Japanese Fashion

My younger brother is graduating from college in a month, which happens to be during the month of his birthday. I figured I'd get him a really cool gift that he'd appreciate. (Usually I get him a game or something, but this year I wanted to get him something a bit more mature.)

Tokyo Flash is a website based in Okinawa (confusing I know) who sells all kinds of Japanese goods. Most famously for their really unique LED watches. They usually incorporate some unique way of displaying the time. My brother picked out the "Barcode" watch which was probably a good choice being that it was very different looking, but the display didn't seem difficult to learn.

One thing I have to say is that I love EMS shipping. I placed the order on Wednesday morning expecting not to see it till next week, but it just came this morning. I can barely get stuff from NewYork based stores that fast.


The box looks pretty cool, the photo makes it look a little cheap, but there is a cool embossing of of a dragon on the top and photos of "club people" around the sides.


It's a fairly hefty watch, but in a good way. All the pieces feel really solid and would be comparable to a watch by Tag Heuer or Diesel. It's not a fine timepiece by any means, but it definitely looks cool and doesn't feel like a cheap costume watch.

The watch came with batteries and was set to Japanese time. It wasn't too difficult to reset the time. The left most bar represents 5 hours of time, the second bar represents 1 hour. Then two right bars represent the 10's and 1's place for the minutes. A random animation lights up when you press the button on the side then the time is displayed. If you press it again, the date is displayed, then a third time the day of the week is displayed. In the photo above the time reads 10:47 am. The watch can also be set to either 12 hour time or 24 hour time.

This is a really cool watch, and if I didn't love my Skagen so much, I'd be really jealous.

Japanese food

The Mainichi Daily News has just posted this year's Ekiben of the Year.

I freaking love ekiben, they're so good and give a little taste of the local area as you're riding the train. These things are usually pretty well made being that it only takes a few bad incidents and then no one wants to eat your ekiben.

The idea of a boxed lunch is interesting in terms of culture. In America, box lunches are usually considered cheap things to eat on the go, and are poorly made for mass consumption. While this does occur in box lunches in Japan, the idea of a high-end box lunch also exist. They're usally made locally in small batches fresh for that day, and can only be found at a specific station. For many casual travelers around Japan, these local ekibens become the gateway to spurring tourism for some of the more unknown parts of Japan.

I've been reading the manga Oishinbo (美 味しんぼ), Viz just released themed volumes of the translation of this monster of a comic. Its been in print in Japan since 1983 and is still being written. To the Japanese, food is a very common topic. Many Japanese folks don't like to talk about controversial subjects, so most of the time you end up talking about food or the weather. Oishinbo takes this idea and explores how crazy the Japanese get over food and how much one can talk about food and the subtlety of different foods Japan has to offer. But there is more going on here than just food, it's the selling of Japan as a creditable culture. Back when this comic was first being published, the spread of westernization was driveing Japanese culture into oblivion. Japanese were getting more and more excited about western culture and losing sight of thier own. Oishinbo was a manga which attempted to convince Japanese readers, that Japanese culture is worth something, and if people didn't pay attention to it, it could disappear forever.

Gaming and College dropouts

Games Politics, a blog I read on a semi-regular basis points out an interesting concern by the FCC Commissioner on the relationship between college drop outs and World of Warcraft. Deborah Taylor Tate briefly referenced the following with no other support on December 5th.

You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction - such as World of Warcraft - which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.

Obviously World of Warcraft is referenced specifically for it's notority, but it is very clever in it's way of opening up the fears of and concerns of parents at it's mere utterance. Of course this reminds me of the parody of similar concerns of a more primative version of a similar form of escapism.

Although I applaud her serious interest in the importance of broadband internet for the US I will have to punch a few holes in this particular statement for a moment.

First of all, there are a number of more pressiong and real reasons which college students drop out of school. Many of which could be generalized to either be from or cause depession. This could be a confounding variable in which depressed college students are more likely to play World of Warcraft and drop out of college. So unless there has been a particularly clever research into college students and MMORPGs I'm unconvinced by this supposed correlation.

Secondly, I would say from even looking at the trends published by the US Department of Health and Human Services, from 1970 to 1995, the percentage of highschool graduates who have attended college by the age of 25-29 increased from 40% to nearly 60%, yet within this same population, the percent of those who attained a bachelor's degree has stayed around 25%. So from a purely statistical standpoint, there are more college dropouts, because there are more college students to drop out. Any study of trends in college drop outs must take this into consideration in linking any causitive variables.

So what was the purpose of this statement. It seemed to me that the role of the FCC has always been whatever the commissioner at the time deemed it to be. When Micheal Powell (a fellow alumn of mine) was at the helm, he was more concerned with business practices and fair ownership of airwaves. Deborah Taylor Tate has been the "Children's Commissioner", we have to remember that she is the same person who convinced the "Cookie Monster" that cookies were a sometimes food.

Japanese Tabloids

The Mainichi Daily News Online Website has recently removed the "Wai Wai" section. In the past it was a rough translation of various trashy Japanese tabloid articles in Japan. Here is a short list of the type of headlines you'd see.

Schoolgirls' decade of decadence: panty sales have punters panting
University turns blind eye as foreign students turn tricks
Coffee pot tips seductress plucking schoolboy cherry
Depraved duo target pregnant women in horror rape spree
Super Onanism Machines rubs the lonely the right way
Lion poo proves roaring success as deer deterrent
Sex shop offers discounts for big sluggers
Quirky quacks prescribing sexual harassment
Old fellas savor the ins and outs of a porno actor
Sucking away for huge hooters in the land of itty bitty titty

It was trashy news, unfortunately for many foreigners who read the Mainichi Online, they usually get the most hits on the site.

So here's my problem. On the one hand, this is a clear example of the Japanese selectively censoring its image to the world in thier ongoing effort to show a sophisticated, and cultured face on the global stage. Although all countries do this, it just seems that the Japanese do this with such a brazen disregard of how constructed it looks to outsiders. On the other hand, defending articles on how nurses give tell alls on how they sleep with thier patients seems not worth the effort. What I do see is this, it seems as if the crime here is not that these articles exist, but that they are being translated to English. The Mainichi has never claimed responcibility for these articles, they are merely translating them for curious foreign readers. I find it hard to swallow that Managing Director Yoshiyuki Watanabe needed to be punished for this publicly, being that he had no power on what the articles were about.

My question is how did this ever become such a big issue? It seems that much of the attention was directed at bloggers bringing traffic to the "Wai Wai" articles, and the reaction to them from Japanese citizens who are afraid of how this reflects Japan.

If you give a mouse a cookie...

So I just got Mario Kart for the Wii recently. I've been holding off on buying this game for a long time because I knew a few things about this game.

1) It's going to be a fun game.
2) My friends will come over to my apartment just to play this game.
3) It will begin the slippery slope into "geeky consumerism".

It all begins very innocently, with this game I will finally have a reason to get a second Wii-mote. (Although I've been wanting one ever since I bought Trauma Center, but no one else really was willing to appreciate my love of hospital drama.) This second Wii-mote is quite an investment. It's 60 dollars for both the Wii-mote and a nunchuck. (Not to mention the 10 dollar Wii-wheel)

Of course buying begets buying. Now I'm happy with two Wii-motes, and the two GameCube controllers I already got for Super Smash Brother's Brawl, and I have three friends who actually want to play on my Wii. But now I realize that my TV is too small to play the game.

For most guys of my generation this is not a problem. They just slip on some sandals get in their light truck and drive out to the newly rezoned commerical area 40 miles out from the city and buy a bigger TV at a big box store. A decent size LCD TV isn't that expensive these days, and I can afford it even on my salary. But that's not the point. The point is I know that once I let that door open, I'll release the flood gate of even more buying.

If I get a bigger LCD TV, then I will be tempted to buy a gaming PC to hook into it. This is because I really would want to do things like play Mass Effect, (Which I don't own) Skype StarTrek style to my friends, and watch Homestarrunner and AdultSwim. You see what I mean, buying this one game has set off a chain of more consumption. Now I don't mean to imply that there are some marketing guys at some company laughing at their genius marketing plan, but there is something insidious with how our consumer culture has prepped us to buy things.

Art imitates Life

Above is Raytheon's XOS exoskeleton which was trotted out this weekend for a demonstration. It's no coincidence that Raytheon wants to connect the Ironman movie with their fledgling exoskeleton technology.

I have to say that the Ironman movie was very very good. This is truly a bold new age when superhero movies are actually pretty entertaining. I really like this movement for Marvel in their ability to make their superheroes have a universal quality. Spider-man wasn't just a movie about a teenager who gets spider powers, but carried the message of the choices one makes to become a healthy adult. X-men pushed the message of human discrimination. Ironman? the message in this movie was quite clear, and actually quite elegantly done.

We live in a world in which the corporations have become the most powerful force in the world. Outward conflict of guns, bombs and missiles are horrifically merely the backdrop to the truer means of control. Emile Durkheim wrote extensively on how social stability can be examined through understanding the centers of social solidarity. A nation is stronger, when everyone in that nation is aligned to a common goal. The idea of citizens rallying together against a common enemy is unfortunately a worn out tactic. What has happened now is the breakup of citizens in America in their allegiance to our country. Not to say that Americans have lost faith in America, but the vision of that faith has become fractured. What seems to be taking the place of national allegiance, is an allegiance to one's workplace. The dissatisfaction with the dirty hands of America as a nation, the romance of internationalization, and the ever expanding reach of transnational businesses have all driven this idea.

Ironman depicts a world which no longer rely on ideas of physical borders. (Honestly, Tony Stark takes a woman from Las Vegas across state lines to Malibu to have one night stand with her.) A company will sell weapons to anyone who will buy them, even if the buyer intends to harm the nation of the company headquarters. Tony Stark, horrified at this prospect takes it on himself (without the formal aid of the nation) to stop this menace. To further the point, he is recruited by Strategic Homeland Intervention, Engagement and Logistics Division or S.H.I.E.L.D., a nationless organization created to protect the world. (Think InterPol with a multi-billion dollar flying fortress.)

Research project on anime-fans

It's been way too long, and I've seemingly abandoned my blog. This was not for poor reasons, but I feel bad all the same. You see I've finally become gainfully employed. This means that I now work 9 to 5 and can't spend the day musing about stuff I find in my hours of reading blogs in my pajamas.

One exciting thing is that one of professors has asked if I would like to co-write a paper with him this summer. He is a sociologist who is an expert on the political atmosphere of Burma. He had done an extensive ethnographic research there and is usually listed in many articles related to Burma. He has found that he was referenced on the "NarutoForums" message board. After reading the thread on recent events in Burma, he was interested in the level of sophistication which many of these posters were speaking on the issues involved. He has asked me to co-write with him because he doesn't really understand the culture of message boards very well, and would also like my advice on understanding any cultural meanings in the anime references.

In short, from a sociological standpoint, this is a rare opportunity in which we have documented evidence of how an informal community carries a dialog about political issues relating to my professor's work.

I was telling him that this paper would be a good opportunity for me to get published a few of my own ideas about geek culture. This idea borrows greatly from Lars Konzack's work "Geek Culture: The 3^rd Counter-Culture" in which is sets up the idea that "Geek Culture" is the rejection of "Yuppie Culture" in the same way that "Yuppie Culture" was the rejection of "Hippie Culture". I would go into further detail as to how this plays out in terms of how geeks seek to understand the world around them. I feel as if for many geeks, the key element of being one is this comfortable attitude with understanding fantastic worlds. A geek would be able to see a strange situation, and quickly adapt to the situation and operate on the level of that situation instead of on a personal presupposition. This gets into various famous arguments like which would win in a battle if the USS Defiant was put against the Millennium Falcon. A geek would answer "Depends on who was in command". I feel that this comfortable relationship with fantastic worlds allows for an attitude which is able to grasp other cultures with ease and without disregarding issues as too foreign to care about. While many Americans can't point to Burma on a map, geeks are curious to learn more about a place if they are given even an inkling knowledge.