Category: Society & Culture

AHA! A possible explanation for my recent Indian chief dream (see my mom’s comment at the bottom). I completely forgot about that! Actually, catching that sheepshead won us the “fishing tournament.” I remember being extremely proud about the fact that we used small rock crabs that I smashed with my dad’s “abalone prybar” (a flat piece of iron with rubber grip I think may still be rusting in our garage or the backyard shed) to catch that fish. The funny thing is, before we landed that one, something big hit our bait and nearly jerked me off the rocks we were fishing from as I held onto the surfcasting rod for dear life! I will always wonder about that first big “one that got away.”
Yeah, the YMCA Indian Guides trip to Catalina… Awesome. As I sit here and reminisce, more memories from that trip are coming back to me… I remember the brown and yellow dome tent we slept in, the first tent we ever owned with sectioned (but not joined with elastic cord as has become the norm) fiberglass tent poles; you had to be careful because they would leave invisible fiberglass splinters in your hands if you weren’t careful that would itch and be sore for days… One of the other fathers brought Kansas City strips to barbeque on the propane grill for all the other dads. My dad told me it was ironic that some of the other dads thought it fit to bring whiskey to drink around the campfire at an Indian outing, a reference I wouldn’t understand for a few more years… That propane tank bust a seal the next morning when someone hooked it up, and it made a loud screeching noise for a good minute or so. I remember taking cover behind a steel trash can, sure it would explode.
Of course, in this politically fucking retarded age of college sports teams having to be renamed, etc., I am quite sure the Indian Guides are no more. Probably renamed to “Gaia’s Earth-Friendly Vegetarian Recyclable Co-op of Homogenous World Heritage,” or some such bullshit. Lemme google this shit to make sure – yep. The YMCA Indian Guides are no more. What a damn shame.
And in a way, what irony! The Indian Guides made Indians cool to all the kids who participated in the programs! These days, the word “Indian reservation” evokes only one thing: Casinos. This makes me very sad. In fact, I’m so far behind the times, I don’t really know if the term “Indian reservation” is racist or not! I certainly hope not.

Attention all Americans in Japan, whipped cream in cans is NOW AVAILABLE AT A JUSCO SHOPPING CENTER NEAR YOU!!!
Fear not the Euro-sounding Chantibic brand name, this stuff looks, smells, and lubricates just like Redi Whip! (or so I’m told)
Get your hands on a can NOW, while supplies last – I fear the Japanese palate will reject the simple flavor of pure canned whipped cream and the manufacturers will soon be forced to churn out localized blends:
– Nama Ume flavor! (Great on hamo sushi!)
– Wonderful Wasabi! (Perfect with chu-toro!)
– Dashi (Just spray on a hot bowl of rice for an instant meal!)
– and of course, the old Japanese standby, American Corn! (For hot dogs and hamburgs!)

Speaking of cars, the new voice-controlled car navigation systems are a total fucking trip. A couple weeks ago, I caught a ride with a guy from work to an after-work enkai (drink up) in his new navi-equipped ride. I truly felt like a stranger, because he carried on a conversation with the in-dash navigation system, which he has dubbed Keiko, the whole way.
DRIVER (using destination input command): Keiko! Destination, Taiho (restaurant name), Route 28.
KEIKO (in sexy woman’s voice): Confirmed. Time to destination is approximately five minutes.
DRIVER: Keiko! Thank you.
KEIKO: You’re welcome.
Now this was pretty fucking geeky and I teased the fuck out of my coworker, asking him where he stuck his dick to receive a “lube job”, etc., but the best was yet to come:
KEIKO (as we approached town): Take the next right. By the way, do you like ice cream?
ME: WTF!!?!
DRIVER: Keiko! No.
KEIKO: Oh, okay then.
ME: What the fuck was that about?
DRIVER: She wanted to make us stop by the Baskin Robbins at Jusco.
ME: Doesn’t she know it closes at 10? Dumb bitch.
DRIVER: Shut up! You will respect Keiko, or you will walk!
/////////
I fucking love technology, but it’s a curse I tell you. It’s eventually going to come to a point where humans no longer need each other, but by that time I hope to be long gone. My laptop is indispensable, but I draw the line at robot fellacio (in Japanese: robofela).

Is this shit really happening?

HOLY SHIT.
My prayers go out to all.

There’s an old lady who lives a few houses down from us. I usually see her when I return home from work or go out for a walk. In the five years we have known her, she has been known to talk only about one thing, the weather.
– “Hot today, isn’t it?”
– “Sure is cold.”
– “Looks like it’s gonna rain.”
– Or some small variation of the above.
Even when you try to talk to her, she speaks over you about the weather. Once, I asked when Big Garbage day was, and she replied about the hot spell we were having. So I eventually gave up trying to talk to her beyond basic greetings and the weather. I accepted it; it’s just been like this for five years.
Then, last week, as I walked by she suddenly asked, “Why did the color of your work uniforms change?”
I was too shocked to reply at first, and the moment of silence that followed floated in the humid summer air, suspended for eternity. Then the words stumbled from my mouth automatically, “Sure is hot today…”
She seemed to accept this as an acceptable answer and kind of nodded as I walked away.

A colleague just related something that he saw on a documentary last night: During WWII, Sumoto was number 173 on a list of 180 Japanese targets to be carpet bombed by the US. Apparently, they got down to number 66 on the list (probably somewhere in Fukui prefecture) before bombing with conventional munitions was made unnecessary by Fat Man and Little Boy.
It took me a while to figure out what could possibly be of military significance on this island (Awajishima) until I remembered that there was a railroad back then (the Nankai “Shima Densha”) which might seem useless since there were no bridges to the mainland yet, but when coupled with the numerous deep water ports on the island might have seemed like a significant supply point.
Also, there were big bore gun emplacements that might have threatened the passage of ships through the Naruto Straits – I have to go hiking to that site soon to see if anything remains.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the republishing of Little Black Sambo by a Japanese publisher, and my mom left this in the comments:

You used to like the pancakes at Sambo’s Restaurant, remember? All that melted “tiger-butter…it used to make me uneasy to look up at the Little Black Sambo sign and wonder how blacks felt…

Ingrate that I am, I actually didn’t remember a Sambo’s Restaurant at all, and I forgot to ask my mom about it.
Today I happened across a link that explains it: McDonalds, Taco Bell, and the first fast food restaurants
There’s one thing though:

Is it just me, or is this Sambo sugar-coated?

Whoa. Check out the latest comment on my Black Bus post from last year:
You are not understand nothing yet… gaijin
The commenter, Ryoma, is either a big fan or a cock-hoggin’ goose-stepper – I just can’t figure out if his comment is high praise or the lowest of insults.
You are not understand nothing… I have to admit, this has a special ring to it. The double negative implies that I know something… On the other hand, perhaps nothing is a reference to mu, the state of nothingness one achieves through meditation – or perhaps in Spain, where Ryoma is posting from, through several bong hits. Now that is just hurtful, man.
At least he has hope in me, as implied by the trailing “yet.” Maybe he sees my potential for not understanding nothing. Now that might be something to hope for!
Anybody else have any insight into this?
Ryoma, damn you! Why must you confound me so? RYOOOOOOOOOMAAAAAAAA!

NHK is the national public broadcasting station in Japan. They send subscription fee collectors to seemingly every front door in the nation on a semi-regular basis, and in my experience, get turned away more often than not.
1.17 mil. households refuse to pay NHK subscription fees
People usually try to get out of paying by saying that they either do not own a TV, or do not watch NHK. The latter isn’t an excuse at all; you’re supposed to pay anyway. I always used to use the former until a few years ago when the NHK guy pointed out my newly-purchased satellite dish and I had to explain it wasn’t for a TV, it was for my global mind control experiments, and used the following lull in conversation as a chance to slam the door on his face.
In a similar way, most newbies to Japan initially think they can get away with a verbal Gaijin Smash (ala Azrael), but after years of verbal abuse from everyone the collectors are quite crafty and usually come prepared with laminated English phrase cards (Pay up you dirty, lying foreigner! GIVE ME MONEY!). Most recently, I tried acting like a member from the local Mormon church (there really is a Sumoto branch of the Church of LDS) and I like to think I came pretty close to converting the guy – I tried to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon that the real Mormons had left on my doorstep a few months before, but his formidable training eventually kicked back in and before you know it I was resorting back to door-slamming again.
If you DO actually pay the subscription fees, you are issued an NHK sticker to post above your doorway. I have known people who peeled these stickers off of vacant houses to post on their own, figuring it would show they had already paid, but ultimately, the joke was on them because NHK actually targets houses with the sticker (I suspect it is much easier to shame Japanese people into paying a second time than it is the first time, since it implies cheapness rather than moral belief as a reason for not paying the “mandatory” subscription fees).
The most hardcore NHK collector I ever met came knocking one day when we were living in the slums of Osaka, in Nishinari. I tried every excuse and gambit in the book, but this guy was firm and wanted the money, no excuses. When I tried slamming the door, he blocked it with his foot!!! He started cussing me out in gutteral Osaka-ben, which was a uniquely surreal experience – being cussed out by an NHK fee collector! Eventually, I tricked him into moving his foot and successfully slammed the door in his face, which infuriated him even more, and he started pounding on it from the outside and yelled at us to open it… At that point, the yakuza living upstairs opened his front door, leaned over the railing, and demanded to know what the fuck was going on, and “did he need to come down and kill some urusai motherfuckers?”
The NHK guy got spooked and left the apartment complex entirely. We laughed as we watched him walking away down the road – he heard us laughing and shook his fist up at us, mumbling and swearing to himself, kicking at a crumpled soda can on the street.