Some people deserve to be beat up
October 25, 2004
From Mainichi Daily News:
American sues optician who refused him entry to shop
OSAKA — An American filed a suit against an optician on Monday for refusing him entry to his shop.
The 40-year-old African American, who is a designer from Seika, Kyoto Prefecture, visited the optician in Osaka Prefecture on Sept. 5.
The owner refused him entry, saying he disliked black people.
Several days later, the American, accompanied by his Japanese wife, visited the shop and asked why he was refused entry.
The owner told the American that he had received a complaint from a potential customer that he could not enter the store because the American and his friend were in front of the shop, according to the indictment.
“Let me run things my way, this is my shop,” the owner was quoted as saying.
The American said that this was the first case of direct discrimination he has experienced in his nine years in Japan. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Oct. 25, 2004)
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Sigh. Yet another story of the very old fashioned, politically incorrect, backwards thinking, asshole mentality of some people in this country. I hope that optician gets a swift punch in the face with a swift kick to the groin area.
As a Canadian of minority descent, maybe I’m just too sensitive to racial issues. Or maybe it’s that ever since highschool, I’ve noticed my visual minority more? Who knows. Color should never be an issue.
MP3 -> Cell Phone
October 23, 2004
I think my first update after the previous will be one of benefit to the entire world. If you, like me, just bought yourself a nice Sony Ericsson SO506ic cell phone (see Docomo, or Sony Ericsson for more information), then congratulations! You’ve just got a neat little phone with a fairly decent camera for stills and videos, nice resolution screen, a nice springy flip, fun spinning dial control, and the best of all - the ability to listen to music on the go.
I had no trouble getting used to the control, layout, and navigation. Typing English can be a bit of a pain since it will display capitals first and you have to press * to change it to a lower case letter each time. Other than that, the controls are fairly intuitive.
I was quite excited about having a device to listen to music ever since my MD has been screwy and good MP3 players are fairly costly. I bought myself a 128 Memory Stick Duo and a memory stick card reader. Going over the manual, you’ll notice that the phone only takes ATRAC3 song formats. My first attempt was to download Sonicstage for Connect - the software that allows you to download songs from Sony’s online music store. That litttle program has an MP3 to ATRAC3 converter. I’ll save you the headache - it doesn’t work (I tried ATRAC3 on all bit rates, then ATRAC3 plus - no avail). To be fair, I only found the “Move” file function - I couldn’t “Check out” to the memory stick.
Looking deeper into the Sony page, I noticed they recommended the Sony brand card reader - at first I thought it was for profit reasons but then I noticed they package SonicStage 1.5 along with the reader. THIS is what you need.
I returned my generic reader and got the Sony one instead. Got home, installed the software, imported my music library - you’ll need to convert your files into ATRAC3 132 bit rate. Once this is done, go to “Record”, plug in your memory stick into the reader, select your songs, and “Check Out”.
Just plug in the memory stick into your phone and go to the music panel (press the camera shutter button as a shortcut) - the phone will read the card and display the first song. Press play!
Might I suggest Love Psychedelico? They’re the best Japanese band I’ve ever heard. Kumi the singer seductively sounds very much like a cool Sheryl Crow and the songs have a fused country, blues, pop influence. Very awesome.
Block
October 21, 2004
Why is it becoming so difficult to write on my webpage? For one thing, I’ve been trying really hard lately to only write slightly more meaningful things. I’m avoiding the “Today I did this…” kind of entries because they’re boring and no one but I could care.
So? By trying to focus more on interesting things to say, I’ve sacrificed actual updating?
Maybe. Maybe it’s just that life in general now is a big repetition. It’s become a day-in, day-out routine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disliking it. It’s just now that school days are over, changes don’t happen that often. I spend a good portion of life in the office and as such, interesting things don’t come by that frequently anymore.
Instead of waiting for interesting things to happen, perhaps I should go and seek things out to write about? Be an investigative journalist for this page? Maybe I should just search and explore the inner workings of my mind and find interesting things to write about. This update is a result of the latter - in searching for why I don’t update much, I’ve written an update.
I’m hoping to take more pictures in the next little while and put more up. Otherwise, bear with me for the future looks just as ordinary as the past little while.
Costco run… in JAPAN!
October 15, 2004
Yes! It’s true! There are Costcos in Japan. They’ve been here a few years as far as I can tell. I finally got to go to one thanks to Laura who has a card. Props to Kyle for his Costco adventure too.
From Osaka Station, hop on any Kobe-heading JR train from platform 5 (210 yen). Stop at Amagasaki and then go to the bus area. Again from platform 5, hop onto the #24 bus (200 yen). About 10 minutes later, you’ll see “Carrefour”. Costco is right beside it. Don’t fret about the directions, they’re written more for me just in case I want to go back again on my own.
Let’s see. I bought about $200 worth of stuff! That’s the biggest grocery run I’ve ever done, ever! It’s hard to control when you see all the things you’ve not had. I bought red grapes! (they’re really expensive) Zest soap! Granola! Mac and cheese! Detergents! It was quite an experience actually and it really made me feel a bit of home. Best part is, they deliver for 600 per box in the Kansai area.
Because of this little part of home and maybe because they offer real sizes and actual economic savings on bigger/more purchases, there were sure a lot of gaijin there.
Sadly, I was highly limited in my purchases because I still have a Japanese refrigerator and a Japanese apartment to consider. I was quite hesitant to buy the 10-box tissue pack because I usually only store 6 maximum in my closet. I’ll have to throw out some of the woman’s clothes to make room for the extra 4.
Exciting day! I’m tempted to get my own card so I can make the trip there.
Happy Halloween
October 13, 2004
In the halls of stone lays a man
For crimes he must atone
Of blood he imbibed and imbibed he did
A man of blood and bone
In the plains of sand a man must sleep
For envy and lust his pain
His body lies within the sand
And worms rot in his brain
In the woods of blight a man grows frail
For cursing the right and innocent
His soul grows colder everyday
Eternity his contrition
In the seas of madness a man counts sand
For stealing what didn’t belong
He’ll count the grains until the end
Until he rights his wrong
In the streets of blame a man must endure
The looks upon his face
For blame did he the people his own
And corrupted the entire race
In a world so wrong how can we sleep
When many go on and ail
When we are one and one is all
Clearly we must have failed
Touching is Feeling
October 06, 2004
I’ve got no site to blog on for the moment (shameless plug: www.handsomemonkey.com) and since some of you are in need of some reading material, I thought I’d do a guest update here.
I’ve realized how important it is to have physical human contact. I didn’t have it for most of my life. Raised by asian parents, I was taught to be objective rather than base my actions on emotions. Emotions were for white devils. That’s why they had movies like Dirty Dancing and Kramer Vs. Kramer. We Chinese dealt with problems using cold-blooded violence, a la Enter the Dragon, and sometimes a sprinkling of humour (think Drunken Master here.)
Alas, as my parents learned, you can’t raise your children in Canada and expect them to hold on to old world ideals and values. For 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, your kid attended a white ghost school. You don’t really expect them to come home without a tinge of rebelliousness, did you? You didn’t really expect them to come home and salute you and say, “Mother, father, today I was taught to do things the white devil way, but do not worry as I will never stray from filial piety.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to meld the old and new world values. And so, for many years, I did what most normal kids would do. I mixed them up. I approached things emotionally when I should have approached them objectively, and vice versa. It wasn’t until I was 16 or so when I realized how meaningful it was to touch someone you love. How contact, even through a few layers of cloth and fleece, could reassure yourself and those that you touch. It’s a mutual thing. Prior to that, I don’t remember ever giving my mom or dad a hug. I never shook hands with friends, or tussled with them for fun.
When I got into a long term relationship, that’s when the floodgates to physical contact opened. I’m talking about touching in purely non-sexual terms here, folks. A simple holding of hands, or a big hug, or even a tickle here and there can communicate so much. And as most relationships do, mine ended, and with that the touching ended. It was strange to go back into isolation. I might as well have been in prison, cut off from the outside world except through bulletproof glass and steel bars: Seeing, but not feeling.
I’ve come to realize that I miss it. Even worse, I’ve lost my “touch”, so to say. Touching someone is once again strange to me, kind of like dancing with that shy girl in PE 8 with the cold clammy hands. Except I’m the girl with cold clammy hands. It’s sad. It’s funny, most people miss the intimacy of relationships, the passion and/or romance, or the moments shared with a significant other. I miss the touch. Of having a warm body pressed against me, a light kiss, a playful slap on the arm.
You touch, in order to feel. I’ve come to realize that right now, I’m feeling nothing.
Is there anyone out there?
Where have all the updates gone?
I wish I had more time or something to write about. Just the usual for me. I’m still testing the limits of my management skills. I’m balancing about 20 things on my to-do list with ample opportunity for praise, feedback, reprimanding, and plain ol’ chewing the fat with people.
