| (no subject) |
[Sep. 29th, 2007|01:24 pm] |
from neojaponisme.com
Dogma involves babysitting heirlooms of dubious value deep within a bunker of reinforced concrete. With so much territory left to explore and subtleties yet to be grasped, how can we subject ourselves to live in such a prison or be employed as one of the guards? We must hit the road, uncover trails, overturn rocks, traverse darkened alleyways, and open more forbidden chests than the members of the Olympic Pandora’s Boxing Team.
nietzsche would be proud: |
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| one year, four days, and counting |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|02:04 am] |
well, it's been a little over a year here in shiokawa. i've met a lot of the new JETs and it's made me reflect upon my own experiences.. everything was so new and exotic when i first got here, but things have moved away from that a great deal. i've fallen into my own routine, my own lifestyle here, and that's going to continue for one more year. in what other ways will it change, wonder?
i think i've grown a great deal since my arrival here, one year and four days ago. living in this culture - which is in so many ways an opposite universe from the one in which i was raised - has really allowed me to grow and mature in terms of my attitude towards others and towards other cultures. i've come to look at all cultural characteristics equally because i've realized that all cultures lock onto and value certain things, but for no real reason. there is no universal, overriding purpose to any specific cultural belief, although within a particular culture, people invent reasons that justify those beliefs.
in japan, people value the protection of the way things have always been done and living life the way it should be lived. that's the polar opposite of the american ethos, but having living in both places, i realize that both cultures exist for their own reasons and both serve the people of their cultures the same way: they give their lives meaning and direction. there's no thing good or bad about either one because they are just ways to live. they're not universal constants that reflect some eternal truth. we can talk about and identify good and bad points in each one (and i do this all the time), but neither is good or bad in an of itself. culture is just a tool that people use, it's not right and it's not wrong.
aren't people just the same way? people have their own beliefs too, they're own reasons for living. and like culture, they value those things for no universal, overriding reason.. they just happen to lock onto those things. i like traveling. my boss likes gardening. my brother likes football. one might disagree with or have no interest in the things valued by others, but that doesn't mean they're not valuable to that person in their world. and, as in the case of culture, i can only refrain from judgement and just respect people and take them for what they are.
i'm happy that i've realized these things and it only took 23 years to do it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 13th, 2007|12:16 am] |
Money Found in Toilets Across Japan
By Associated Press
3 hours agoUPDATED 2 HOURS 25 MINUTES AGO
TOKYO - Envelopes containing 10,000 yen ($82) bills and well-wishing notes have been discovered in municipal toilets across Japan, media reports said, baffling civil servants and triggering a nationwide hunt.
Local media have estimated that over two million yen ($16,400) worth of bills were found at men's rooms in city halls in at least 15 prefectures (states) in recent weeks.
Each package of 10,000-yen bills, some wrapped in traditional Japanese washi paper, was accompanied by handwritten letters that read "Please make use of this money for your self-enrichment," and "One per person," according to reports.
Officials are baffled over the identity of the benefactor or any motives, the reports said. Packages turned over to police were to be kept for some time in case someone claimed them. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 22nd, 2007|06:29 am] |
hey susan,
i apologize for the long silence. things have been busy over here. i'm planning an international education curriculum for my elementary school kids. i'm studying japanese like mad and hanging out with friends. i also have been planning for various trips over the summer.. going to the japanese island of okinawa for five days in two weeks to meet my old roommate, jon, from college (he's in hong kong for the summer). going home in early august (probably 3-15). going on various weekend trips and stuff too, so it should be fun.
that's good that you've got both boys home. it must be nice after such a long time with at least one gone. that's cool tyler's playing soccer and enjoying his job. ryan's job sounds great too. i bet he's making a lot of cash!
i appreciate that you read the article and i'm glad to hear that it make you think about those issues. i can see your point about giving to only US charities, but don't you think the point of that article was that we have so much in the united states, wouldn't it be good to transfer some of that wealth to other nations? i believe the author even frames it as a kind of moral imperative, and i like that. whether we want to believe it or not, in today's globalized world more than ever, we are all connected.. america's wealth is not the sole product of american ingenuity and hard work only, but it also rests upon the workers, markets, and places that support the american economy. or for example, it involves the farmers in the third world that can NOT sell their products and compete with american farmers because the heavily-subsidized american farm goods are cutting them out of their own domestic market. that kind of stuff. i just think that you can't look at things so simply. you can't take an us-versus-them attitude when so many things are interrelated, there are so many causes and effects that go well beyond full comprehension.
i also think that your attitude towards governments and charity (that is, national governments should be responsible for their own people's welfare) has some grounding, yet again, in this globalized world, the government role is becoming more and more shakey.. last year, non-governmental organizations (red cross, for example), transferred more wealth to the third world than did all established governments as well as supergovernmental orgs like the UN combined. money and support are being transferred to the third world outside of official government channels. as part of the website kiva.org, for instance, i directly provided a microloan to a woman in ghana who wanted to buy a dairy cow. that had nothing to go with any government at all, neither mine nor hers.
it's unfortunate that the american media doesn't inform viewers about these kinds of things, these kinds of new possibilities that are happening in the 21st century.
additionally, in your response, i think you've confused the issue that that article was talking about - altruism to the world's poor - with the american government's wasting of american tax dollars.. while i totally agree with you about the government taxing its citizens too much and squandering the nation's resources (thank you, mr. bush), i think it would be best to think of the issue at hand separately. Uncle Sam and that poor woman who wanted to buy a dairy cow in Ghana are totally unrelated, I believe.
I also think you're wrong that giving hurts entrepeneurship. bill gates has given over a BILLION dollars to helping the poor in foreign countries, particularly in the area of health. did you know that the Gates Foundation (his charity) will be solely responsible for eradicating certain preventable diseases in the entire continent of africa within ten years? also look at warren buffett, the rags-to-riches investor gazillionaire who owns the company berkshire-hathaway in nebraska. he's promised 15 billion dollars to the Gates foundation and other charities. I think it's totally awesome that these privledged men have proven themselves to be vanguards in the world of charity. and once again, having absolutely nothing to do with the u.s. or any national government.
anyways, i agree. don't give your money to uncle sam.. give it to grassroots non-governmental organizations that succeed in identifying and solving the problems that exist in their communities. that's what gates and buffett are doing. that's what i'm doing.
anyways, that's enough of that i suppose. thank you for offering me the opportunity to respond to your thoughts and to crystalize my own ideas. i really am appreciating this exchange of ideas with you and i hope we can continue!
know that things are excellent here. i've stopped reading the news or even thinking about these kinds of issues, actually. i'm too busy, too involved in my community. america is so far away from me in many different ways. so are world events, unfortunately. but i'm fine with that. i'd rather be here where i'm at and concerned with what's going on around here than anywhere else at the moment.
i am looking forward to seeing you and everyone else in august. perhaps then we can continue this interesting conversation.
love,
kai |
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| update |
[Jun. 13th, 2007|08:47 pm] |
adapted from a mail i sent to some friends....
well shucks, i guess it's my turn to ante up and write something.
so i've been busy like a mofo. went to tokyo from sat-thurs for the JET recontracting conference. it was just a great experience all-around. i got to hang out a lot with my friends in tokyo, sami, aoi, keiko, and yasuhiro, which was so much fun. usually i only get to see them once or twice when I'm in tokyo because it go for a weekend or something, but since i was there for six days, i saw them all several times. they're all doing exciting things (they all got jobs that they'll start next year) and they're all growing a lot as people, so it's cool to see those things happen to them. the cherry in top was that jordan and colin are in tokyo for the summer too, so i had a blast seeing them as well.
the conference itself was awesome.. i had so many ideas about things i can do here, it was an idea explosion. i'd like to start an international club and run it out of the community centers around my town. i'm going to gear it towards 4th-6th graders and i'll just do international education stuff.. teach them about world issues, do cool exercises that will make them think, break down stereotypes, etc. i'd also like to do some kind of internationalization training program for the incoming jets in my prefecture or even just in my region, aizu. i'm going to meet with my friend who is the director of the aizu international association this week to figure that stuff out since they come in august. i have some other even crazier ideas, but hopefully these two i can get actualized by the end of the summer. it'll be great to do more to internationalize my little farming community and to try and help other jets get as much out of this experience as they can. i realized that not only can i do more, but i'm really interested in that stuff, so it will be good to learn more as i'm doing those things.
my japanese is going well. about 3-4 weeks ago, something happened. i can't tell you why or how, but i've gotten to the next level in japanese. i'm not fluent and i'm not good, but at least i'm fully conversational at this point. i'd been focusing a lot on constructing sentences like japanese people (as opposed to just translating what i want to say from english to japanese in my head), so that's improved. i can go minutes now without making mistakes. people keep telling me, "whoa, your japanese has improved!" so i'm happy to have some noticeable progress. of course there's a long long road ahead, as always, but i'm moving at least.
i've been hanging out with japanese people mostly, and that's surely contributed to my progress. there's a family in my neighborhood whose house i eat at sometimes. i go over to my boss's house and shoot the shit some weekends. i drop by my neighborhood shops and have tea. always make a point to talk to my students when i see them in the street. it's been great to be a part of the community and also practice japanese.
so i got a girlfriend! her name is ayako, she's 27, she works at the hospital where i got my appendix out in the office and lives there in wakamatsu (15 min south of me). we'd been friends for like over 6 months and we just started hanging out more and more like maybe a month ago. once we ended up spending one whole day together, and after that i was just like, "wow, i really like this girl!" so i asked her to hang out more and eventually just made a move. i guess she was feeling the same way too. like me, she's not from here (she's from hokkaido, the northern island of japan). she's thoughtful, fun, deep... all the things i like in girls. but she's also totally unlike any other girl i've ever dated because she's generally pretty quiet and reserved, especially in groups. i guess you could say she's a pretty traditional japanese girl. we speak about 90% japanese, which has also been really fun. i realized the other day how cool it is to be in a relationship where i can (or really, have to) communicate in another language. there are a ton of reasons i like ayako, but that's just one thing that's been really cool that i haven't experienced before. so anyways, we've only been dating for 3 weeks or so, but things are going really really well. i'm on cloud 9.
these days, things are going so well here that i'm wondering if i shouldn't just recontract for a third year when that time comes.. i have till feb of next year to figure it out, but at this point, i'm thinking that if i can get these programs going, it might be worth it to stay. i'm not going to take the gre this summer like i had planned because, well, i have other things to do.. like these programs, like study japanese, like have a girlfriend and several awesome friends.. i want to keep on living a full and complete life here. i can - and i am - transforming this experience from the dead-end it once was (and is for many jets) into something that i get so much out of personally and that is also providing an optimal stepping-stone for the next big thing, whatever that ends up being. at least that's what i keep telling myself, haha.
so that's about it i guess.. life is good here in sunny shiokawa.
love, kai |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 30th, 2007|01:19 am] |
me: "So, how's it going in Philly Jon?"
jon: "Well, I haven't bought a gun yet.." |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 24th, 2007|12:25 am] |
my mom asked me if i had any advice she could convey to a baccalaureate class to which she's giving a graduation speech.. i came up with this.
being just a 23 years old, i don't know much. but one thing i do know
is that we, as individuals, are the only ones who control our own
fate. good things may happen to the lucky ones, and bad things to the
unlucky, but those things can't be controlled and are thus irrelevant.
only our reactions to these things are actually important: the
attitudes we take and the choices we make in response to the events in
our world. each day, whether conscious of it or not, we are constantly
reinventing and remaking ourselves. we truly have the ultimate power
to not only control who we want to be, but also to decide what our lives
will become and to create the world we want to live in.
as such, the best advice that i can give is this: take your life by
the reigns! be enthusiastic. live uniquely. take risks. get out of
your comfort zone. constantly assess your beliefs, values, and
approaches to your problems and goals. don't allow yourself to be
complacent or stagnant. realize that the power to change your world
only lies within yourself, and that, in the words of mahatma gandhi,
you must be the change you wish to see in the world. you have been
given the tools necessary for success, but will you rise to the occasion
and create a better place for yourself and for all? from now on, that's
a question that no one but you can answer. |
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| school announcement |
[May. 23rd, 2007|08:40 am] |
i just went to my middle school to pick up my shoes since today and tomorrow i teach at different schools.. pulling up, i heard the following message over the school intercom:
"good morning! someone forgot their pee in the nurse's office yesterday, so if that was you, please come pick it up. also, if you haven't brought your pee to the nurse's office yet, please bring it immediately."
.... uuh? |
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| r.i.p. |
[May. 23rd, 2007|07:46 am] |
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AAAH! my electronic dictionary - a device i've not only called my "best friend" on several occasions, one which i use 100+ times a day - is dead. for no reason the screen is all epileptic and janky now. at least i can go buy another one tomorrow, but jeez! it:ll be a cool $200 or so just for a decent one. ::sigh:: |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 21st, 2007|08:47 am] |
from here in today's nytimes: Couple Learn the High Price of Easy Credit
Americans spent one in seven of their take-home dollars on debt payments last year, up from one in nine in 1980. Experts say few consumers are able to calculate the true costs of such payments.
Credit card debt, less than $8 billion in 1968 (in current dollars), now exceeds $880 billion, more than tripling since 1988, adjusting for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank. Penalty fees alone cost consumers $17.1 billion in 2006 — up from $12.8 billion in 2003, adjusted for inflation
In 2006, the industry mailed out nearly 8 billion credit card offers, up from 3.5 billion in 2000. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 19th, 2007|10:38 am] |
"In south america, if the cannibals don't get you, your neighbor will."
-my Grandpa |
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| one reason i like america |
[May. 18th, 2007|09:09 am] |
from today's nytimes:
More than 20 percent of children in the United States either are foreign-born or have a parent who was born abroad. Nearly half the children under age 5 are Hispanic, black or Asian.
hooray for multiculturalism! |
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| some neighborhood news turned worldwide news |
[May. 16th, 2007|04:49 pm] |
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Japan boy 'severs mother's head' A teenage Japanese boy has been arrested after walking into a police station carrying a severed human head and claiming to have killed his mother. The 17-year-old went to a police station in the town of Aizuwakamatsu, north of Tokyo, carrying the head in a sports bag, Japanese media said. The beheaded body of a woman was later found at the boy's home, police said. This is the latest in a series of grisly killings in Japan, a country renowned for its low crime rate. On Monday a severed human leg was discovered in a small river in central Tokyo. In January, a 32-year-old woman was arrested after she confessed to killing her husband, dismembering him with a saw and dumping body parts around Tokyo. 'It's horrifying' In the latest case, the boy, said to be a local high school student, reportedly told police he killed his mother with a knife during the night as she slept, and had acted alone. Japanese press said the boy lived with his young brother, separately from their parents. Their mother was believed to have been visiting them on Monday. The teenager was reported to have undergone psychiatric treatment at some point in the past. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki expressed his alarm at the reports. "If it's true, it's horrifying," he said. Aizuwakamatsu is located in Fukushima prefecture, some 200km (125 miles) north of Tokyo. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 15th, 2007|12:45 am] |
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what’s the Japanese word for the reflection of the sky off the flooded rice fields? or the word for the overwhelming cacophony that comes from the frogs in those flooded fields in the nighttime? or the experience of walking through a torrent of falling cherry blossoms in the wind? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 15th, 2007|12:44 am] |
ugh, I just got done with dinner with this old couple I know. they’re really nice especially the woman, who treats me like one of her own children by never letting me pay for anything, giving me food whenever I go to their house, etc. but the husband, geez, he really gets on my nerves. he’s one of those old Japanese guys who think there’s not a world beyond the sea of japan and the pacific ocean. more so, he thinks that’s right. that’s all fine and dandy for me since he’ll be gone relatively soon, and so will that ideology.. my target and purpose here is to open the minds of kids, not the old people who still have memories of eating grass during the toughest times in world war two.
anyways.. it wouldn’t matter to me, but when I’m with the man, he continually asks me questions like, “is (insert anything here) in America?” That would be ok too – many people ask that kind of stuff because they’re actually curious about the rest of the world – but he’s asking because he thinks the glorious nation of Japan is the best and most unique country in the world and thus can use me as a means of validating this. I just grow tired of these stupid questions that are rooted in his old-world cultural superiority complex. I mean, tonight he even asked me if vinegar was in the United States!! Vinegar, for cryin’ out loud! then later, after telling me that Karaoke is a “Japanese thing,” he said to his wife, “singing in English.. it just sounds strange.” I just sat in the back seat quietly, thinking “Are you fucking joking me?”
What I tell myself every single day is that if my kids grow up and don’t think these kinds of things, I will have done my job properly. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 14th, 2007|03:27 pm] |
traffic fatalities in the US, 2005: 43,200
traffic injuries in the US, 2005: 2.6 million
traffic fatalities in Japan, 2005: 6,300
traffic injuries in the US, 2005: 1.1 million
normal speed limit in us: 45mph
normal speed limit in japan: 32mph |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 13th, 2007|09:27 pm] |
another moment i'll never forget:
singing YMCA with an old Japanese couple on a portable karaoke machine in their house while drinking moonshine made from rice by the old woman. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 2nd, 2007|05:04 am] |
man, the brandeis alumni association e-mails look pathetic! every month i notice how amateurish and unorganized they are, so i decided to write them:
from Kai Kadoich
to webmaster@alumni.brandeis.edu, office@alumni.brandeis.edu
date May 2, 2007 2:00 PM
subject alumni e-mail
Dear Alumni Association E-mail Webmaster and Staff,
My name is Kai Kadoich and I graduated from Brandeis last year as an undergraduate. I truly appreciate the e-mails that I receive every month from campus that keep me informed!
Because of my love and respect for the institution, I feel like I should voice my opinion about the format of the monthly e-mail. While full of great information, I find myself, month after month, noticing the various unpolished, even amateurish qualities of the presentation of the e-mail. For instance, just by looking at the first few lines, one notices an ugly gap between the awkwardly left-justified "May 2006" and the centered, barely-noticable title "News From Campus". The reader is immediately struck by these unprofessional and frankly easy-to-fix problems.
Furthermore, while each section is delineated by a photo, the usage of titles appears to be arbitrary, as some sections use them and others don't. The implementation of hyperlinks and the usages of spacing between sections also seems to not be governed by any set pattern. The sections almost flow into one another.
I would have been embarrassed submitting my honor's thesis in such a disorganized and visually unpolished state as these alumni e-mails. I am dissatisfied because I know that not only is this presentation not up to par with the rest of the fine publications Brandeis puts out, but more importantly, it inadequately reflects the quality of the education that I received at Brandeis. In 2007, Internet media is just as (if not more) important than all other types of publications, and I hope Brandeis realizes the importance of having a visually savvy alumni newsletter.
Why not use various font sizes, bold, and italics? Why not systemize the presentation, including the usage of spaces and hyperlinks? Why not clearly delineate each section of the e-mail? These are just very, very basic suggestions - things that I did when I was sending out my own club newsletters when I was an undergraduate. I'm sure any competent webmaster (which I'm not) can do much, much more. These little things are extremely important, especially in a document that thousands upon thousands of educated people receive each month.
I have also included a screen shot from my Google Mail account as an attachment to illustrate how I see the e-mails.
My hope is that this criticism is received without offense, as I only wish to better the institution that has made such a positive impact upon my life.
Many thanks for your time and attention,
Kai Kadoich, B.A. '06 |
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| mass e-mail may 1st, 2007 |
[May. 1st, 2007|09:07 pm] |
Dear Friends and Family,
Hello! Long time no talk! It's been well over two months since I last sent a mass e-mail, but rest assured that it's only because I'm managing to keep very busy, productive, and happy while living here in Shiokawa. I've experienced a lot of positive changes in the last few months, so I'll share some with you in this mail.
After the hardest, longest, and coldest winter of my life, spring has finally come. No more 24 hours of inescapable cold. No more 46 degree hallways at school. No more constantly taking refuge near the nearest kerosene heater. Needless to say, I've been relishing the spring, as it's truly been a time of renewal here. The mountains in all directions are starting to turn green. Everyone - including me - spends more time outside once again. I can ride my motorcycle as I please (toured 200 km yesterday through the mountains, found a tofu donut shop.. see pics). Riding my bicycle to school is pleasant once again. Thousands of cherry blossoms all bloomed and fell in a week or two. It's been all really spectacular in it's contrast to the winter.
In April I moved apartments because my old one was, well, old. And small and cold. The place my boss found for me was just remodeled, and went from a hostess bar (place where Japanese men go to be poured drinks and flattered by women.. see wikipedia) into a giant one-room apartment. It's funky since it retains some of it's original aspects, such as the wood floors, the bar (complete with the set of plush red stools), and the twin industrial-sized central heaters (!). I also scored some old unused leather couches and a table from the town hall, so it's turned into a pretty sweet pad, if I do say so myself. I had a pot-luck housewarming party on my 23rd birthday (April 21st), and my friends Yasuhiro and Austin were nice enough to come in from out of town for it. About 30 people from my town came too, and they all brought a ton of food - I had three birthday cakes and there are still 12 bottles of wine left over! It was fun to have this very unorthodox party (for Japan), and I enjoyed bringing people I know from different places all together, even if they all did sit on the floor instead of using my furniture, the silly middle-aged rural Japanese people.
I'm really satisfied these days with my life at school and my role as a teacher. I read a book about the JET Program (that I'm on) recently that shed a lot of light upon my situation. It covered stuff like the Japanese educational system, how JETs are perceived, and various hardships that JETs face and their solutions. I often felt like I was reading a book about myself, so it helped me understand my place at my school and how I can better succeed under the given circumstances. Now, I think I'm getting along better in the staff room, having identified previously unknown cultural differences. Also, I'm constantly taking more of an initiative in interacting with the kids by making a point to talk to anyone I see and playing with them at recess every single day. I joined the ping-pong team a few months ago, and this week I started running with the cross-country team as well.. 5 km today, whew. Putting forth a little more effort has yielded a big result, and I'm elated to be feeling more like a real part of my school.
I've also changed my lifestyle in certain ways. For instance, I gave up the internet. Well, at least everything aside from Gmail, my blog, and the New York Times website. I came to realize that the way I was living was working against my purpose here. This job isn't about keeping to myself. If I spend a day without talking much to my students or to the people in my town, or if I use the internet all evening instead or doing things here where I'm living, I'm not fulfilling my potential here in this community. Giving up the internet has given me the time and the impetus to fully live my life here in Shiokawa. So I drop by shops and have tea with the owners, play with kids in the park behind my house, stuff like that. Sunday, one of the neighborhood families invited me and my landlord's family over for a dinner party. It's cool, real cool.
I've also been really into food in the past few months. I cook nearly every day and eat predominately tofu, vegetables, and brown rice. I decided I could support the community more by giving up shopping at the grocery store, where the food comes in from some other prefecture, and instead going to all the little shops around my house (ones that are a bit more expensive but that are all run by my student's parents). It's such a great feeling to walk into a shop and directly support other people in the community, people who I know and who know me. I also recently decided that I'm only going to purchase my produce and anything else I can directly from the source. I can get deep-fried rice snacks from the woman who deep-fried them, mushrooms from the couple who farm them behind their house, and veggies from all kinds of farmers. Living here in agriculture central, I can do these things, so why not? Plus, it cuts down on the trash from all the packaging and stuff.
In addition to staying later after school for club activities, I'm still volunteering to teaching English conversation on Tuesdays at the community center. I also decided that since I had the time, I would take two community Japanese classes in different neighboring towns this spring instead of just one like before. I supplement those classes with a lot of self-study: watching TV, reading the paper, listening to the radio when I sleep (thanks Austin for the idea). It's really helping a lot, and I can see myself (slowly) improving. These days, I look at every single conversation I have like an opportunity to improve and to learn, so that's also really motivating.
Whew, it's been long.. thanks for making it this far! There's lots more, but I guess we'll have to just wait till next time. I'll try not to wait so long next time too. So for now, take care everyone and thanks always for your love and support!
Yours truly,
Kai |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 1st, 2007|09:02 pm] |
i just love it when japanese heads of companies, politicians, etc. issue public apologies on TV.. it always ends with something like "申し訳ございません" (I had no reason for doing what I did) and then a full, 90-degree bow, oftentimes performed by several people all at once. |
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