Japanologist

Getting Busy

2006-11-11T19:08:00.000+09:00

Huge fucking news. Game Crush made the front page of digg twice yesterday and we got over 10,000 visitors. Lots of people really, really hate me now too. Haha, also I'm on the front page of this site here: CS Nation

If you check the site out, everything is really starting to pick up, although I feel we haven't even hit our stride yet. Expect a lot more awesomeness to happen. I've got new interviews, new shit-talking, and a whole lot more stuff in the pipe, so check early and check often: http://www.game-crush.com

Welcome Back, America

2006-11-08T18:32:00.000+09:00

With the Democrats firmly in control of the House once again, and a close Senate race that I am hopeful will end in favor of the Democrats, the first in a series of strategic victories have been accomplished. However, it is not enough to be complacent with these victories. Instead, we must all take steps to ensure that the lessons of the past 6 years of negligence are learned, and learned well.

Periods of crisis tend to cast a harsh light on the mechanisms of governance that gave rise to them. It is by this light that the true failings of that mechanism can be seen. During the OJ Simpson trial, for instance, the politicization of the justice system and issues of race were clearly the culprits in a broken criminal justice process. Similarly, the past 6 years have been plagued by a number of crises, each with a lesson for us to learn.

The Iraq war was sold to an unwilling public on false grounds. The intelligence leading up to the invasion was incomplete, the planning was insufficient, and the public was fed complete lies as to it's execution. Originally sold as a war that would merely take a couple weeks, despite clear projections to the contrary, we are now looking at, by some estimations, 655,000 dead and, by all estimations, a political quagmire that has greatly tarnished the image of America throughout the world. Never again can we allow ourselves to take lightly the notion of going to war with another nation, nor can we give our political leaders a free pass to blatantly lie, manipulate us with fear, and commit criminal acts without being held accountable.

As scientific progress has again and again come into jeopardy due to the politicization of such issues as the teaching of evolution and stem-cell research, we clearly saw the way a decision-making body with less than even a rudimentary understanding of the field of study at stake was able to hinder scientific development. We must police ourselves to ensure that the roles of religion and political propaganda are kept separate from the scientific research that will fuel industry decades down the line, and that the proper education of our children is protected, ensuring that future generations of Americans will be prepared to compete in the world economy.

Finally, as voting scandals, smear campaigns, and bald-faced fraud have been commited in the past few elections, we as American citizens must make one thing very, very clear to the government that we allow to make decisions for us. Regardless of which side of the issue you fall on, the mechanisms of democracy are never an acceptable loss in advancing your own agenda. We've seen corporations such as Diebold provide grossly insecure voting systems, throwing the entire election process into disarray. We've seen Fox News mislabel unpopular Republicans as Democrats. There have been caging campaigns, disenfranchisement of voters in Democratic districts, and robo-calling campaigns to trick Democratic voters into thinking their own party leaders have been calling them over and over again in the middle of the night. These factors need to be removed from the equation. Corporate interests cannot be allowed to disassemble what we have worked so hard to build throughout our history. Blatant fraud cannot be allowed. The lies cannot go unexposed any longer.

In the coming years, we must not allow partisan politics to see these crises as anything other than what they truly are, horrific negligence. History must remember the Iraq war, the 2000 and 2004 elections, and the "Intelligent Design" campaign as examples of things that have gone horribly wrong in our society. We cannot forget these lessons. Changing our government to ensure that these problems do not happen again will not be easy, but the crises we have faced have thrown light onto them, and by examining those crises in profile, the solutions will present themselves. We must be free and democratic in acknowledging and repairing our own failures. I want to be proud to be an American once more.

digg it

Green Amnesia: A Walk Through Harajuku

2006-11-03T18:13:00.000+09:00

I know everybody has been patiently waiting for the second part of my Korea post, it's on the way soon! I had an interesting day yesterday though, so I just wanted to give everybody a little walkthrough. Days like yesterday are the reason why I really like living in Japan.

Saturday afternoon, around 1pm, the doors on the Yamanote train open, but nobody gets off. I'm forcing myself between the bodies, until I've managed to wedge myself into a roughly human-shaped space in the packed train. Bent uncomfortably at the waist, I have no choice but to try to balance myself awkwardly with two fingers on a metal bar whenever the train shudders or knocks me sideways.

I'm on my way to Harajuku to shop for some clothes. You've probably heard of it if you've read about Japan. If not, you've at least seen pictures of it. Images such as these generally originate there:

Harajuku is a center of Tokyo youth culture, and in Japan, that means fashion. In this case, that it's a variety of shops selling clothes that vary from the full costume dress seen above to cheap and used items, like jewelery mass-produced in China or Korea. Many Japanese adults are quick to distance themselves from Harajuku culture, but it is the center of movements such as the Visual Kei culture, and it is an icon of Japaneseness to the international world.

The train makes a stop at Shibuya, one of the most popular destinations on the line. A mass exodus occurs, and I am forced to step out of the train to let people past me. I climb back on, and the train, although actually still standing room only, feels absolutely empty to me. I am relieved to be able to stand up straight again. Nearby, I notice a couple. They appear to be in their early 30's, and very well dressed. With one arm the man is holding onto a pole to steady himself and with his other arm he's holding up his partner against the movements of the train while she plays the new Super Mario game on her Nintendo DS. I assure you, it is as completely adorable as it sounds.

The train stops, the voice from the platform says "Harajukuuuuu, Harajuku," and I climb down onto the platform. I exit the station and this view greets me from immediately across the street:

Navigating the crowds again doesn't appeal to me so much at this point, so I turn around and head in the other direction, towards where the Goth-Loli's usually like to play dress-up.

As I head towards Harajuku's famous bridge, I see more and more foreign faces. Harajuku is a popular tourist spot, mainly due to it's atmosphere of a twisted fashion show. Here, the cuteness that is Japan's stock in trade is juxtaposed with horror. In the name of fashion, Harajuku's rapidly evolving cultural landscape is often host to images ranging from the classically self-destructive, such as the symbolic mutilation of piercing and tattoos, to the co-opting of historical artifacts of terror, such as nazi uniforms or the swastika. This is costume play though, and the symbols, divorced of their underlying philosophies, are harmless. They are worn for effect, but this is really just shock as a fashion trend. Besides, being in Japan has long since disabled my outrage reflex, so I am content to enjoy the show.

As I step onto the bridge, I am assaulted by a Japanese group singing to promote their band. My headphones are drowned out, so I linger a bit to hear what these two are about. Perhaps under a lot of pressure, they seem uncomfortable as they fight to convert the small crowd into fans, one at a time.

I'm not that interested in their style. I move on across the bridge. Tourists are taking pictures of the assembled cosplayers, and I am envious. I want to take pictures as well, but I'm embarassed to look like another foreigner fresh off the plane. Within my head though, an argument is won, and I decide to indulge my inner tourist. Resolved to get some pictures, I scan the assembled fauna. I select two particularly exotic specimens, surrounded by a group of admirers. Somewhat abashed, I ambush my quarry and attack them with my rapid-fire request for pictures. I accidentally startle them, but without actually looking at me even once, their admirers fall away and the default peace-sign pose is assumed. I have my picture.

As I step off of the bridge, the music from the singers fades, and the first hesitant notes of the song Green Amnesia begin whispering in my ear. The concrete and steel break open and a little piece of forest appears, welcoming, before me. Unexpectedly, the gate among the trees and the music and the feeling all become uniquely mine. I am alone among many, exploring my own personal Japan. I cross the threshold of the forest, and the moment holds for six minutes and thirty-six seconds, as I walk down the long trail between the trees.

Tokyo, one of the most developed urban centers in the world, is the epitome of human achievement. It is a testament to the ingenuity and capabilities of the human race when working in cooperation. That is something I truly love. But here in this little bit of forest and history, encapsulated within the urban sprawl, I find myself absent-mindedly envisioning the time when humanity has died out and this bit of forest has begun growing up among the train tracks and concrete walkways and secret little alleys, reclaiming the city that imprisoned it.

Maybe all of Japan feels like this from time to time. The closeness of the natural world is an intrinsic part of Japanese spirituality. If you visit Miyajima island, near Hiroshima, or Nara, or even a shrine in the middle of the city, with its own tiny, domesticated bit of nature, this becomes clear. Japanese art and movies sometimes appear obsessed with two themes; kinship with, protection of, and acceptance of one's role within nature, and nuclear apocalypse. In a movie like Nausicaa, the themes are combined.

As the last notes of Green Amnesia fade, I am returned to the world along with everybody else. Flanked on either side by tourists, I feel at home holding my camera at the ready. I snap a few pictures of a traditional gathering, the title of which　roughly translates to Meiji Shrine Reverence Meeting.

I am satisfied. I head back out of the forest and begin to shop. Even as I scan the countless cheap necklaces bearing crosses, stars of david, and swastikas, get jostled by young members of fashion tribes forcing their way past me, invariably talking about how crowded the place is every single time, and yelled at by Nigerians working to bring customers into their shops, I have the feeling that this Japan and the one I just left are two different places that have, somehow, managed to co-exist here more than anywhere else. Rather than being wiped out, the natural world and Japanese spirituality have been preserved, contained, and domesticated. It's growth has been managed, but fostered, even at the pinnacle of human development.

Korean Adventure Part 1

2006-10-29T20:49:00.000+09:00

I just got back two days ago from a grand adventure in the land of kimchi, cuteness, and computer games. Korea was ridiculously awesome. It wasn't my first time going, but I still learned a lot of new stuff about Seoul. I stayed in a really great little hostel called Kim's Guest House. Basically, for about $15 USD per night you get a nice, clean place to stay, a built in group of travellers to make friends with, and a source of advice for places to eat, visit, etc. And you can do laundry. I cannot stress enough how great of a choice this place turned out to be.

Anyway, in Korea I got to make a lot of observations. Seoul is similar to Tokyo in some ways. At least, they are both competely packed with people. However, where Tokyo is ridiculously clean and full of people mostly filling upper-level business roles (the subway is a sea of suits in the morning), Seoul is more littered and raw, and it has a wildness to it. Unfortunately, my Korean is horrible, although I can say the most basic things, but even when you speak to Koreans in english, they are much more direct. In Japan, you undergo a sort of dance of politeness, but in Korea it's straight out there.

Koreans in general seem to be a little more willing to confront one another, although also more willing to befriend you. Similar to Tokyo though, Seoul is very safe. The way shops are set up and people leave goods lieing around unattended (in one case I went to a shop with a sign detailing who to call if you wanted to make a purchase), it is clear that nobody fears theft much. When I say willing to confront, I don't mean that I've felt intimidated or unsafe at any time.

Korean daily life is pretty different from Japan. There are a lot of internet cafes in Tokyo, but not like Seoul. They're called PC Bangs there (bang meaning room), and they are everywhere. Most of them are roughly $1 USD per hour as well, so it's a pretty convenient stop. I kept seeing a weird game called Sudden Attack that was a Counterstrike clone with required registration to play, but other than that the game loadout was a mix of the regulars, such as all the flavors of Warcraft and Starcraft, and a ton of interesting Korean games such as Mabinogi.

The registration thing brings up a good point. From what I've read and found out from talking to others, it appears as if the Korean internet culture is really unique. If you don't know, Korea has the single highest rate of broadband connectivity in the world, with literally 25% of all Koreans with high-speed connections. Being a somewhat small nation, a huge number of Koreans are all on the Cyworld network, something like a 3rd or 4th generation social networking site, with tons of extras such as avatars, rooms, decorations, etc. Just to register, you have to either be a citizen or have an alien registration card. That is, in general, all members of the site will be real people with verified information. This, coupled with the near universal participation, results in a close-knit community where everybody knows everybody elses' business. My friend from Paris, whom I met during the trip, says that at one point a girl that he had been dating had gotten mad and posted something untruthful about him on her hompy (the Korean way to shorten the word homepage), and he ended up getting almost blackballed within his social network, with people he has never met before calling him up and harassing him even weeks later, after the girl he dated removed the information.

Clearly it is not without its problems, this kind of internet harassment is common in Korea, but I think the very close integration of social networking on the internet into Korean society provides a glimpse into the future. In Korea, internet savviness is common, and the utility and function of the internet as an organizer and facilitator of actual real life relationships is fully realized. In colleges in the United States, of course everybody facebooks one another, but this is like the next step. I've heard it said that a Korean person would rather go hungry than eat alone, and the internet has been fully integrated into the process of achieving this type of fundamental need for human connection.

In other aspects of Korean culture, there is a sort of fierce pride. Korea as a nation has worked to become a productive and powerful player in the international economy, and has succeeded thanks to its main corporations, Samsung and LG. As such, many Koreans are quick to talk about how great Samsung and LG are, and many drive Hyundais, a Korean car, rather than Japanese cars. Unfortunately, Korean pride often results in competition between whose company is better, Samsung versus Sony. This brings up another important point.

In Korea, anti-Japanese sentiment is fairly common. The result of both Japan's transgressions during World War II and horrible foreign policy decisions on the part of the Japanese government, namely having the Prime Minister visit the Yasukuni shrine each year, where war criminals are memorialized, there is lasting resentment on the part of the Korean people. Perhaps I will make a better update to my previous racism post in Japan to clarify the way it works, but in general, most of the Japanese I come into contact with, young people, students, and those looking to study foreign languages, harbor no resentment for Koreans. That being said, racism towards Koreans and Chinese in Japan DOES exist, in a somewhat hidden fashion. In Korea however, anger towards the Japanese is fairly common.

While out drinking, most of the Korean college students I've met have made their dislike of Japan fairly clear fairly quickly, upon hearing that I've just come from there. However, this is more of a sort of generalized dislike, and not openly acted upon in public, so I have heard from many Japanese tourists in Korea that have had perfectly good times. Despite personally getting kicked out of one club for attempting to communicate in Japanese, (something I've been assured is very rare) I've had a lot of good times out drinking in Korea as well.

Which brings me to yet another important point. The role of drinking in both Korea and Japan is something many foreigners may have trouble understanding. In Japan and Korea, people who say they don't drink do not exist. There are those who abstain of course, but there is no straight edge movement or anything like that, because drinking is a part of the social mechanism. I will go more in-depth into how it works in Japan later, but in Korea, alcohol greases the gears of the social process, and as such everybody participates. Drinking is even more vital than in Japan, and as a result many Koreans are STRONG drinkers. I consider myself a strong drinker, but in Korea its common to just sit around drinking from a glass of straight tequila. That's fierce.

One area where Korea's feeling of untamedness starts to come into play is when you go shopping. Absolutely everything MUST be bargained for. I couldn't even imagine bargaining in Japanese, but in Korea, even in the duty-free shops at the airport, I couldn't imagine not bargaining. Shopping in Korea is some of the greatest fun I've had there, and a really different experience from anything I've experienced in the US or in Japan. However, I will leave that discussion for my next blog post in the Korea series.

Sweet Merciful Lord

2006-10-19T07:53:00.000+09:00

Why is it that wherever I go there is always some political group or other screaming through loud-speakers at 7 o'clock in the morning right under my window!? As if the constant earthquakes, the train station 40 feet from my door, and the violently loud footsteps of my neighbors weren't enough.

Sex for Sale

2006-10-09T15:20:00.000+09:00

Before I get into this post, I want to make one thing clear. I have had it with these motherfucking earthquakes in motherfucking Tokyo! After a few days of frequent, minor earthquakes, I thought everything was finished for awhile. Either the big one would hit and I'd be posting this from a pile of rubble, or the ground would stop shaking and let me sleep for five damn minutes in peace. But no, that would be too easy. The earthquakes abated for awhile last month, but recently started up again, so now EVERY SINGLE TIME I fall asleep a little earthquake hits, waking me up.

Of course, were disaster to strike, I have a rigorous preparedness routine already in place.

Wake up, somewhat confused.
Come to the realization that the house is shaking.
Wonder whether or not this will get worse and I'll need to collect my most precious belongings (my computer) and flee.
Assume it won't and go back to sleep.

If it finally happens, expect to get your first glimpses of post-apocalyptic Tokyo right here.

Having gotten that out of the way, this post is going to be continuing with last post's theme of hot, filthy sex. However, this time the sex is between consenting adults, one of which is getting paid for it!

Keep in mind, I live a little ways outside of the main city area of Tokyo. Shibuya is right near the center of it, both physically and culturally. When you see movies or images of Japan, with large billboards and giant screens and masses of people, Shibuya is often featured. If you saw the latest Fast and the Furious (which you really shouldn't), much of the movie takes place right there. Shibuya is pretty much the core of youth culture in Tokyo. Right in front of the station, near the Hachi Kou dog statue, the entire area is usually crowded with all the colorful different tribes of Tokyo, from the ridiculously sexy, high-class, materialistic girls, identifiable by their ridiculously expensive brands, flawless hairstyles, and their total lack of interest in you (or anybody else not pulling in investment banker salaries), to the punk style, hooded-shawl wearing girl in necktie and platforms. Then there are the people with blue hair. As always, weaving in and out of the crowd are a healthy population of foreigners, the tourists usually looking around sort of confused and amazed, and the regulars usually trying to get some ass. It's really fun to watch, especially when you see a new tribe pop up. I think I saw the founding member of the white frosted tip hair and Napoleon Dynamite-style moonboots club. Normally I would've tagged him for later tracking, but I had forgotten my gun that night.

At any rate, I recently found myself in Shibuya to meet one of my students for a lesson, but I had arrived too early and had some time to kill. I hung around a bit right near the station, checking things out, but ended up wandering. Shibuya is all money and style, with large buildings, artistic architecture, billboards, etc, and once you get to the adult parts, it's still Shibuya-style. Many of the love hotels, where people head with a partner for some quick, discreet, action, and sex-related shops are situated in the same area, just beyond a large archway with a gigantic image of Pac-Man on it. In Shibuya, the love hotels end up looking more like sex castles. This place is also completely awesome, because you'll see tons of people coming out that you know just fucked. Also all the arcades are right nearby.

So naturally, I'm on my way there, not even to the arch yet, just around the corner from the station, and I pass a girl in a grey sweater. I couldn't tell her age at all because she didn't seem that old but she just looked worse for the wear. Like she'd been through a lot of shit and it left her looking sort of beat up and tired. She was standing there as I passed, and sort of staring at me. Now, in Japan, the reactions you'll get vary, from people who are openly amazed to see you, mouth agape, staring at the foreigner, to girls that are interested who give you the inviting look, to, what you'll most often encounter in Tokyo, the I don't give a shit, I'm not interested in looking at you at all reaction. This girl wasn't giving any of those looks. In some countries, prostitutes yell at you to get your attention. In Amsterdam, they would just stand in the window, mostly naked, and gesture to you. This girl just gave a look, the I will fuck you for money look. Running the gamut of prostitution advertisement approaches, you could call it very subtle and restrained, but in terms of Japanese body language and social norms, it was like she had a neon sign pointing to her tits.

I moved on past her, a bit strapped for time and also not really that interested in paid sex with somebody that looks like they fell into a meat grinder. I quickly took in a cheap, low-quality meal at my favorite shitty donburi chain restaurant, Yoshinoya, then crossed the street to arcade-and-sex town. I saw two teams of high-school kids, girlfriends nearby, playing this awesome-looking Gundam game, where you each control your own robot and battle each other in a city where the buildings magically take no damage from bullets, rockets, or laser swords. I got to see a ton of girls in short skirts, and I passed a love hotel with some guy actually screaming inside. If you've ever played Killer 7 and remember when you're in your trailer and there are people just screaming like they're being tortured, that's pretty much exactly it. Somewhere, balls were being tortured.

Eventually though, deep into the place, I started hitting all the low quality, cheap love hotels. The grey, non-descript buildings that feature their low hourly rates right on the front, on regularA4 printer paper. Actually, that's all they feature. These love hotels have no names or brands, they are just boxes for having sex in. That's when I came upon something amazing. It was a sex-themed cafe/bar where every single piece of furniture or decoration, down to the ashtrays, wash shaped like a penis or a vagina. I took some pictures here:

Satisfied with my discovery, and ready for my lesson, I turned back towards the station, when who should I encounter but my favorite member of the wildlife of the cheap-sex forest, beat-up hooker girl! This time, she had a new friend, a tubby little bearded guy, who was pretty animated about something. She gave me another look, this time it was the, this could've been you about to fuck me for money look. Then they disappeared together into the love hotel with the cheapest advertised rate, a big 3,500 right on the front. Isn't that sweet.

del.icio.us

Digg it

Yahoo MyWeb

Create Social Bookmark Links

How to Tell When Your Boss Is Trying to Sleep With You

2006-10-06T03:17:00.000+09:00

From Somebody Who Knows

The world's turned a bunch of times and a lot has happened since I last updated. Japan's gotten a new prime minister, the rights of Americans have once again been massively eroded, the Republican party has become the official child molestation party, and I've gotten something dangerously close to resembling a job! Oh, and my boss has been trying in increasingly desperate ways to have sex with me. But let's rewind things for a moment.

So a few weeks back, I got to play this little mini-concert for an english school that teaches through songs. It's a pretty good idea, and I'd guess it works, judging by how well some of the kids could speak. They found me on one of the many english teacher freelancer websites I've been whoring myself on, and noticed that I mentioned my ability to play guitar. Without much preparation, they brought me out and we ran through Amazing Grace for the crowd, don't ask me why that song in particular, just it was simple and I knew most of the words. I also won a tongue twister contest in Japanese just after! At any rate, I suppose the show could be considered a success, because the owner of the music school scheduled me for a full week of teaching at 2500 yen per lesson. That's a three to five lessons a day ranging from 50 minutes to an hour each at a rate of a bit over $20 US. For the first time in a LONG time I've not just broken even, but I've turned the tide of my spending!

The lessons have been fun, and the Japanese kids I have to sing for are RIDICULOUSLY adorable. The school is very far from where I live, but in response to the long commute I've developed some highly effective time usage tactics, including setting up Google reader, which I HIGHLY recommend for its ease of use aggreggating your news feeds both for viewing on the computer and formatted viewing on your mobile phone. Seriously, if you use bloglines, or any other method of collecting your feeds, you'd be doing yourself a favor to try out Google Reader as well. In addition to enabling constant satiation of my information addiction, I've been loading my psp with various podcasts, including diggnation and the penny arcade casts (they've started up again!) and every flavor of tetris available, from both NES incarnations, to the SNES Tetris and Dr. mario game.

I love me some tetris.

Moving on, either it was my highly attractive tetris rockstar skills or my charmingly retarded Japanese speaking that led my boss, in her mid-40's or so, to repeatedly try to violate me. A bulleted list draws near!

Ways to tell your boss is trying to sleep with you:

Takes you out to lunch and acts strangely clingy and overly sad when it's time to get back to work
Begins good-naturedly bumping you and touching you, all the time
Drops hints about wanting to separate work and private relationships
Puts her finger in your mouth when you yawn, unsettling you greatly
Awkwardly attempts to interject the word sperm into conversation, perhaps under the guise of having misheard it
Begins inviting you to very expensive dinner cruises and shows, and, bizarrely, horseback riding
Generously offers you a place to stay
Generously offers you a place to stay in her house
Asks for a kiss
Tells you she wants to sleep with you (in my case, she went one further and directly declared that some time in the near future S & M would be happening, regardless of my opinion on the matter)

This has led to quite a bit of creepiness at the workplace. She seems to generally be a good person, and, of course, I am an utter whore, but she's been coming on REALLY strong, and it's begun to creep me out a little. I found out recently from immigration that I would have no choice but to leave the country soon as part of the process of receiving a work visa. My boss's response? She immediately offered to travel with me to New York City, where we would stay in a hotel together and I would show her around. She's been overly generous and generally acting as if we are a LOT closer than we actually are. Actually, she's been acting as if I were her boyfriend. Maybe this is some type of common female boss management style and I'm just getting caught in the cultural difference here? Either way, I don't much like people sticking their fingers in my mouth while I yawn.

The Daily Life

2006-09-19T22:27:00.000+09:00

Anybody who studies much about Japan should learn the word hikikomoru. It means to stay in your room for long periods of time, shutting out the rest of the world. People who do this are called hikikomori, the noun form of the original verb. True hikikomori are people who may spend up to years at a time in their own room. Recently, I've been a bit of a hikikomori. Readers who know me will also know that I've had periods like this wherever I've lived, it's just a sort of time for me to do some house-cleaning, both literally, and in terms of my thinking. I've been taking some time to focus on my own mind and reorient myself. Being in Japan is good, or any new place, because it allows me to mostly escape the sort of shackles of identity that I've created over time with people who know me. In a sense, I get to recast who I am, and nobody around here knows me as anything different.

Unfortunately, that is not entirely the case. The trappings, the old pieces of me that I'd like to forget, those are still sitting around in my brain, obsolete and gigantic and undeniable. Basically, those issues are the things I need to work on, ways that my thinking has gone wrong. I endeavour in all things to make myself a better person, but it has become woefully apparent to me that I have taken a step backwards. Recently, I've been a hikikomori because I have felt paralyzed to do anything else. My spirit of adventure hasn't diminished, just I don't feel up to anything.

I know this is just a personal issue. I have been very unhappy with myself for the past two weeks, but I will rework myself. I look at my life as the ceaseless unravelling and rebuilding of mind and thought. Now is a time for me to rebuild. I will make myself stronger, better, and healthier before facing the world again. However, these periods of intense introspection are often times when I explore myself through writing and, as such, I will not be posting those writings here, simply because they are explorations of myself, and do not relate to Japan, technology, or events outside, except obliquely. Therefore, I invite anybody who wishes to explore this process to take a look at my Killing Machine blog, something I started more out of the base urge to express myself than to comment meaningfully on any outside stimulus. See you there.

Combination of Awesome Explosion Special!

2006-09-05T07:57:00.000+09:00

The past few weeks have been tough times for me. First, I basically lose a job because it actually turns out I didn't graduate from my university somehow, then I realize I don't have a table and that's why using my computer has been TOTALLY SUCKY, and then I get really hungry. Faced with such difficult circumstances, perhaps a weaker-willed man would've simply given up, thrown their proverbial hands to the proverbial sky, and resigned themselves to the unemployment, back-pain, and slow death from hunger that awaited them. Not I. I'm made of sterner stuff.

Lacking any immediate solution to not having a degree, and hence being ineligible for a work visa in Japan, I decided to sort out the desk problem first. My reasoning was that if I could use my computer comfortably, the internet would surely bless me with an answer! Immediately, I set to work:

Obviously this is the most kick-ass table ever. Patting myself on the back after a hard afternoon's work, I headed out to address the hunger issue. I found a nice little curry place, and proceeded to do what I do. Sated, I went to leave the store, but was stopped by one of the workers. What was this? A gift? For me? Why yes, I'll take this rape whistle, sir, and by god I WILL LOVE IT.

Having accepted this totally sweet rape whistle extended to me as a gift by the natives of this wonderful land, I made my way home, mind awash in a rare abundance of nutrients. Of course, when I got home the desk totally collapsed, but fuck it, I bought a real one. Oh and I still didn't get a degree or a job. The End.

Flexible Display Technology

2006-08-31T03:09:00.000+09:00

So, this stuff has been in development for quite awhile now. I've been keeping tabs on it, but it appears that the dev process has finally culminated in some results. Here are a bunch of videos of this stuff in action. The work is handled by a sub-group of Phillips called Polymer Vision. Mostly, their site talks about business and mobile applications, but I think the obvious applications are far more interesting: stealth camouflage! There are tons of things this would be awesome for. The current implementation only has 4 shades of grey, but with full color and touch-screen technology integration, this thing is going to be freaking AWESOME.

Phillips Radius

Plastic Logic demo

Phillips e paper technology

Electronic ink display from Philips

For a little bit more background on this, it actually doesn't have a refresh rate, and hence it uses very low power. Additionally, it is perfectly visible in regular daylight conditions. I believe it is actually a changing in a pigment configuration of the material, almost? I'm not 100% certain on that. At any rate, color models have also been in development, but certain of the color elements degrade at different rates (with the most difficult element being blue, degrading within a few weeks, I believe) so until that is stabilized, flexible screens in color are not ready for release.

Here is a site with some more background, videos, and pics: here

Racism in Japan

2006-08-25T00:31:00.000+09:00

If you've seen the Japanese movie called Densha Otoko, or Train Man, you probably remember the one scene where he's walking around on the street, and somebody is advertising for a company that sells something called Men's Water by giving out samples of it to passers-by on the corner. This is a common form of advertisement in Japan. When the main character gets to the corner, the girl giving out the free sample retracts it suddenly. Only later on, after he has gotten an extensive make-over, cut his hair, and purchased an entirely new wardrobe, is he offered the sample. His first rejection is an overly obvious attempt to show his undesirability and ostracization from the rest of Japanese society. It's the most blatant form of rejection, the Train Man is so reprehensible companies don't even want his damn money. This exact thing happens to me every single day. When I told my ex-girlfriend about this (she's Japanese), she was angry. Her immediate response, and this isn't paraphrashing here: "just because you are gaijin (a foreigner) doesn't mean you're not human being. you have a hand to take!"

At a sometimes wavering attempt at academic remove, I face racism on a daily basis here in Japan. It's rare that I will face it in overt forms, such as direct confrontation, but it's something that's on everybodys' lips. Generalizations are waiting to come out, words like, "that's how Americans think." People leaving seats empty on either side of me, in otherwise cramped subway cars. People trying uncomfortably to avoid eye-contact, or, alternatively, staring at me openly as if I was the first white person they've ever seen. Even those things don't bother me too much though, what gets to me is when I pass the workers on the street, trying to advertise their beauty salon or their spa or whatever, and they offer a little packet of napkins or a flyer to every single person passing except me.

Sometimes I don't want to understand it more deeply. I just want to say fuck it, and be mad at people. But that is not a fair response. At least, that's not a mature, and reasonable response. I try to train myself to avoid the knee-jerk response to events in my life. When I hear about terrorists, I don't instantly think they should all be killed, or even think that's possible. I think that the mechanism by which terrorists are being created, the real issues and grievances they have that may have radicalized them and caused them to choose their current path however reprehensible it may be, and, believe me, I in no way attempt to shift guilt for a reprehensible act such as terrorism, regardless of the factors that motivated it, are what need to be investigated, and eliminated, so as to reduce the production of more terrorists. (because let's be honest, saying "let's kill them all," and bombing tiny villages somewhere only produces more hardship, parentless children, and, in short, factors that will make a new generation hate the west even more, turn radical, and seek to destroy it) In the same vein, I seek to resist my urge to respond to racism in kind. That is a shallow and unproductive impulse. Instead, I try to understand what creates this situation, and how I can defuse it somehow. Often, I make the effort to bridge the gap, offering help or smiling, and trying to present an open and approachable image.

Japan for Japanese

The thing about Japan is that it's full of Japanese people. To clarify, ethnic Japanese comprise the vast majority of the population. Further, the sense of Japanese identity in Japan is very strict. There is a very large population of Koreans living in Japan, who were born here and, in some cases, who have parents that were also born in Japan, and yet still possess Korean passports. These are people who couldn't speak a single word of Korean. Japan is the place they know. Japanese is their language. I was having a really great conversation about this with one of my friends.

Some background: my friend grew up entirely in Japan. She went to an international school, which is sort of a segregated school. Full Japanese students can attend, but they face heavy tuition fees, as opposed to the children of international parents. International students are admired, at best, and often end up famous in different ways, my friend notices people she knows when she walks through a clothing store and sees pictures of models. At worst though, you can depend on the fact that international students are at times envied, ridiculed, and made to feel apart from the rest of Japanese society. Unfair attention, either positive or negative, is racism.

What my friend described to me was pretty horrible. She is half Portuguese and half Japanese. Her face looks fairly Japanese, although she has naturally brown hair. When walking around Japan, people assume she can't speak her own language. They are scared of, mistrusting, or reluctant to approach her, assuming that she is a foreigner. In her home country, the people on the street passing out flyers and product samples won't give her anything half the time. When I was talking about it with her, I noticed she ended up using the word "they" often. In response to the generalization she faced, the entire Japanese "in-crowd" became a generalized object to her, one that she was not a participant in.

So what can be done about things? I don't really know. Japan as a society is in the ongoing process of change, playing a role in the global economy and also having to deal with the influx of foreign labor as a result of the low-birth rate. In order to hasten the process, or at least make it somewhat easier, the only thing I can think of is what I personally try to do. Every day, I try to ignore those hardships I face, understand the situation that creates such hardships, and reach out personally to others. If enough people were to think this way, I don't doubt that the majority of the world's problems could be easily solved.

digg this

Democracy 2.0 or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet

2006-08-15T05:00:00.000+09:00

So I followed a link to the MediaShift blog, on the PBS website, from somewhere on digg and I had to say something. On MediaShift, Mark Glaser talks all about the media revolution, the meaning of things like the explosion of popularity in sites like YouTube that feature user-generated content, and what it means to people who want to keep up with it all.

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. In Glaser's latest entry, Spelling Out the Media Shift, he describes the media shift for which his blog is named in terms of movements towards more free media, greater degrees of user participation, etc. I haven't exhaustively read all of Glaser's writing, but his thinking seems to be going in the right direction. While this process is only in its fledgling stages at the moment, I believe that us members of the Web 2.0 movement are presiding over the beginnings of the overturning of the traditional structure of information generation, distribution, and consumption. We make our own entertainment, writing, art, movies, and music. We distribute it ourselves, for free, via unrestrictive licenses such as Creative Commons, and websites such as YouTube or Google Video, or this blog website. We search for it on the recommendation of other users, via social news sites, and decide when and where we want to see what. Everybody still has a tv set, but even tv is changing, with OnDemand and newer levels of interactivity.

According to Mark Glaser, all the typical leaders in the traditional structure of content creation and delivery will have to sit down and rethink their approaches and adapt in order to survive this shift. According to me, the typical leaders of the traditionally restrictive content-delivery system can go to hell, although they probably won't. The vertical structure is going to eventually collapse though, because everybody from the base is climbing up. Even if it is, as I've heard in some places, only about 1 in 10 users that make the effort to create and post original content, that's still a vast sea of talent and content in the long run, and I think its eventually going to reach the point where it obviates the backwardness of production studios and other restrictive media groups, such as publishers of books, record labels, etc. They probably will live on, but the way things exist now, they are just trying to stem the tides of change in order to protect a stupid, inefficient system where they are the sole distributors and hence can reap the greatest degree of profits.

What YouTube's explosion of popularity means, and what the open source movement, and the creation of Wikis, and propagation of blogs all mean, is that users are, when enabled with the proper tools, fully willing to assemble into groups all on their own for the sake of talking about, thinking about, and developing topics of interest to them. We don't need others to make it happen for us so much anymore. Web 2.0 isn't just the clever use of css and ajax, its the means of organization by which human beings can thwart the typically better equipped systems of old governance, television standard's bodies, editors, etc. Web 2.0 is the mortar between the bricks in the massively distributed processing of human achievement. This is the 20th century crashing down around our ears.

Does that seem too radical? Consider your own personal browsing habits at YouTube. If you're like me, you end up on that damn site for hours at a time just clicking through videos. Consider the fact that now there are Peer to Peer networks created not just for the sake of file transfers, but also a P2P lending group and ideas for things like P2P labor arbitration on the horizon. Open source software development is distributed and peer-reviewed arbitration of labor already, just limited to software development. This is still in its early stages, but this is more than just a media shift. This is a better way to do things, in the way of which stands large corporate interests, opposed to progress for mankind at large, in exchange for the profits that can be reaped by keeping us all held back.

Application to the Political Process

A P2P network is, in essence, an assembly of people to further their common interests. This sort of assembly is actually protected in the United States constitution because by its very nature it is powerful, and it should be the essence of a democracy such as the US. In nations with more strict governments, the freedom of assembly is, of course, denied, because the government cannot tolerate an organizational structure rivalling its own. In fact, the work done on Wikipedia and open source software is often far more transparent, rapid, and thorough than that done by groups of people that are paid to do the job. How long before that same transparency, thoroughness, and efficiency is allowed to be applied to something like the voting process? It wouldn't even be a question of liberal or conservative either, it would be the overhauling of a system that has outlived its usefulness. So it will be as more and more of the pieces of industry and government are relinquished to the networks of individuals that will handle them best.

In fact, I would argue that file transfer networks are the MOST democratic construct we have seen so far. Their entire goal is the sharing and spreading of information. In the United States, at least, the body of citizens has been granted the right to self determination. This is a meaningless power without an informed populace. Hence, creating tiers to the internet, limiting the spread of information, and other such nonsense in the vein of the net neutrality laws are movements totally opposed to a segment of the population that has gone to great effort to both acquire more information and share it with others. Not to be blind to those who merely swap files for the sake of free entertainment, but many forms of art present differing points of view and serve to alter the understanding, political and otherwise, of those who view them. These are meaningful exchanges of information and signs of a populace going to great effort to inform themselves. As for copyrighted works that are transferred, the sheer popularity of the file transfer movement also serves to underline the failure of the current distribution system of movies and music already in place. This is something that will need to be dealt with in the future, rather than simply criminalizing those who transfer files, and outlawing technological progress for the sake of keeping companies represented by the RIAA profitable.

It is imperative for us to look to leaders in defending the internet, such as boingboing's Cory Doctorow, and groups like the EFF. Long live the American Pirate Party! Restrictive governments such as China's are right to attempt to censor and control the internet, because freedom of information is poison to those who would attempt to rule unjustly. Eventually, its all going to be out in the open and subject to peer review, and then may the user with the highest reputation rating win.

digg it - click this to get this article some exposure and help get the word out

Damn it feels good to be a gangster

2006-08-12T03:37:00.000+09:00

Today was totally badass.

In a haze of sleep-deprived paranoia, I found myself in the middle of Tokyo with that Counterstrikey sort of feeling that things were moving at the edges of my vision. Things with guns. That's probably because I played Counterstrike all night.

Having long become accustomed to the vague unravelling of reality during my marathon waking sessions, I basically was going about my business, being the best damn english teacher you can get for 2500 yen an hour. Despite the gargantuan effort it took, however, merely remaining awake was not enough. In preparing course materials, I soon found myself at an awesome little place called Moopa. I dunno what the a moopa is, but it was a pretty cool little internet cafe.

I sit myself down in my tiny sheet-metal cubicle and immediately begin slamming out an english lesson. Naturally, I turn on the tv right beside my computer. To help me focus. And porn was on tv! No, porn is not enough to describe this. This was the most Japanese porn you could possibly find, short of tentacle rape. Girls in school uniforms, semi-hideous men with tickling fetishes, and simulated rape scenes taking place in restaurants full of people. Oh god, it was beautiful. I ended up being late for my lesson.

So yeah, then I get to this lesson and I have all this stuff prepared and I just watched a ton of porn and, needless to say, the lesson kicks 12 types of ass. Then to top it all off, I get handed 4000 yen, as opposed to the 2500 I'm contracted for. My initial response to this knowledge is, of course, that I do not deserve the money, and I have in fact done something very wrong. I immediately try to secure the cash on my person, fearing the authorities. Coming to the slow realization that, for once, I've actually done nothing wrong, I finally manage to loosen up, get the bills back out of my ass, and consider the possibilities. This is 4000 yen. This is salvation, financial freedom, and a new life in my pocket! This is like thirty-five motherfucking dollars!

And then I got home and saw this thanks to kotaku:

Tetra Vaal (Third World Robocop)

The Eagle Has Landed

2006-08-08T20:39:00.000+09:00

I am alive and well in the land of the rising sun. Everything looks different around here, and it feels really good to be back. I've already picked up two students that I'm teaching private english lessons to, and I've got a head full of ambitious ideas, and a mouth full of pizza with corn and mayonnaise. Here is a map to give you some context on my location, so you'll know where to drop the care packages (mm, sweet emergency rations):

I'm in the little green building to the left of center. If you zoom out a bit you can see the giant metropolitan sprawl that is Tokyo. I love being in this vast artificial construct, I feel like the world's largest cities are the pinnacle of man's achievement. I grew up in the mountains, so believe me, I know all about nature. I'm sick of freaking trees already. There's power in places like this, vast amounts of wealth and human resources harnessed to create and change. I just want to be where the action is. Functioning mass-transit and employment opportunities also tend to be pretty convenient.

In the weeks to come you can expect all types of stuff from this spot, covering news and items of interest from Japan, how-to's on crap I have mastered, and the internet - my one true love. I'm never homesick as long as I have you, sweet internet. If only I had a wireless connection in my head. The future cannot possibly happen fast enough. Using my memory is stupid, I demand Mind Notepad.

At any rate, I've already made a pilgrimage out to Akihabara, the nerd capital of the whole world, and I've returned home with a fat sack of loot that I'll talk about in a future post. For now, you'll have to be content with this image:

That's a Nintendo 64 along with the 64DD, it comes with Mario Paint, Polygon Studio, and Sim City 64. There is a mouse and a microphone bundled in as well. How much should you expect to pay for a semi-ancient, stripped down pc? Around $500. I'd be screaming N64 like a retard too if I got that as a kid.