10 July 94 (Sunday)

Well, I went out last night for a couple of hours and the taxi ride was so
cheap that I wouldn't mind going out every weekend.  I just bought one
beer and went to a really little bar that had a karaoke player (but very
rarely did our song come up for there was a larger Japanese party (who
were accompanied by the requisite hostess - whose main point is to keep
customers happy & drinking - basically men & alot of pawing goes on.  It's
kind of the modern version of the geisha, whose main purpose was to keep a
party rolling and etc.)

We did get to sing our Japanese song =tatoiba= .. etc. and the Japanese
people thought it was funny that we were singing a Japanese song.  Later
on this couple (mainly the lady) invited us over to their table and they
gave us more drinks.  The lady was getting quite happy & friendly and
trying to hook me up w/ another guy in our group.  She was going on about
how beautiful American girls are compared to Japanese and was basically
incomprehensible due to the noise in the bar.  

The tables were really cool.  The floor was right up to the table then
there was a sink down so one could sit Japanese or Western style.  good
idea I think [picture of the table]

The lady was a little too friendly in that she kept leaning against one of
the HIF guys and kept rubbing his leg.  I felt sorry for the guy and the
lady's date/husband - he could tell we weren't comfortable w/ her behavior
and kept trying to stop her.  But I was trying to tell him not to worry
(there wasn't much he could do anyway)  The guy seemed really nice.  You
know, I think that sometimes Japanese can be too friendly in bothering
gaijin - whether being over-friendly to us or staring at us, I much prefer
some of the people who ignore us, though I do like talking w/ other people
here.

Well lots of interesting things going on in the news - Kim, the ruler of
North Korea has died and his son (who I think is considered worse than his
father) is leader now and there's big fires in Colorado and big flood in
Georgia (and of course earlier was a plane crash in N.C. - Charlotte) and
people here were killed because some guy decided to mix his own pesticides
(ignorance can be the biggest crime sometimes) and the O.J. Simpson murder
case is of course big news and the freshly elected Prime Minister is at G7
conference and everybody is being nice to him, but I don't think they're
paying especial attention for they expect him to be on his way out.
Unfortunately, I think this means the exchange rate here will be uniformly
crappy until after I leave (unless, of course, it just keeps getting worse
and worse)

Well a couple days ago I bought some interesting books in English - one
about famous visitors to Japan and their impressions which were written in
letters, books, and articles.  They were interesting and often poetic and
quite a contrast to my rather plain narrative here [no kidding - this
stuff sucks].  Sometimes reading letters, diaries, and the such from the
past and so many times it seems that people were much more poetic and good
writers - but then I remember that they'd only publish interesting
accounts anyway and I guess there are those w/ purple prose at any time.

In any case, the author has a definite bias about Japan, seeing the
kimono, and other traditional arts in Japan disappear out of the popular
culture and despairs at this.  I think this guy is a romantic, for I feel
romantics hate change.  The older a tradition or art is, the better is
seems to them -- the modern is considered shallow, mechanical, dismal,
spiritually low - and I feel they never really look at the new arts being
created - nothing is terribly profound when first born or created - they
look at the bratty child and dismiss it over its accomplished, dignified
grandparents and do not wait for it to mature.  (sorry, even I get
metaphoric sometimes)

I'm just sick of people who only see the potential of death & destruction
& mechanicalness but don't see the new possibilities and the new problems
and new dynamics that develop.

There's a thought I've been having lately (unrelated to Japan) that having
such good communications and data storage techniques can cause info to get
lost just as easy as when it is bad - for there is so much, one needs to
know =how= to find the pertinent info - one can search through subjects
but because there's so much one can't just get a few references or just
browse through a card catalog around related topics and find what fits.
For example, my usual procedure for finding material in a library is to
look up something w/ a topic near to what I want and I walk through the
stacks and look at adjacent books, which sometimes gives me connections I
wouldn't have seen if I couldn't just browse.  Imagine being in the
equivalent of a library where one must request a specific book instead of
looking at all the books in one section and picking the best (I've been in
such a library before - the National Agricultural Library) then one has to
get to other books through the bibliography (and some people don't write
good bibliographies, in that they don't describe the content of their
references.)  

This is just like on the World Wide Web, except the opposite - it's hard
as hell to find something that you specifically want, you just browse and
go over everywhere, from link to link and hope it ends up somewhere you
want.  There's so much interesting info on the Web, but if one wants
specific info, one must know the page addresses ahead of time.  [Note: I
believe Yahoo was in its infancy then - and it really didn't have that
many entries in it.  There was nothing like Lycos]

Nowadays, education doesn't tell one all one needs to know -- the main
goal now should be to teach people how to find specific info they need,
and then, just as important, how to use the information they find.  The
true purpose of education should be to teach people how to think - which
encompasses problem-solving and effective communication and all sorts of
things.

Anyway back to what I was referring to before.  I think there's alot more
of the traditional in Japan than in America for it's somewhat difficult to
set up tradition in America -- new generations don't really mind changing
things.  Also, I had expected American culture to be very prominent here,
but in reality, the Japanese never let something assimilate them -- they
take things from other places and make it their own.  I always hear
Europeans complaining that American shows and entertainment and clother
are preferred over the domestic product.  However, here, though they have
alot of American things here, the Japanese songs, movies, shows and the
like are usually preferred (esp. the food.  The eating habits here are
definitely of another tradition.  They probably don't eat any more than I
do at home, but because I don't really like the food here I can't eat very
much.)

I was watching a music countdown on TV here recently and it was all
Japanese songs.  I think that's why the Japanese are so successful --
they're not satisfied for someone else/another culture to give them
entertainment and products - they have to do it for themselves.  Japan is
still very much a country cut off from the rest of the world and I can
really see the difficulty for foreign firms to do business here.

This reminds me of the hubbub of importing U.S. apples here.  Legally, the
apple market has been open here, but ever since the market was opened the
apples were prevented from entering because they did not think that enough
was done to prevent the spread of non-native parasites.  But recently the
Japan Agriculture Dept. was convinced tthe U.S. farmers do enough.  But
now the domestic farmers say the procedure required by the
=Japanese=government= harms the ozone layer so U.S. apples should not be
allowed to enter.

I'm not feeling too well.  I've got diarrhea and I keep having to take
TUMS cause I keep burping.  The problem is I forgot to bring Immodium A-D
(I'll see if I can find it in a kusumi store)  I'll ask my host ma
tonight.  In the meantime, I'm drinking green tea because I think it's
supposed to be good for one.  I keep drinking it after meals because I
think it's good for reducing the acidity in the mouth and it washes out
the system.  Perhaps I'll rest for a little while.

One thing I forgot to mention about the bar - you had to take off your
shoes upon entering.

[another thing I did not note: salted soybeans (in their pods) was the bar
snack.  mmm yummy.  get yourself some soybeans today.  I don't know why
anyone would eat tofu if there are soybeans around.]