Suihanki

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Random Finds

Some recent finds...

1. ANA ad on FB appeals to Otaku

I guess those are the only three reasons for wanting to go to Japan!

2. Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby has a stalker

Doing research after seeing Lt. Gen. Jacoby on the Report, I came across this slightly disturbing Yahoo Answers post. It's already been deleted, but Google still has a cache of it, here.

Labels: charles jacoby facebook ana all nippon airways ad otaku anime

posted by Suihanki # 2:19 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 11, 2009

When Chrysler fails, who wins?

The other day I had a rather shocking encounter.

Bear with me here.

As you may know, the automotive giant "Chrysler" ain't doing too well these days.

One of our customers is a major automotive parts manufacturer, whose North American business is almost 100% Chrysler oriented.

I knew they'd be affected by Chrysler's bankruptcy, so I called them up to check in. My contact there for the past year or so has been a very well-mannered and amiable manufacturing engineer with a disctinctive southern drawl. Working on various issues together, I've found him to be completely professional and very serious about his work.

Our dialog on the phone that day went something like this:

Me: So I just heard about Chrysler, how are things over there?

Him: Yeah... they just told us to close up shop for the rest of the day, and well, the rest of the week.

Me: Oh wow, that bad huh?

Him: Yeah, management told us they'll call when there's work again.

Me: I see, what will you be up to for the time being then?

Him: Oh... well... I play this game... it's called World of Warcraft... I'll probably be playing that...

Me: *stunned silence* ...wha... ok... *recovering senses* ...what... classes do you play?

Him: I've got a lvl 80 pally... and a lvl 70 druid that I'll probably get up to 80.

We talked for a few more minutes, then I hung up, still stunned that I had been discussing World of Warcraft leveling tactics, on the phone, at work, with one of our customers. It was one of those great moments when you're able to transcend the customer/supplier relationship and have a meaningful human interaction.

Of course, it also made me wonder if any more of our customers play, and if so, how could I find out, and what could I do to exploit that knowledge. I know I've got to be one of the few, if not the only, salesperson in our industry young and nerdy enough to have experience and street cred with MMORPGs.

So to sum up, while Chrysler's Chapter 11 filing means severe economic hardships for almost all parties involved, it looks like at least one company will benefit from their failure!

Hell, Chrysler and other parts manufacturers might even have guilds.

Now I've just got to convince my company we need to market through WoW... time for some major research!

Labels: bankruptcy, chrysler, warcraft, wow

posted by Suihanki # 11:10 AM 0 comments

"The Importance of the Japanese Language"

I've just recently stumbled across the results of an annual survey conducted by the Japanese "Agency for Cultural Affairs" (文化庁).

The survey, geared towards the general Japanese populace, is about the Japanese language, its importance, usage, and other issues.

I find most surveys about language interesting for their content (i.e. responses), but this one caught my eye because of the conservative and prescriptive bent in its questions. For example, here are some of the questions asked in the survey (the translations of the questions are a little rough and dirty):

1. Do you think the current Japanese language is messed up? (今の国語は乱れていると思うか，乱れていないと思うか)

Yes 80.4% / No 17.0%

2. In what area(s) is the current Japanese language messed up? (どのような点で乱れていると思うか)

(respondents were asked to select their top three choices)

Usage of polite words/phrases - 67.1%

Young people's language - 60.4%

Greetings - 38.9%

Usage of "fad" words / slang - 36.4%

3. When you happen to hear Middle School students speaking, do you feel their language is messed up? (周りにいる中高生の話を聞いて，言葉遣いが乱れていると感じることがあるか)

Yes 79.1% / No 15.6%

4. What kind of language/usage do you feel is messed up? (どんな言葉遣いをしているときに，乱れていると感じるか)

(respondents were asked to select as many choices as they felt were applicable)

Young people's language - 51.6%

Rough language/phrasing - 47.2%

Lack of proper greetings - 45.2%

Dirty words - 43.0%

---

With a survey like this, I would certainly expect a good amount of "Social desirability" bias towards negative answers (i.e., saying that modern language is not messed up would be socially irresponsible). To put it another way, if people were asked more open ended questions about language, from a source other than the official "Agency for Cultural Affairs", you might see less of this negative bias.

I sincerely hope that the Agency does not think its conducting meaningful research about the Japanese language, because this survey seems to me to be entirely about language attitudes.

...and really, do we need a whole survey to find out that older people think young people's language is improper?

There was one surprising age distribution though: older people tended to think that the (mis)use of polite language/phrasing was less of an issue than younger people did. In fact, this attitude towards polite language peaks at the 20's age group and steadily decreases from there. I believe again that this could be a bit of social bias (meaning that if young people are sensitized to their perceived misuse of the language by their parents, elders, and the media, they might respond harshly towards their own age group when asked in a survey).

Also, there seems to be no information about how the agency actually conducts these surveys, or even an overall summary of their findings.

Thankfully institutions such as these have very little real power or control over modern language usage (except for maybe deciding the Joyo Kanji).

Labels: culture, japanese, language, linguistics, surveys

posted by Suihanki # 7:37 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 04, 2009

Xi'an, Belatedly

Here are some pictures from a trip to Xi'an. They're only about two years late! I hope this recent inspiration and motivation to post new pictures will hold out.

Labels: photos, xi'an

posted by Suihanki # 2:19 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

No more!

I was checking flight prices recently on Expedia and stumbled across an interesting advertising campaign. It got me thinking about a number of different things which I'll try to explain as follows.

1. The Ad

Because I was checking from the office, I got the Japanese front page of Expedia.com, and before I could switch it over to English an ad on the front page caught my eye:

In the bottom right corner there is a small icon that reads "No more! 日本人プライス" ("No more Japanese prices!"):

The idea is that all hotel owners in areas frequented by Japanese tourists are intimately familiar with the dates of Japan's one-week-long string of holidays, "Golden Week", and hike their prices accordingly, thereby creating a "Japanese price". The ad claims that by making reservations online, through Expedia.com, you can cut free from this racially/nationally biased pricing, and get something cheaper.

2. Globalization

Regardless of whether the ad's claims are true or not, it's an interesting example of the power of globalization and the internet.

The way I imagine it, in the past, hotel owners would offer higher prices to Japanese travel agencies, tour groups, etc. based on the timing and the fact that they were Japanese. Expedia, however, being a multinational organization, would get one flat rate from the hotel, regardless of nationality.

This is good for Japanese people, because it allows them to make reservations somewhat "anonymously" and avoid much of the specific Japanese bias in pricing. Although in places where Japanese tourists make up a major portion of the tourist traffic (like Guam, maybe), I think there wouldn't be much change in the pricing.

In fact, this could easily have negative effects on the pricing for everyone non-Japanese. Since the total traffic in those areas would be high, with say, 90% Japanese, the remaining 10% would have to pay the same price, which would probably be higher than they used to pay before.

That's globalization for you though, the great equalizer. Of course I have no actual inside knowledge of how hotel prices are actually set, with direct reservations OR through sites like Expedia, so I could be (read: most likely) completely wrong.

3. Design

The little icon next to the slogan (above) is completely unintelligible to me. Maybe it's a cultural reference I'm missing? The closest thing I can think of is the is the mark for the postal office, a stylized version of "テ":

The expedia mark almost looks like someone taking an axe to the Japanese postal mark, but in blue. I guess that could symbolize Expedia's rebellion against the anti-Japanese hotel pricing bias, in a weird, self-destructive way! Like, "We're totally destroying our Japanese identity so we can get cheaper hotel prices!"

I'm sure that's not actually the case though, so if anyone has any ideas about the possible meaning of the symbol, please let me know!

Alright, that concludes my thoughts about this campaign. If anyone has anything else to add, please feel free to.

Labels: expedia, golden week, GW, japan, nihonjin price, tourism, ゴールデンウィーク, 日本人プライス, 郵便マーク

posted by Suihanki # 4:57 AM 0 comments

Monday, March 02, 2009

Kollaboration 2009

I went to Kollaboration for the first time last weekend.

I'd known about it for some time, after seeing the famous David Elsewhere video, but I had no idea it actually started at USC.

Some highlights:

1. (Another) crazy non-asian guy busts some mad dance moves in the freestyle dance competition.

2. A dude named Gabe Bondoc blows the audience away with some sweet Motown style doing the opening to "Ain't too proud to beg" in the freestyle vocal competition (he wins).

3. Boa performs.

-

In other random Korean news, I witnessed what could be the beginning of a lawsuit at Costco today.

In the vacuums/office furniture aisle a middle-aged (possibly older) Korean woman tripped over a chair that was sticking out and fell flat on her face. It was quite painful to watch and I think she had the wind knocked out of her for a few moments after falling. Her husband rushed over to help when he turned around and saw her laying splayed out on the ground face down. I wanted to help to but instead just stood there feeling really awkward. She soon managed to stand up though, with help from her husband, and hobble around a bit.

My roommate and I started to walk away, feeling mostly confident that she would be OK, and had rounded the next corner when her husband came running, "Excuse me, excuse me! Please help!"

My first thought was "Oh no, she's had a heart attack! ...or something!" but he just wanted to ask for our phone numbers as witnesses to the fall. He mentioned something about her having poor eyesight and how she was "technically blind" and we instantly understood what he was thinking about.

The problem was the chair, it was sticking a good foot out into the aisle and was surrounded by other boxes, to the point where it would be impossible to push it further back into the shelves. I'm not an expert on the law that governs these kinds of mishaps (or any law at all, for that matter) but I believe if they could prove that Costco made a mistake with the placement of the chair, and that there was no way for the semi-blind wife to see it coming, they'd have somewhat of a case.

Anyway, the husband called the manager right after I wrote down my name and number for him, so we'll see what happens. If it DOES end up in a lawsuit, I might have to delete this post!

*Also, it really doesn't matter that they're Korean, just couldn't figure out another way to make the segue!

Labels: boa, costco, freestyle dance competition, gabe bondoc, kollaboration

posted by Suihanki # 12:49 PM 0 comments

Monday, February 23, 2009

Atheists = Devil Worshippers? HALP!

Last week, as many of you may know, a user named "glennspam1" posted videos on youtube of a cat being abused by a young boy. The alleged cat abuser is one Kenny Glenn, a middle school student in Lawton, OK, and the camera man is alleged to be his brother, Weston Glenn.

Before Kenny's exact age was confirmed, he was thought to be a high school student at the local Lawton High School. I was browsing their home page, out of morbid curiousity, when I came across an interesting article in the most recent edition of the school's newspaper.

The author, assistant editor of the paper and a student, attempts to show the diversity of his school by interviewing a number of different students (3 Christians and 1 Agnostic). The article's title, "Let's Talk Religion: Diversity at LHS", proved to be highly ironic and rather misleading.

Of course we can't be sure that the author did a thorough job of representing the different religious beliefs at the school, but even so, the viewpoints of the students interviewed are worth discussing individually.

I wont post the article in its entirety, but here are a few choice excerpts, starting with the intro (links added for your reference, names have been changed):

Over the last few millions of years, the world has grown and diversified. What started out as a single, spread out world has become a closely bunched mixing pot of ideas and beliefs. One aspect of life that has been around since, well, the creation of time, is religion. As the world has developed, so has religion. Just about any religion can be found in America today. From Christianity to Atheism, each religion has a good number of followers voicing their beliefs of how the world began.

Other than the misclassification of Atheism as a religion, this intro actually is quite interesting. The author manages (unknowingly?) to catch the very human-made nature of religion and how its purpose and usefulness is changing as we evolve. Unfortunately, the students he interviews do not seem to be quite as open minded.

James Smith (12) said his reasons for following Christianity is simple, “Christ died for our sins. Christ’s foolishness is wiser than any of our wisdom.” Smith, who grew up in a Christian setting and church says he didn’t begin living solely for Christ until about two years ago. Anyone who knows Smith now though knows just how dedicated he is to Christ. Smith also said, “I’ve always believed Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior.” On whether or not Smith thought religions were diverse throughout schools, he answered, “Public schools are largely against religion; but as schools start taking away God, teen pregnancies go up, and so does gang problems.” Smith continued on to say, “When I meet someone new, I like to get to know him or her; and then try to talk to them about God. Scripture is always a good place to start, and I like to defend Christianity as the only true religion by quoting Colossians 2:6.”

...

John Doe (12) also began his devoted Christian life about two to three years ago. “I grew up in a church-oriented household, but I always knew that Christianity was the only true religion....Oh, I can prove it in so many different ways,” Doe said.

...

Katy Johnson (10) has followed her Christian denominated faith since early youth as well. Being raised as such by her parents, Johnson said, “I have no doubt that my faith is the true religion. I don’t like boasting what my religion is though for my own reasons.”

While these viewpoints are disturbing, the following interview is what really caught my attention:

Christianity is not the only religion represented in LHS though. Bobby Dunbar (10) is a devoted agnostic. Agnostic, which is not by any means atheist or Satanic, is a religion in which the followers don’t deny the possibility of the existence of a God; but don’t see any proof thereof. Dunbar said, “I’ve always been agnostic, but my parents didn’t raise me to be...we don’t do sacrificing or satanic stuff, and agnostic isn’t really a religion, just the lack of one.”

*ZING* Points to "Bobby" for standing up and trying to correct the author's confusion of Agnosticism with just another type of religion. However, both the author and "Bobby" are eager to defend Agnosticism as not being related to any of that "atheist or Satanic" stuff.

It is evident from this paragraph that the author, the interviewee, and possibly most of the audience, are misinformed about Atheism and Agnosticism. The statements they make hint at a larger undercurrent of thought here in America. The idea seems to be that Atheism and Satanism are together on the bottom rung of belief systems and are the least deserving of respect. A recent Gallup Poll supports this. Unfortunately, this is not simply a harmless mix up, like thinking Hyundai is pronounced "Hyun-Die" instead of "Hyun-Day" (like Sunday), this is an insidious and potentially dangerous misconception.

The key point, as I see it, is that with this misconception they equate Atheism with immorality and Devil worship, thus making Atheists evil or completely immoral people and effectively dehumanizing them. Atheists would of course take offense at being associated with Satanism, both because of the implication of evilness/immorality and because they would see Satanism as just another equally ridiculous religion.

As you might know, Arkansas still officially denies non-theists from holding government positions, despite a previous Supreme Court decision to the contrary. In the case of one high school student, the fact that she was an atheist led to her being openly bullied and ridiculed by her classmates and teachers. I don't want to make the mistake of assuming everyone in Arkansas and Oklahoma shares this misconception, but the viewpoints expressed in the survey (and the article I have posted) show just how far we have to go as a country.

By bringing this article up, I am certainly not trying to attack the author, the students, or anyone else who might share this viewpoint. Their collective misconception is to be expected as they have no one to teach them otherwise. I admit that I have not scoured the school curriculum for the state of Oklahoma, but I highly doubt that it contains a section on Atheism, and even if it does I doubt that it is shown equal respect. In fact, come to think of it, my schooling here in the supposedly liberal state of California didn't even include anything regarding Atheism. There are many Atheist "celebrities" but few that are alive are American, and none that I know of are even remotely popular among high school students. Besides, they are vastly outnumbered by openly religious celebrities, everyone from athletes to actors to politicians, who frequently make statements such as "God bless America" or "I want to thank God for my [election victory/one-handed touchdown catch/acting talents]".

I think I would like to try and do my part by finding the author and giving him a better explanation of Atheism. I don't feel the need to convert him, but I would certainly like him to understand that being Atheist does not mean you are immoral or evil.

If I do manage to get in touch with the author I will post an update here.

Thank you for reading this far.

Labels: agnostic, agnosticism, america, atheism, atheist, kenny glenn, morality, religion, satanism

posted by Suihanki # 4:32 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Knights of the White Van

A few weeks back I had my first dead car battery experience.

On a late Sunday morning, I drove my car to a friends house and parked nearby so we could take one car for the rest of the day. I came back about 12 hours later to find it completely dead. I realized I had probably left my lights on. It was late Sunday night, and I still had to get back home (about 30 minutes away) for work the next day.

Just as I started to panic, my friend announced that she had her mother's expired AAA card. AAA membership is non-transferrable, but we decided we'd give it a shot anyway. During the two-minute conversation my friend had with AAA, they never asked for her name, just "the number on the card". We were told that someone would come out to jump start the car within an hour and that we should be ready to show the membership card and a picture I.D. "Uh-oh," we thought, "the jig's up!"

Of course my friend has some resembleance to her mother, but certainly not enough to fool whoever came from AAA, even in the dark, and even with the somewhat racist assumption that the AAA technician would have trouble telling the difference between Asian people. So at this point we were almost 100% sure we'd have to pay an exhorbitant service charge for being non-members, and possibly get scolded for trying to pull a fast one on them.

Oh how naive we were!

We sat in my car in the dark contemplating our fate for about 15 minutes when we received an automated phone message telling us that our "service provider" had arrived in the area and to "please be ready". We readied ourselves as best we could and about 30 seconds later we saw a car's headlight's hesitantingly turn into the long dark cul-de-sac where I had parked. I stepped out of the car so they could find us. After a few moments paused at the entrance of the street, they noticed me, locked on, and slammed on the gas. I threw up my arms in front of my face, partially to block the oncoming headlights and partially in a desperate (and in hindsight, very ineffective) attempt to stop the speeding van from running me over. When I lowered my arms, I saw that they had screeched to a halt mere feet from my car, and that the headlights were indeed attached to a AAA Service Van, equipped with a connector on the front bumper for jumpstarting people like me. Before I had a chance to recover from my recent brush with death, two Eastern European (possibly Russian?) guys emerged from the Van, one in sweatpants and a windbreaker, the other in jeans and a t-shirt.

"Battery?" asked Sweatpants.

"...Ahh... yes! dead battery!" I replied, managing to vaguely remember what this whole encounter was about in the first place.

"Open the hood?" asked Sweatpants, in the same quizzical tone.

I fumbled around in the dark for a few seconds until Sweatpants shined his flashlight for me and we found the hood release. By the time I stepped back out of the car, Jeans had hooked up the cables from the Van's front connector to my battery and given it some juice.

"Try starting it?" suggested Sweatpants.

I got back in, turned the key, and low and behold, the engine started right up. I got out of the car again, ready to be confronted with demands for payment/proof of membership only to realize that Sweatpants and Jeans had disconnected the cables, closed my hood, and returned to the Van. They were already speeding out of the narrow cul-de-sac, in reverse, at about 40 miles an hour.

The entire encounter had lasted not more than 30 seconds, with a total of four lines of dialogue. My friend never left the car, we were never asked for any form of I.D., or even told to sign any paperwork. We were, at once, relieved that the problem had been solved so easily and happy that we didn't have to pay anything. Oh yeah, and in total and complete awe of our two Eastern European saviors. I stood for a few moments outside of the car, with my arm outstretched towards the fastly disappearing headlights and an unspoken "Thank you!" on my lips. When I got back in, we sat for a few minutes in stunned silence. After we recovered, I dropped my friend off at her house then made the 30 minute drive back home with no trouble.

As I did not have the chance during our brief, yet oh-so-eventful encounter, I would like to say "Thank you" to our laconic saviors, for the fast service, for not checking our I.D.'s or giving a shit about AAA procedures, and for being totally AWESOME. I wish you the best of luck in future endeavours, and I hope (for your sake) that you never hit one of your clients. I hope our paths will cross some day in the future.

*EDIT - After speaking with other friends, I've realized that this is quite a common occurence (not the Eastern Europeans, but the lack of checking I.D.'s/membership/giving a shit). Oh well, it was fun!

Labels: aaa, car trouble, dead battery, triple a

posted by Suihanki # 11:31 AM 0 comments