Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

One of the great tragedies of the smartphone era is just how attached the average user is to the device. Anywhere, anytime, people are glued to their little screens, seeking stimulations in the most mundane of situations. The propensity for people paying attention to smartphones rather than anything else around them has required local authorities to put up posters and warning signs to discourage their use under certain circumstances, lest aloof smartphone users unwittingly bump into others or worse, hurt themselves by absent-mindedly wandering into busy roads and railroads.

I recently had an opportunity to speak to a group of new university graduates just joining a particular Japanese firm, as part of the company's initial training for new hires. As an icebreaker to get to know the group a bit better, I asked each member of the group about why s/he decided to join this company. The answers, to my sheer disappointment, was extremely underwhelming. One mentioned that the company is big and stable, another said that the firm's older employees all seemed to be very friendly, and scariest of all, one person bluntly mentioned that there is no particular reason that she chose the firm over others.

Back when I was living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between 2012 and 2015, one thing that I noticed was the sheer prevalence of people doing things on rooftops. The city was home to dozens of high-rise condominiums and office towers, and almost every single one of the high-rise's rooftop was being used, either as a bar, a restaurant, or in the case of many condominiums, pools and just a simple open activity space for the building's residents. The prevalence of open rooftops was so commonly accepted that people would assume that, whenever there is a high-rise, the rooftop would be accessible.

Back when I was still an employee at the logistics division of the major Southeast Asian e-commerce operator Lazada Group, I undertook an initiative at the warehouse to improve the speed at which orders are processed. The idea was to rearrange the physical layout of the area designated for processing and packaging products bound for delivery to customers so that workers can get the work done without moving as much. By pushing tables together and laying down rudimentary slides for packages to travel between different processing stations, the exercise shaved off about two seconds from the time it takes to process one order.

On the streets of Katsuura, a small coastal town on the far side of Chiba prefecture is a scene that one will never see on the streets of Tokyo today. Two brightly lit stores with giant "Sale!" signs specialize in the latest repertoire of portable fireworks, for people to enjoy in their backyards. The stores are not meant to be discreet. Occupying the two prime spots across each other on one of the town's main shopping streets, their wares spill onto the streets on carefully laid out tables, standing out from the other, much more dimly light lit outlets of restaurants and banks.

It's rather odd for me to hear people question my Japanese-ness even implicitly in Japan. Granted, I am by no means Japanese by ethnicity or nationality, but speaking Japanese without much of a foreign accent while having the looks to fit straight into the mainstream, I am accustomed to people assuming that I am Japanese as long as they don't ask for my real name or a copy of my identity card.

Japan has not heretofore been known much for gin. While the country's whiskeys and beers are garnering global recognition for taste and quality in recent years, not all Western liquors are equally taken on by the general public. But as major distillery Suntory has started marketing its own domestically produced gin to a domestic audience, it could be a harbinger of not only Japanese but global, interest in a more wide-ranging alcoholic experience. Indeed, if the new opening of bars and pubs in Tokyo is anything to go by, previously little consumed liquors, from mezcal to pisco sour, are gradually becoming mainstream.