Nikko

Almost exactly 3 years ago, I was on my first trip to Japan. I had prepared my itinerary carefully: a day in Tokyo, 3 days in Kyoto/Nara, Student Pugwash pre-conference in Hiroshima (Wed. July 20 - Fri. July 22), Senior Pugwash conference (Sat. July 23 - Wed. July 27), then 2 more days in Tokyo before returning to Belfast. For one of my final Tokyo days I had planned to visit Nikko, a town 2 hours north of Tokyo which houses many well-known temples and shrines. As things turned out, I met this woman there who I was quite smitten with and so abandoned my Nikko day to spend another day with her in Hiroshima. It turned out to be a good call, but it did take 3 years for me to finally get to Nikko.

Since Nikko is 2 hours north of Tokyo by train and I am 1 1/2 - 2 hours south of Tokyo, it made for a lot of trains and travel time. I left the apartment at 8:30 am and didn't arrive there until 1:30 pm. I left Nikko at 6:00 pm and arrived back home at 11:00 pm. That means I spent 10 hours (and about ¥5000 - approximately $50) to spend 4 1/2 hours there!

But it was worth it; the setting is gorgeous - up in the green mountains surrounded by huge trees. And the temples, shrines, toriis (gates), and other historical items were interesting and beautiful.

Nikko Pictures

Nikko Pictures

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Japundit

I've been on a self-imposed two-week moritorium on Japundit because I was annoyed at the owner of the site once again starting a partisan attack and then censoring me when I respond. This particular episode was him taking a swipe at "weird and liberal Californians." I am currently ignoring his current bait of asking if the Spanish basketball team's photo was really racist.

Nevertheless I do enjoy the outlet for sharing what I read about Japan and engaging in conversations about Japan and its culture. So today, I ended the moritorium and we'll see how things go. Since my last Japundit post here, I've written posts there on the death of the founder of Benihana's, Asian tourists in Japan, lawyers in rural

Japan, Japanese photographer Hiroshi Hamaya, tourism in Japan, and foreign labor in Japan. I think that the two most interesting articles are the one on Rocky Aoki of Benihana's fame and foreign labor in Japan. Aoki created good restaurants and led an intersting life. Foreign labor here is a controversial and touchy topic and gives a window into the culture here.

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Foreign Labor in Japan (NY Times)

More Japan Travel (Budget Travel)

Hiroshi Hamaya (Slate)

Lawyers in Rural Japan (NY Times)

Asian Tourism in Japan (NY Times)

Benihana's Founder Dies (NY Times)

Paperwork

For the second time in a week, I successfully battled the Japanese bureaucracy. On Monday, Yumi and I officially registered our marriage at the local ward office. On Thursday, I obtained my new visa and re-entry permit.

A couple notes of interest regarding the visa...

1. Japan is the only country I know of which requires a separate visa and re-entry permit; normally the visa *is* the re-entry permit.

2. The combined cost was about $100 which has to be paid at a local convenience store. This is actually very common here - many things including utility bills, sporting tickets, train tickets, and even mail order merchandise is paid for at convenience stores. Money is very different here: cheques are unheard of and credit cards are rare; almost everything is done with cash. Amazingly, you often can get the items before paying for them and then you are just trusted to go to a convenience store to pay!

For the visa, since it was a nice day I rode my bike the 11 km (6.5 miles) each way and then stopped off at Yamashita Park and the Osanbashi Pier. Both are within spitting distance of my school but I never made it until this week. Both offer nice views of Yokohama.

More Baseball

Last weekend, I ventured up to Tokyo to visit my friend, Tomo and then go to see the Japanese Olympic team play the Central League All-Stars.
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First, I took 3 or 4 trains for an hour and a half up to Tomo's apartment at the campus of the university where he is a chemistry post-doc. We hung out with his 1-year old daughter, Nao for a while. Later, his wife, Kyo came home and made us an udon (noodle) lunch and then we were off to the Tokyo Dome (aka The Big Egg) for the game. After our 1-hour journey, we arrived.

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The game was ok - I'm not really into exhibition games but it was nice to see the best of the Nippon League. The game was a rout, with the Olympic team (the best players) losing 11-2. I don't like these games because a) I don't know who to root for and b) it doesn't count for anything. I was surprised that Tomo was rooting for the All-Stars because they had 4 Hiroshima Carp players whereas the Olympic team had none (that tells you about the strength of the Carp).

I find it very interesting that Japanese baseball is continuing during the Olympics without the 24 best players (some teams losing 3 or 4 players and others losing none). It would seem to throw into question the results of the season.

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After the game we went to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame which is housed in the Tokyo Dome. It's not very big but it's not inconsequential either. I most liked the displays on the World Baseball Classic victory and their record holders. The consecutive games played record holder and retired Hiroshima Carp player Sachio Kinugasa played 2215 games in a row! That's better than Lou Gehrig's number (2130) but was finally eclipsed by Cal Ripken (2632).

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The all-time home run champion is Sadahara Oh who played for the Tokyo Giants. His record of 868 home runs is pretty mind-boggling. 40 home runs a year is very good. 20 seasons is a long career. Yet 40 home runs for 20 consecutive seasons would still put someone 68 home runs short! Barry Bonds' (drug-enhanced) U.S. record is 762.

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Another 1 1/2 hours on trains brought me back home. For those keeping score at home: 4 hours of travel for about 4 hours of baseball and an hour and a half with Nao.

Sleazy Politicians

On the national level, one-time Democratic vice-presidential nominee and two-time presidential candidate, John Edwards finally confessed to having an affair with a campaign worker (the National Enquirer first broke the story almost a year ago). I have to say that I never really liked him and found him very slick and phony. I vividly recall a conversation I had in Thailand with a fellow American tourist. She was an Edwards supporter and found him so genuine which I couldn't believe because he's always exuded slickness and sliminess to me. He actually reminds me of Bill Clinton, whom I didn't vote for in the 1992 primaries because I could sense his sleaziness, too. (I voted for Paul Tsongas)

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On the local level, Cuyahoga County Commissioner and County Democratic Party Chair Jimmy Dimora and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo were raided by the IRS and FBI. I met them both on several occasions while volunteering for local elections in 1990, 1992, 1997, and 2006. I always found them to be slimy, too, and was not surprised in the least. Incidentally, the raid (and it's potential implications for the November presidential election made the NY Times).

They now join an increasingly long list of local and national politicians who are crooks, sleazy, and/or slimy. In recent memory:
Marion Barry, DC Mayor (D)
Bill Clinton, US President (D)
Gary Condit, CA Congressman (D)
Larry Craig, ID Senator (R)
Randall "Duke" Cunningham, CA Congressman (R)
Marc Dann, OH Attorney General (D)
Tom DeLay, TX Congressman (R)
Mark Foley, CA Congressman (R)
Newt Gingrich, GA Congressman (R)
Rudy Guliani, NY Mayor (R)
Gary Hart, CO Senator (D)
Henry Hyde, IL Congressman (R)
Jessie Jackson, IL (D)
William Jefferson, LA Congressman (D)
John F. Kennedy, US President (D)
Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit Mayor (D)
Steve LaTourette, OH Congressman (R)
Bob Livingston, LA Congressman (R)
John McCain, AZ Senator (R)
Jim McGreevey, NJ Governor (D)
Gavin Newsom, SF Mayor (D)
Bob Ney, OH Congressman (R)
Richard Nixon, US President (R)
Bob Packwood, OR Senator (R)
Dan Rostenkowski, IL Congressman (D)
Jack Ryan, IL (R)
Eliot Spitzer, NY Governor (D)
Jerry Springer, Cincinnati Mayor (D)
Ted Stevens, AK Senator (R)
Strom Thurmond, SC Senator (R)
Jim Trafficant, OH/Mars Congressman (D)
Antonio Villaraigosa, LA Mayor (D)
David Vitter, LA Congressman (R)

The whole episode with Edwards raised many questions, among them: should the personal lives of candidates matter and was the mainstream media right to ignore the story for 10 months while the Enquirer and blogs discussed it?

I am an admirer of JFK (and FDR and Thomas Jefferson for that matter) and while I never liked Bill Clinton personally, I am happy with the way things went during his presidency (budget surpluses, relative peace, strong international relations, etc.) and am glad he was president instead of George H. W. Bush or Bob Dole.

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On the other hand, if the sexual indiscretions are illegal (Spitzer, Vitter) or show him to be hypocritical (Craig, Foley) then I think they are more germane.

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In Edwards' case he was certainly hypocritical because of how forcefully he criticized Clinton and how he said a politician's personal life tells you about the candidate, and how put his family and values at the center of his campaign. Also, if he didn't break any laws he certainly did a lot of shady things like putting his mistress on the campaign roles with a plum job and later having her whisked off to a million dollar California estate with a huge stipend to live quietly.

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NPR's Talk of the Nation aired a program on the dilemma of whether to report or not and NPR's political editor, Ken Rudin wrote a column about it.

Life Post-Ph.D. Part I

Once again, I'm having technical difficulties (blog posting software seems antiquated compared to other software out there), so I'll try to break this post up into smaller posts and hope for the best.

Yumi's 3-year long wait for me to be free of the yoke which was my Ph.D. is now over and she has wasted no time filling up our social calendar. In the month we've been back to Japan (mostly in the 2 weeks since my Ph.D. corrections were submitted and accepted), we've managed to do the following:

Sunday, June 13

Joe O'Donnell Photos

My beautiful wife convinced me to buy a bicycle so that we could both go places in the evenings and weekends. Some huge percentage of people here have bicycles and they are very utilitarian; they almost all have baskets in the front for groceries, etc. Yumi got one shortly after I moved here and I resisted until February or March. But once I did capitulate, I enjoyed riding it; so much so that on the weekend of this photo exhibit, I had already logged about 6 hours on the bike exploring the neighborhood.

So when said wife said we should go to this photo exhibit about 5 miles away, I suggested we ride our bikes (the ones she made us buy, I reminded her). It was a beautiful, if hot, day and I was insistent. I told her it would be fine if she wanted to take the train and meet me there but I really wanted to ride. She apparently preferred to suffer with me than go by herself so she conceded. An hour later, two sweaty and tired bikers arrived at the photo exhibit (I did enjoy the ride even with the massive hills of Yokohama; Yumi - not so much).

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Joe O'Donnell was an Army soldier tasked with photographing the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and he later went on to be a White House photographer. In Japan he used two cameras, one for the Army and one personal one. The exhibit is of the personal photographs he took of the atomic devastation and they are quite impactful. It's fitting that I'm posting this today as it is the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Life Post-Ph.D. Part II

Saturday, July 19
Eri and Noriko

Yumi and I went up to Tokyo to meet two of her friends from her Bradford (England) days, Eri and Noriko. We met them for lunch and then walked around the Harajuku area of Tokyo including the very cool Ometesando Mall. I would describe this area as the Rodeo Drive of Tokyo. It had every high class store I'd ever heard of and more: Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo Shoes, Prada... Not my kind of thing but fun to gawk.

Carp vs. Swallows

Later in the day, we met up with my friend and fellow Hiroshima Carp fan, Tomo for their game against the Yakult Swallows in Jingu. What was different was the new stadium. Jingu was the third stadium I've seen the Carp play in (the other two being the Tokyo Dome and Yokohama Stadium). The thing that was the same was the result; the Carp lost again. I'm now 0-4. I did get to see the "famous" 7th inning rituals: Carp fans release hundreds of colorful balloons and Swallows fans do their umbrella dance.

A few observations: instead of peanuts and popcorn, it's noodles and rice balls. The fans are really fanatics; the Carp fans we're cheering like crazy in the top of the 9th inning while losing 8-1 (they eventually lost 8-3).

Saturday, July 26

Sea Paradise

Yumi actually had to work on this Saturday at the Sea Paradise amusement park. She is a trainer for foreigners working for Japanese companies and she chaperoned her trainee group to the amusement park for the traditional Japanese summer festival. The amusement park is only a 20 minute bicycle ride from our apartment, so in the evening, I rode over and joined them to watch some traditional dancing and music and for the fireworks show. After the show I unhappily discovered that my bike tire was flat, so I took the train home, then went back the next day, walked the bike for an hour to a bike shop and had it fixed.

Life Post-Ph.D. Part III

Friday August 1
Dinner Party
Since we got back from Hawaii Yumi and I have been playing Ticket to Ride (aka the Train Game) courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law. While I am currently winning 10-8 in games won, I've discovered that my wife is neither a good winner nor a good loser. When she wins, she taunts me endlessly with chants of "loser" and when I win she sulks. I have to have a talk with her Mom. In any event, we had three of Yumi's work friends (Yumi, Yuiko, and Miki) over for dinner and games. I was volunteered to make my homemade stuffed pizza which went over well.

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Saturday, August 2
Akiko, Mariko, and Shoko
We went up to Tokyo again to meet Yumi's college friends for a very nice Italian lunch; 3 courses and dessert. They generously treated us and got us wedding gifts.

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Indiana Jones
Since we were already in Tokyo, we took advantage and walked around, window shopped and caught Indiana Jones (Indei Jyonzu in Japanese). I was terribly disappointed in the movie and am scratching my head at how critics gave the movie 76% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I know that some movies need a bit of a willing suspension of disbelief but this movie was a bridge too far from reality. Surviving a nuclear bomb, 3 massive waterfalls, etc. plus the massively inconsistent magnetic fields which featured prominently in various scenes, the "luck" to find the right path to whatever they were looking for and on and on. Blech.

Politics Update

As we are between the primaries and the conventions, there's not a whole lot going on, but since I have been MIA for the past month or so, I thought I'd offer my take on a couple of things which did happen.

1. JibJab
First, if you haven't seen the web sensation that is JibJab, you have to take a look. The newest video is about Obama and McCain and it is hilarious. My favorite part is actually when they poke fun at Obama:

I'm having problems embedding the videos, unfortunately, so I'll just provide the link.

I think that the one from 2004 with Kerry and Bush is even better.

2. The New Yorker Cover
I think that this supposedly controversial magazine cover was much ado about nothing. I thought it cleverly parodied the lunatic fringe who think that Obama is some kind of Muslim terrorist. While I'm at it, I want to state for the record that this rumor that he's a Muslim is insulting for 2 reasons: 1) It's a lie and 2) It's treated as if being a Muslim is such a bad thing. I don't see anything intrinsically better or worse than being a Jew, Christian, or Muslim. All can lead to fulfillment and all can be taken to extremes. There are good people and bad people in each of the religions and this demonization of Muslims is offensive. Back to the New Yorker, the only thing that it proved is that some people are satire-impaired either because they don't get the joke or don't have a sense of humor. It's very similar to Archie Bunker from All in the Family. Many people didn't get that it was satire and it caused a firestorm at the time and a need for the writers to change their approach. I was disappointed that Obama chose to play the "outrage card" himself.

3. Obama's Trip Abroad and the Aftermath
By most accounts, Obama's trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and England was a smashing success. It showed him to be presidential and capable of being the head of state and commander-in-chief. Other things I took away from it: even I was shocked that all 3 network news anchors followed him there. While I usually roll my eyes at Republican whining about liberal media bias, this made me concerned about fair press coverage. McCain's charges that Obama is unpatriotic ("he'd rather lose a war than lose an election") and doesn't support the troops because he canceled a trip to visit wounded soldiers in Germany is stupid and insulting. McCain should know better but the bottom line is that it makes him look negative and shrill. The facts are that Obama had already visited troops in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Walter Reed -- often without press coverage -- but canceled this trip because it might have been seen as too political. You add McCain's allegation to his other ridiculous allegation that Obama is behind high gasoline prices and his lackluster campaigning by riding in a golf cart with Bush 41 and in grocery store with cue cards, and you have to wonder how long McCain can survive. I've heard analysis which posits that this election is a referendum on Obama. With Bush and the Republicans at historic levels of unpopularity, the only question is "Is Obama a viable president?" I agree with this analysis.

4. VP Speculation

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is getting a lot of buzz at a potential Obama running mate. I think it would be a terrible choice. Kaine's resume is about as thin as Obama's and brings little to the ticket apart from popularity in a swing state. Obama should pick New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson who has vast experience both executive and foreign, is a Latino, is outside Washington and comes from a swing state. Indiana Senator (and former Governor) Evan Bayh would be a decent, safe choice.

McCain seems to be vacillating between Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney. Pawlenty is a safe choice who will do no harm to McCain's chances. I think that Romney would be a mistake. His rhetoric would likely energize the Democrats even more plus we get to rehash all of his opportunism, flip-flops, insincerity, Mormon religion, and the enmity between he and McCain. I loved McCain's line about Romney: don't get into a wrestling match with a pig; you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

What I'm Up Against

A week and a half ago, I started private lessons with a Japanese teacher. My first task is to learn the second alphabet: katakana. As if it were not difficult enough to learn 2 alphabets plus the thousands of kanji characters, I am also up against the similarities between characters....

Hiragana characters:
き and さ
こ and に
め, の, あ, and ぬ
ね and ぬ

る, ろ, and そ
は , ほ, and ま
れ , わ, and ね
り and い

Katakana characters:
ノ, ン, ソ, シ, and ツ

ウ, ク, ケ, ス, タ, ヌ, フ, ラ, ワ, and ヲ!

チ and テ
メ and ナ

ユ and コ

Japundit Posts

Needless to say, I haven't posted many articles to Japundit during the past month or so, as I was pretty busy with a few other things! The handful I posted are once again an eclectic collection. The article on Japanese work culture is very interesting and gives a good insight into part of Japanese society which confounds me I must admit. That article generated a fair amount of discussion on the website. The article on the best defense was a silly article on a woman who outsmarted a robber. The healthy diet article was also silly; it is about "eating champion" Takeru Kobayashi. Japanese whaling is controversial and is dealt with in one of the articles. The article on Japanese technology discusses some of Japan's innovations. I am concerned that developed countries which are more progressive than the U.S. (i.e. all of them) will develop the environmental technologies which we will all need to implement soon, so instead of exporting we will be importing while the profits go in the opposite direction. The last article is on the Ainu; an indigenous population in the northern part of Japan. I didn't know that Japan has it's own native population. It turns out that their fate is similar to that of the Native people in the U.S.

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Japanese Work Culture (Washington Post)

Best Defense: Gun? Knife?... Tea? (Associated Press)
Healthy Japanese Diet? (ESPN)

Japanese Whaling (Newsweek)

Japanese Energy Technology (NY Times)

Ainu Recognition (NY Times)