Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Walking down the street, having lunch by oneself, staring at the sky...life is full of moments that seem to be in between more important events. Yet, even as one physically takes a break in between those important events that require full concentration, one's mind never really does. The mind always wonders, for a purpose if needed, and aimlessly, when there is no particular urgent need. Some would define aimlessness as boredom, and try to find some aim to end the boredom. Scrolling through social media on the train, knitting a sweater at night, writing this blog...they can all constitute intentional attempts to be productive.

Distrust in the state and supposed professionals run deep in Russia. For an ordinary Russian, the need for "fixing things up yourself" is ingrained , as there is too great of a chance that unscrupulous individuals with fake licenses charge too much money for not much professional results. From fixing homes to administrating medicine, many Russians do it by themselves, assuming that their amateurism is still more efficient and less deadly than the risk of paying money to the wrong people and facing the deadly consequences of their falsified expertise.

The recent Barbie movie has in many ways caused a (positive) uproar among the world's feminists. The movie portrays the world of the titular character in which women hold all the powerful roles, while men (the many "Kens") are relegated to positions of mere "boyfriends" whose identity is defined solely by their relationship with the Barbies. The protagonist Barbie's belief in the superiority of the system, coupled with observations about, unlike in the Barbie world, many females remain lowly in the real world, serves as a powerful reminder that female empowerment still has a long way to go but is a worthy dream to pursue.

When my wife first showed me that Worcester sauce goes well on a meat bun, I was a bit skeptical. A classic sauce of England on a classic snack of the Orient. It sounds like too much of a clash of civilizations without hard evidence on the palate. But with the first bite, I was surprised. Yes, we know that Worcester sauce goes well on grilled meat, but even through a soggy steamed flour covering, the sauce can still evoke the satisfaction of a (thankfully much healthier) steak. Defying culinary categorization at the get-go, the combination transcends international boundaries of what tastes good.

I've never been a purveyor of novels. Their often made-up stories simply did not sit well with my interest in facts, expressed through news articles and research reports analyzing the ins and outs of contemporary affairs. Novels, and their focus on the emotions of individual protagonists, just felt so small, maybe even irrelevant, in the larger trends of our world, represented by wars, pandemics, climate change, and bold moves by executives at globally renowned multinationals. Average Joes and Janes, to me, simply mattered little, on their own, to those larger-than-life forces that shape human civilization.

  伝統、それは文化の物理的な形として代々受け継がれられた。人々は伝統を守ることによって、そのコミュニティーの一員であることを実感し、社会的なアイデンティティと地位を確保した。そして、コミュニティーのさらなる発展、継続のため、より多くのメンバーを集めることにインセンティブを感じ、日々努力をしている。やがて伝統は定期的に人を集める行事として形を変え、文化に貢献するだけではなく、貿易や観光資源として地元の経済に大きく価値を提供することになっている。

In real life, I am not fond of salespeople. When I receive an unsolicited sales call, I tend not to pick up. If it is from someone I do not know in real life, I would block the phone number. When I receive sales emails and text messages, I largely ignore them. I would like to have control over how, when, and about what topics I speak to others, on my own terms. Being rushed, or worst yet, manipulated, to make a decision will likely lead to increased skepticism and a greater possibility of a "no." My feelings about sales have been so strong that I assume that others largely have the same attitude.

"Political correctness" seems all the rage in modern social discourse. Whether or not one supports its aim to punish any and all public figures found to have engaged in any wrongdoing in the past, plenty of individuals, both famous and not-so, have had their careers derailed due to their dark secrets revealed to the masses. The power of what some come to term the "cancel culture" have ensured that everyone thinks twice before saying or doing anything in public, lest their actions and words be interpreted as hurtful to any social group in the future.

The rest area of the massive public bathhouse in a nondescript suburb of Chiba felt almost like a converted hotel lobby. Rows after rows of relaxing armchairs faced a massive ceiling-to-floor window, facing a cove and the open skies. The sea's waters felt tranquil at night, with occasional fishing boats bobbing on the surface. The cove is curiously flanked by shopping malls, parking lots, and a steel mill, all sprouting activities even as the evening winds down. Farther off in the distance are the skyscrapers of Tokyo, lit up in the night sky. A cloudless day brings bright moonlight that completes the whole picture.

It has been a little over two months since I officially switched over to a new job . The position involves daily communication with various students dreaming of going to top schools around the world, as well as their often anxious parents, with the ultimate aim of selling consulting services that improve every aspect of their university applications. The first weeks on the job have been about learning the different services on offer, what would be enticing and persuasive from the perspective of potential clients, and how to verbalize the benefits our services ultimately provide.

Good education is a human right and a public good...so many youngsters are taught to believe. For the youth, it seems to make sense: they go through mostly free compulsory education in which everyone undertakes studies using the same curriculums mandated by local or national governments, often with visual requirements to behave and dress the same way (even if there are some unsavory side effects) on top of learning the same things. For them, education is, more or less, a practice in equalization, providing a largely egalitarian hue on the biggest time-spender of their young lives.

This blog has had a persistent issue with how Asian men are portrayed in American mainstream media. To this day, the post about the perceived lack of "manliness" among Asian men is the most viewed of the blog's history spanning more than a decade. In subsequent years, this blog followed the rise of K-pop as a phenomenon that gradually changed how Asian masculinity is defined in both Asian and non-Asian culture, sparking a boom of clean, often non-muscular Asian men being perceived as a more down-to-Earth alternative of the domineering, violence-prone attitude of the Western "alpha male" trope.

What do you think of when someone asks what your "dream" is? For me, it is something that is entirely detached from reality. I dream of becoming the president of the US, never mind that I am not allowed to because I was born outside the country. Maybe going to space? Never mind that I have neither the physical nor intellectual attributes to start that journey. The point of a dream, for me, is not anything related to its objective likelihood. It represents the heart's ultimate desire, without bothering with the rationality behind how to achieve it.

In his manifesto for sales in the internet age, Daniel Pink declares that the wealth of information the internet has put in the hands of the average netizen has revolutionized the relationship between salespersons and their potential clients. With netizens now able to find minute details of any product or service, their alternatives, and user reviews, salespersons no longer have exclusive command of information relevant to what they are selling. The resulting erosion of information asymmetry has made it difficult for salespersons to sweet-talk clients into paying higher prices for subpar offerings.

The recent Hollywood epic Babylon depicts the Californian movie industry at the cusp of technological disruption, as the power of sound engineering brings down the past dominance of silent movies of the past. Several protagonists, some established in the industry and others striving to find their place, see the trajectory of their lives change alongside the transformation of moviegoers' preferences. Over three hours of runtime, Babylon alludes to the ups and downs of the movie industry through individual jubilations, heartbreaks, and even suicide. 

Late last year, an article in the Atlantic magazine spoke about the disarray the world of social media services (SNS) is going through. With plunging usage at Facebook and corporate overhaul at Twitter, the platforms and the ways people interact with friends and strangers in cyberspace are due for a complete revolution. The article boldly predicted a world in which netizens are less dependent on SNS for social interactions, a change that is decades in the making and can make for some positive changes in the role that the internet plays in people's day-to-day lives.

Persuading people to buy a product is often much more about them than the products or services that are being sold. Yes, the products or services need to be explained in a way that fits their needs and solves their problems. But for any established product or service, there are multiple alternatives out there, many of which have similar functionalities at similar price points. The differentiation factor often comes down to how the salespeople can find some sort of emotional connection with the potential buyers, tapping into emotions just as much as logic to incentivize and motivate consumption.

Being a mother means doing whatever you can to protect your child from physical and mental harm. Being a top-level investigative journalist means doing whatever you can to find out and expose the truth. Both often involve going to extremes to achieve intended goals, often at the expense of the very safety and sanity of the undertakers. Yet, the fact that so many are involved in these crafts signal that motivation for continuing in them go beyond personal gains.

It is around 8pm on a weekday in a big shopping mall in Chiba. A few shoppers walk through its wide corridors and most shops, selling everything from high-end fashion to tacky knick-knacks, predictably feel rather empty as the peak New Year's shopping season has already come to an end. Yet, in one corner of the mall, next to all the cheap eateries, some two dozen people are lined up in front of a boisterous restaurant behind a food court. While the other shops in the food court served the usual Japanese and Western cuisines, this one made sure its Chinese background was both seen and heard loud and clear.

Many Western, immigration-centered societies, from the US and the UK to Australia and Canada, claim to value diversity steeped in equality. Laws are in place to mandate the equal treatment of ethnic, gender, and religious minorities in the workplace and everyday life, often enforced with a strong social taboo against visible, public, and blatant displays of discriminatory behavior against people of different sociocultural backgrounds. Of course, plenty of discriminatory incidents, some of which are well-known and questionable, occur in these countries, but there is a broad consensus at the grassroots level that discrimination is undesirable. Part of how the anti-discriminatory consensus came about in these countries relates to the educational system. Elite universities in these countries are well-known for their student and staff bodies made up of intakes from around the world. The Harvard brand name, for instance, is valued just as much in other countries as in the US, leading to the