and really, really didn't want to.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, was Bootcamp. I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that Bootcamp spent all of Saturday training for Sunday (relay races, eating carrots to improve his eyesight, etc.).
He was up at 4:30am Sunday morning to get ready. He hates Koreans and Chinese people. He signed up to proctor the test to convince himself he doesn't hate Chinese and Korean people, and actually wants to help them. The truth of the matter is that he couldn't sleep Saturday night. He kept fantasizing nailing someone with a red card. I could see it on his face. This mug was taking the whole thing way too seriously.

Which made our final proctor, Eyecandy, a nice sight. She was distributing tests on my end of the room, and she was given the otherwise role of "stand here and do nothing; there is no work for you, but we were told we have to have four proctors, so just be here and look pretty". She did an excellent job of this, and right in front of me.

And, like Pac-Man, they all had their own tendencies: the Samaritan hung out up front; you could ignore her safely, Bootcamp was the tough guy, Eyecandy was almost out to help you cheat, and Hangover was easy enough but probably could give you a run if you weren't careful. Of course, none of this mattered, as I wasn't cheating. However, there was so much damn downtime between everything, and I was in the second row, that I had nothing better to do than imagine who all of these people really were. In fact, I played up on Bootcamp's seriousness and asked a question just to kill time before the exam.

Someone had requested to turn the air conditioning off despite the fact that the room was sizzling hot. I wore layers, so I just took a few off. Eyecandy was close by, so I raised my hand. She scurried over. "The best room temperature is more of a personal preference; if I get cold during the test, is it already to put my button-up shirt back on?" I asked, screwing around, but with a serious delivery.

She has no clue whether or not this is acceptable. She is only Eyecandy, after all. Bootcamp and the Good Samaritan were running the show, so she scurried back to them and asked, and the returned to me. "If that is the case, just make sure to raise your hand before you do so so we know you're not cheating," she answered while Bootcamp stared me down.

Way to go, Bootcamp.

At lunchtime the line at the 7-11 was literally out the door; I, too, had neglected to bring a lunch, but in an open pavilion at the University, Setagaya-ku was sponsoring a "Let's Not Forget Disabled People" event, which featured little stalls of, you guessed it, oden and yakisoba. There were a lot of wheelchairs there, so I overpaid for my oden. It only felt right to donate to a good cause, and to help raise awareness. It was damn good oden. For some reason, everyone else was waiting in a line out the door at the 7-11. I blame educational conditioning.

I returned before the reading/grammar section of the test to find everyone last-minute studying all of the grammar. The moment the tests were open, simultaneously everyone flipped past the reading and went straight for the grammar that they had spent lunch flipping over one last time. Overall, there was a feeling in the air; maybe Bootcamp set the tone, but I just couldn't help but think, "Aren't you all trying just a little too hard here? This is an aptitude test; either you know it or you don't?" But I see their point. Put it in right before the test, it's the first thing that comes out. Forget about long-term memory, much less learning anything. Everyone was so serious. Meanwhile, I kept my headphones on, rocking out, right up until each test started.

Ah well. This is ikkyu. What else do you want, right? A real measure of communication ability? Maybe I'll take JETRO next time.

直前対策 Sunday December 3

Today is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT); my roommate and I will both be taking the highest level (Level 1). Of course, the test itself is only 3 hours, but the organizers have found ways to insert breaks, lunches, and so on, and drag the whole thing out to almost a full day. It's morning now, and I'll be back at 4pm.

The roommate and I have both been taking past years' tests, and we've passed, so we're not too worried about it. Of course, there are always flukes and upsets, but it's not so much a matter of pass/fail as it is a matter of "will we beat out our coworkers and friends?" A healthy competition is always nice.

I won't know the results until next year, but it really doesn't matter. Even if I pass, it doesn't mean anything. I can write it on my resume and so on. True to the Japanese educational system, as long as you study what is on the test, you don't have to work too hard. As such, I don't think it really measures one's true ability to perform everyday life in Japan.

I can wait to be old Thursday November 30

Today I was not particularly a great day. It wasn't a bad day, but I have been stuck in a little bit of a rut this week at work; I feel that I am being stretched in nineteen orthogonal directions. This isn't that bad - I am used to dealing with a lot of information from all over the place -- but simply there are only so many hours in the day, and the lack of pure concentration time is affecting my ability to be proactive, as opposed to simply reactive. In my position, that is not desirable.

It's not my intention to talk about work, though. I spend approximately 11 hours a day thinking about work as it were; if I begin to make my blog about work-related affairs, I'll just become a moron whose life is their job, and I'd begin to lose touch with the values, ideas, and dreams that propel me to work in the first place.

I actually jotted down some notes during lunchtime yesterday about this phenomenon: so many people simply spend so much time working that they don't have time to enjoy anything else. Call me anti-establishment, but if you (even partially) remove yourself from the consumption cycle (work > paycheck > spending > no money > more work), it actually becomes quite easy to enjoy, well, everything. Like old people.

In my less-than-perfect mood, I boarded the Ginza line to go home. A seat opened up at Shinbashi, and I took it. At Toranomon, an old man got on. The bench I was sitting on was the priority seating, which is clearly marked and reserved for the elderly, expecting mothers, physically disabled, and so on. Well, for the group-think someone-else-will-do-it mentality prevailed, and no one made any effort to give this easily 80-year-old-plus man a seat. At the next stop (admittedly, I could have stood earlier, but the train does curve a lot), I got up and gave him my seat.

I don't expect a medal; these are the rules. It's written on the window of the train car. I don't care if I've had the worse day of my life; it's far easier for me to stand than an 80-year-old man. I currently enjoy my youth. I try to never take it for granted.

We both rode the train for four more stops to its terminal at Shibuya. I was buried in my headphones, and had more-or-less forgotten about the incident. Everyone began to get out when the doors opened, and I turned to leave, waiting on the passengers in front of me to get out first.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I turned back to the seat to see the man, now standing. He smiled, and in a very gentle voice said "thank you". I was a little embarassed, and said "you're welcome" before scurrying off. But I couldn't stop smiling.

It just felt really good to make that man smile. At 80 years old, I looked at him and saw my whole life in front of me. Hopefully, someday, I will be his age. And hopefully, at that age, someone will be kind to me, and I will thank them, and for that moment, we will yet again have faith in our fellow man: these are the moments that keep me going. For as much as we want to believe we are in our own worlds, our work, our families, our cars, and our lifestyles, we are but a large population of self-deceiving and deceived beings who have convinced ourselves that this thing or that thing is really more important than him or her.

Sure, if you can't eat, you may not agree -- but as my man Franklin said, you have to have some moderation.

Thanksgiving morning Thursday November 23

Last year, I was going to do something for Thanksgiving. There was talk of trying to find a turkey somewhere in Tokyo, or even just settling with making mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Somewhere between getting sick for most of November last year, school, and the darkening afternoons, I just put it off until the day had already passed, and then it naturally became another good idea conceived, but never executed.

This year, what is traditionally Thanksgiving in the United States (namely, the third Thursday of November) happens to fall on an otherwise Japanese holiday, so I am enjoying the day off today. Of course, tomorrow will be work again, so there's no Black Friday or related affair here. After moving, I have a much larger, and more well-equipped kitchen now, but there is still no oven to speak of.

Turkey is, as far as I can tell, out of my sights again this year. I looked online at a couple of restaurants and hotels that cater to homely types like myself: a good dinner runs at least $40 a head. Considering I'd be escorting a certain lady along, I'm searching to discover whether or not a half-hearted attempt at feeling like I am home is worth $100.

I'd much rather be making deviled eggs, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes here. But that doesn't seem very likely either, so we'll see.

Everyone together in the same boat: all alone Monday November 6

On days that I don't eat lunch as part of my job (i.e., with a candidate, discussing a job or an interview), I try as much as possible to bring a lunch to work with me. We're not allowed to eat lunch at our desk, and there's no microwave (for a reason), so that leaves me to things that can be eaten at room temperature.

Half-cooked egg with spinach and rice, cooked salmon and rice, pasta and spaghetti sauce leftovers, and so on. These are the normal things that dominate. They are easy to make, taste good, and I don't get sick of them.

Last week, though, I found some really nice looking tomatoes at the supermarket in Kanagawa. I don't usually buy tomatoes in Japan; they're expensive, and man, they're just tomatoes. Someday I'll go off on my tangent about Japanese fruits and their absurdity. So I had to buy these tomatoes, which were sitting conveniently next to nice heads of lettuce, also cheap.

Now, when you see lettuce and tomato together, I know you think the same thing I do: where is the bacon?

Today, I test-drove a new lunch idea: the saran-wrapped BLT sandwich. And it was everything I thought it would be: filling, healthy (kind of), and tasty. I liked it so much that I packed another one for tomorrow, and I plan on repeating this process until I run out of tomatoes, lettuce, or bacon. I may consider a cheese, lettuce, and bacon sandwich, as the tomatoes are running low.

I ate my new sandwich idea outside the building across the street; the weather was permitting and cool. A sandwich takes me about five minutes to devour, so this left me with about fifty minutes to kill. Coincidentally, I just received my registration card for the Japanese language proficiency test. I know that I need to study. So I went to the coffeeshop down the road to hit the books.

There are four coffeeshop chains near my work: (1) Renoir, which according to my girlfriend is no more than a yakuza front, (2) Starbucks, which charged me for the water I requested to accompany the scone that I legitimately bought last week, (3) Doutor, which offers the least portion for the most price, and (4) Cafe Veloce, and Italian-themed cafe that has the smoke to prove its authenticity.

I never go to Renoir. Yakuza front or not, the chairs are made for Japanese people. Tiny ones.

I have considered going back to Starbucks to complain to the manager about getting charged (130 yen, so $1) for water last week. Then I realized that would mean stepping foot in there ever again, and reconsidered.

I go to Doutor with coworkers because they like it, but I really think that the portions are small and it's expensive. I'm also cheap.

Cafe Veloce has the world's worst coffee. It is so over-roasted and steeped so dark that it's quite bitter. They go for that whole "Italian" thing, but fail at actually making good coffee. However, it's cheap, and more importantly, you can take a cup of it back to work, add half (literally half) a mug of hot water and have two normal cups of coffee. For the cheapest price in town. That's a deal. And face it, we all know it's not about the coffee. It's about the caffeine. It used to be about the coffee, but no one makes a good macchiato here.

So, I needed a table inside Veloce to study. But it was lunchtime, so every table was occupied, and myself and Random Salary Man were waiting for a table to open up. I was looking around for myself, but there was also a store employee searching out, wiping off, and indicating empty tables to the waiting customers.

Out of about 35 tables, most of them were filled by one person, despite the presence of two seats.

I turned to the employee who was showing people seats. She gave me this "I know you're still waiting after five minutes and I'm sorry so please just be patient and we will have a seat for you soon" look, expecting my displeasure at the wait. Instead I said this to her:

"After I get a seat, if there's someone waiting, I don't mind. Just bring them over and they can sit with me."

She acknowledged what I said, but I knew that no one was going to take me up on that. Tomorrow, I'm going to go in and break the rules. I think I'm just going to approach people until I find someone who doesn't mind me sitting across from them at the same table. It's not a sit-down-and-order type of place, so I should be able to get away with this.

Hopefully, someone will see me, and it will help drive home a point: why is it in a metropolis of thirty plus million people everyone would rather be living in their own separate worlds, shut away from the "noise" around them, as opposed to logically yielding a seat no one is using to someone who needs it. Everyone probably thinks that it'd be OK -- everyone's just too afraid to reach out and just talk to people.

It's one of the things that makes me sad about Tokyo. I see everyone all together, being alone.

Suicide, escape, or just an accident? Tuesday October 24

Yesterday, I had a brilliant day out with Yuiko. We took her golden retriever, Puffy (hey, I didn't name her!), to the park. We had some food, chilled out, and Yuiko helped me study for the upcoming Japanese proficiency test. It was a nice afternoon, but alas it started to drizzle. All three of us headed home as fast as we could; Puffy jogged next to the bicycle which I was pedalling. Yuiko rode on the cargo rack -- which she claims can usually get you a US$150 fine if you get caught by the police. I think she thinks too much about that kind of stuff. Sure, the police can legally give you that fine, but who does? They'd just say "stop it", at the very worst.

I mean, that's like a cop actually handing out a fine for jaywalking. Like that's ever happened.

After getting to Yuiko's place and putting Puffy back inside, Yuiko drove us to Chiba to visit Kara, who is now working at Ito-Yokado, the supermarket. In true "Japanese company" form, Kara has to work at the actual supermarket for two months before she can begin her real job in the head office of this company. Her real job is going to be regarding imports/exports, but for some reason she has to learn how to work at the service counter of the store, validating parking ticket receipts first.

This is Japan. I have a friend of a friend who works for JR, the national railway company. In the future he wants to be an accountant in the company or something, but to get to that point, you have to work your way up. He had to start as a ticket-checker. Now, his job is to drive the bullet train between Osaka and Tokyo, which I think is cool enough. He actually said it's not as cool as it sounds. The whole thing is computerized, so you just more-or-less just ensure smooth operation.

Yes, I know someone who drives the bullet train. You can stop being jealous now.

Anyway. After the supermarket, whereat Yuiko and I bought sushi to take home for dinner, we returned back and I met Yuiko's mom for the first time. I'm usually pretty good with parents, so smooth sailing there. I brought out the Japanese study book again and asked some questions that Yuiko wasn't able to answer (grammar no one uses except people over 30, but for some reason, I have to know it).

All of the pictures from all of this are posted.

I wanted to leave at 8:00pm so I could get home by 9:15pm, and go to bed. I wake up at 6:00am on Monday morning, so sleep is very important Sunday night. I had such a good time chatting, though, that I lost track of time. It got to be 8:45pm, and so Yuiko drove me to Kanamachi (her station) to go back to Yoyogi-koen (my station, forty minutes away, but on the same train line).

When we got to the station, though, she stopped short of the drop-off area and noted to me:

"Look at the train up there. It's not all the way down the platform, and it's not moving,"

"Huh,"

"And the lights in it are out," she added.

It was at this point that the ambulance and fire truck in front of the station became obvious to us.

"Did the train break down, I wonder?"

"Weird. I'll go check it out," I said, getting out of the van.

When I approached the station, though, I found that is was not that the train had broken down. It had stopped because there was an accident. Returning to the car, I reported this to Yuiko, and told her it seemed like they were going to start up again soon, so I was just going to wait. I went back to the ticket gate, and right as I was doing so, many of the firemen were coming down the escalator.

A sign indicating the delayOne of them had a large tarp, and he was holding it up in a way as if to block the large group of people waiting for the trains to start back up. It occurred to me at this point was he was doing: blocking the view of the other firemen, who were clearly carrying a stretcher to the ambulance. They didn't do a very good job of covering up, but as soon as I knew what they were doing, I looked away. The last thing I needed was a bad image in my head.

Someone had gotten hit by the train.

There was nothing left to do but go home, and the trains were about to start running again, so I bought my ticket and rode the escalator up to the platform. I sent Yuiko an e-mail to let her know that I had made it, and that I'd get home not too delayed.

The top of the escalator came out on the platform right in front of where the train was still stopped, lights out. Workmen were doing various things to make sure they could start the train again safely. "Like a bad accident", part of me wanted to look at the front of the train, and at the tracks. But I didn't; I turned towards the other direction and walked to the second car back, waiting.

After about five minutes, the conductor and the official-looking people finished talking, the conductor got on, the train lit up, and then he blew the horn. It was deep, and slow. The train then lurched forward suddenly, and proceeded slowly about 50 meters to its normal stopping place on the platform.

The doors slid open, and the 100 or so of us that had been waiting got on. 100 people in a train of 12 cars doesn't really take up much space, and everyone sat, about ten to a car. No one really said anything. The train departed, amidst the conductor's repeated annoucements on the PA telling us they were so sorry to make us wait.

I just knew that that person had died, and I must say that riding in the train that had killed the person was a very, very strange feeling. Amplified by the silence of the passengers, no one doing anything. Amplified by the noise of the tracks, and the normal noise of the engine that we usually all tune out without a thought.

After one station, they announced that the train would cease operation at the next station, and we'd all have to move across the platform to another train. Which I was absolutely fine with.

When I finally made it home at 10:45p, it was pouring rain, and I didn't have an umbrella. I hailed a cab.

Waking up this morning, I checked was I was already sure of: a 67-year-old man had fallen in front of the train at 8:39pm last night, and he was run over and killed. I sent a link for the story to Yuiko. I told her it was a good thing I didn't end up leaving her place on time. Death is all around us, that may be for sure. But if I had been twenty minutes earlier, I would have witnessed it. I am grateful that I did not. I don't need that image to haunt me.

Suicide, accident, escape. Who knows. Suicide is common, mostly due to people who have money problems. Due to Japanese law though, if you owe a lot of money and kill yourself, that doesn't save your family. Hopefully that man died alone, if that was it.

My thoughts are with the people who may have been on the platform next to him. I could have been one of them, and I know I don't need the emotional stress of witnessing such an event.

Thinking before you speak always helps Saturday October 7

Last night, my friend Takashi invited me to a goukon, an interesting Japanese invention where a male friend and a female friend assemble equal numbers of people, and then you get everyone together. It is, in short, a mixer.

Despite having a girlfriend, Takashi requested that I participate to give the evening an "international" flair; one of the girls there was Taiwanese (i.e., non-native Japanese), and I guess that was part of the the gig. It's just a fun way to meet people, and despite the even numbers of men and women, there's no particular reason that one cannot participate despite being involved. Plus, I cleared it ahead of time, so.

The venue was the famed, yet underground, bar in Naka-meguro Emily at IUC used to talk about. This self-proclaimed "ping-pong lounge" is really an apartment, but it appears as if they gutted the walls between rooms, added lighting, and turned it into a gigantic living room (with a ping pong table in the center). To top it all off, since the front looks like an apartment, you have to ring a chime to get in, and they more-or-less "verify" your identity. I am still not sure whether this place is licensed or not, so maybe I shouldn't even be writing about it.

Nonetheless, we had some great food, and I learned some new words.

And then I had a little too much red wine. Now, I'm not saying I got really drunk. That's not it at all. But when I drink red wine, I start to talk. More than I already do. The Taiwanese girl made the mistake of asking me about my thoughts on something, or rather, maybe she didn't, but I wanted to say something, and I found myself making a five minute monologue on why I think the existence of "nation states" in the modern world works against peace.

I don't think the idea is ridiculous at all; I would love to discuss the point, actually, with anyone who wants to take me up on it. The issue was that I was speaking in Japanese, and I was speaking at an event where everyone was having fun, talking about light subjects, and being quite relaxed. I was out of my element.

Sure, I wasn't worked up in a bad way; it's not like I was angry at anything. But after five minutes, I realized there was no good way to resolve my monologue. I, myself, didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. I was just talking. The two other people at the time were kind enough to listen, but it then bothered me for the rest of the night that I had spoken so outwardly without having a resolved point.

Thinking before you speak always helps, especially in a foreign language.

A real weekend Sunday September 24

I had my first real, true, absolute weekend. You see, since the beginning of August, I have spent every weekend looking for apartments, looking at apartments, visiting realtors, deciding apartments, packing things, moving things, moving things, moving things, moving even more things, and then cleaning the old joint that I haven't taken a full weekend to just do, well, whatever.

So long, in fact, that I think I had forgotten how to take a whole day to myself, doing either nothing, or only doing the things I wanted to do on the spur of the moment. My work is anything but routine, but my hours are. This is what it means to work at an office. When I was doing freelance work, I made my own hours. True, there were times that I'd do nothing and enjoy a sunny afternoon. There were also times where I'd work overnight to finish a key functionality.

I view routine as killer because it makes time seem to go fast. We have but short lives on this planet, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anything make my already-short life feel even shorter.

However, at the same time, there are some things that I want to achieve very much, and I am confronted with the reality that routine practice is the only thing that will allow these things to come to fruition. Let us take "sit-ups" as an example. Or "kanji". Two things I wish I did more of. I will shoot the first commenter to suggest that I study kanji while doing sit-ups.

Anyway, I didn't really get anything done this weekend. Sure, I did the essentials: laundry, dried out my futon, made a killer Saturday-morning breakfast. But that's not the point.

The point is that for two months, "moving" was my project. I couldn't rest because there was always something to do for the big "move". Now that the move is out of the way, I spent a weekend with time to myself. I went to Denny's (which is good in Japan).

At Denny's, I pulled out my notebook, and I began to write the things that I want to do. I'd like to keep in better touch with my friends; this is something I've been poor at since starting my job. I want to write on this blog more; another thing I've let fall to the side at times. I want to pass the first-level Japanese language test this December. In an ideal world, I'd have washboard abs.

I had a little deal with Yuiko last month: she was cracking jokes at the expense