My daughter is 2.5 years old. I’m trying to teach her Japanese, but it’s not easy. The language one uses to speak to kids is actually quite different, and I’m not familiar with it. So, I have to watch other Japanese parents and learn how they speak to their kids. YouTube is quite handy for that purpose too. There are a lot of stuff for kids, some of which are interesting for me to watch as well. This one below teaches how to count to 10, but it’s deceptively complex. There are multiple levels of word-play. Each cartoon character presented has the letters used for a number.  For instance, “ba-na-na”: If you take aways “ba”, you are left with “na-na”, which means 7. As you can see, those bananas are battling. The English word “battle” is used commonly in Japanese as “ba-to-ru”. The last two syllables “to-ru” means to take away something. So, it could be interpreted as “take away ‘ba'”. If you were to do that from “ba-na-na”, you are left with “na-na” which is 7. In this manner, they go through all the numbers up to 10. I like the music too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdzSCv_p7QA

I used to play Gran Turismo a lot, but I never paid attention to the screen that asked me if I want to play in the “drifting” mode, because I had no idea what it meant. Then I saw on TV “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift” where these kids were drifting their cars around as they raced on curvy, mountainous roads. Even after I saw that, I still thought it was just a fantasy.

Well, apparently it’s real. These games and movies are based on what’s actually going on in Japan. You’ll see a footage of it below. If I got in an accident with one of these people, I would certainly be furious (especially if my daughter was in the car.). At first, I figured these guys must be blocking the road by sending someone ahead of them. No. You actually see cars coming from the opposite direction. I have nothing against young people risking their lives for fun, but it’s a very different story when they risk the lives of other people. That’s certainly not “cool”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM4nhxA5hQs

It appears to me that the Japanese culture naturally tends toward reducing everything to its atomic components. Here in the video below, they have given themselves the challenge of creating an animation out of 10 lines. Each stick represents a person with its own voice-over, and they work as a team (very Japanese). A fly comes into the scene and they try to figure out how to kill it. One stick comes up with the idea of becoming a fly swatter. Another comes up with the idea of spray (it runs out). Then a spider. Then finally a chameleon. The first stick complains that he does not want to be the tongue to catch the fly, so he moves to the tail end. But the fly ends up landing on the tail. They then decides to sever the tail and leave. The stick who was left behind complains that, unlike other types of lizard, chameleon’s tail should not fall off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6_P9uE-y0

North Korea must be one of the weirdest places on earth. This blog compiles photos and articles about tourism in North Korea. I hate traveling, but I’d be interested in going there. Many people tell me that traveling is good because you learn about different cultures and different perspectives. Well, I think, for that purpose, it would be hard to beat North Korea.

The entire nation is living in a fictional world. In every picture from North Korea, there is something funny and scary at the same time. All the tourists have this expression that says: “Is this real, or am I dreaming?” In some ways, it’s like going to Galapagos Island; a place utterly removed from the reality as we know it. Both places share one thing in common: no advertising and no American products. That must be a very strange experience.

Summer Block’s blog is my primary source of information about China. Here is an article she wrote about the environmental activism in China. I have to be honest; when I read an article like this, part of me wish that these catastrophic things actually happen. I live in the East Village, New York, and some people predict that my neighborhood would be under water. Well, I would like to see that; seriously. I’m not being cynical. Even if it happens, it won’t happen over night. I would have plenty of time to relocate. I like New York, but I’m not attached to it. It would force me to live a different life and it might actually be a good thing.

The problem with preventing these catastrophic events is that we will never learn whether it would have happened or not. It’s like the Y2K frenzy. If those Y2K people didn’t make a big deal out of it, perhaps what they predicted would have actually happened. It was basically a matter of patching enough bugs, and apparently we did. I’m pretty sure if we didn’t do anything at all, it would have been disastrous. Since most of us had very little knowledge of what Y2K was actually about, we would’ve had to turn to those Y2K people for help in dealing with the disastrous situation. They would have been treated as heroes (and make tons of money to boot.). Instead, they were mocked and ridiculed because nothing happened.

It’s quite possible that if nothing happens with global warming, the people like Al Gore would be seen as a hysteric in retrospect, and George W. Bush as a voice of reason. I think those who work in the IT department of big corporations know this well. They have to constantly warn their management about a variety of disastrous things that could happen if they do not do this or that. If you are a good IT manager, you would manage to prevent them all, but then you would be seen as an overly paranoid person, shouting “Fire!” with every little sign. Interestingly enough, when something disastrous does happen, most people do not blame the IT people. It’s usually because they don’t understand the mechanism enough to gauge whether it could have been prevented or not. In short, they don’t understand enough to place the blame squarely on someone. They even become respectful and sympathetic. It’s pretty ironic. In other words, the IT people are often better off letting the disaster happen.

George W. Bush was largely praised for his handling of 9-11. Not many people asked whether it should have been prevented. Most of us are very quick to forgive failure to prevent, because we accept that the future is ultimately unpredictable. With Hurricane Katrina, much of the criticism was about the insufficient response to the aftermath, not the failure to prevent the disaster. I’m sure there were people equivalent to Al Gore who were warning the government about the weakness of the levee. Are they heroes? No, the heroes are those who dealt with the aftermath, like the rescue workers, not the people who tried to prevent the disaster.

How about those few people who actually said that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before we went to war? Somehow these people are seen as almost freaks or smart-asses, when in fact they should be given the Nobel prize.

That’s how it is also with the police in the US. We treat them like heroes for fighting criminals, but we could argue that if they were really good at what they do, crimes shouldn’t happen in the first place. This is the way many Japanese people see the police. If a crime happens, the police are not doing their jobs. In the US, we take crimes for granted. The police are not in charge of preventing crimes; they are in charge of bringing the criminals to justice. But ironically, I believe the American policemen are appreciated by the public more than the Japanese policemen are. The conclusion: It does not pay to be in the business of prevention. You are better off dealing with the aftermath. By the time a disaster strikes, all of your efforts to prevent it will be forgotten, and new heroes will emerge.

Sense of humor is one of the most subjective things; I would say even more so than music, because it’s all or nothing. If something is not funny, there is no value in it at all for that particular audience. With music, we can at least measure the level of craftsmanship or technical competence. It took me years before I started appreciating American jokes. Even today, after living here for over 20 years, there are still some jokes that completely go over my head.

I only miss a few things about Japan, and one of them is this type of sense of humor. I don’t see it in the US. Here, the kids in a playground are wondering what this guy is doing on the ground. It turns out that he is trying to imitate what happens to a straw wrapper when you put water on it. It’s completely pointless and meaningless, and somehow the degree to which it is pointless makes it funny for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ob0hfiMpb4

Today I made Japanese “curry rice” which is quite different from the original Indian curry. If you’ve never seen it, here is a blog about it. I’ve always wondered what the Indian people thought of it; so I invited one today. She liked it; but then what’s she gonna say to my face, “It sucks”?

Most Japanese people would agree that it’s hard to say which is better since they are quite different. But personally, the Japanese version decidedly feel low-class. It’s like the difference between McDonald’s and a fancy restaurant; sometimes you crave for McDonald’s even if you could afford to go to the fancy one. In Japan, “curry-rice” is commonly cooked at home, and is considered a cheap meal.

Interesting comparison is ramen noodle. Its original is Chinese lo mein noodle in broth. I’m pretty sure “ramen” came from “lo mein”. All the Americans I know who had both versions said they liked the Japanese version better. The Chinese version, they said, tasted too bland in comparison to the Japanese version. Curiously enough, the top-rated ramen noodle restaurant in New York, Momofuku, is owned by a Korean-American chef. [This is a correction; I originally thought he was Chinese.]