So I had a chance to visit Fukuoka yesterday. It’s a nice-sized city on the west side of Japan (just south of Busan). I wandered throughout the extremely clean and orderly boulevards for a good six or so hours (and have a super sexy sunburn as a result).
While I’ve been to downtown Tokyo very briefly at night, this was the first time I’ve been to any of the main islands during the day — and boy they aren’t kidding when they say Japan is highly industrialized.
Aside from the warehouse district (which I also meandered aimlessly through), the entire core is cleaner than downtown Seoul, Taipei or Kaohsiung (the big cities I’ve lived in thus far). Everyone was well-dressed, air-pollution was non-existent, and they all drove on the wrong side of the road!
Food prices were about par with Dallas or Seoul (Taiwan is by far the cheapest I’ve been to yet).
All the young women, if they weren’t dressed up in business suits wore impossibly small micro skirts. No complaints there.
It was kind of funny to see a line of men and women standing in front of a large magazine rack at 7-11. Apparently what you see in movies and cartoons is actually common-place: you find a book, pop in your headphones and just read standing up… in public.
I noticed less English in both advertisements and public transportation, but this could just be a result of distractions, like the young nurses that wore skin-tight clothing… as they road bicycles. Speaking of which, while all of the cars and buses on the road were modern vehicles, there were a large number of old school cruiser bicycles in use (not crazily zooming around like you see in videos from China).
And everyone walked with a different, more sophisticated air of confidence. I attribute this to the fact that Japan as a whole has pretty much been at the forefront of economic and cultural development for the past century. Conversely in Taiwan and Korea less than a generation ago most people still lived in a rural farm, and thus are still adjusting to a higher standard of living — and not walking around in pajamas (seriously, I’m not trying to make fun of “poorer” people, but some of the gitups are pretty funny to see).
This was taken right before sunset. Apparently the guy was a local man that liked to play for an hour or so each day on the park situated in the middle of the lake (Ohori Park). He even had a mini-amp connected to his guitar. I have no idea what the name of the song was, despite recording it, because the microphone on the camera didn’t work : (
There was a canal that cut the central business core into two areas.
If you’ve seen the film Lost in Translation, one of the more interesting aspects to global advertising is that you can find a famous celebrity on just about any product imaginable. One has to wonder if the star has any idea where their face is appearing on. Take for instance this beer vending machine that has the mug of ol’ Tommy Lee Jones on it. Sexy.
Obligatory Hello Kitty signage. I’ll be honest, despite the stereotypes, I didn’t feel inundated with ads for our friendly pink ambassador.
The other day, one of my kids asked me if I knew who Stone Cold Steve Austin was.
It’s great to know that he is an ambassador for American culture.
The kid also loves Hyundai, in part because his dad works there as an engineer. He was visibly disappointed when I told him that the Toyota Camry was the best selling vehicle in North America. Followed by the Accord, Civic and Corolla. Damn those Japs!
The newest one discusses the peaceful rise of China.
And you may also be interested in the “shared” posts in Google Reader. So find me on that.
Also, a shout out to Eric Garris, who fixed a number of little errors in the China piece. It’s the damndest thing, apparently I saved two different copies (a normal one, and a bad ass one) and sent LRC the normal one. It was missing a number of little corrections I’ve made that for whatever reason, never made it into the final draft.
For instance, if you read the Chinese piece, my two versions have two completely different footnotes for number 9. Here is a good nugget that never made the published copy because of my tomfoolery:
According to a recent story by the Associated Press: 130,000 PLA troops “repaired more than 14,600 kilometers, or 9,100 miles, of roads, installed 220,000 shelters and relocated more than 1.4 million people” over the course of two months.
Anyways, the moral of the story is that while it is good to store and backup copies in various places, be sure to title them differently to properly distinguish them.
Note: agh, even one more recent note didn’t make it: China & Russia recently signed a border agreement. How’s that for peacefully handling disputes?
It was one of the better sitcoms around — Joey was great. Actually all of them had great chemistry, just like That 70’s Show.
Speaking of which, here is a memorable episode (I even remember where I was when I first saw it: sitting on a couch in front of the TV). Note that it is remixed with the cartoon Superfriends:
At least, not until pick-up trucks become more common (they are non-existent out here), or when oil prices decrease dramatically.
I wonder if there is a direct correlation between liking monster trucks and enjoying WWF style wrestling? If so, then some of my students may become gear heads in the future… because they really like that show.
Seeing one of those little four-wheeler, all-terrain vehicles (the kind that only fits one person, the driver) parked along the bicycle isle outside of a large grocery store.
or
Having one of your 14 year-old kids publicly admit that they cosplay in their free-time — and he’s a dude.
Actually, to be honest, neither is really strange to me nor most of my coworkers and not because I’m some kind of elite cosmopolitan globetrotter. One of the reasons I rarely discuss the job or the country is that everything kind of blends together, especially once you get a routine going.
But man, seeing as these kids all go to school six days a week, from 8 in the morning till 10 at night, you’d think the last hobby they’d have is playing dress-up in public. At least he’s outside, right? And not in some biker gang or working for Chris Cox of the SEC.
In response to my post on the future of agriculture, several people emailed me a short documentary that looks at rural Japan entitled The Slow Life.
Here is the video hosted at Google:
My major complaint with the video is that it paints the farm life as some kind of magical industry that is on the verge of collapse. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
There are two big reasons why farming as a profession resides in the single digits in the developed world: 1) automation and 2) large, healthy harvests
For instance, in Japan, nearly the entire industry is automated. For instance, the RMAX is a fully-automated UAV developed by Yamaha (Discovery Channel had an episode on one of its variants used in the US for topographical mapping). It fills several roles including the delivery of pesticides and fertilizers. And there are thousands of them flying throughout the Japanese countryside.
In addition not only has the harvesting aspect of farming also been mechanized but the actual crop yields are essentially the highest in the world. Thus less land is needed to produce more crops. And GMOs will further help productive capacity over the next several years.
Back to the video, while some individuals and families may indeed flee from urban centers to live in quieter, nicer smelling regions, their marginal contribution to farming output is negligible at best.
Arguably their futile exercise provides an excellent illustration for why farms have been depopulated over the last several decades: the manual labor is literally backbreaking and subjugates participants to battle all of the environmental hazards that billions living in subsistence want to flee from. The video captures a small portion of the industry and only shows one-side of it.
Oddly enough, I am somewhat pleased by their actions in part because there are fewer hippies left in the cities. Now if only all of the Naderites would jump on that bandwagon.
[Note: the Japanese government subsidizes the industry and outlaws foreign competition -- so land use would arguably different than it is currently (what is so bad about importing a lot of food?)]
So I had a chance to visit Fukuoka yesterday. It’s a nice-sized city on the west side of Japan (just south of Busan). I wandered throughout the extremely clean and orderly boulevards for a good six or so hours (and have a super sexy sunburn as a result). 
I noticed less English in both advertisements and public transportation, but this could just be a result of distractions, like the young nurses that wore skin-tight clothing… as they road bicycles. Speaking of which, while all of the cars and buses on the road were modern vehicles, there were a large number of old school cruiser bicycles in use (not crazily zooming around like you see in videos from China).
This was taken right before sunset. Apparently the guy was a local man that liked to play for an hour or so each day on the park situated in the middle of the lake (Ohori Park). He even had a mini-amp connected to his guitar. I have no idea what the name of the song was, despite recording it, because the microphone on the camera didn’t work : (
The other day, one of my kids asked me if I knew who Stone Cold Steve Austin was.