Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

One of the little-known idiosyncrasies of the Russian Far East is the presence of a relatively large North Korean population.  The region's low population translates to a chronic shortage of laborers needed for low-paid construction and menial work Russians are reluctant to take up.  In European Russia, Central Asian migrants fill the role, out here the North Koreans play the same role.  Despite ongoing sanctions that dramatically reduced their numbers, North Korean laborers are still preferred by Russian firms for their manageability, diligence, and lack of negative cultural (read: Muslim) influence.

In the Kitay-Gorod (literally "China Town" in Russian) Mall in the northeast suburbs of Vladivostok, there are several shops selling nothing but parts for home improvements.  From bolts and nails to wallpapers and plastic railings the shop has everything a person would need to make the interior of a house more homey.  The only necessity is for the buyers of the parts to put in the efforts to put those parts in place.  That is easier said than done.  Customers are assumed to be professionals, and none of the parts come with instructions on how to properly use them.

Living among the cultural Other is difficult, and it is especially difficult to do so in a foreign country.  Strange language, strange food, and even stranger people.  All this can be depressing to face for people who are residing abroad for the very first time.  They just do not have experience in handling people who do not come from same cultural background, raised under same educational and social atmospheres.  In short, such is the situation faced by the migrants from rural China who now reside in Vladivostok. But they are not the only ones faced with such difficulties. 

History says that the USSR died back in 1991.  People are supposed to be so fed up with the economic stagnation, the political inefficiency, and low standard of living compared to the West that no one really misses it.  Only strongman and revisionists like Putin would say something ridiculous like how the fall of the USSR was a great misfortune and the great Russian revival requires reinstating some parts of the USSR.  To Western observers, the USSR represented a failed system that simply proved itself to be uncompetitive over course of history. 

The campus of the Far Eastern Federal University is a gorgeous one.  Situated on the mostly wild Russky Island south of Vladivostok, it is a mishmash of imposing modern buildings connected to the century-old downtown area with spectacular suspension bridges.  Perhaps as a result of its extraordinary setting, it serves as the regular venue of the East Asia Summit that bring together political leaders from Russia and its East Asian neighbors.  But for the importance of the Summit for Russia's Look East economic policy, locals are a bit annoyed by the Summit serving to shut down the city for weeks at a time.

It is a sight that is hard to miss even during the day time.  Drunk men, sleeping on benches and occasionally on the ground, occupying sunburn parks without a care in the world.  While in the city center, local police patrols try to get rid of such men to maintain a clean image for the foreign tourist crowds, in the suburbs, they could not be bothered to even more these drunkards.  And the drunks seem to be around all day long, whether it is 10am, 2pm, or 8pm.  Thankfully, Vladivostok has a relatively warm, but short summer.  In the winter, drunkards freeze to death.

In one of the exhibition rooms of the main regional museums of Vladivostok, photographs and objects depict the original Chinatown of the city from the 19th century.  Nicknamed Millionka, the neighborhood inhabited by Chinese Settlers was just one of several ethnic communities in a city with only 20% ethnic Russian population.  Even among the Russian Settlers, the background was diverse, with Settlers coming in from not only the country's European heartland but also Ukraine, Belarus, and the Caucasus.  Foreigners and Russians alike mingled.

One of the greatest thing about living in Asia is the wide availability of cooked foods.  Whether it is a major city or a rural town, the main streets of any sizable urban community in much of East, Southeast, and South Asia are dominated by endless arrays of both hole-in-the-wall eateries and fancy restaurants serving cuisines of different regions and countries, at a wide spectrum of prices and quality.  Getting food is mostly just a matter of going downstairs, walking for a few minutes, and paying an equivalent of a few dollars at most. 

In Vladivostok, it is difficult to miss the city's two most obvious landmarks.  A pair of suspension bridges, towering above the low-rise cityscape, connects its centuries-old downtown area with southern suburbs across the Golden Horn Bay, and mostly wilderness Russky Island further south with the southern suburbs.  Already nicknamed "Russian San Francisco" for the zigzaging bays intersecting the city, Vladivostok only reminds more of the north American city with the bridges that look conspicuously like the Golden Gate. 

For the Chinese small traders in Vladivostok, 2014 seems to have been a watershed year.  Years of boom turned to gloom as traditional wholesale markets dominated by Chinese traders emptied out.  Merchants speak of a massive exodus of compatriots, as they no longer have enough customers to justify high financial and personal social costs of importing their wares and residing in a foreign city.  Some merchants gave alarmingly high numbers of more than 2/3 of fellow traders returning to China after 2014.

The Asian Exhibition Gallery at the Tokyo National Museum features some of the most exquisite artefacts from Pacific islands to the depth of ancient Mesopotamia.  The display is often a potpourri of different things from different eras, discovered by different people and sourced in different ways.  But in all the confusing variety of the artefacts, the central message of the Gallery was never lost in each of the exhibit: that the various cultures of Asia, as represented by the artefacts present, serve as the cultural foundations of Japan as a country and people today.

In many Japanese family restaurants, there is something called a drink bar.  After paying one price for the drink bar, the customer is entitled to get as many refills as they want from its various vending machines, usually with dozens of juices and sodas.  Amazingly, since water (free for all patrons, including those who did not pay for the drink bar) is also located at the drink bar and is taken with the same plastic cups, technically restaurant staff cannot who paid for drink bar at all.

When a person hits 30, the topic of marriage and having children become more and more frequent as a conversation topic among friends.  Some undoubtedly extol the joys of the family and how children give meaning to the daily grind that is becoming increasingly monotonous .  Others complain about the unaffordably high costs of child-rearing, especially factoring the need for bigger residence, better food, and high-quality education that are pretty much a given if the child is to have any sufficient choice to grow up when both healthy mental and physical conditions.