Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

For a foreigner to live in Japan for many many years as a productive, "regular" (in terms of what he does, a salary-man or Office Lady, for that matter) member of society requires the person to be REALLY emotionally attached to Japan as a society. Just liking "Japanese culture" (as many professes BEFORE they come to Japan, based on their knowledge of Japanese pop culture-based stereotypes) is really not enough for more than few months when that "newness" of being Japan wears off. What is required is a deep bond of friendship with the local people that act as a honest and unobstructed channel of understanding the individual Japanese persons intimately. It is about breaking the "personal barriers" the Japanese put around them against foreigners (and other Japanese as well) to "be nice" toward the others yet prevent others from acquiring too much of a position in their personal lives. All in all, it is about making unconstrained emoti...

In philosophy, there is a school of thought known as Absolutism, tracing back to the days of Hegel in its pursuit of absolute ideal standards in all fields of human society. From social structures and economics to governments and moral values, Absolutists held that there is that one elusive yet perfect model for humans of all backgrounds and beliefs to achieve absolute success. Some will discover the model earlier than others, but as knowledge is spread, the entire world and entire human civilization, will eventually converge the exact same application of the exact same model with perhaps a little regional variations. Not surprisingly, the enthusiastic cries of triumph at finding that ideal one-fits-all model has been heard throughout the existence of Absolutist thought. And some, most notably "Western-style democracy" and "free-market capitalism" has been highly justified with increased happiness of common people brought by personal freedoms and materialistic ...

So, today, I checked the total PV of my blog, and it turns out Japan, for the first time, has surpassed the US as the largest source of viewers of my posts. In other words, the blog has entered the period where more people come to me for understanding what is outside of Japan (more mentally and philosophically than physically, of course) rather than what is inside Japan (socio-culturally and physically). And since I have so far largely played a travelling passive observer role voicing opinions on real situations, perhaps, as many have suggested, becoming more proactive in my suggestions for improvements may serve the blog very well. Of course, as a new grad with rather superficial contact with Japanese people (occasionally drinking would not suffice as truly understanding Japanese culture...), the thing I can probably talk about the most is regarding how Japan can become less self-righteous ("this is Japan, do the Japanese way"), even secretively, when dealing with forei...

In Japanese culture, the social protocol calls for utmost attention to the right "atmosphere." Certain actions can only be considered appropriate when the "atmosphere" of the time and place allowed for them to be carried out. In Japanese lingo, it is "reading the air" (空気を読む）and for every person deemed to be lacking in such skill, the term "KY" ("cannot read the air, "Kuki Yomenai," 空気読めない) is ruthlessly (albeit sometimes jokingly) applied. The presence of these KY people is definitely a source of massive awkwardness and discomforting bluntness in any social gathering, whether work-related or otherwise. Well, being careful to avoid KY-ness is obviously of high importance in certain work conditions. In the presence of one's superiors, or worse, external guests, doing anything KY, i.e. making overly argumentative comments against the others, aggressively doing something that should be reserved to the superiors, and so forth, ...

This day has been quite unproductive. I have been sleeping until 10am (got up at 5:30am as usual but went back to bed because it is simply too cold...), reading the news, and tracing my thoughts on bar-hopping and clubbing in a blog post...all this when I instead could have done finished many more job-related tasks that I am now pushing back to tomorrow and the days after. It is true that I practically spent half of the three-day weekend on work, frantically typing away to create documents and send emails, but it seems that the "invisible hand" that push me down to the desk is still not loosening a single bit. I do tell people that I am feeling this way, and all I am getting is "do not let your workaholic self take away your freedom." While I have made it clear that I am not going to lose myself just because I am now living in a country where social nonconformity is only understood as "craziness," I am starting to think that the Japanese managers, ...

Western-style partying often involves drinking and partying it up with complete strangers, allowing people to enlarge their friendship circles in rather random ways. The Japanese, on the other hand, generally tend to be rather private on these matters, preferring to drink and go crazy in the comfort of their own separate spaces . So, those who do party Western-style in Japan has to be very, eh, different and not conforming with the social norms...must be an interesting crowd just by that. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to find out for myself this weekend. This Saturday, as I was lounging around at home, slowly finishing up some company tasks, a friend from San Diego suddenly called and said he is in Tokyo and wants to hang out. Sure, why not, especially since God knows when I will be in San Diego again. So we met up and headed for Shibuya. As we were discussing what to do over a dinner, the guy started talking about his clubbing experience in Roppongi. And here I was, been ...

People get bored of doing the same thing over and over, being in the same situation, and seeing the same people. For one to stop doing something after starting it may take only a day (like I am with computer games ), or maybe a few years (hopefully, as I am thinking nowdays ). But even for something of as much personal value as a significant other or high-paying employment, and no matter how difficult and how elated it was for one to get in the beginning, the day will come when it is no longer desirable, and worse, a bit disgusting. Of course, unless one finds a continued reason for keeping up the excitement for it. Often it involves a whole new aspect of the matter or object in question that was completely overlooked before. A hidden stage in a game (forcing programmers to be more and more sophisticated these days), a sudden new responsibility at work, and a newly discovered common hobby with the partner are all considerable for preventing that natural human curiosity from buyi...