Pictures from my cell phone July 2008 - July 2010

know what would be crazy?

if solar energy collection technology developed to the point where it became without question the cheapest and most abundant source of energy. only problem is you need vast expanses of sun drenched real estate to make your profits. where can this much land be gotten for cheap? the Sahara Desert, that's where. a visionary statesman from Libya anticipates the upcoming revolution in energy production and brokers a deal between the other Saharan states, under the auspices of the African Union. solar collection systems on the oceans' surface also gain importance, and the African Union (AU) moves quickly to secure and even expand its EEZ holdings. This Libyan "sun prophet" delegates the creation of the appropriate fledgling utility companies which will come to (naturally) monopolize the entire solar energy production scheme with oversight by the government.

as the world switches it's energy consumption preferences from oil to solar (the infamous BP oil spill of 2010 didn't exactly help oil stocks, and as consumers noticed the market trends for oil heading down and solar share prices heading up they adjusted their futures investments accordingly, leading to a snowballing amount of international focus and according capital investments in solar collection technology). ANYWAY, the rest of Africa falls into the AU in due time (through economic self-interest and some heavy-handed diplomacy from the capital in Libya), until Africa is one rich, unified world superpower. Great! BUT, Libya is dominantly Muslim, and has little love for the Europeans who have attempted to exploit them for centuries, the Christian Church, or much of the rest of the Western world.

meanwhile China and India have formed a strong economic and political alliance (Hinduism is tolerated but not allowed to be proselytized in Chinese areas) that evolved into an ambitious empire, which has extended its borders past Tibet and throughout Southeast Asia, up through Mongolia, and westward into Pakistan, while Russian relations are becoming increasingly shaky.

the international stage is set for World War 3, as a young, unassuming but brilliant argentinian of mixed heritage and progressive ideals (i'd like to think he's interested in space exploration and settlement somewhere down the road) runs for high school class president and feels the thrill of elected victory for the first time...

4:44am

My good friend Taylor slumbers (as he often tends to do after about 10pm these days, guess a harvard kennedy school lifestyle will do that) beside me, dreaming no doubt of the haikyo adventures he'll go on tomorrow. Haikyo is the growing underground cult of exploration in Japan, where interested youth of a new generation and the occasional curious foreigner will explore the abandoned ruins of Japanese WWII bases and the byproducts of overconfident entrepreneurs (amusement parks, fancy restaurants, any business catering to a population holding more money than they know what to do with) floating on the surface of the country's economic bubble prior to it bursting in 1991. Finding things that survived the country's Lost Decade (1991-2000) because they were too costly to bulldoze and cart away. Many of them appear to have been evacuated in an emergency- TV sets sit in crumbling hotel rooms, fine china sits pristinely alongside rusted silverware in kitchens. These things would be teeming with gaggles of friendly hobos sharpening their blades and spinning yarns about the railroad life in America (if I understand the plight of modern homeless people correctly), but in Japan they're miraculously vacant. And mostly intact, other than the occasional sign of vandalism. I'd post pictures if it wasn't part of the unofficial haikyo code not to. In fact, just telling you about it is taboo. So don't tell anyone. This is just between you and me.

Anyway, I'm up now partially because I'm still internally celebrating some news I got earlier today, which is that I was accepted to Johns Hopkins' SAIS masters program in international relations (IR). This came as a complete surprise, since the program ranks as one of the top 3 IR programs nationally, and I have never considered myself necessarily on that level. But it took some hard work, and I've got to say it feels good for it to have paid off. I'm still waiting to hear from Georgetown and Harvard Kennedy, but I'm not going to hold my breath there. If I do go to Johns Hopkins I'd spend the first year studying at their campus in Bologna, Italy, which would be real sweet (the food is supposed to be amazing).

I've been thinking about my future a lot today, and while I haven't come to any definite conclusions, I do think I'd like to get involved in international development. One of the questions students will ask when using the english under their control (along with What's your favorite color? and Do you have a girlfriend?) is What is your dream? They ask it in all sincerity, and it doesn't carry quite the sarcastic overtones we tend to receive it with back home. And by god, I think it's important to have a dream.

This is an interesting age for my generation of young suburban-raised Americans (and possibly others who I can't speak for), we have our high school diplomas, many of us have graduated from college, we are presented with an almost overwhelming sea of opportunities and faced with the reality that we have to provide entirely for ourselves.

Personally, I traveled through most of my education as if I was sleepwalking. School was something I felt burdened with, but never questioned the validity or necessity of. About halfway through college I suddenly discovered something I was interested in and became engaged in learning it, and since coming to Japan I have devoted progressively more of my free time to studying Japanese, and more recently, to studying history. I began life as a very curious child, as most children do, and I can't help but wonder why there was a gap of curiosity and joy in learning between the ages of (maybe) 8 and 20. In a national organizational sense, we certainly benefit from a mandatory educational system with a certain amount of standardization to teach shared cultural values and establish a base level of literacy/math know-how. But there's got to be a better way if the system frustrates and alienates as many capable minds as it does.

The solution? Damned if I know. I think the addictiveness of video games has potential for children if well-marketed games are creatively and effectively infused with facts and problem-solving. The internet offers a promising platform for sharing materials and information; about half the information friends direct me to on any given subject are on wikipedia. What's more, my peers, professed loathers of schoolwork and exams, are spending hours and hours browsing wikipedia articles out of sheer intellectual curiosity.

Yeah, so I don't really have a point to summarize with, but I guess what I want to say in conclusion, now that it's 5:16am (another 8-hour day begins when I wake up at 7:30am) is that I'm excited about grad school, miss my friends who I haven't been able to spend time with, and want to help design new, popular forms of education. Maybe these creative new ideas could be instituted first in developing countries, and if successful applied more broadly. Ever play Dr. Brain? Those games were fun.

How was your weekend?

The English teacher I work with here at Ueki-kita Junior High just asked me to write a short speech about my weekend for a little listening comprehension practice. After revising it, I realized I should do this more often before I go home in a few months and forget what life here is like sometimes:

My weekend was very busy, and very interesting. On Friday evening I played with my rock band "Funk Factory 7" at Live House Django in Kumamoto. It was our first show. I played the keyboard, and my friend Spooky played the guitar. We also had a singer, a drummer, and a didgeree-doo player. I was a little nervous before the show, but it was a fun and exciting experience. I want to play there again.

On Saturday my friends in Kumamoto performed a play. They wrote the play, and made their own costumes. They performed the play inside their apartment. They practiced very hard for many weeks. It was unusual, but very good.

On Sunday I woke up at 7am. I had a bad headache. I ate yogurt and a salmon onigiri at Seven Eleven and drove to Kosa-machi with my friend. We met a group of old men and cut down trees with axes and chainsaws. Next we put all the wood into a cave and set it on fire. We were making charcoal! After working we had a big barbecue meal, with fresh shitake mushrooms and wild boar. It was delicious.

I had a very good weekend. How was your weekend?

the distinction between 'r' and 'l'

In the Japanese character set which spells English words (katakana or カタカナ if you're slightly pretentious) there is a single line of r consonant-vowel combos (ra re ru re ro) which are used to spell both r's and l's. Example: Hah/ro = Hello, right/light, glass/grass, rice/lice, and iris/eyeless.

This particular distinction became of more pressing concern when I tried to use Lloyd's eyedrops a few minutes ago. Lloyd was "pretty sure" that the little bottle contained generic eyedrops his Japanese girlfriend, Kay, uses. "Great man, these overhead heaters dry my eyes out all winter". Dropping the solution onto my eyeball, however, it immediately started to sting.

I had used these new eyedrops when I was home over winter break in Seattle that burned briefly, then left my eyes feeling refreshed and new. One might say it changed the lens through which I saw the whole world. So maybe these were the Japanese version of those eyedrops.

Me: "Are these the Japanese version of those eyedrops that kind of burn then leave your eyes feeling fine?"
Lloyd: "Huh?"
Me: "Yeah, they're pretty new in America I think"
Lloyd: "I... don't know. Wait, huh. Are these eyedrops?"
Ken: "..."
Lloyd: "It's definitely medicine..."
Ken: "Well, that's good to know!"
Lloyd: "I can't tell what it... it either says "Iris" or "Ilis"... or "Eyeless""
Ken: "You mean these will either soothe the muscle regulating the amount of light entering my eye or completely burn away my eyeballs?"
Lloyd: "Not sure..."
Ken: "It's still burning"
Lloyd: "Let me call Kay real quick"
Ken: "Thanks"

To be safe I went ahead and rinsed out my eyes. Turns out they were normal eye drops, and my eyes feel great now. Sometimes it's hard to see these important distinctions clearly, when you still can't read after 18 months in a country.

session

I just got to jam for an hour at the bar with Kumamoto's hottest bassist (according to Spooky) and a rasta-looking guy on didgeridoo. Sweet.

India Journal

Last night I finally found the tiny moleskine journal I kept in Mumbai, Chennai, and Andhra Pradesh last spring. Here it is, unadulterated, unedited.

Day 1
Taylor and I sit on the balcony of our hostel, the honking of cars on the street sounding much the same now at 11am as it did when we arrived around 5. So far little to relate other than a pleasant air-conditioned sleep, being hustled out of a lean 40 rupees by an unaffiliated taxi middle-man at the airport, and various preliminary observations on India and the stark contrast it provides from Japan. Exchanges almost never involve Thank yous or your welcomes even between perfect strangers. Things run a little faster as a result. Men and dogs sleep on cars, platforms, anything available. Cows roam the streets. A diamond jewelry billboard advertising above a rotting lean-to. Plans for today include finding the Gateway of India and catching a boat to Elephant Island.

Day 4
We're in Chennai now. A lot different than Mumbai, most obviously (from my perspective) in that it doesn't cater to tourists in any way. Mumbai was an incredibly vibrant city, with one of the strongest heartbeats I've ever felt. Everywhere there was activity, laughing, arguing, horn honking, bargaining- 17 million people, 8.5 million of whom live in slums, who seem to be living a life relatively unhampered by the unending rules and codes of conduct that filter Japanese and American interactions. The “Reality Tour” we took of Mumbai's largest slum was probably the experience that will stick with me the most. I'm still processing everything I saw. Images of aluminum foundries bordering two-story sheet metal houses filled with children, all of the thousands of micro-businesses operating in remarkable efficiency and resourcefulness. One of the primary industries of Mumbai slums is processing recycled goods and selling materials to manufacturers. There were schools operating under the auspices of NGOs and volunteer teachers. Crime was virtually non-existent. Everyone knows each other, everyone shares the same overarching situation, everyone has molded their existence to mutual dependency and common goals. And they seemed happy. We've been trained to look at such things with pity, with the implied duty to donate a dollar to the Red Cross to help improve things. But these people are self-sufficient and seem to have struck a balance between what they can have and the many things they can't.

Crazy Chowphatti beach rides (man-powered ferris wheel and swinging ship) and amazing 480 rupee group dinner. Calaba market, growing love of bargaining. Woman feeding us in cave. Gandhi museum, bought hand-made paper book, very inspiring.

Day 5
Sweating. Diarrhea. Long train, bus, and boat rides. So Thursday the 30th has been.
Indian people- no bullshit.
More freedom. More happiness?
Sense of respect for overpopulated populace carrying on.

Day 9?
Tuesday. We hit a motorcyclist into the lake on our bus ride into the village yesterday morning. I heard the metal clatter against the broad side of the bus and turned to look out the window, seeing him standing in knee-deep, muddy water, his defeated motorcycle on its side on the bank next to him, him glaring and gesturing and shouting at our driver. A few of our group went out to check on the unlucky guy. Returning to the bus, someone asked “Is he pretty mad?”
Rob: “Well yeah, but not nearly as pissed off as I would be”. The dirt roads are hardly wide enough to accommodate a bike next to our monstrous, attention-grabbing tour bus.
I've learned to look at cows a lot differently. Not quite as holy yet, but after reading an exposition on the subject by no less than M. Gandhi I've come to respect their gentle, slow, peaceful nature. They pass on roads amidst honking traffic and add a natural, incongruously serene element to the chaos of Indian roads and markets.
The communities here are close knit. At night, from Mumbai to our little Dalit village, most everyone seems to come outside, just to enjoy each other's company. During the day men in twos and women in threes walk together, sit on porches together. Everyone's children mix in throngs. They play volleyball and cricket, no one seems strained, their interactions are genuine and familiar. And they seem happy because of it. It throws our atomized, individualistic, eat dinner in front of the TV in the evening societies of the U.S. and Japan into sharp, unpleasant relief. Logically, humans are meant to live in groups, not at work and on the bus, but in the real settings of life, after dinner, in the mornings, during lunch breaks.

Dalit Talk
Potential of rebirth in higher caste functions as justification for keeping the Atai Shudra (Untouchables; slaves) down. Dalits are restricted in the trades they can choose. In India, only Dalits (still) do shoe making and shoe repair. Dalit means “broken people” in Sanskrit. They prefer to go by “Shudra”, meaning “lowest caste”.
Discrimination and segregation via the caste system is programmed into Hinduism, into India's religion and culture. Brahma (God) is synonymous with justice. Dalit's are born believing that their position is sanctioned by transcendent authorities. No wonder the village we work in and many others are increasingly turning to Christianity instead...