“Hey guys, can’t you read this sentence? Why can’t? ‘Cause you are Japanese.”
A Japanese coworker showed this to me. As an American, I can read this easily because I was not raised in the Japanese education system. If you know any Japanese people try this out on them and see if they can read this. My wife couldn’t read it. My bilingual daughter had a bit better luck, actually. It goes to show that it is true that bilingual people have a different approach to problem solving than regular people. This goofy font is meant to look Japanese, borrowing from actual Japanese writing to come up with an alphabetical substitute. A Japanese person will see jibberish while someone who was not raised to read Japanese can read this fairly easily.
This is an example of cognitive bias. One’s biases shape how they perceive the world. It shows how people need to expand their thinking in order to change their worldview. We are constantly lied to, such as diamonds being rare gems, soy being healthy for you, fluoride being good for your teeth, flu vaccines can prevent you from catching the flu, chemotherapy being able to treat cancer, etc. And as this example shows, cognitive bias can depend on the context of one’s culture. We’re taught that Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack out of the blue, or that aluminum airplanes could slice straight through solid steel-frame buildings like butter on 9/11. The good news is that it appears that increasingly these days, more and more people are waking up to the fact that they’ve been lied to about a great number of things. Welcome to the Great Awakening.
“Please, show us mercy and forgive us. Don’t let the way ahead be one of darkness. As we stumble down the path of our sinful history, let there always be one shining star to show the way.”
Royal Space Force was a masterpiece movie that was woefully underappreciated. Plus the soundtrack was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who recently passed away. Shiro becomes the first man into space, and there as he is enveloped in peace and tranquility, he finds solace with God and understands the message of salvation he had been struggling with throughout the movie.
On the chalkboard outside of a bar near one of the schools I work at, this big drawing of Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service welcomes customers. This is one of the many things you’ll never see in the United States. I can’t imagine anything as cute and charming at a bar where I am from, nor even a chalkboard, really.
Last month, our daughter Ulan visited Kyoto for her 3rd year JHS school trip and had a great time. It was her first time away from her parents, so it was a big deal. It made me want to look at photos of Kyoto the last time I ever visited there. When Mayu and I had been married for less than two months, we visited Kyoto in May 2001. I cannot remember where this photo was taken in Kyoto, but I just thought that this is a cute glance over the shoulder picture.
This is too funny. Mayu and I were at the drug store and found these bras with the ridiculous ENGRISH descriptions. We had a good laugh. People in Japan generally don’t understand English, and those responsible for the packaging of these items obviously do not either. Let’s start with the night time bra.
“Bust care while sleeping. Keep bust and side meat down.”
I’m sorry… what? Side meat? Keep it down? No, keep it in the fridge. That’s tomorrow’s dinner.
“This bra is just put on and a fat of a side and back is pulled.”
Well yeah, so you say it’s just put on, right? But that’s when it gets complicated. “A fat of a side?” Who are you calling fat? And your back is pulled? What’s going on again? I’m confused now.
This is what happens when you use a foreign language for decoration. Especially when you use Google Translate or something because you don’t know the language. There are stories like that one tattoo artist who was tattooing “spicy tofu” onto vapid people who didn’t know crap about Chinese characters but wanted to get permanently tattooed because they are vacuous trendies. Guys like that are heroes as far as I care.
Unless I am mistaken, Bubblegum Crisis was the first non-dubbed anime I watched back in the very early ’90s.
I frickin’ LOVE BGC. Also, during high school and college, Linna Yamazaki was my imaginary girlfriend. I’ve always loved black hair, and I just LOVE her hairstyle.
Well, June has only just begun… Hang in there! It’s Groomer Awareness Month, when degenerates making a mockery of womanhood hijack virtuous platitudes like “inclusion” to use it as a means of advancing their pedo predilections by shoving their junk into kids’ faces and literally promote evil with imagery of Satan and guillotines, like what happened at Target stores recently. It’s when Corporate America’s pandering becomes smokescreen for the indoctrination and the mutilation of children at the behest of Big Pharma, and we’re supposed to be happy about that. These corporations really couldn’t care less about the well-being of these people; they are only concerned about exploiting them for profit. Children are instinctively attracted to colorful rainbows, after all. They are being preyed upon by people who want to enslave them to pharmaceuticals for the rest of their life. Disgusting. So make this song your anthem for the month. Play it loud, run around your room, burn some calories, knock over some furniture if necessary. Lyrics are included. If you don’t know this song yet, TRUST ME, you’ll thank me for this. This based, politically-incorrect song is therapeutic and thrusts a big middle finger to debauchery and depravity. I’ve just listened to it for about the 30th time in a row now. God bless The Ramones.
This is one of those songs that really resonated with me during my college years. I would play it on repeat and listen to it over and over again as it spoke to my mood so often. Being a lonely soul, surrounded by thousands of other souls I could not connect with, living underground and not living in proper communion with each other. And of course, the futility of it all, since often my poor attempts at communication were misunderstood, prompting an urge to flee from others. My loneliness was always at odds with my desire to be alone. I wanted to have deep friendships with others, but did not know how to do so with “normal” people. A constant juggle between empathy and apathy, not knowing the type of person I wanted to be. I wanted to be a caring person, yet I’d developed a cynical attitude as a defensive mechanism… pushing others away, yet resenting them for not being closer to me; for not understanding me. Resenting myself for my failure to help them understand me. Convincing myself that everyone hated me, so that when it proved to be untrue, I could then set myself to be artificially happy by setting my expectations too low. I could never properly express myself verbally; only through writing. I hated myself for that. So I just set about recording my life in journals, writing about my life, thinking that someday I would be able to share those journals with the girl I might marry someday. Then the irony of me being married a girl who has had no desire at all to read the multiple volumes I have written thus far. All of those feelings and experiences, the joys and the heartbreaks, will just be kept to myself forever. I suppose it was silly to think that I would someday freely share them with anyone other than myself.
In this half year journey of retrospection and introspection that I have been on, it just makes me regret all the times I distanced myself from others. All of the non-nerd friends I had who couldn’t understand me, yet were still kind to me. I sort of resented them in a way, thinking, “They aren’t like me,” and it would deplete my energy to make an effort to be with these “normal” friends, constantly afraid that they’d make fun of me for being a nerd. Because since I have been reaching out to loved ones in my past, guys and girls who were so dear to me, while some have been pleasantly surprised to hear from me, quite often I’m just ignored. Even a dear cousin of mine who was like a little brother to me. Even those friends who made such an impact on my life. If only I hadn’t withdrawn from them… If only I hadn’t pushed them away… If only I had developed better social skills at an earlier age… If only I hadn’t been so ashamed of myself… If only I had been more positive and edifying to them… Then perhaps they would be delighted when I reach out to them rather than ignoring me. Apparently I failed to leave a positive impression on them. They must only have memories of a brooding, shy, pathetic nerd who was always on the periphery and not of someone who deeply cared for them. Apparently I failed to convey that. As for me, even those who hurt my feelings, even girls who broke my heart, even people who were my enemies who gave me such stress, I love them all and I wish I could have a chance to be a blessing to them and to show love and grace to them if they were to reach out to me.
On a thousand islands in the sea I see a thousand people just like me A hundred unions in the snow I watch them walking, falling in a row We live always underground It’s going to be so quiet in here tonight A thousand islands in the sea It’s a shame
And a hundred years ago A sailor trod this ground I stood upon Take me away everyone When it hurts thou
From my head to my toes From the words in the book I see a vision that would bring me luck From my head to my toes To my teeth, through my nose You get these words wrong You get these words wrong Every time You get these words wrong I just smile
But from my head to my toes From my knees to my eyes Every time I watch the sky For these last few days leave me alone But for these last few days leave me alone Leave me alone Leave me alone
