Japan in the News

So The New York Times and The Washington Post have come out with some articles on Japan recently. Thought I'd share. The amusing one is the crow one-- the others...well, not so amusing, but interesting. They provide insight into a fascinating country that in so many ways is different from America. And while posting these articles may seem like I'm trying to cast Japan in a negative light, that definitely is not the case. I just see, especially in the last two articles, a country and people that I love deteriorating...

Japan Fights Crowds of Crows
A true clash of the civilizations. I wonder where PETA weighs in on this. Some of my personal favorite quotes from this article:

• "They [the crows] are trying to outfox us."
• “We are not sure sometimes who is smarter, us or the crows.”
• “In the old days, crows and humans could live together peacefully, but now the species are clashing. All we really want to do is go back to that golden age of co-existence.”
  

This Mob is Big in Japan
Unfortunately, organized crime is huge in Japan. The Japanese are so intent on maintaining a harmonious society that they tolerate it; they would rather have controlled crime at the hands of a few organized groups than a bunch of random crimes committed by a lot people. If I would have known how violent they truly were, I guess I wouldn't have been so mouthy as a 20-year old when I ran into the guys with tattoos and 9 1/2 fingers...

Suicides in Japan
I had a friend in Japan whose job with the railway company was to find and gather the remains of people who had thrown themselves in front of trains.

To be honest, I'm just posting these for my own reference later.

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'Asian' v. 'Oriental'

I returned a missed call from my good friend Nartker a couple of weeks back. He had a question that he categorized as "a little embarrassing, now that you've called me back." He wanted to know my feeling on the usage of 'Asian' as opposed to 'Oriental'; I guess his old man was had been using 'orientals.' Was one more offensive than the other? Nartker felt that 'oriental' was reserved for food, but not race.

This has been a disputed topic at the annual big meetings since the 1967 San Francisco Incident, but no consensus has been reached.

To illustrate my stance on the topic, I told Nartker a high school experience of mine that irrevocably changed me. One day during my Sophomore year, I walked into Chemistry and all of the students were grinning at me expectantly, as if they had been waiting for me to walk in and start a party. I looked at the blackboard at the front of room and found out the reason why. In Mr. Lemberg's chalkmanship: "If you spin Josh around in circles, does he become dis-oriented?" (emphasis added)

(Keep in mind that this teacher was the king of horrible puns. When the Science Olympiad team went to Chicago to compete in nationals, we were driving alongside Lake Michigan and my best friend, who had a yacht-detailing business at the time, was staring in amazement at the lake and said out loud: "Dude, check out all those ferries..." Mr. Lemberg turned around angrily in the driver's seat and said in a stern voice: "JARRAD." There was an awkward pause as we tried to figure out what had him so upset. He said: "...I think they prefer the term 'homosexuals.' " Hilarious.)

Anyway. Back to the story that deeply affected my life. It was an ACLU-fueled lawsuit waiting to happen. I could have sued his labcoat-wearing, chemical-mixing, bunsen-burner lighting butt.

But I could have cared less. It was a good pun. Mr. Lemberg and I had a good rapport and we all got a good laugh about it and started class. So I guess nothing really came of it, and I just felt like telling Nartker a funny story.

Through a bit of discussion, Nartker and I concluded off of our gut instincts that 'Oriental' felt a little old-fashioned, like something pre-20th century straight from the Opium War or something. We concluded 'Asian' sounded more correct for our time and age. But then again, we're not experts.

Speaking of experts...Are there any on this topic?

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Life Experiences to Music

I've been thinking about quitting my job and chasing my dreams; of going into the studio and pounding out that rap album that I've always had bouncin around in my head...

...trading my inheritance for a bowl of porridge? Not quite. But close.

But honestly, if anyone has listened to a rap album all the way through, characterizing it as 'formulaic' or 'unoriginal' is a Battlefield Earth understatement (with incredibly rare exception). What do rappers do on rap albums, you ask? Subject matter is usually confined to these or similar life experiences:

1. Drugs, combined with expensive alcohol and/or malt liquor;
   
2. The 'heat' [guns] they 'pack' [carry on their person];
3. Women and how easy it is to find them;
4. How many people from rival gangs they've shot/times they've been shot by rival gangs;
5. The cars they own;
6. Protecting turf;
7. Dislike for and willingness to stand up to cops;
   
8. Any combination of the above can make for a decent track
   

Simple, right? I mean, all I have to do is follow this equation, maybe chant my own name a few times, come up with a catch phrase or two, and I'm set for life. That's why I think I got this down pat.

Problem is, I think I lack the requisite life experiences to make a rap album.

I suppose the only thing I can do is take the most comparable life experiences that I have and throw them into the mix. Here are the closest personal parallels I could come up with for the above outline:

1. Besides an affinity for certain smells that may or may not cause a bit of a "high," the closest I'm going to get is a restrained like for Nyquil.
   
2. One time at the BB gun range at Cub Scout camp, I shot and destroyed the clothespin that was holding up my paper target -- three times! One of the counselors called me "dangerous" and "out of control."
3. At my first boy-girl birthday party in 1st grade, one of the girls spent the whole time chasing and trying to kiss me. She was too slow to catch yours truly.
   
4. Rye and I played paintball against some 10 year olds once. I think it's fair to say that we lit those punks up.
   
5. I drive a '97 Honda Civic. It has a CD player and two cupholders; no modifications.
6. When I get home from work and someone is parked in the spot closest to my door, I get semi-annoyed, but don't do anything about it.
   
7. I got my first traffic ticket the other day. I promptly did exactly what the officer told me to and threw in a lot of "Yes, sir" 's as a show of good faith.
   

Maybe I'll hold off on booking studio time and space.

For now.

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How I Ended Up with a B.A.

A lot of people talk about "defining moments" in their lives; where it all became clear and they made a critical decision, turned their life around, [insert optimistic fluff]

I can point to a couple of those in the route I chose to take in my college education. I mean, how did a kid that did Knowledge Bowl [Captain my senior year] and Science Olympiad in high school, and seemed destined for some sort of hard science degree in college (not to mention the obvious-- Asian!), end up with a liberal arts degree?

Two anecdotes.

I had a great friend in high school, Warren, who was one of the popular kids. His only quirk was that he was a serious conspiracy theorist. I'm talking "Big Brother is out to get me" -type stuff; he had read all kinds of books. One day he came with me to my computer networking job (like I said: nerd) because he wanted to see what I did. Apparently, I did something to impress him...although I didn't know until later the extent.

I walked into class the next day and a mutual friend of ours, Neil, came right up to me.

-"Dude, you'll never believe what happened with Warren in CWP (Current World Problems) last period."
-"What'd he do this time?"
-"We got onto some topic and everybody was yelling back and forth the room at each other. This went on for a couple of minutes and in the middle of it all, Warren stands up and yells: 'It's not going to matter. You want to know why?! Because when we grow up, and Josh D [we'll leave my last name out of this] owns all of you, you're all going to be nothing but a bunch of barcodes. So you'd better get used to it!' It was unreal. The class was speechless."

So was I.

-"...So, Josh. When you take over the world, I've got a spot as a favored minion, right?"
-"Uh, sure, Neil. Yeah."

I decided then and there that if I continued on my nerd/science track, I would end up being a dictator. I wasn't going to let that happen. That set the stage for my complete break with science. The complete break would come a few years later.

*****

I took Chem 105 my sophomore year at BYU. While I don't doubt the professor's PhD status (ok, I sometimes do), our ability to learn was severely hindered by his completely Battlefield Earth teaching. Almost every single concept he "taught" to us could, in his mind, be demonstrated by blowing up a hydrogen balloon at the end of class. Apparently explosions and mayhem are really solid, proven pedagogical techniques. Demonstration of the Law of Entropy? Redox reactions? Only thing I remember about these concepts is explosions. My roommate who had class in the same room after mine would be waiting for me afterwards, and as I walked out he would just say, "Another hydrogen balloon today, huh?" It was like witnessing the Hindenburg go down 12 times in a single semester.

One day in this class we were discussing electron clouds and orbits. The dialogue between the professor and a student went something like this:

-"Professor X [no, sorry "X-Men" fans...the "X" is for purposes of anonymity], the textbook says that the orbit is where the electron has a 99.99% chance of being."
-"That's correct."
-"So where is it the other 0.01% of the time?"
-"It could be anywhere, really. The room next door, Mars, another solar system..." I remember slamming my chemistry textbook shut. Science sure does a great job of explaining things. "...now if you'll allow me to demonstrate with this balloon. Could somebody turn off the lights...?"

I think that could be the defining moment when I gave up on science.

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My Dual Identity

In most of the movies based on superheroes, part of the entertainment is the superhero trying to live his separate lives -- no, I did not forget to type 'his/her' for political correctness...the last girl superhero movie I heard of (important note: I did not see it) was 'Catwoman,' and good luck building any argument that you want to win around that movie. He has a dual identity: Trying to fit in with the normal world doing a normal job, while also trying to do some good using his powers AND keeping it all a secret on top of it. Sound stressful?

I've got a little dual identity of myself going on. I'm half-white, half-Japanese; a hapa. Except in my case, unlike those pansy superheroes that get stressed out so easily, I use it to my advantage. It's all in my choice of words when identifying myself, and it boils down to using in-group ('our,' 'we,' 'my own,' etc) or out-group ('their,' 'you,' 'those people' etc) words.

Huh??

My explanations suck, I know. Let me give some examples to illustrate.

Last week some friends and I went to an open mic poetry reading in downtown DC. It was fairly entertaining, but racially charged at times-- the audience/poets were probably 80-90% black, and some of them had unkind things to say about oppression and thievery taking place at the hands of white people. I can't speak for my six white friends sitting at the table with me, but the white half of me started to slouch in my booth seat. If anyone had asked at that time, I would have identified myself with "my people" (the Asians) and if anyone mentioned white people I would have said "...I know, the nerve of those people..."

The flip side to that is, if I'm watching TV and a Japanese game show like "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" or "Human Tetris" comes on, I always say something like "They are ridiculous! What are those people thinking?!"

Thus I am able to detach myself from my Asian connections and conveniently become white-- at least until whiteness does something to embarrass me or make me uncomfortable. Which it inevitably does. It's a relentless, volatile cycle, and requires quick adaptation on my part.

The list goes on: "What is wrong with you white people? We Asians would never do that" "Oh man, those Asians and their picture-taking. I'm glad we don't embarrass ourselves like that." So on and so forth.

People have called me out on this before. Is it spineless? I don't like to look at it that way. I prefer to call myself a "racial chameleon" who is practicing "racial opportunism" and "selective self-identification."

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A Quick Postal Anecdote

I walked into the Post Office the other day to mail some stuff.

(Of course I was mailing stuff when I went to the Post Office. Don't mind me. I'm a moron.)

I hadn't been in there for more than a minute when a guy came right up to me, held up a pen, and matter-of-factly said: "Here's your pen. Thanks for letting me use this." He seemed quite certain that I had lent him the pen.

I was quite certain that I hadn't.

"I'm sorry, this isn't my pen."

Now finding myself curious as to who he could have confused me with, I watched the man as he took the pen back and began scanning the room for the owner. I really should have guessed it beforehand; I knew it as soon as that look of recognition swept across his face and I saw who he was looking at. He crossed the room and handed the pen to the actual owner-- the other Asian man that happened to be there. When he saw me with a resigned smirk on my face, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say "well, you do look alike."

I don't see why I can't get away with this when I don't recognize a white person that I'm supposed to at church.

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My Mom Shigeko

This is crazy family / friends' birthday period for me. I promise I will get back to the guiding principles of this blog (sarcasm and-- well, I guess I should reword that as 'guiding principle') in due time.

My mom's (affectionately known by my friends by her first name, 'Shigeko' -- something I would never actually call her to her face) birthday is 5 May -- that's right, Cinco de Mayo. Which really would be a source of even more ethnic pride to me, only she is not Mexican, and neither am I. She is Japanese. We'll just chalk it up to the 1 in 365 chance that her birthday would fall on 5 May and leave it at that, I suppose.

I can not do this justice here, but I can give you the tip of the iceberg.

With some help, mom (along with pops, of course) played the largest role in raising me. For that I will always be grateful and indebted. Some of my first distinct memories were of mom sitting down with me and teaching me to do math -- surprise surprise -- and read. She wanted me to receive an education because she knew I would have opportunities growing up that she did not. She wanted me to succeed, and, like other Parents that I have, saw (and continues to see) potential in me that I lose sight of myself sometimes.

Mom was called as Relief Society President in my teen years. She probably doesn't know this, but it's watching her serve in that calling with total dedication and love for the people she had stewardship over that taught me the most about charity and truly caring for those around us. When I would get frustrated as a missionary in Japan, those unintentional lessons gave me perspective. Mom's courage to be the first member of the Church in her area of Japan as a teenager encouraged me to see each person I talked to in Japan as someone that had the same potential as my mom. That always gave me hope.

She is an excessive spoiler of grandchildren (and me, according to my sisters), a fixer of many of my various problems, service-oriented, a dedicated educator, a do-it-all stay-at-home wife/mom, a great listener, and a constant encourager.

Most importantly, mom tells me what I need to hear, especially when she knows it's not necessarily what I want to hear. Frustrating to me sometimes, but stepping back from it all, that is one of the truest signs of love that I will ever know of.

Thanks for everything, mom! Hope you have a great birthday.

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