Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Among one's friends, there are often a few oddballs that decide, one day seemingly out of the blue, that the careers that they have been building for years actually do not interest them anymore.  They decide to give that all up, go back to school and learn brand-new trades.  Upon graduation, they stay once again, in perhaps their late 30s or 40s, at the bottom of the hierarchy in a new industry that they have never been professionally involved before.  I, for one, admire the willingness to forego the comfort of the known and enrich one's life by plunging into the unknown even at an age when people avoid risks and instability.

A Chinese-Australian friend described his experience interacting with the local Chinese population in Malaysia.  If he mentioned that he was born but moved away from China as a child, people did not want anything to do with him.  When he tried to save money by going for cheap meals and skipping drinks, people thought he was a "cheap mainlander" trying to make trouble.  On the contrary, if he splurges on food and drinks while dissociates himself from any connection from China, he found the local population much more receptive to his attempts to communicate and befriend.

Age 30 can be a convenient marker for many people.  If the twenties is a time for travels and new experiences, the thirties ought to be one that is more grounded.  More stable relationships, more stable jobs, and more stable routines that allow one to grow in a more structured environment.  But for people who have become so used to fluctuations, some voluntary and some not so much, transitioning to more routine-based way of life can be quite challenging, mentally and physically.  Romance and steady environment can help anchor a person to a particular way of life, but without genuine love for the physical location that one is to inhabit, it is rather impossible for keep the anchors steady.

Given the frequency of how many social events for complete strangers are held in Tokyo , it is often interesting to see why many people choose not to participate in any of them.  Some are rather understandable, like the fact that many people (especially among foreign students) are unwilling to shell out money for socializing when they are in financially dire straits to begin with.  Others are just pathologically introverted, mentally unfit for for putting themselves in front of large groups of people for the sake of just getting to know people in fleeting ways.  The anxiety of such experiences, for them, is traumatizing.

In Tokyo's social meetups, attendees frequently ask each other about their respective personal hobbies.  Trying to come up with something that is not too cliched ("I like to travel around the world!") the author usually tell people that he enjoys going to such social events and speaking with complete strangers.  In fact, he would add, he enjoys speaking to strangers so much that he'd rather devote more time meeting new people out of the blue that go through the troubles of communicating and setting up meetups with his own long-time acquaintances.

If there is anything that characterizes life in rural Africa, it is the small social circles that many expats (more often than not, choose to) confine themselves.  A small group of people have very specific conversations about work and life in a small town, dealing with issues that largely remain unchanged over the course of years.  The fact that people and topics of conversation change so little in such a long time means that expats living in rural Africa develop a very specific way of speaking to a very specific group of people, tailored for long-term relationships and not so much for meeting new ones out of the blue.

There is one trend that has often been proven to be true in the field of political science.  That is the idea that older members of a particular society, when holding everything else constant, tends to be more conservative in ideology compared to more youthful counterparts.  In fact, even when looking at any particular neighborhoods, as the population grows older, political leanings move to the right.  On economic issues, older people tend to, as compared to youths, oppose in greater numbers high taxes and income redistribution, while on social issues, they oppose homosexuality, abortion, and marijuana legalization.

The year 2000 started well.  I was an ecstatic little boy graduating from elementary school in provincial Japan.   Finally, I was joining the “big boys” at the middle school across the street, donning the cool uniforms that I observed in pure envy for the past six years.  Change was afoot, and I was so ready to embrace it.  Instead, the change was much more radical than I had ever imagined.  Instead of moving across the street, father came home one day and notified that our whole family is moving to the USA, thousands of miles away. 

There is no doubt that that rural Tanzania is not a desirable destination for food-lovers. So, logically speaking, someone who loves food but has not had the chance to enjoy many different kinds of it should make every effort to enjoy that great variety after leaving rural Tanzania. Without going to excess, the person should be finding the most delicious spots around town, so that s/he can make up lost times of eating rice and beans every day in rural Tanzania. And the person would absolutely enjoy that exercise.

It has been some six ears since I was last at my parents' house in San Diego.  And it has been more than ten since I properly lived in it as a high school student. Returning the place where I studied, slept, and waited for news of being able to finally leave for school somewhere else , I noticed, before everything else, just how little the place has changed over the last decade.  The same books I read then, the same furniture that I sat on, and the same decorations that I stared at still grace the house, with all of them in exactly the same places that I would have found them a decade ago.

This author grew up around the world.  From taking his first trip outside the country when he was age five, he has rarely stayed in any place for more than a few years before moving to the next location with his family.  Courtesy of such experiences, he never had the opportunity to meet many of his distant relatives, many of whom are still in China, nor had he the chance to step into his ancestral hometown.  One reason among many that pushed him to attend the wedding of his cousin (who he has also not met more than once every half a decade or so) is so that he can at least say hi to these relatives he has only heard about but never met.

The optimist will righteously cry out "never!" but the reality is, birthday celebration for a grown adult just do not have the magic feel that a 5-year-old would feel for his or hers.  The kid, looking forward to the imaginary greatness of adulthood, cannot wait for celebration of being one year closer to that goal.  But during past years of rather low-key birthday celebrations , the author never failed to wonder whether that purportedly "goal" was achieved, and by extension, whether it was worth getting excited about in the first place in his earlier years.

For those who do not know, the author first landed in the US at age 12, in a neighborhood called Roxbury in Boston, MA.  Any Bostonian would timidly tell you that this is one of the city's roughest neighborhoods, a classic inner city African-American area with high crime rate, poverty, and plenty of dilapidation in a formerly industrial neighborhood.  Despite being almost directly south of the city's downtown areas, the 'hood that is Roxbury sees little sign of gentrification that has made restored the historical glory of the downtown, only helping to accentuate its continued obviously rundown nature through contrast.

When mentioning Japanese films, those in the know often come up with a few titles of horror ("the Ring" being the most well-known to a Western audience), cheesy tales of lost love (the list of tear-jerkers in this category goes on and on), or gruesome social critiques that evokes thoughts through exaggerations ("the Suicide Club" is a highly suggested film in this genre).  In all three, the ability to use an effective script for storytelling, often with limited budgets common for Japan's relatively small domestic market, is a key for success.

「もし身近な場所でとんでもない悲劇が起こったら、皆さんはどう反応するんだろう？」著者は何となくこんなことを思いながら、6人の同僚と土曜日の晩御飯を食べていた。その料理はまさしくもアフリカにいる外国人らしい：パスタにサラダ、赤ワインとジュースを備え、締めはクッキーとアイスクリーム。もちろんすべてが手作り。まあ、単なる普段料理に使える食材や調味料が不足してるので、これはすでに驚くほどの豊富。7人はカジュアルな会話をしながら、食事を終わらせ、ポップコーンをつまみながら夜遅くまで映画鑑賞…

As previously mentioned, traveling in Japan is an expensive affair .  This is true not only for casual foreign passers-by but also for tens of thousands of Japanese business travelers who need to keep their company’s budgets in line but get to places promptly and rapidly.  For them, staying far away from train stations and other nodes of public transportation simply is not a viable option.  To be on-time to visit their clients and return to headquarters, they need to keep to downtown areas where they can come and go quickly.

The author met a former coworker from Rakuten, who he has not met in some four years since he quickly departed from the company after less than a year of work .  Interestingly enough, he had met her on the very day she was handing in her marriage registration.  The author, not someone eager in communication, obviously had no idea of the fact that she was getting married, or that she was in a serious relationship at all.  Surprising at it seems, four years is not a short time for a person to grow up.  It gives a person much time to proceed with personal plans outside the career path.

For those who are knowledgeable about modern history of Japan, Kagoshima is very much considered a pivotal place.  Led by the open-minded Shimazu family, the former Satsuma domain remained in contact with the outside world, absorbing Western technologies and ideologies during the long self-isolation imposed by the Tokugawa Shogunate.  As the 19th century saw the forced opening of the Shogunate to Western military coercion, the leaders of Satsuma emerged to lead the reformist movement in Japan to modernize the country, ending the Shogunate and rapidly catching up with the West with Meiji Restoration.

今回の日本旅行も時間でいうと明日で半分が終わるとの時点になるが、今夜でこの作者は鹿児島以外九州すべての県とほとんどの大きな都市部に携わることができた。 楽天時代の終了で日本在住も約4年前 の話になるが、この来たこともない九州で意外と「家に戻った」雰囲気を感じる。最初、作者はこれをただ親しみがある言語か文化にもう一度触れるちょっとした感動と思い込んでいたが、今夜偶然宿泊先で見てたテレビ番組が「地方活性化」のトピックで議論をしていたところで突然デージャーブーを感じた。

"Omotenashi" (おもてなし) is a cultural concept that the Japanese are deeply proud of.  While difficult to translate directly into other languages, it pertains to attentiveness toward small details when dealing with customers in the service industry.  Often, it is most visibly displayed in the meticulous training Japanese personnel receives on what kind of languages and gestures to use under what circumstances when speaking to clients , as well as the little things Japanese restaurants and hotels use, such as tools and signage, to make customer feel comfortable and convenient while dining.