「中国島」

I came up with 「中国島」 as a title, after reading Kevin Kelly's very interesting article China Is An Island.

Well, Japanese people always refer to Japan as "a small island", I wonder if Chinese people will start doing the same. In fact it looks smaller on the map...

(Source: kk.org, who mentions that "it is taken from a monograph on the geopolitics of China posted by the military/corporate intelligence website Stratfor, summarized by pundit John Mauldin in his Outside the Box column, and pointed to by Strange Maps.")

"Love is..." [Or was...]

[Originally posted on mixi, on 2005年10月29日:]

"...the very strong pain you feel on your chest, when you see a girl you have convinced yourself you don't care about with someone else.

The pain is instant, but it is so strong that air can not flow through your throat down to the lungs. It lasts for only 3 seconds. Then your body somehow manages to recover, and air starts flowing again and you are able to breathe and speak. The pain disappears completely after a few words. But every time you recall that incident somehow you feel the exact same pain, even though there is no actual chest pain, just the feeling.

This memory might be kept forever. I can still remember a similar pain i had felt when i was 16, that was the first time. Now i am 32, so maybe it comes every 16 years. In this case, next pain will come when i am 48.

Or maybe it's just a reaction of the body to show you that you are not actually in control of things as much as you thought you were..."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Did this ever happen for real? Yes, it did.
Where? Shibuya crossing, right in the middle of it!
Who was the girl? Yuu-chan. Married now to the guy I saw her with that night.

Funny to read the comments I got back then:

[fugu] "you ok mate?"
..Worrying about me. Well, one month ago I had entered the worst period of my life.

[skeb] "We've all been there a time or two...yeah, where the fuck does the actual physical pain come from? I guess the mind is a powerful tool that can sometimes jolt you into realizing what your ego will not let you believe."
..Hehe, you just got married last month man! A lot more pain coming up for you.

[pipi] "was this a girl or a guy? :)"
..How the *fuck* could I ever have trusted this guy?!

[the great gonzo] "Love hurts. It really does."
..Reminds me, need to catch up with gonzo before he leaves the city.

[taka] "and the love didn't come true,it's turn to deep sadness."
..She should know.

Anyway. Two and a half years have past.
Do I still feel that chest pain now? Hmmm... only a bit.

Japanese Kanji Names

If you are looking for an easy to write Japanese name, I recommend
"Hifumi Kawaguchi"
一二三川口

You will be able to spell your name in Kanji from day 1. It's a bit art deco and it doesn't sound so bad. Also, I think Hifumi is used for both male and female.

(originally posted on mixi on 2005.09.29)

Testing RSS feed to mixi

This is a test, sorry if I mess up something...
Finally I decided to feed this site to mixi.

By the way, happy new year!

New Year's in Tokyo

"Illumination Hours: 17:00 - 23:00"

Tokyo 2008 Michelin Guide

I got the Michelin guide for Tokyo yesterday.

I haven't read it yet, but I have read the big news on the net about it. Whether fine dining in Tokyo is really that good, or whether this is another "take" on the recent boom of Tokyo-ness and Japanese Pop culture, I don't know.

I am not saying that Tokyo does not deserve the credits. Maybe it does. After all, it's a huge and rich city. But is this evolution of Tokyo so recent? Otherwise, why is Michelin coming now, over 100 years after the 1st guide, and say "hey, sorry guys... Guess what, we, the masters of good dining, we have been ignoring one of the best dining cities of the world. Sorry about that! But don't worry, we have found it now, so please read our 1st guide ever for the city. Dozo!"

Maybe they had no choice. How else could they launch the guide with less embarrassment? And how else would they get accepted? After all, the Japanese side made sure in advance that they would not accept any negative comments.

But anyway, now I know where to go when I want to impress my dates.
(and justify the money for the dinner...)

Adam Curtis' Films

[UPDATE: the links below don't work anymore, sorry...]

At first I did not want to post about these films in this blog, because I thought of them as not relevant to Tokyo and Japan. But it didn't take me long to realize that the methods mentioned in Adam Curtis' documentaries have most probably found good usage here... Even just to keep the links to the videos, here are the documentaries I refer to:

"The Trap"
About the trap politicians fall, when they try using science to make people's life better.
Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3

"The Century of the Self"
About how politicians have used Freudian psychoanalysis to control the masses.
Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4

"The Mayfair Set"
About how politicians have used psychoanalysis to control the masses.
Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4

and the "Power of Nightmares", for which I will only link to episode 1. It's about how fear is used in politics.

I have left the "Pandora's box" series as last, even though it is the oldest.

Great documentaries!
Well, they will not replace books, but what I like the most about them is, they don't offer any solutions. Just give an overview of the methods, the theories they were based on, how and by whom they were applied, why they succeeded, and why they failed.

If I want to be pessimistic I would say:
these methods have worked in the past, they could work again.
If I want to be optimistic I would say:
these methods have failed in the past, they will not be used again.