Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Living in Japan, it can be hard to imagine that humanity is still growing. Even as the country is shrinking by more than 600,000 people a year and face a dire shortage of manpower in the decades moving forward, the world is hitting 8 billion in population, based on recent estimates, driven by continuing population growth in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. With India set to overtake China in population in a few years, and several African countries moving up the world's most populated rankings, the corresponding center of human gravity is bound to shift over time.

It is a bit surreal to watch the news about record-breaking temperatures in Europe from a hotel room in eastern Hokkaido. While parts of the UK and France are suffering their first-ever 40C weather in history, the northern island of Japan is still in the cool mid-20s, made chillier with frequent rains and winds, and untempered by the high humidity of the country's more southerly regions that draw up the wet-bulb temperature to uncomfortable levels. There is much to complain about the inconvenience of a rural backwater like eastern Hokkaido, but the summer temperature surely is not one of them.

It has been a few days since the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe during a parliamentary election campaign speech in Nara prefecture, and the news cycle has somehow moved on. The headline news of the day centered on renewed worries about the "7th wave of COVID" with the spread of the new Omicron BA.5 variant on the domestic side and the continuing political turmoil of Sri Lanka on the international side. While press conferences by law enforcement and the church Abe was allegedly involved in still made the news, they have become afterthoughts as people move on with their lives.

There are many downsides to remote work. The lack of camaraderie developed over small talk with coworkers, the lack of a group setting that stimulates creativity and concentration, the lack of clear division between professional and private lives...But suppose there is one consistent positive for remote work. In that case, it is the ability to get peace and quiet when necessary, for meetings, working alone on urgent tasks, or simply avoiding toxic people that ruin cordial workplace atmospheres. For those who enjoy getting things done without being interrupted, working from a home office can be a godsend at such times.

Not a day goes by in Japan in recent weeks that the topic of unusual weather hits the news. From record heat (40 degrees in June!) to clearly changing weather patterns (shortest rainy season on record) to difficulties of regular people handling the weather (the government urges people to cut back on electricity consumption), it seems as if this year will be a year to be remembered in future generation as the year when global warming and climate change went from mere slogans of a faraway land to real difficulties for everyday lives during the ever-longer, ever-dryer, ever-hotter summers.

The tech industry, as it has with many other fields, has revolutionized the process of mating for the younger generation. Ease-to-use dating apps, led by pioneers like Tinder, have now proliferated, with each service increasingly targeting niche markets, based on socio-cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation, shared interests, geography, and lifestyle. Better user interfaces have been accompanied by better algorithms. Automation takes over the painful process of deciding who are potentially suitable matches among an almost endless stream of candidates when so little firsthand information is available about them.

For many future English teachers, the first step is to get evidence that they have the right mind and skillset for instructing students. For many countries, their claim to be fluent in the English language, based on their nationality, cultural background, or visual looks, no longer suffice. With ever-tightening visa restrictions for English teachers, what used to be high-paying summer jobs for students from the world's best English language universities are now reserved for those with the right papers, in the form of diplomas, certificates, and training results, to show know-how in the art of teaching.