Category: Japanese Society/Culture

Goodbye PHS

It seems that DoCoMo killed off the Personal Handyphone System service last week (Slashdot JP link). The PHS phones were attractive when we were students (specifically around 1995) because of the lower handset prices. Not being able to use one while traveling over 20kph (or was it 25?), however, was the main deal breaker. I remember when the newer generation phones with multiple antennas came out specifically to deal with this problem, but by then everyone who already had a cellular wasn’t about to switch.
As this guy says, there was a lot of potential in the system that was never realized, but hey, the road to Nashville is lined with superior specs and wasted potential. Or something.
RIP, PHS. FYI, U SUKT.

Instant Kaedama

So it seems I missed out on one of the great new inventions to hit the market after I left Japan – refills for Cup Noodle.
I must point out that this new product is hardly an original idea by its manufacturer, Nissin. In college, we routinely used empty Cup Noodle cups as bowls (mostly for regularly-packaged instant ramen crushed to fit), ashtrays, pen holders, a container for my cut-in-half-with-tin-snips 1-yen coin collection, and in a pinch, even as beer cups (curry flavor cups were best for this purpose).
But wait! I titled this post before I read what’s actually being sold – it seems that the actual product isn’t just noodle refills, they also include a non-disposable bowl! Now is that defeating the entire purpose of a Cup Noodle, or what? (from a business standpoint, isn’t this blurring the product lines?)
Since a bowl and a clump of freeze dried noodles isn’t really new, perhaps this isn’t such a hot idea after all… and it sure as hell doesn’t qualify as kaedama. The title above stays, though. I like kaedama, even just in print.

Happy Thanksgiving!

… words heard from not a single student today.
Surprise, surprise.
I think I’ve actually seen a real live turkey here in Mahasarakham, up in the forest near the fish sanctuary, but I’m too lazy to be bothered with the killin’ and pluckin’ and dressin’ and stuffin’ and roastin’ – Thanksgiving to me is more of a “Thanksgetting.” Getting stuffed and drowsy off the tryptophan (I choose to believe in the sleepy turkey effect. Even if it’s a placebo, it still makes me feel nice, you haters.) kicks ass. Candied yams and gravy kick ass. Even cranberry sauce tends to kick some ass, in moderation. Maybe what I miss most, though, is pumpkin pie. I swear I haven’t had a decent slice of pumpkin pie with freshly whipped cream for five or six years. “So,” you ask, “how does one cope with the lack of proper pilgrim food on Turkey Day?”
If living in Japan for twelve years taught me anything, it was coping skills.
If living in Japan for twelve years taught me anything, it was three letters: K F C
That’s right, Nam and I just came back from the only place in town to get mashed potatoes, cheesy fries, and New! Bite-sized! Spicy! Fish Bits.
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Kelp Highway

Were America’s first inhabitants Japanese fishermen?

Erlandson has been working with marine biologists for the last few years and believes Japanese fisherman could have been following the kelp highway which would have flourished even during the ice age. The kelp would have been attractive to all kinds of fish because it provides shelter and as well as giving nutrients to other sea creatures.
Mike Graham, a kelp expert who helped Erlandson, told New Scientist, “It’s quite likely that Japan’s ancient inhabitants were familiar with these systems before they came over. What people saw, as they moved, were familiar species, familiar ways of life, familiar associations.”

Well, if anyone would ever try to eat a garibaldi, it would be a Japanese fisherman.

I traded my 100Mbps FTTH for mangosteens and monkeys…

…And I think I made the right decision. This article by Robert Cringely hits home, though. My theoretical download speed is now 1/50 of what it was last year in Japan and the theoretical upload is 1/200. Actual speed ratios are about the same, however, downtime here is pretty awful as you can see by my sporadic blogging – sometimes lasting for almost a week. The whole censorship thing is pretty lame, too.
On the flip side, the mangosteens and monkeys sure are tasty!
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Let me tell you a secret about (relatively) insane connection speeds: When you are wired to the net through a $50/month hikari connection, your connection speed is a non-issue. You are waiting for the rest of the internet…

Tuna Boat (?????)

pink-maguro.gif
Right around the time I finished university in Japan, I was in a bind. I had no money and limited prospects finding a job I wanted to do – I wanted to try working in a big company for the experience, but didn’t want to follow the normal job hunting procedure. Pretty much all of my classmates were set up with jobs or postgrad studies, which was worrying, but at the time I felt powerless to change the situation. The state of the Japanese economy was in constant decline, and there just were not many jobs around.
On the other hand, I didn’t want to return home to the states not having even tried to make it in Japan, so it was time to figure something out. I had a friend who was working for a fishing newspaper, who floated me the idea of working a maguro gyosen (tuna boat) for a year as a stopgap to finding “real” employment, and of course to save some coin. This is the Japanese equivalent of working on an Alaskan fishing boat, because as it turns out, it’s damn near impossible to find a job on a tuna boat these days. In the end, I didn’t look very hard, because everybody I asked said it was a bad idea.
Right around the time I gave up on the tuna boat idea, a random encounter at the bar I tended led to my first full time job. That, in turn, led to ten years of Salaryman. And into my current incarnation as teacher, as well. What’s next? Since life is cyclical and things tend to end where they began, I sometimes find myself thinking about tuna boats. But maybe not (JP language link).
And maybe not an Alaskan fishing boat, either.