Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

To ask people about their favorite foods can often be a very personal experience. One would find many people from around the world to be very particular about what they find to be delicious (perhaps with the exception of rural Africans ), based a set of ingredients and cooking methods that are peculiar to certain cultures. But more than the sum of ingredients and cooking methods, people define a delicacy based their personal encounters with the foods in question, often laced in memories that are not easily replicable. Stories of mom's cooking and hidden restaurants in unknown destinations do not converge among different people.

To say Okinawa represents a subset of Japanese culture is to ignore how the local culture is influenced by its historical relationships with its other neighbors. Even today, such influences are felt in daily lives. Foods with distinctive Chinese names like s anpin (香片, jasmine tea) and  chinsuko (金楚糕, lard cookies) are not found in the local cultures of other Japanese regions, while the tendency to eat meat as they are in big pieces (pig feet and pork belly especially) reminds visitors more of Southeast Asia than the meticulously processed cuisines of mainland Japan.

From first sight, Yomitan, on the northeastern coast of Okinawa's main island, is a rather odd village.  Among the small plots of sugarcane fields are five or six-stories-tall apartment blocks that would not be out of place in any major city in the world.  Instead of rustic local eateries, its coastal areas and main streets are lined with luxury resorts and high-end restaurants that cater to holidaymakers from across Japan and the world beyond.  With so many guesthouses and shops in the village, it is difficult to imagine anyone actually making a living doing anything related to farming.

Cherry blossom season is upon us in Japan.  As is the case every year around the same time, people go out with friends onto the tree-lined streets and parks, appreciating, over food, drinks, and photos, the flower-filled trees, for a couple of weeks, adding a mesmerizing pink hue to the often grey cityscapes.  The concept of hanami , or flower-viewing, has in recent years become not only a Japanese phenomenon.  Many countries across the world have also seen large crowds gathering over their own avenues of pink flowers, as people come to enjoy a yearly event still associated with Japanese culture.

In some Asian societies, the idea of the foreign maid has become a social norm.  Even among the not so wealthy Hong Kongers, Singaporeans, and the Taiwanese, hiring domestic help from the Philippines, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries have become commonplace given the busy work schedules that prevent the young and the elderly to be taken care of within the family.  Certain Southeast Asian government have only been too happy to see their maids working hard outside the country because the governments benefit enormously from lowered unemployment and higher remittance income.

This week saw a renewed fear of illegal immigration in Japan when more than 700 registered students from the Tokyo University of Social Welfare simply disappeared.  Presumably, the students, from poor countries throughout Asia, thought that becoming illegal workers to earn more money would be a better way to use their time in Japan than wasting time and money listening to lectures in school.  Opinion pieces in Japanese media justifiably sound the alarm.  Many attacked the halfhearted attempt by the Abe administration to bring in more "foreign technical staff," arguing that such measures would only lead to Japan becoming a land of illegal immigrants.

It certainly has not been a good week for Boeing.  After one of its planes was blamed for the fatal crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, renewed allegations that the model, Boeing 737 MAX, is technically flawed resurfaced, leading to a worldwide grounding of the model.  While airlines and national governments quickly halted the use of the model, Boeing itself and American authorities were slow to react to the Ethiopian disaster, only grounding the planes after more than 60 countries made the move.  The slow reaction has led to a global backlash against the company.