The Fallacy of Fairness

Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY.
Brilliant, rather unsettling piece of work.  If you don't know it, go out and find it at your local library.
If you don't feel like dealing with the traffic (or the people), you can download it for free.

I used to joke that the Japanese make all their final breakthrough decisions with rock-paper-scissors.  If sumo is the national sport, rock-paper-scissors is the national decision maker/tie-breaker.  The children start learning it from preschool.  You'll see them playing it after school on the playground, while waiting in line at the grocery store, and as they get older, in student council meetings.  WE, as adults, have used in in the workplace.

At first glance, I always felt it was pretty reasonable to use it to make a choice when no one could decide or no one would step forward.  (And this is Japan so that happens A LOT.  Group harmony and everything.)
It's random, unbiased for the most part.

But "randomness"  does not equate to "fairness" as was painfully brought to light after 3/11.

Before the internal censorship on the news got out of hand in Japan, you could actually hear about the difficulties faced by the people who had lost their homes, their lives, their entire TOWNS, how they really felt and how it affected them.  Then about a month later, it was nothing but talk of "rebuilding" and other hopeful fluff stories.

But in that small interval, you could get some real news.  I recall one piece I saw about the building of the temporary housing.  If you didn't have family in another prefecture to go to, you were stuck in an evac shelter day and night because the world around you had, for all intents and purposes, collapsed and there was simply no place else to go.  And even if there was someplace to go to, no way to get there as most people had their cars washed away or so severely damaged as to be undrivable.  Then again there also was the condition of the roads.  Maps were reduced to meaningless lines on paper in just trying to navigate through the debris.  The whole landscape had been rewritten.

It goes without saying that it takes time to build a house, even a smallish temporary style housing.  And when you have to build houses for 10's of thousands of people....

Enter The Lottery.

Your number came up - you get a house!
Your number didn't - better luck next time.  Sorry, but back to the evac shelter.

Sure it's unbiased, but in making it unbiased have they not just once again reduced people to numbers with no consideration for individual needs.or circumstances?

I am sure the "fairness because it's random" of the lottery was lost on the 80-year old man whose number didn't come up.  As he faced the camera and hopelessly explained, his wife was bedridden before 3/11.  Her health had deteriorated considerably since she had spent all that time at the evac shelter.  He was in no physical condition himself to help her.  What were they supposed to do until the next drawing?

The young family behind him got their number called.


For years now, the overall makeup of the Japanese population has been becoming considerably greyer, becoming a "senior citizen society".  Not only is it an aging population, but that area in particular that was most affected by 3/11, the Tohoku region, has quite a larger than average concentration of retirees as the young usually leave for better chances elsewhere.  I do wonder how many other older citizens faced the same dilemma as that one man did.  .

Yes, the Lottery might be random, might be unbiased, but it would be a mistake to equate that with fairness.


Cheers.

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Gift Giving Gone Wrong.

While waiting for the taxi that never came I was accosted by two very nice (and hence very rare) girls that had attended camp.
One peeked around the street post I was huddled against for shelter. "Teacher. Why are you standing here?"
"Waiting for a taxi."
"You should take bus."
"... Yeah, I'm thinking there's no more taxi." After 15 minutes in 2 degree weather it was long past time to give up anyway.

She was carrying the wrapped gift from the Camp Closing Ceremony.
"Ooooh! What is it?" I grabbed it and started squishing it for consistency. It was obvious what it was immediately, but apparently not only to me since before I could declare what knowledge the fruits of my man handling had brought me, her friend piped in, "It's a note book."

That conversation ended as flatly as her statement.

But it did get me thinking about the rampant, pointless gift-giving.
The girls had gifts from giving speeches and so did the class leaders. Class leaders got an extremely exciting package consisting of a 3-ink ballpoint pen and yellow post-it notes!!!!

Seriously. Even if these middle school kids wanted a notebook in the first place - a dubious presumption at best - it's highly unlikely they wanted the generic, bargin bin leftovers bought enmasse that they were handed.
As gifts.

So what was the point of this shameful waste of money on unwanted gifts when they couldn't even provide the teacher's supplies to teach?

I realized then that the gifts were not for the children, but for their blind and adoring parents to see - Look. We, too, adore your preciouseses. We have given gifts to your preciouseses. We can't say we gave much in the way of an educational experience over this past week, but we did spend money on a real gift that you can hold and see for yourself.

...
And thus ends another torturous two weeks of English Camp.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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DO YOU SEA WHAT I HEAR?

Finders keepers!

So who found it first?

The eternal question of ownership between Japan and Korea.
Is the island Takeshima {Japan} or Dokutou {Korea}?
Is the tiny waterway the Japan sea or the East sea?

Apparently, it depends on what country you live in.

In the daily radio news about the military movements I heard an interesting word pop up that caught my attention immediately. It slipped by at first and then I tripped on it when it was repeated again almost immediately and thought ???. And just as quickly a wry smile appeared on my lips. I was hit with - “Oh, it's T-H-A-T.”

It's hard to describe the sensation of hearing something in a situation that is totally unexpected much less out of place. Yet, simultaneously you wonder, is it really out of place?

In describing the repositioning if the Igeuos warships the Korean news broadcaster used the word Toukai – the Korean name for the Japan sea since the Koreans argue that they own it.
That may not sound out of place – this was a broadcast by the largest Korean news company KBS (think of USA's ABC or NBC). - Except for one thing:
This was a broadcast IN the JAPANESE language SPECIFICALLY FOR the JAPANESE citizens.

Admittedly any time is a good time for government propaganda, but how many Japanese citizens just happen to know that the East sea is the same as the Japan sea?

I only know because I'm enthralled with the multitudenous versions of history that they battle about over here. It's like a love triangle between Japan, South Korea, and China minus the love. More like a hate triangle.

Toukai.
It was an outter limits moment and I hadn't even started my Friday drinking yet.

奇妙な感じだった。


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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cheerful happy rainbows make smilegood time

Apparently, most Japanese have never seen a real rainbow—there’s too much air pollution here.

On the other hand, they get to experience their own little rainbow inside the grocery throughout the year.

Take, for instance, KitKats:
In the Spring, there is Orange.
In the Summer, there is Blueberry and Lemon.
In October I found Acorn Squash for Halloween.
Again: There are no “pumpkins” in Japan. Some moron saw what is very obviously an acorn squash and decided to call it a pumpkin. As we know, acorn squash does NOT taste like a pumpkin. So imagine for the moment, if you will, an acorn squash-flavored KitKat. (Maybe you shouldn’t if you just ate.)

Now that we’re past Halloween, in preparation for Xmas, there are a flood of new flavors: White Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, and Mint. Oh, and lest we forget, Sweet Red BEAN. (Not as bad as the Acorn Squash, but still, weird.)

And I assure you, come January, we will once again see the ubiquitous Strawberry. Because in January, to use a Monty Python qu0te, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting something made with strawberries.

Again: They wonder why their strawberries taste bitter, not sweet. Here’s an idea— They are a SPRING fruit. Plant them in the Spring!! Not in the dead of winter!!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve experienced a full year in Japan, so I’m sure I’ve missed some colors. Wait until Spring. They’ve GOT to do something with purple.

Maybe… Purple sweet potato flavor??
(Don’t laugh. It’s perfectly and absolutely possible.)

---

in case you're wondering, the title of this section is an example of typical JapEnglish (JapAnglish?) seen throughout the country

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Adventures in Importing

As many times as I've traveled in and out of Japan, I've always felt their customs screening was rather open and non-offensive, downright 'friendly' even. Aka, LAX.

This however was too funny.

Mapplethorp was in the news!!!

I was lolling in front of the computer half-listening to the news when the words "mapplethorp" and "waisetsu" (indecent) caught my attention. (Of course, the word "waisetsu" will always catch my attention.) I had to hit replay. Apparently, a publishing house CEO was bringing a Mapplethrope photo colllection into Japan when it was confiscated as "indecent material". However the issue was brought to court and that decision was overturned. The courts declared it "artistic" material.

Although I have to say, compared to some of the things I see on the shelves everyday here, that's a pretty hypocratic stance to take - to treat it first as "indecent material" and later decalre it as "art". But still, be careful what you try to bring in to Japan. Starting this year,2008, they are both FINGERPRINTING and PHOTOGRAPHING incoming non-citizens.

At any rate, at least I know all my books are safe now. XD



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Quirky Japan

Multi-tasking gone too far:
Several years ago it was predicted that websites would exist everywhere for the purpose of advertising. You see them in the newspaper, on tv, in magazines, on billboards and the little hand-out kleenex packages at train stations. It is the "age" of the obiqutious website urls.
But seriously, why did my roll of toilet paper have web addresses printed all over it?!
I ask you--to what end does this serve?
How many people do you know who not only bring their laptop computers into the bathroom, but intend to use it there??

A sad day for children and drivers everywhere:
I am here to report the end of the free-standing beer vending machines. Previously, you couldn't walk 2 blocks without coming across a free-standing, unregulated beer or cigarette vending machine. (Normally, they were right next to each other.) Now, due to the rapid increase in fatalities linked to DUI (wow. No one could have seen that coming.), the cigarette machines are left standing alone by the roadside like jilted lovers.
So...apparently, it's considered a serious problem if the children buy unregulated beer and crash their bikes into a wall, but no one cares if they start smoking pack a day as 6th graders and die of lung cancer 50 years later?


Who says american's produce the most waste?:
Although actual, true scienticists (not government-paid) in universities in the US were talking about global warming 20 years ago when I was a child, the US governemnt chose to ignore it, in favor of continuing to line their own pockets with money from oil. Other countries, like Japan, accepted the truth for what it was. The result--You can recycle everything from clothes to plastic to glassware to paper products here. And frankly, that's the least they can do becasue each and EVERY indivdual piece of candy, piece of cake, piece of chocolate is WRAPPED IN PLASTIC! Sometimes twice over!!
Not only are the desserts hygenically sealed, going to the supermarket is like going xmas shopping with everything pre-wrapped. Seriously, you HAVE to buy your veggies and fruits pre-"assembled" if you will, in plastic bags sealed with a piece of gold tape. No choices to be made about how much you can buy. It doesn't border on the ridiculous, it IS ridiculous.
Everyone complains about the price of food here. If they were actually serious about doing something about it, the first thing they would do is get rid of the pretty bags and sparkle tape!
Here's a long overdue heads-up for an entire nation--It's FOOD. You EAT IT. You're not decorating the house with it!

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WORD of the Year, KANJI of the Year

Being that it is the end of the year, I thought I would introduce you to the Japanese version of the American "Word of the Year" tradition hosted by Webster's dictionary.
Not surprisingly, the Japanese version is not so much a "word", but a character, ie kanji, of the year. (Actually, I was aware of the Japanese Kanji of the Year first since they show the drawing of it in a ceremony on National TV. ;> )

So, without further delay, the American word of the year is....
Truthiness

1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

excerpt from the article:
As expected, there were a few surprises in store for us as we pored through your submissions for our first Word of the Year online survey. Either the vast majority of you out there in the Merriam-Webster online community are big fans of The Colbert Report, or Time Magazine was right on target when it honored the show's host Stephen Colbert earlier this year as one of the most influential people of 2006. By an overwhelming 5 to 1 majority vote, our visitors have awarded top honors to a word Colbert first introduced on "The Word" segment of his debut broadcast on Comedy Central back in October 2005.


Read full article here.
See the original broadcast featuring the first use of truthiness here.

Other words rounding out the Words of the Year 2006:
2. google
3. decider
4. war
5. insurgent
6. terrorism
7. vendetta
8. sectarian
9. quagmire
10. corruption

Looks pretty dark and cynical compared to Japanese Kanji of the Year:

Inochi (Life)



translation from the article:
The Organization for the Japanese Kanji Proficieny Test (head office: Kyoto)
announced on the 12th, the country wide publicly selected "Year's Kanji" at Kyoto's Kiyomizu Temple. From 92,509 entries, the top was "inochi" (life). Since November, 9.04% (8363 votes) of the entries received through the Internet and postcards were for "inochi". The reason given was from the ongoing children suicides resulting from bullying, the birth of the rule son-Hisahito, and accidents caused by DUI. In second place was "falling-away" (3793 votes), third place was "birth" (3303 votes). Last year was "love"; and the year before that was "disaster".

日本漢字能力検定協会（本部・京都市下京区）が全国公募した「今年の漢字」が１２日、京都市東山区の清水寺で発表された。９万２５０９人の応募の中 でトップだったのは「命」。１１月からインターネットやはがきで受け付けた応募の９．０４％にあたる８３６３票が「命」だった。相次いだ子どものいじめによる自殺や秋篠宮ご夫妻の長男・悠仁（ひさひと）さまの誕生、飲酒運転による事故などが理由にあげられていた。 　２位は「悠」（３７９３票）、３位は「生」（３３０３票）だった。昨年は「愛」、一昨年は「災」だった。

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