Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

It is certainly difficult being an Uyghur these days. Not only is an Uyghur person constantly subject to racial profiling and intense surveillance by the state in China , but the Chinese government's downright inhumane policy of disrupting Uyghur self-expression has also found support outside China, as Central Asian states bow to Chinese demand for suppressing their own Uyghur diaspora and Islamophobic Westerners express tacit approval of overt attempts to secularize the Uyghurs.  For some, the threat of Islamic terror has made the Chinese government's heavyhandedness platable, if not outright admirable.

Newsstands at Japanese train stations are usually fronted by racks full of front-page news from the country's vibrant tabloid newspapers.  On a recent day, half a dozen tabloids lined up on the racks spoke a uniform voice against Huawei, the Chinese smartphone-cum-telecom equipment manufacturer that is currently under massive scrutiny across much of the developed world.  "Huawei Smartphones: the Spying Devices that are Just around Us," one tabloid declared.  Others concurred and added in extra details about the aftermath of the ongoing saga over Huawei CFO's arrest in Canada.

Across the rich world, Japanese food is well-regarded.  The trend of wealth youths in the West eating sushi and sashimi come from the image of Japanese cuisine as healthy, characterized by the use of fresh fish and vegetables, and a relative lack of oil and heavy seasoning.  In hip American urban neighborhoods, especially, people are willing to shell out quite a bit of money to get the authentic Japanese dining experience.  The quality of Japanese food as a near-universal truth is confirmed the likes of the Michelin Guide, which has no failed to name Tokyo as the city with the most stars for many consecutive years.

A few years ago when I was living and working in Taiwan , I applied for a position at Uber Taiwan as an Operations Manager.  Uber was just entering the Taiwanese market and usual as it is for the firm, aggressively expanding into major cities with lofty goals of overhauling the entire transport market.  In the interview for the position, I noted that the advantage of a global platform like Uber is its universality.  Because it is the same platform for anyone anywhere (with perhaps the exception of language), it can open up a foreign country for new foreign residents and travelers with little prior knowledge of the new destination.

Living in Japan, it is difficult to escape the omnipresence of uniforms. Whether it is the high school uniforms that titillate the salarymen , or the various uniforms of working people, from the train conductors and supermarket cashiers to the street cleaners and, who can forget the salarymen’s dark suits. Aside from introducing uniformity, the uniforms also become what people aspire to, as a symbol of their professional identity separate from their private lives as individuals.

The Japanese female high school uniform is almost a cultural institution in itself.  Immortalized in anime such as “Sailor Moon” and countless bittersweet love stories of campus romance on the big and small screens, its distinctive blue-and-white sailor-like design is recognizable to even the most casual purveyors of Japanese culture.  For millions in Japan, it is the visual manifestation of what it means to be youthful, innocent, and full of hope and drama.  It is the physical reminder of the coming of age.

Having joined many tours in the past, I come to see certain patterns on how they are organized.  That is especially true for shorter tours, where the ability of the guide to make the trip entertaining seems to be one of the primary criteria to evaluate whether the tour is worthwhile.  The sights might be great, but without proper presentation of them, it is hard to say that people who paid good money to be on the tour actually gained much from being on the tour as compared to just going around and looking at the same sights by themselves.