The Return of the Hawk

I went to Mount Kasa to see if the Tsubaki flowers had bloomed. I was about a month late so I bought some bread to feed the pigeons. Then I remembered that there's a spot where you can throw bread at hawks and watch them swoop down in hot pursuit to grab them.


Who wants to feed boring, disgusting pigeons when you can feed birds of prey, I thought. Can pigeons circle above your head and dive-bomb at 100 mph to catch a piece of bread that left your hand 1 second before? I tried to be cute and hold a piece of bread in my hand and it occurred to me that a hawk could easily rip off several of my fingers, and just as I wizened up a hawk missed grabbing me with his talons by a few feet. The whole time I was standing there I was gripped by a fear of the unknown. I don't have eyes on top of my head, and if a hawk circling above me had decided at any minute to tear down and rip off my head there wouldn't been a thing I could've done about it.

An Application of Game Theory

In trying to understand the Japanese mentality to stay at work longer than what is necessary, I applied the Prisoner's Dilemma I learned in Economics to theorize my findings. I'm expecting a call from Stockholm any day now.

Game theory is a tool economists and other members of the theoretical sciences use as a sort of x-ray to understand the motives and incentives of individuals in a potentially cooperative environment. In my case, the X-axis on the table represents the incentive of the Supervisor working for any Japanese company, while the Y-axis represents that of the subordinates. Unlike most PH.D .-level economists I've been lucky enough to observe my application in a real life setting: The Staff Room of my school.

It is such: as a Supervisor, it is Japanese etiquette that you must stay late in order to show your underlings that you are a dedicated and hardworking member of the team. As a subordinate, it is frowned upon to leave the office before the Supervisor does. It is easy to see how we end up in a situation that is not good for anyone in my opinion.

Please assume all members in this example are self-interested, profit-maximizing and rational individuals.


Since both parties are self-interested, they will avoid risking their high status and they will choose to Stay at school. There is no strategic communication between the two regarding what time they should Leave, so therefore leaving will make them worse off--having a bad reputation for being perceived as disloyal to the team--if the other person happens to betray. If both parties could communicate with each other, everyone would be able to leave at 5 PM, the optimal output. This situation is unstable because both parties seek to improve their own positions by betraying one another, which means they have to stay until 12 AM, thus, a mutually bad outcome, a Nash Equilibrium.

I too am a profit-maximizing, self-interested individual, and since the blood running through my veins is not Japanese I am out the door when the bell rings at 3:15 PM.

New Cartoon

Redneck Wish

Texas = God's Country

New cartoon... reenactmnt of an actual conversation we had with some strangers...

My Website

A Fort of Flotsam

The weather has started to change and I've been frequenting a favorite spot on the beach. I've grown weary of the amount of people that have discovered my secret spot, so I had no other option than to find a new one. I walked towards a rock outcropping at one end of a curve that forms the beach.


I climbed to the top and saw another portion of the beach that looked relatively uninhabited, so I carefully went down the steep slope and walked along the water. I noticed heaps of assorted flotsam washed up on the shore and suddenly an idea struck me. As a kid, I had an uncanny ability to make forts in my backyard, so I decided to make a beach fort using only the materials that had washed up among the rocks. I scanned the beach for a suitable location, and I found a small cave that had a naturally formed protrusion in the shape of an incomplete circle. This became the spot.


I began to work immediately. Gathering precut boards of wood, makeshift plastic containers, and tangled knots of rope and fishing line, I hoarded these items back to the site. I used hand-sized chunks of stone that had been sharpened by wind and water erosion and cut loose the usable strands of rope from the knotted mess of fishing line. With my bare hands I moved the stones I was just able to carry and began closing the gap of the circle by constructing a wall that will eventually be waist high.


I strung the 1x4's together by unbraiding the rope into thinner strands and fastening them together with basic overhand knots, and placed the frame over the opening of the cave. I'm planning on throwing a blanket that also washed ashore over the frame to provide shade, but it needs to be aired out since it appeared as though it was teeming with smallpox bacteria. I also dug out a fire pit and threw smaller, gravel-sized bits of rock to make up the bottom layer.


Once I started getting cramps in my arms and legs from lifting the heavy rocks I called it a day. I sat down on a tree stump that was near the site before going home, and I already started daydreaming about how great its going to be once its fully operational. I'm pissed I'll only have 3 months to enjoy it, but its worth it to have the solitude I think. Before I leave I'll burn it to the ground so that no one else can enjoy the product of my expended labor and sweat. When construction is finally complete I will provide photographic evidence for all to enjoy.

An Olympic Event

A new term began at the community center for Japanese Language classes. We now have 2 new Chinese women, one buxom female from New Zealand or Australia, I can never remember, one Filipino hostess, and myself. At the beginning of class we took an exam to assess our proficiency in Japanese to determine which class we would be assigned to. I scored a 66. I thought I failed but the woman who was grading it said it was a very good score so I believed her.

After we filled out 3 identical forms that asked for identical pieces of personal information, we took a class photo. One of the teachers, an old man named Omura, was in charge of setting up the camera and there was much confusion. At first he said it looked too bare so we added some chairs and asked the spouses of the Chinese women to enter the photo, as well as other teachers standing nearby. After more people entered he said not everyone was in the frame so he asked people to get back out of the picture. Then someone told him just to move the camera back a few steps so he did. Success. When he pressed the trigger the timer gave him 10 seconds to run a few meters and enter the picture without looking like the guy who has to run to get into the picture. He ran using short, truncated steps, almost mouse-like, and giggled like a schoolgirl for those few meters. When the shutter released there was no flash so seeing him run back to take the picture again made me laugh inside.

After the photo we played some ice-breaking games, one of which involved using chopsticks to try and pick up various objects. The small red beans were worth 2 points, the larger, easier to grip black beans and ginnan were worth 1 point, ping pong balls were also worth 1 point, and finally, the marbles were worth 3points because of the obvious difficulty of trying to pick up a shiny, relatively heavy round object with a pair of sticks made from wood. We were granted one minute to pick up as many objects as we could.


Immediately after seeing the competitive look appear on the two Chinese women's faces it occurred to me that they had accumulated a century’s worth of combined experience in this particular event. If this were an Olympic event it mirrored a very likely result similar to the Team Finals in the Olympics for gymnastics:

Scoring Table
China 75
China 56
U.S.A. 40
Australia/New Zealand 25
Philippines 9

Anachronisms

As the 21st century unfolds, the Asian market is expected to be the emerging frontier capable of propelling the global economy into a period of unparalleled progress. Japan is also expected to continue leading the field with modern technological innovations that I haven't yet witnessed in my own country.

My cell phone—which is the standard factory model that comes free with a one-year plan—rivals my first computer that came with Windows 98. I met a doctor at a bar who pulled out this sleek, burnished, jet-black futuristic looking cell phone that probably had the ability to manipulate the weather. I conservatively estimate that it cost more than one-month's rent for my apartment. I've seen technology in its cradle, and yet still at my high school I've seen enough anachronisms that make me wonder if I've in fact traveled back in time 30 or 40 years.

Chapter the First : Large Heating Machines


There is no central heating in Japanese Schools. Instead they use a device I've given the name, 'The Machine.' I don't know what to call these things. Space heaters? Blast ovens? Miniature nuclear reactors? I've never seen one in my life so I expected them to give everyone radiation suits when they brought out and assembled this clunking machine from deep within its resting place in the darkest corner of the time chamber.

It runs on kerosene, a fuel I haven't seen since I went camping, and when the meter is low they bring out these plastic tanks and refill them with a plastic siphoning tube while the flame is still very much lit. When my supervisor—who has a strange aura of Amelia Bedelia-ness surrounding her—beings to refuel 'The Machine' I go to the other side of the teacher's office. I wait by the door with my cup of tea so that when the impending ball of fire starts to erupt and sweep across the room I'll be the first one out. Once I got used to the fact that they placed 'The Machine' directly behind me, it took me a while to get used to the incessant hissing. The flames seemed to be quietly whispering into my ear, "Alex...just wait...one day…I want to play with you..."

After I slowly began ruling out this possibility and I was comfortable with sitting next to a hazardous chunk of hot steel and fire, I began to ask myself, why the hell did they wait so long?? It got cold in November. I remember shivering in class while wondering how my students weren't freezing their asses off in those one-piece school uniforms. The people in charge don't wait for it to get cold. No, that would make too much sense. Instead they set a certain date. It was sometime in December I think. Before they brought out the machines I had a fallout with a teacher who said that students weren't allowed to wear a 'muffler' (scarf) in school. I wanted to reply with,

It's a damn good thing I'm a teacher!

But instead I told her it was cold and I didn't want to die so I continued to wear it.

When 'The Machine' is put into use, it only affects people sitting directly near it. When they aren't at their desks, all the teachers huddle around the machine with their cups of coffee and complain to each other about how cold it is. As I mentioned, I was lucky to share such close proximity, and often times I would turn around in my swivel chair, and read my book while straddling the machine to thaw out my popsicle legs. I had another fallout with a teacher—a self-appointed mentor of Japanese modesty—who said that it wasn't proper to sit like that, and once again I said stubbornly,

If I don't then I'll die. I don't want to die.

Both teachers haven't talked to me since. There are 50 or so other teachers who I'm on pretty friendly terms with so it doesn't bother me one bit.

...more chapters when I have time...

Why Don't They...?

I hope someone who reads this is a person who is a decision-maker. I am not so I can't make any of these changes that I'm suggesting. It would make my life a lot easier if we did the following :

1. Put Parachutes on Commercial Flights

I'm aware that providing a parachute for every seat is not cost-effective in the long run, and probably wouldn't save a significant amount of lives, but can't they just have 2 or 3 somewhere on the plane for those people who really didn't want to die should the plane unexpectedly lose power in both engines? I would at least feel slightly better about my chances of surviving a crash by jumping out of the plane just before it smacked into the ground. It would also make for one of the greatest stories of survival ever told. Almost as great as the guy who was eaten by a grizzly and managed to survive by eating his friends' remains while trapped inside its stomach, waiting to pass through the digestive tract.

If they won't supply parachutes on flights at least let me bring my own just in case. At the slightest indication that there would be trouble, something innocuous like the lights going out all of a sudden, I'd be the first one to throw open the hatch door and jump to my safety. Better safe than sorry.

2. Stop Calling the "I before E except after C" Rule a Rule

Isn't it obvious that this rule is defunct? It's like saying everyone in North Korea is happy with their lives. Those 'exceptions' who are not are taken to special places for "re-education." I can think of a few words off the top of my head that make this rule obsolete. Thank God our young students don't pay attention in school, otherwise we'd see in the near future printed examples of people using such words. Foreign exchange would become 'foriegn', species a 'speceis'; no more reindeer, just 'riendeer'; we would have 'gieger counters', 'hiers to the throne', blood flowing through our 'viens', unfriendly 'nieghbors'; we would be 'riening in' on injurious firms and 'fiegning' all kinds of injuries. How many more of life's great 'fallaceis' must we endure?

It would be better in my opnion to ignore the human tendency to taxonify and simplify things that should remain in their unhinged, natural and chaotic state. Why must we group things into categories and subcategories for the sake of oversimplification so that the whole of existence can be explained with just one capricious rule? Why are we so afraid to say,

You know what? There's plenty of words where 'I' comes before 'E' and vice versa. You'll just have to live with the fact that there is no rule to make this easier. We cannot mold the world to fit into the models that we have chosen. We all should get on with our lives and learn from experience. It's a tough road because the path is not always clear, but in the end it won't matter anyway.

3. Make fighter jets with missles that can shoot backwards. Then all the pilots won't have to worry about bogeys being on their tails. Or at least mount a machine-gun turret that can rotate 360 degrees.

4. Make books that have words printed on every other page. That way when I'm laying on my side I won't have to change positions when I turn the page. Also making the pages waterproof would be nice.

I can't think of anything else right now, but believe me when I say the list goes on...

I Bite My Thumb, Sir

Common knowledge tells us that long periods of solitude can drive people insane. What counts as a long period, what counts as insane, I ask? Is the better part of one year a long enough time to go from a stable individual to a raving lunatic? Does trying to go through the whole day without using my thumbs just to see if it's possible count as insane? I think it does. Because only a person who spends too much time with himself would come up with such a ridiculous idea.

After trying it I discovered that it is possible, but you must rule out doing certain things. Forget writing, say sayonara to opening a can of soda. I discovered an entirely new fronteir when I began to wonder what the reaction would be if instead of giving a thumbs up for a job well done, I gave them some other gesture. Then I got to thinking, who came up with the thumbs up? And where the hell was everyone else when this decision was made? How does one learn and then incorporate a nascent gesture into common use?

I decided that it must be terribly confusing the first time a psycho-pneumatic signal is used and you have no clue what it means. I imagine a scene 10,000 years ago in a cave where one early modern man lights a fire and the other without thinking gives him a thumbs up. Then the one who started the fire tries it out and soon the whole cave is shrieking and howling with excitement at this newfound discovery, and the only reason it passed onto our society is because the thumbs-up clan just happened to raid and kill all the members of the other clan who stuck their thumbs in their asses to convey the same meaning.

Let me give you a more tangible example. In America, the signal for 'come here' is made by an open palm facing upward, and using quick inward-curling gestures with your four digit rays. In Japan the same expression is made with a downward facing open palm and using quick outward-stretching gestures suggesting 'go away'. The first time I was in Tokyo I asked an officer where an ATM was and he gave me the Japanese 'come here' (go away) signal. I was confused so I just stood there and waited. He started walking away--expecting me to follow--and turned around to give me the signal again, only this time more emphatically. I thought,

Who the hell says 'get away from me', walks away, and then turns around again to tell me to go away a second time?

I took a leap of faith and decided to follow and it was initially with much confusion that I then discovered the meaning of this gesture.

(I am the last remaining descendant of the clan who stuck their thumbs up their asses, and my friend Patrick Stewart is demonstrating the more traditional gesture. sort of..)

Sticks and Stones

Perfect. They... are all... perfect...

The poetic last words of Katsumoto from that movie with Tom Cruise are a proper way to introduce you to the national mood during cherry blossom season. One of my teachers explains the Japanese mindset:

"It is the meaning of the Japanese spirit.
One day we are here. The next day we are not."

Alluding to ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms, its the time of year where we make plans with our friends and family to sit in a park or underneath a tree in full bloom and of course, drink until our vision is blurred.

Ohanami [roughly translated into 'flower watching'] occurs only during the two week life span of these revered cherry blossoms, and we have Japanese style barbecue and we drink and we are merry and there is not a single care nor worry in the air other than how much beer is left in the cooler.

The first day of Ohanami was with my fellow teachers on the baseball field on school grounds.

We sat in the outfield drinking for a while and then it occurred to me that the closest bathroom was about 400 yards away. No one got the call for an hour or so, but Nature is just as sure as the sunrise, and once people started breaking the seal I was amused at how there formed a steady stream of people making trips in between sips that reminded me of army ants on the move, following a pheromone trail in the jungle.

The second day of Ohanami was with soccer friends in a park built on the ruins of Shizuki castle.
The sun went to bed and all around us our fellow Hagi-ites were enjoying the jovial mood of the season.


After all the normal meat was devoured by all (chicken, beef, pork), sticking to their tradition of eating strange things my Japanese friends threw a hodgepodge of foods you don't see every day including pork intestines, small fish of a species unknown to me, and a large strip of beef, the cut of which I've also never seen before.


The Butcher


Finally, after shutting off the lights at about 11:30 p.m., we cleaned up our section and headed to a friends house near the park. At his house I don't remember much except for the strawberries. We sat around the floor with goofy looks on our faces, basking in the warm comfort of our drunkenness, when someone laid down in front of us bright red bushels of strawberries.


I remember a slight pause on the part of a few of us who were probably thinking the following:

"Strawberries??? What the hell??"

and then immediately followed by:

"Strawberries!!! F*** yea!!!"

It then turned into a frenzy to eat as many strawberries as we could and the night was good.