Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

When people envision a "revolution," they often conjure images of sudden bouts of violence and radical change. People coordinate large-scale gatherings where they clash with the police and military to voice their suffering and demand change. From the protests emerge charismatic leaders whose speeches move crowds and whose ideologies are projected into the public consciousness. When the authorities refuse to budge in the face of popular discontent, protests turn into mob violence, then organized armed opposition that overcomes the defenders of the regime. 

The Japanese often attribute the country's high-quality manufactured products to  Shokunin Damashii (職人魂) in action. A historical culture of craftsmen focusing on doing one thing and just one thing well in his or her life has led to a slew of artisanal success stories, from fabled swords from centuries ago to the aged sake rice wine taking over the world's palate. Despite modern manufacturing's reliance on automation and assembly lines, the country's electronics giants and carmakers continue to suggest that this culture of perfectionism over individual lifetimes is the secret ingredient to made in Japan's fine reputation.

Ah, a Lenovo laptop. It almost takes me back to the college days, when the ThinkPad represented the pinnacle of the aspiring white-collar professional, ready to take work on the go, no matter how rough the road ahead becomes, both metaphorically and physically. Those were the days when the MacBook was the exclusive territory of deliberately non-mainstream hipsters, attracted by its quirky colors and functionalities. The serious kids, those heading to the world of finance and management consulting, needed a business laptop to accompany their business suits.

Last week, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the country's main governmental agency for international development, announced that it was scrapping what it called the Africa Hometown Initiative. The initiative was originally intended as a city-to-city economic development partnership, with four Japanese regional governments being respectively paired with an African counterpart, so that Japanese resources and know-how can be shared at the grassroots level more efficiently and directly. The more bottom-up approach to international development promised an alternative to JICA's usual ways. It did not take long for the country's right-wingers to spread false information about how the initiative would be a beachhead for millions of Africans to swamp Japan. By focusing on the use of the word "hometown," these individuals easily played into the growing fear among the Japanese public about the country becoming less Japanese over time through a surge of non...