Friday, January 31, 2014

The Art of Complaining

The magnet on my grandmother's refrigerator read, "The more you complain, the longer God lets you live."  I believed this because grandma did.  In my corner of the world, this woman did no wrong.  Conclusion?  Don't complain.  When I found this same magnet in a gift shop I bought it, displaying it proudly on my dishwasher at eye-level, certain my son would see, learn, and agree.

There are chronic complainers in my life.  Every conversation we have is about what is wrong.  They're seldom able to talk about anything other than their latest problem.  It's true some times they are given massive doses of life-changing crises, sometimes back-to-back.  Then came the realization, the ones who always have issues are the same bunch--I can count them--and this begs the question, should grandma's magnet have read, "The more you complain the more crap God throws at you"?

I imagine us walking on a beach.  You're talking and I'm listening.  You're actually complaining.  Let's just get that out in the open.  Somewhere in this process a line magically appears in the sand.  This is the line at which I stop listening.  You cross it, this line, because you need to spill, but because your complaining becomes too much I tune out.  I'm not proud of this fact.  I'm sorry, sort of, but not enough to stop the line from appearing.

We all have this line.  It appears for us at different times.  Most of us who complain are unaware of its existence, that here is a cue for us to shut up and stop which is why we cross it.

I recently complained publicly online about my latest gripe.  It's a big gripe, and one I feel justified in sharing.  Did you want to know?  Probably not.  Did I care that you didn't?  Not really.  Did I cross your line?  Maybe.

The problem with complaining is just that:  we don't really want to know.  Most of us who ask the question, "How are you?" aren't particularly interested in what follows.  We want to hear, "Fine" and get on with the conversation.  We want to order our food, gossip, and talk about the latest books we've read.  Only with a select few do I ever allow myself to spew.

Complaining is an art few of us have mastered.  Without expelling problems, they fester.  They start to smell.  The corners in which we keep our problems hidden become infected, turning into pimples and boils filled with puss.

Pimples need to be popped.  Boils need to be lanced.  Infections in our bodies need to be removed.  The same goes for emotions.  Before we are molded by our culture, we are all base humans.  The same things make us happy:  good food, sex, companionship.  The same things make us sad:  death, rejection, indigestion.  It's through culture we are taught about "good" and "bad" emotions.  It's through culture we are taught to "control" our feelings.  In Japan, the prevailing sentiment when things to badly is to "suck it up and ride it through."  Perhaps that's too crass.  That said, the word and concepts behind gaman offer most Japanese little opportunity to complain.

There are 500,000 or more people going through varying degrees of trauma based on the same event.  The disaster that took place almost 36 months ago is old news in chronology but not in emotion.  Whoever said, "time heals all wounds" was wrong.  Time may lessen pain but in the past 36 months I've seen little healing.  Asking those who have experienced varying degrees of loss to "hang in there" by personifying strength, stoicism, and patience--all words applying to gaman--there are consequences to this assumption.  Not good ones, either. 

I do not complain to my friends in Tohoku because I feel my problems are insignificant in comparison.  I diminish my issues, whatever they may be and however large they are because, lets' face it, they seem petty in comparison to what they've gone through.

I have not mastered the art of complaining.  Neither have my many friends.  Those who should be allowed to release their pain don't, and those who ramble on don't see my line. 

Let it out or keep it in?  I write today not to offer solutions but to urge us all to think--myself included, of course. 

Sunday, January 19, 2014

On The Woman-Who-Rhymes-With-Witch and Learning How To Move On

Shit happens in threes.  Everyone knows this.  Our run with bad luck started back in December.  We received a call.  The police arrested one of the two who robbed our home two years ago.  If we were still pressing charges we would need to fly home for the trial and testify.  Or, we could drop the charges and she would go free.  We called and said, "We need time," and "We'll get back to you."  They said, "Fine."  Fine.  We would deal with this later.

Then David flew home to a house with burst pipes and water damage.  Floorboards warped, walls and ceilings damaged, the place was a mess.  Because two is a stupid number there was more.  We received another letter from the government agency that starts with an I and ends in a S.  Shit happens in threes.  Indeed.

This was a bit much.  Where do we start?  How do we move through these events?  Why was this happening to us?  We're good people.  We don't deserve this string of back-to-back life-glitches.  What did we do to deserve this?

Frantic transpacific calls ensued.  We split the work.  I would handle the robbery case.  David would handle the water damage.  We told our accountant to fix the other problem.  In the mean time we complained about these undeserving injustices and railed against the conspiring entities who tried to bring us down.  This served to raise our blood pressure and little else.  Wallowing felt good but only briefly.  We soon found this negativity got in our way of moving forward and making plans.  That said, I found denying my anger at this woman-who-rhymes-with-witch did me little good.  David found living without water utterly horrid.  Neither of us were happy.

Happiness.  This was the answer to a question posed to me by my brother years ago.
"What do you want out of life, sis?"
"Happiness," I said.
He paused.  "That is so Princess Diana."
I took this to mean my answer was not one I would be wise to repeat elsewhere.
Years later I reminded him of this conversation which, of course, he did not remember.
"Sorry about that," he said.  "Yeah.  We all want to be happy.  There's nothing wrong with that."

How do we define happiness?  What makes us happy?  The simple answer is, "The opposite of what makes us sad."  The past month aside, for the past 30+ months I have been surrounded by people who experienced a deep and profound sadness.  Whoever said "time heals all wounds" should have added "and for collective pain, this doesn't apply."  Three years is evidently not long enough for pain to disappear.

How we process pain differs for us all.  I need laughter.  With very little in my professional life, I rely on those around me:  my husband, our son, my sister, my boarding school buddies.  I watch the New Zealand All Blacks do the Haka because while it's not funny, it makes me smile.

Learning to move on is a skill few of us learn and develop thus making our difficult times seem longer, deeper, and more intense.  I am in no position to tell those who have experienced loss to move on.  I do encourage the grieving to laugh.  Often is good.  Once a day is a must.  For your dose for today, read these answers given by a child whom I would be proud to call my own.



As I lash out in my imaginary conversations with the thief who is the woman-who-rhymes-with-witch, I feel my heart pound as I say things to her privately I will never have the chance to say out loud.  I feel very little relief. 

Shit happens in threes so we are clear for the rest of 2014.  We're certain we are correct in our assumption.  This is most excellent news.  It's not three weeks into the year and we're good to go.  This makes us happy.  We will get through this string of bad luck.

In the mean time, we will laugh and will encourage others to do the same.  Pain is not funny.  Deep pain takes longer to move through.  That said, there's plenty of humor in life and some of it is simply too good not to share.

In the spirit of locating our own personal funny bones I share Jonathan's art and poem.  Good boy.


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Downside of Cute Japan: When Mascots Fail

Cute Japan has long ago taken the world by storm.  Japanese girls dressed like dolls are kawaii.  Cosmetic surgery creates bigger eyes.  Hair is poofed up tied with big ribbons (if you're a girl).  Hello Kitty is now 30 years old?  Do people even know that?

Anime, Japanese manga (cartoons) has can also be seen, bought, and read in many corners of the world.  Except for the smut that is child pornography in manga form, I don't have a problem with this side of Japan.  You want cute?  It's here in many shapes, forms, and sizes.

On my mind of late is the subject of mascots.  There's a bit of a boom of these giant creatures.  Prefectures have their own mascots as do companies, agencies, government organizations.  For the most part these are seriously loved by the Japanese.  For the most part, these seriously confuse foreigners.

When I saw Alpha Male (my favorite Japanese man in Japan) awhile back I noticed something hanging from his cell phone.
"What is that?" I say, pointing to a red...dog?  Bear?  Except for the big bulb of black on its nose the rest of this thing is red.  Today on the subway I saw a giant doll of this red thing hanging off a violin case.  What is this?  Why do people have this thing?
"It's a mascot," Alpha Male says.
"Huh," I say.
"What?"  He's annoyed.
"Nothing," I say.  Then, "I guess I don't get it."



I used to interpret for cops who would visit Tokyo to visit their Japanese counterparts.  Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has a mascot.  Again, it can only be described as a thing.  I think it might actually be a mouse or a rat crossed with an alien but I'm not at all sure.  Pee-Po as the mascot is called, shows up on the business cards of all TMPD officers, detectives, and officials.  Pee-Po is on signs and brochures and billboards outside police stations.  Pee-Po has a family:  mommy rat, baby rat, grandma rat, brother and sister rat.  American cops I worked with mocked Pee-Po and Tokyo cops that had a rat for a mascot.  "Imagine NYPD officers having a cartoon pigeon on their cards," one cop said to me.  "They'd be the laughing stock of cops everywhere."  I just smiled.  Here again is cute Japan.  To each their own.  If Japanese cops need a mascot to make themselves more likeable then so be it.  Sort of.

I draw the line at Fukuppy.  Fukushima tried to offer up Fukuppy as their mascot in October, 2013.  Fukuppy has since disappeared having been made fun of online by those who saw the name as mock-worthy.  On this, I stand with the mockers.  Really?  No one checked?  Fukuppy?

Not having the answer on why these mascots are as popular as they are I go back to Hello Kitty.  These mascots are giant versions of Hello Kitty.  If Hello Kitty can survive and make her way around the world for thirty years then perhaps there's some wisdom in having ambiguous creatures represent a prefecture.  Or cops.  Then again, I think one needs to be Japanese to appreciate this side of cute Japan.  Too many foreigners have said to me after looking at these things, "I guess I don't get it."  Yours truly included.



Random musings on things.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

When Warnings Fail: Chicken Little, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and the Japan Meteorological Agency

The drama all started with an e-mail I received four days ago on a news thread I subscribe to for updates on post-disaster radiation in Fukushima.  I read it so I'm in the loop.  I'm not worried about radiation in Japan but feel better being informed.  I want to be clear on this.  Japan is not some radioactive, glow-in-the-dark hot bed of nuclear waste.  Certain parts of Fukushima are.  Don't assume all of Japan is.

The e-mail asked about the accuracy of a recent post on some corporations-are-evil website stating Reactor 3 in Fukushima was spewing steam and about to blow.  This explosion would send clouds of radioactive waste into the atmosphere which would reach the west coast of the United States in two or three days (this was four days ago) and thus everyone should be prepared.  The author had suggestions on how to prepare for this impending nuclear fall-out but I'll get back to that later.

I deleted this e-mail because I've seen and heard this all before.  Everything coming from Japan is contaminated.  (It isn't.) Every bit of tsunami debris that washes up on the shores of the western coast of North America oozes the yellow-green slime of death.  (It doesn't.)  When I woke up this morning to a message from a friend asking "what do you know about reactor 3?" I decided perhaps this subject warranted another look.  I wanted to be clear in how I responded.  While clear is good, I most definitely wanted to be accurate.  I make my way back to my e-mail trash bin and sort through junk mail to find the posting from several days ago.  As I marvel at the amount of crap I receive on a daily basis (most of which gets deleted without ever being opened) I finally find the thread and start reading.  The article I mentioned earlier is the one referenced in the thread, and I smile at the reply given to the question of its accuracy.  "Pure bullcrap."

This is a well-informed and dedicated group of people who have, since the beginning of the nuclear disaster almost three years ago, followed and researched the truth.  I trust the author when she writes the article announcing a doomed west coast is bunk.  The sky is not falling, Chicken Little.  Chill.

These warnings, if you can call them that, are in my most humble opinion dramatized pseudo-journalism.  When too many people cry wolf no one takes real warnings seriously.  Postings like these are an egregious public disservice.  Knock it off.  Please.

Now I will switch gears and contradict myself.  My go-to source when there's an earthquake here in Japan is the web site for the Japan Meteorological Agency.  If I feel my apartment shaking, I know in a few minutes I can look up where the earthquake hit, how big it was, and whether there is a tsunami warning.  This service I appreciate because when it comes to earthquakes I know they will get it right.  I trust their numbers.

Tsunami warnings are another matter.  When the M9.0 earthquake hit off the coast of Tohoku in 2011, the tsunami warning issued for Rikuzentakata was for a wave between two to three meters.  The tsunami that actually hit was closer to sixteen meters.  One can presumably ride out a tsunami of two or three meters on the second floor of a building.  Sixteen?  No.  This error is too big to dismiss.  On predicting tsunami warnings, I don't trust their numbers.

Similarly, when a tornado hits outside of Tokyo and the JMA holds a press conference after the fact to tell us a tornado hit I have to ask myself, "Really, guys?"  We saw the tornadoes on television.  They already hit.  How is telling us this helpful?  Why hold a press conference?  Focus on warning us and not on reporting what we already know.  Some days the agency in Japan all-things-weather-related is most helpful.  At other times I cringe at what I can only call their stupidity.

Back to Chicken Little, or more precisely, the author who wrote the article about preparing for impending doom on the west coast of the United States.  Her suggestions on how to survive this act of natural terror were to, among other things buy a TYVEX suit to wear when going outside and, here I quote, "wash obsessively."  I almost spewed tea reading that line.

Allow me to make the following observation:  define obsessively.  Quantify this please.  Am I to wash often, or wash for longer?  Or, is it both?  How often is often enough?  How long is long enough?  How do I know the water is safe to use?  Do I wash just with water or do I use soap?  You didn't say, dear author, and I do believe these are key points requiring useful and specific advice.  Keep Chicken Littling us and we'll believe you less and less if at all.

Language can be beautiful.  The word "warning" contains the point it makes:  to warn.  Let's allow language to do what it's meant to.  Warn me when I need to act.  The rest of the time keep you Chicken Little diva shit to yourself.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Japanese Education, the Metric System, and Why My Bread Maker is Broken

I suppose if self-help books were available when I was a child, and I suppose if my parents were the type to read such books they would have looked for and bought several with titles like "How to Raise a Strong-Willed Child."  Children like me, those with opinions and the vocabulary (and audacity) to speak minds are today referred to as "strong-willed".  Back then, I was just sassy.

Raising such a child in a culture different than that of their passport adds an interesting twist to life.  There are consequences to raising a child in a foreign land.  My parents chose complete immersion for me and my brother.  I'm grateful for the instinctive and intrinsic knowledge I have as an adult, of Japanese culture and language and the protocol required to live and work successfully in Japan.  The trips back to the US during my childhood were fraught with angst and confusion, but those, too, eventually worked out.  By many I've worked with in the US I'm considered highly functional, albeit a bit different (but not always in a bad way). I'm not quite American enough, but usually pass.  An odd response here and there keeps people on their toes.  Or, that's what I tell myself.

When one buys a bread maker as an adult and already is not inclined to read directions about the various pieces included and where and what they should attach themselves to, one hopes using such machines is simple.  Throw in the ingredients (in order, preferably), push buttons and wait.  That's about as far as I get with my patience, strong-willed that I am.  After two failed attempts at making bread I was prepared to return this device, clearly defective.  "Let's give it one more try," my beloved says, and because he was a math major as an undergraduate I agree.  Surely math skills are paramount in placing the right amount of ingredients into the little square box that would produce the eventual loaf.

Herein lies the first problem.  Raise a girl in the metric system, take her to a country where units of measure include words like ounces and fortnight, introduce her to friends who talk about "stone" as a way to calculate weight, then throw her back into a country where the metric system rules and there is inevitable mathematical confusion.  Grams and meters are easy units to use with everything in tens, one hundreds and one thousands.  I'm all for the metric system.  To this day I don't know how many quarts are in a liter, fluid ounces in a Japanese cup (different than an American cup), or how specifically to calculate F into C. 

Back to the strong-willed child.  My first, and second grade teacher, Mrs. Sekiko Sato was, by all accounts a wonderful teacher.  She made one life-altering statement, however, and I place blame squarely at her feet for the fact to this day I do not know how to swim.  She gathered us in the school pool one day, and pointing to the black drain in the middle of the pool said, "Don't ever go near this hole because it will suck you in and you'll never see your mother and father again."

That did it.  This pool and all it represented, swimming mostly, was something I would forever avoid.  Why would schools have a facility on its grounds that would suck children away from their families, forever doomed to roaming underground drains?  What was wrong with this place?  I did not need to know how to swim.  My life would be full and complete without this skill.  To this day, I do not swim.

Similarly, when Mrs. Sato taught us that "doing math in your head means you don't use addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division" I was left dumbfounded.  How did one do math without any of these four basic principles?  "Imagine yourself using an abacus," she said.  I went home and told my parents I needed abacus lessons (they promptly complied) and when the instructor came to our home with his abacus in hand and proceeded to teach me how to do math in my head, moving disks up and down making clicking sounds I knew once again Mrs. Sato was wrong.  My abacus teacher most definitely had me doing any and all four math methods in my head.  I was adding, subtracting and more.  On top of this, I found I was expected to remember numbers using these pegs and not write them down.  Answers did not miraculously appear on my abacus.  I was expected to think.  Japanese children clearly had a skill foreign children were incapable of learning, I decided.  This is why it was possible for them to do math while not adding, subtracting, and the like, the way Mrs. Sato said.  I gave up the abacus after several lessons, telling my parents it was a most stupid and out-of-date way of doing math.  "I'll just master the calculator instead," I believe I said.

For a strong-willed child like me, the Japanese educational system did much to confuse as it tried to mold me into a proper Japanese child.  Group-think was prioritized.  There was actually a class called Ethics.  I grew into a strong-willed, sassy child who spoke my mind, did not swim, hated math, and blended well to the extent any foreign girl could.  Confusion aside, I turned out okay.

Some time after I left the Japanese educational system, the government decided to adopt a more child-centered approach, one many considered western.  Children were encouraged to speak their minds.  Children were given options.  Group-think was less of a priority.  On the surface, these traits seem positive.  The consensus of the outcome, however, has many Japanese my age and older, disgusted with "young people these days" who volunteer their opinions when not asked, who do not follow orders from above, and who try one thing and then move onto another if the outcome isn't just right.  Hiro, my friend from Tohoku is openly critical.  "The words 'I think' shouldn't ever flow out of anyone's mouth but for those in their twenties, that's all they say.  If I didn't ask them what they think, and let's face it, I never would, why would they think it's okay to offer up their personal opinion?  The fact they hop from job-to-job, switching whenever they become dissatisfied or bored, my generation was never allowed to think this way.  Yutori Kyoiku, that system where individual thought was encouraged?  That's Japan's biggest mistake."

Hiro is not alone.  I've heard this same sentiment from many.  But, back to my bread machine.  I distinctly remember being taught grams and milliliters were the same.  I have since been informed by this applies only to measuring liquids.  Flour, to be measured in grams (when going into a bread machine) must be weighed.  This requires a scale.  That requires a purchase of a scale.  A child who was strong-willed who has since become an adult does not like the idea the metric system can fail or that another trip must be made to the local 100 yen store to buy a scale to weigh ingredients before they're added into a recipe.  Bread machines are meant to simply the act of baking.  Weighing flour is an additional step, going completely against the idea of simplifying.  I heartily object to this part of the metric system.

The two loaves made in the bread machine since my two previous disasters have turned out perfectly.  I acknowledge this is because I weighed the flour.  The machine, alas, was not defective.

Today's post offers random thoughts on Japan's educational system and all it entails, waking up to the scent of fresh-baked bread, lamenting the fact my kitchen does not have an oven, why I do not and will not swim, and why even when having to weigh flour I still believe ones and zeros are better than changing the definition of a foot to match that of the current king's foot-size.  (Wikipedia that last part if you don't get the reference.)

Here's to a year of happy bread making.