Joining the pack…

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost a year now. It was originally written when I was living in Japan, and it was meant to go down a different road… Oddly, it seems to have come back into relevance, so I’m editing it to fit my desired theme and running with it:

If there’s one thing you notice when you first hit Japan, it’s that you stand out like a sore thumb. In this case, I’m not refering to the fact that I’m a 6′4″ anglo-european guy and was living in a country populated by predominantly 5′6″ asian people, but rather to the fact that I didn’t have a cell phone. Don’t get me wrong - I knew life without my cellphone would be bad. But this was seriously like having an arm cut off. Or possibly like discovering that all Santa’s left you for Christmas is a lump of coal and some socks (that’re really from Aunt Polly - but let’s face it, as a kid you don’t know what came from where). It’s that bad. So within the first week, I was off to Ikebukuro with a friend to get my very own 携帯電話. That’s cell phone for those of you who don’t speak the lingo. This happened again when I got back from Japan, too. In Japan, at least, many of my friends didn’t have cell phones either. In the US, I was the only one out of contact.

I recently rediscovered this unpleasant situation during the minor crisis I had with my laptop. I got it back Wednesday and was informed - to my utter horror - that “nothing is wrong with it”. That’s the kiss of death with troubleshooting computer problems, in layman’s terms it translates to “We have no idea what’s wrong, but we’re glad it’s not our problem anymore!” Fortunately, I’m a tech-savvy person and was able to fix the problem. Backed up a lot of my stuff, too - just in case. For one evening, though, I stared long and hard into the abyss and pondered the implications of an immediate future without my laptop. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

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Thoughts on Beginnings and Ends

When I first created this blog (a year ago this week!), I was facing a pretty hefty beginning. I was leaving my native country for the first time to live abroad in a (not so) strange land and, lured by the apparent fame of travel and personal bloggers whose every spare thought is deemed credible by their legions of readers, I had high hopes for chronicling every detail of it.

As much as my time abroad was definitely a beginning, it was also an end. While the actual experience of studying abroad was far from the life-changing experience it’s touted to be (hence the lack of deep, insightful posts while there?), the time I spent there and the time I spent building up to that experience did change me. I began to spend slightly less time online, preferring to talk to people in “real life” instead; I began focusing more on “getting out there” and “experiencing my environment”; and most important of all, I made the decision to be more honest and open with the people around me.

I thought about that decision tonight as I waved goodbye and yelled after her, “Call me if you’re back early on Sunday!” She yelled back that she would as she crossed the street and entered campus proper. The girl in question and I have been friends since day one - the first day of freshman year. There was a time when we saw each other almost every day. Lately, though, with a plethora of excuses like “increased workload”, “job hunting” and “hectic schedules”, we’ve found it harder and harder to make the time. This sort of dodging defines our relationship - or at least my side of it. There have been times when I hoped we might become more than just friends, and times when I knew things would never work out if we were.

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Japanese Television

Sometimes the things they put oN Japanese TV make me wonder about Japan… This iS one oF them. I’m not going to tell you What’s going on here, but you’ll be able to figure it out eventually…

Blast from the (not-so-distant) past?

So I have a sticky on my desktop. I created this sticky back when I was in Japan and was too busy to actually post things on this blog. We all remember those times, right? Oh irony of ironies - a dry spell during the period in which the blog was actually supposed to be used.

Not that I’ve gotten around to finishing the blog since then… That’s another thing that’s on the list for “after I outrun real life”.

In the interests of getting that list of links off my desktop, this post will cover the basics.

First off: “You know you’ve been in Japan too long when…”. While I don’t really like the Author’s site, I did (and still do) find myself doing many of the things he describe. Perhaps the rest would have come with more time?

Second: Arudou Debito’s view of the word “Gaijin” and its connotations. Debito is… Unique. From what I’ve read of his work, he tends to take things VERY personally. He also seems to have some kind of “manifest destiny” complex. I agree completely that Japan is discriminatory and two-faced about the question of so-called “Japanese Superiority”, and to be honest I agree with the principle that countries allowing naturalization of foreigners have an obligation to afford those citizens equal rights. Debito’s actions, however, show a flagrant disrespect for Japanese cultural norms and a serious misunderstanding of the Japanese world-view. He’s treating Japan like his own private US, while waving the “I have a right to live wherever I want and to all my rights wherever I am!” card as much as possible (any one else notice how the first thing he does when he hits something he doesn’t like is run to the US consulate?). News flash, Debito - that’s an AMERICAN ideal. According to the Japanese, you really don’t… Who are you to say they’re wrong?

But I digress. His comments about “Gaijin” vs “Gaikokujin” follow similar patterns, though. I mean - I know I can’t really talk about the long-term effects of “Gaijinism” given the short duration of my stay, but I think he once again misunderstands Japanese culture. I mean - granted, it IS technically a form of racism, but the Japanese don’t see it that way. They see it as distinguishing “in” from “out” verbally. It’s not really racism in the way we Americans use it so much as it’s Xenophobia, nationalism, and lingering isolationism. Part of the Japanese worldview seems to be an ever-present sense of “being Japanese”, and to the extent that the word is used to satisfy this part of the worldview, yes an indian in India can be “gaijin” in his own country to a Japanese tourist. I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong except to the American way of seeing things. My problems with the word arise when it’s used to foster genuine racism or when it fails to recognize naturalized Japanese citizens as part of the “in” group - I feel the distinction is important.

Third:

I laughed about this one for like… 30 minutes. It’s so true, too. All my friends - and I DO mean all my friends - have Macs now. So much for the “underdog”. Apple’s gone and become the NEW evil empire. Then I found this one:

Which is just plain awesome. Fourth (And I had to dig for this link…): The Defense Ministry’s moved to using manga to explain their defense policies. Apparently the whole idea of a Defense Ministry and defending themselves is so new to the Japanese that they need pictures to help them understand?That was a low blow. I actually think the manga is a pretty creative idea. America could probably use some of that kind of creativity.Also in the Wai-Wai section of Mainichi (albeit this week) comes these gems:
-Japan’s Celebrity Cannibal
-Deep thoughts on sex and gender from the Japanese
-Said thoughts seem to be a theme this week…

Fifth: More crazy “news”. That’ll show ‘em kid. Especially when they mix it into EVERYONE’S salad, and you wind up answering the age old question “how do I taste?”

Sixth: Summertime in Japan. Guess they really DO like crowding? Sub-headline: “Hundreds die as the ‘Baby Ruth in the pool’ trick turns deadly…”

Seventh: Apparently you really CAN live in the mall. This guy did. What does that say about mall security that they didn’t notice him dragging a kitchen hutch into the bowels of the mall? It’s not like he could have asked them to deliver it there.

Finally: I think I meant to read these two and never got around to it. Someone want to give me spark notes? They look interesting… For all you history buffs out there.

Aren’t you glad I’m done? Me too.

Oh, so THAT’S what my life is like…

It was determined several years ago that if my life were a movie, its title would be “Superhero: The Exposition Phase” . You know - that awkward period in any comic or Superhero story where we’re getting to know the hero before the accident that gives him/her his/her amazing abilities?

Seeing this, though (albeit for the second time…) makes me wonder if I don’t somehow have it all wrong? Maybe it should be “SuperVillain: The Quiet Life Before a Tragic Accident Phase”?

Next-Gen Phones…

Click this link for another example of why the US makes me cry about the fact that I have to deal with its cell phone providers.

In Japan, my 3500 yen a month (about 28 dollars maybe?) got me unlimited e-mails, 40 minutes of calling (more than I needed in Japan - trust me), and something like 5000 text messages. There was a 3100 yen cancellation fee, a 3500 yen activation fee, and a nice new-model phone (albeit one without the “latest” features - still better than current US features) cost me 1 yen. The charger cost me 980 yen, which sucked, but they threw in an alarm clock, 2 cotton puffs, 2 packets of tissues, 2 packages of band-aids, 2 cell-phone straps, and 2 packages of Q-tips. Any thing incoming - calls, texts, e-mails, you name it - was free.

In the US, I have to pay $39.99 for 600 minutes a month (more than enough…), with some ridiculous “night and weekend” variance which activates at inconvenient times tacked on for little apparent reason, and I have to pay $4.99 a month for 400 text messages (incoming OR outgoing), and another $5.99 for the privilege to use their ridiculous “web browser”, which can’t even check my e-mail like I wanted it to. The only upshot this time is that, after 3 weeks of wrangling at them, I managed to get a nice phone for “free” with a $50 rebate. I might point out that the interface on this phone, unlike that of my Japanese phone, is ridiculously counter-intuitive, and the camera is 2nd-rate.

I miss Japan.

The next-gen phones in the link above… Especially the one that looks like a glass pebble… Wow. Just wow. I mean - I have no idea how well the interface works, but if the ease with which the iPhone seems to work is any indication, touch interfaces are the wave of the future indeed. I’m especially liking the use of a touch interface to replace the dialing pad because of the ability to swap out that pad for more useful interfaces when you’re not calling someone.

My only reservation, really, is about whether the touch pads will be resilient enough to handle the abuse people heap on their phones. The people I know who have iPhones are treating them like a new porsche - that is to say, they’re only driving them when they have to, and they’re doing their best not to scratch them - and as a consequence it’s hard to see just how resilient they really are…

The Updated Toy List

Click “Read the rest of this entry…” for an updated summary of my geekiness.

May god have mercy on my soul.

Site Updates coming soon…

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