Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

...Well, the streets of Gangnam welcomed me back almost exactly the same way as I left it almost three years ago. The familiar convenience stores, Karaoke parlors, little restaurants, and of course, that gigantic COEX Mall across the street...the energetic, vibrant feel of the town is on full display for my first weekend in Korea since 2008. A few more happy businessmen having afternoon beers in a few more Western-style bars, a few more stylish cute girls walking through a few more luxury shops, and a few more sales ladies peddling to a few more happy customers...beneath the physical sameness was a country gradually moving forward... To be honest, the fact that I am walking down the streets of Seoul still has not really settled in my mind just yet. Having been told by a straight-faced, no-mercy immigration official that my work visa to Japan was officially cancelled and my Alien Registration Card (外国人登録書) need to be confiscated on the spot, I was still reeling from the sense of sudd

...And then, there was an empty one-room apartment, in the exact same condition as exactly 8 months ago, when I set sights on it for the first time, full of anticipation and newfound exhilaration . Under the unusually crisp, fresh, and not-raining early summer sunshine, the room, to me, shined just as brightly as it did in chilly October. It remains, in my view, that serene safe haven for the tired sailor, coming back to her warm embrace after another day of battling the constant storms that is Japanese society . Yet, at the same time, the room was not, and cannot possibly be, in the same condition. What is unseen, floating in the still air and absorbed in her walls and furniture, are memories, thoughts, and endless self-reflections , stemming from so many observations, experiences, and occasionally, lonely nights looking up at the stars. The room, even devoid of all her material possessions, cannot hold all my random thoughts. They threaten to overwhelm her and escape her contain

Friday night: A 2-hour farewell drinking party followed by all-night clubbing; Saturday night: an early afternoon symposium on international education followed by another 4-hour farewell drinking party, followed by another almost all-night clubbing; Sunday night: another farewell drinking party will be happening a few hours from now...my last weekend here in Tokyo has surely been an emotional exhilarating (and physically damaging) one...(I am at home so rarely that I can barely muster a couple of hours outside of intense sobering-up sleeping sessions to write my weekly post) Too much fun, just too much fun, that I would not be able to have if I had my mind concentrated on work...and too glad, just too glad that after 8 months of randomly meeting people both inside and outside the company, there are so many people who are willing to spend sleepless nights with me to celebrate my future and enjoy my "companionship" one last time. Of course, the regular drunken comments take ov

"The Yokohama Chinatown is the biggest Chinatown in Japan and by far the safest Chinatown in any part of the world..." The nonchalant, robotic announcement coming over the tourist bus in Yokohama blasted to an equally nonchalant and robotic domestic crowd lazily looking outside the window as the bus passed by one Chinese restaurant after the other. The announcement cannot help but bring a little smirk over my face. Yep, certainly nothing racist there , just uttering the truth, as anyone who has been to Chinatowns across the world knows so well. And going to Chinatowns I have. From the overtly tourist ones like San Francisco and Sydney to more hidden and functional ones like the ones in Seoul and Calgary, I have seen perhaps every major Chinese population center outside the Sinosphere. At first glance, every Chinatown seems the same. The restaurants, the shops selling imported Chinese goods, and street vendors ruthlessly gawking at every passerby, the spirit of commercia

In a previous piece , I argued that while the public can serve the purpose of monitoring any unethical behavior, the lack of concrete structure of the volunteering public means that its monitoring power is not nearly as effective in maintaining high level of ethics as well-developed government agencies. How complete the government monitoring system is often the difference marker between a developed country with stable socio-economic conditions and a developing country with a "wild wild west" feel. Of course, being subjected to a constant social fluidity based on affinity to illegal activities can seriously hurt a country's long-term development, but in the short-term, is such fluidity completely negative? I would argue that the answer is not entirely a flat "no" in the developing world. In fact, often the illegal distribution of certain ideas, goods, and services is the only way to make them cheap enough and widespread enough to be trickled down to many outl

Reading major newspapers around the world, optimism for the developments in the so-called "developing countries" have become increasingly common in the past few years. The stories of newly wealthy middle and upper class families in places like China, India, and Southeast Asia excites businessmen and commoners alike. The sheer numbers of people who are now living a modern "Western lifestyles" and the rise of major cities as international metropolises continue to entice people from the developed world to set foot upon these previously impoverished lands. Even besides the obvious "White Man's Burden" way of thinking with "Westernization=modernization," the stories still strikes any careful reader with the sheer biases in the description. Of course, it is good to present the "developing countries" as "not that different" places where people from the developed world can visit, but by entirely ignoring the continued plight of