Monday, August 4, 2003
I have been quiet recently. Before that, my reason, er, my excuse of my sudden change - get rid of the old archives - is due to my lack of confidence in my English. Yes, thank you for saying those nice words, I can hear that, but I just wanted to have a change. I felt bad to do so at the same time as lots of great comments I got could be shared by others as well is no more on the net now. My great apology for those who always comment, like M-san. I will bring it back from time to time, may be quote myself and those comments again when time arises.
Believe it or not, I just figured out the way to archive, which means that the permalink should work now. But, give me another few weeks to test it out. Tinderbox is really an amazing software. I have been using lots of softwares to do database for all my crap which sometimes I don't know why I try to keep so many old stuff, yet at the end I cannot find most of my things. But this time, my encounter with Tinderbox is unique, and our relationships are quite steady. Yes, we are going to get married soon.
What makes me decided to "get married" with Tinderbox is, I guess I can see her father's face. Mark Bernstein has been teaching his Tindergirl to do things a smarter way for many things and many ways, and his dedication is great because both of them are learning from each other. I have only question a couple of times to the technical department, but he himself always comes back very fast.
One thing I learned a lot from this software is that, she teaches me what "simple" really means. Before, I used to depend a lot on a software to get its simplicity to work things out, somehow after I met Tinderbox, the whole concept of simplicity has changed tremendously. All of a sudden, the other softwares' simplicities in fact mean laziness and not creatively simple. Other softwares "teach" me if there is something it cannot be done easily, I will kick them off, because it needs something else to make it simple, which is not simple anymore. But, tinderbox always asks me to go back to the basic way, and right away I know that that's way to go, and it in fact can be applied to others, but the beauty is, you know it yourself, not the software tells you. I am doing the job now, not the software, so I am in control of what I want, what I get, and what the result is.
Another thing I found is that, I can get Tinderbox to read RSS in Japanese (Shift-JIS setting only at this moment)! I just change the English font to my Japanese font, that's all. I haven't explored much yet, but once it is in a note, I can quote, I can analyze, etc. This is what it means, integration. I in fact can take note in Japanese as well. Somehow, I haven't found the way to export to html without having the text got corrupted. Anyway, I still have plenty of time. Tinderbox makes the learning process worthwhile and enjoyable.
I have my reason for being quiet. I am a hard worker. Work hard, play hard. And in another few hours later, I will be in Okinawa. Blue sea, beach, okinawa noodle souki soba.
Okinawa and Typhoon
Monday, August 11, 2003
Back from Okinawa on last Saturday night. Typhoon No. 10 pleased us to stay another 2 days in Okinawa, which made our 2-night 3-day stay became 4-night 5-day. In such a situation, what can one do? Nothing.
Arrived at Okinawa at noon on last Tuesday (5th Aug), rented a car, started to explore the town from Shuri Castle. At the hotel, we enjoyed the beach, the hot sun, and of course the blue sky. Well, the heat as well. The town itself wasn't that attractive to me as it looked quite the same with Malaysia. What I wanted was sea, sea, sea! One thing is, Okinawa is not Japan, it is Okinawa. Somehow, lots of influence from the main island of Japan has permeated Okinawa, which makes it boring I think. You thought they are Okinawan, but their lives are almost the same with other part of Japan. There are differences, but when you expect to hear the other part of the story, you might get disappointed by the similarity. Only a few things like the pork cuisine, Okinawan consumes all parts of a pig for diet, whereas Japanese mainly only eats the meat. I will think of them as part of China rather than Japan. And the bright colour; bright yellow, bright blue, bright red. Japanese is more of soft colour. When you see something written in Japanese but don't understand it, you ask the shop ladies, they will say in Okinawa it means bla bla bla, or Okinawan eats this, does that, or Okinawa doesn't have what you have in honshu (mainland Japan), etc. I wonder when Okinawa has become such a relative concept. Okinawa has become a consuming product by mainland Japanese. A food doesn't need a geographical name unless it travels far from home. The noodle that tourists eat is called Okinawa soba or Naha soba, where originally noodle is called suba here. May be the new generation also think that Okinawa soba is what it was.
Anyway, sea. It's amazing by just looking at the sea, it can make me feel so great and relax. We had a great time on the first day and second day. It was only after we went back to hotel, we then realised that Typhoon No. 10 was in fact saying hello to Okinawa. We were supposed to be back to Tokyo on the next day. But, that night TV news reported that the Typhoon No. 10 was unusual that it caused all the flights couldn't be taken off or landed at Naha Airport, all the flights got to be postponed. That's bad.
News were reporting rubbish. It said hotels were fully booked, which you wonder if those who said that really checked all the hotels. We stayed at the hotel on the extra two days though. I even got one business hotel that got free internet access. Being in the battle field, you see more the other side of stories than what you know from news. Well, the whole airport was filled with angered people, but most of them were like "what else can you do?" attitude with typhoon. Nobody complained about typhoon - the nature - but lots of people grumbled about airline companies weren't doing enough to solve their problem. Funny thing is, flight companies took the time to answer one by one about such angered passengers. Standing there listened to what they asked, everyone was asking almost the same question, do you think I (we) can go back today? Answered the lady, we've tried to do our best, but at this moment, we really cannot tell for sure. On and on. All the system become useless when typhoon comes.
When the night has come . . .
Monday, August 11, 2003
Was it because of the typhoon, tonight is kind of breezy. The moon looks like the 15th of the month. Is moon cake festival coming soon?
Recently kids have occupied most of my leisure time. Every day seems like holiday whenever I come back from work. There are so many stories waiting for me to listen to from my wife. If I come back early, I can just watch them without doing a thing for a few hours. Every action of them reflects on how we adult actually doing without realising it. Kids are like a mirror. Looking at them, you learn yourself more than what you can learn from others. Looking at them asleep is such a peaceful moment that keeps me away from the computer. What is the spell that they play that keep me away from the crowd?
There is a pool 5 minutes away from the house open for small kids only in summer to residence nearby. My wife is taking two of them there almost everyday now. I took them there on weekends. 10-month old Karin is shivering till her lips turn almost purple. Put her out of the pool yet she wants to go in again. She falls into the pool a couple of times but she doesn't seem to be afraid. Erin who will turn 2 years old next Friday doesn't interested much in going into the pool. Rather she prefers to play at the poolside. You wonder what makes the difference. DNA???
Don't Lose the Humanity
Sunday, August 17, 2003
I told myself to write in English once a week, but looks like I am not going to make it. I lost power, I lost my vocabulary! Where is the humanity?*
Today's Erin's 2 year-old birthday. As well as Pete's 33 birthday. Happy Birthday! We are going to the zoo.
*I actually didn't know what the original meaning was, somehow I felt funny, and tried to be sarcastic to myself as I kept saying to write but never. Wrote Dave the writer, "[...it was about] the old news reel of the Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey back in 1937 or thereabouts. A reporter was describing the arrival of the Nazi dirigible when it suddenly burst into flames and crashed to the ground. The reporter is heard describing the horror of the scene, near the end he utters, "The humanity!" So I was being sarcastic about the massive blackout in the northeast U.S., with all those weblogs going offline, unable to update. (The way some people talk about weblogs, one might think it would _be_ a big tragedy. I don't think it is, but I was poking fun at the idea that it would be.)[end the quote]" (Thanks, Dave!)
Mathematics and Civilisation
Monday, August 18, 2003
How mathematics and civilisation relate to each other? And computer. Our brain. Is it only about accuracy? Think think think.
A Concrete Silence
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
All the while, I have been trying to think about what to write, then I realised that I am still writing nothing. Great. Congratulate me. I am reading some books which are very inspiring, somehow too difficult for me to explain in English. Okay, I didn't try my best. Exams are not coming. So, I gave up and moved on to read other books. The more I read, the more I learned is, I can never really write any review. May be I need some practice to write logical writing. Then I recalled what I just read recently by Yoro Takeshi, an Anatomist (he specialises in brain study). He was a professor in Tokyo University, but quit before a few years of his actual retirement. Anyway, it was about his experience while he was in Australia, where he got an accident, and he needed to write a police report. For your information, he has been overseas and are used to writing English thesis, he personally reads a lot of paperbacks of English suspense novels too. He says,
"I felt strongly at that time that, when writing a report in English how an accident happened, you need to put the English extremely specific. A car accident report shouldn't be too complicated. Somehow, if you don't be specific, it is not English. But, when try to put it concretely, somewhere in the sentence, it becomes contradict to the fact. It is natural to write in ones favour. When write in Japanese, you can do so by "not touching it." But, you can't do that in English. When you write in advantageous to yourself, it becomes a lie, which means you will realise that you actually write something against the fact when trying to be concrete. So, if to protect oneself is part of human's nature, as long as you use English, you will have to tell a lie consequently. In other words, against the fact." (Legal suspense, Nov., 1995)
If you recall any American movie involved in legal case, even though you are not American, you will remember a similar line, "You have the right to remain silent, but what you say will be bla bla bla..." Yoro says that might be the reason why "the right of silence" has its meaning there. And in legal case, it always asks for proof, or evidence.
"English language is more attached to subjects, so English language exists in between subjects and me, (Vector or distance between "subjects and English language" is shorter than the one between "subjects and the speaker," KenLoo.) whereas Japanese language is more attached to the speaker's heart (kokoro) than subjects, that's why at court, confession carries much more meaning than remain silent."
If you don't understand what I say, you can bombard me with questions, but, I have the right to remain silent because I don't want to lie. :)
Outside note: A concrete silence.
We Are So Close Yet So Far
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
My wife and I felt like to have something different. Not sushi, not ramen, not Chinese cuisine, and not pasta. Could it be the heat, we felt like in Malaysia, so we said let's go to Kepong, at place we used to go for dinner in Kuala Lumpur. At Kepong, we had all the varieties. All types of hawkers, all types of food, sometimes because there were so many, we couldn't decide well!
We headed to Ikebukuro. Honest speaking, though I do go there sometimes, I am not so sure why Ikebukuro is so interesting, because I always meet lots of tourists from Taiwan and Hong Kong. And there are a few Malaysian (Chinese) restaurants where for sure you know that the people there are working illegal somewhere in Japan.
Anyway, we went, the Cashbox. It's not written anywhere that it is a Malaysian Chinese restaurant, it advertises more like an Asian kitchen, Thai-style noodle, Malay-style curry, Chinese cooking, etc. So, we had hainan chicken rice and a pot of fish head curry, and some other dishes. It was good, it made one feel at home, for those whose home are, anywhere it can be. But it was so damn hot, not the curry (it was hot and spicy yet nice though), but it was the spotlight that caused it so.
The shop is kind of long and deep. Another end, there was a bunch of people as if having a party. We chose the other end, the second table from inside. Next to us - the fist table at the end of a corner - there were two guys talking in this typical Cantonese slang, figuratively 200% from Malaysia. They were having a bottle of beer (the shop is rather expensive but not high class), and one guy just had his chicken rice. I didn't really catch what they were talking, but the mood told me if I got involved, I might be chopped off in pieces and served like the chicken on the table. Dangerous talk. They looked sort of depressed anyway. The quality of worries was serious. May be about life, about money, about loan, I don't know. How the hell do I know what they are worrying?
But. Sometimes I feel like to talk to them. I want to know their life, their personal life in Japan, how they live, how they survive. But I never did. I don't know what stops me from talking to them. Do I need to get ready to talk to them? Or is it that I feel guilty because once I talk to them, I am already writing the story in my head? I wanted to write articles about these people (not blog), who left home to work overseas with some reasons which for sure different from my version. I don't believe in justice nor journalism. All those hypocrisies are not the reason for me to want to write, and it shouldn't be. I don't think I will talk about my thinking and feeling so much to them if we talk to each other, but if there is a reason for it, I want to be their listener.
Though we belong to a same society, somehow it never relates us directly. So far yet so close.
A while ago, I wrote this.
Child of A Lesser GodWednesday, April 16, 2003
Went to Malaysia Embassy last week to do Karin's birth certificate, and did a very "Malaysian" thing myself - forgot to check what was really needed and forced to go back again with other documents. Anyway, that part wouldn't kill me. I always do that. Take it easy, running a few times to the Embassy won't hurt, will it? Yeah yeah yeah, time is money.
Since I have sent in half of the documents, I could just jump in the queue by calling the staff to do mine first on my Monday morning second visit but I didn't. I am a nice guy. I just took a number and waited there. I guess when you are rushing for lots of things, sometimes you just need some spare time to yourself sit down may be look out at the window, think about things - whatever - that you have in mind. So I did it. I recalled lots of things, the time I worked for a diplomat when I first came to Japan, how I walked on that corridor before. I also knew the lady, I even have her story. I was there. But thing has changed. All those I knew were no more there. I know no one now, and nobody knows me. Okay, fine.
So for old time sake, I just sat there and did my meditation. But it's always the case, you know, things came up, they always like that, like a drama that you watch, whether be an audience or not, you got to take part in any drama that is rolling on.
There was this Chinese lady in her early forties, she could be younger but she didn't look young. She looked very illegal to me, as I could not figure what she would be doing in Japan other than working at a factory or washing dishes at any Chinese restaurant from her outlook. She didn't look like she is coming here for study, at all.
Anyway, she was as if having some difficulty in communications at the counter so that made her looked more illegal. You see, I can tell. So I knew she couldn't speak well in Japanese nor any Malay. If she spoke Malay, the staff would have called any Malaysian staff to come and translated it. She looked at another spec lady far from her for help - apparently she asked the spec before I came - somehow that spec showed her annoyance, saying "aiyaaaa" loudly, the typical Chinese way to tell others go to hell. I could dig a big hole on the floor and push that bitch in and tell her go to hell as well, but you know a gentleman doesn't do such thing. This is one type of people who after started living in a city and then they think they will get out of all the dirt from home and to live clean and healthy in another world. You got to be clean and healthy in vision and in your head. I called them healthy patient. For example, take pills that they call it vitamins or whatever to keep healthy. Hey, only sick people need pills. They got so poisoned with healthy thinking.
I walked to the counter, offered my help. I tried to explain to the staff that the illegal wanted the form to fill in for marriage registration in Japan. She took the form, and they did some conversation which I wasn't sure if they understood each other. The bitch who climbed back from the hell was handing in her paper now. I sat back. And the illegal showed some effort to look at the form once. She smiled at the bitch and asked for help. Now the bitch put on her angel costume and tried to help the illegal out to fill in. And said anyone around there would be willing to help you, something like that so that I could hear. I wasn't on the same trip to hell with her so I pretended I was deaf. I wanted to give her an "aiyoo" but of course, gentleman has good manner and will not do such thing.
Half way, the illegal asked me to help her out to fill in the form. I looked at the form. I presumed it was some form I filled in before, it should be the same except you fill in in Malaysia or Japan, but it wasn't. And it said something like declaration of illegally working in Japan, or something like that. I said,
"What! What the hell is this? You mean you are really illegal with no italic? Hey stupid, you will get caught. How and why do you do that for? Was that what you wanted?" I looked at the passport, and it showed that 2001 was her second visit with the normal 3 months chop. I flipped, another same chop was in 1997.
Excuse me, I found another healthy patient here. He thought that illegal things are not supposed to run around under the sun. They got to be active only in dark. But he was totally depressed now. What's that mean by legal and illegal anyway? Who is that for? The Embassy is legal, but the illegal is illegal.
From the fill-in, I got to know she works for a small factory, may be like a shop lot that squeezes about 10 illegal staff or more and they are paid daily or something like that, I didn't bother to ask more. She earns from 30 to 100 thousand yen per month, all depends. (Normally a high school grad should at least getting around 120 to 150 thousand depends on area, I am not sure of it now). There is no promise that there will be job everyday. The shop might get the assignment from the second hand or third hand manufacturers that originally comes from the general handphone manufacturers, some I don't know what sort of mobile phone chips assembling they are doing.
I just got a new mobile phone with camera and can snap video clips as well, the latest one. It is newly released, and it was very popular, but I didn't have to wait for it. All of a sudden, the thinking that, my life has got to do with this lady depressed me. Not that any handphone that I hold before has nothing to do with illegal workers. It just depresses me.
She told me about she fell in sick and went to hospital for operation and so this guy that she is going to get married to, aided her in lots of ways. I asked her is she going to continue to work after got married, she said no. She mentioned lots of things to me, but I could not remember. May be I was sick. I am a patient myself.
I asked her the most and goddam healthy question at last. Why do you want to work illegally. She said too many siblings, and one brother went crazy and needed hospitalization. She meant neurosis, I supposed. I wasn't sure who is the one who really need help, but I gave her my contact and address, and said she can call me anytime if she needs help. She questioned anytime? She meant visiting. I said no, please call first.
I wonder how is she doing now.
A Fragment of Remembrance
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Last week, my cousin C came to Tokyo on a training programme under the sponsorship of Shiseido, a famous Japanese cosmetic company. She was chosen as one of the ten people in Malaysian to participate in the programme. She called me a week before to ask if I was able to see her. I was shocked to get a call from her though, I mean we never really keep in touch, only when I go home, meet her somewhere in town or I go to her salon for a haircut, that's all. Her father and my father were brothers. We lived under one roof before, later I moved out to live with my brother's family.
I only managed to see her on Thursday after work. I took her out for sushi. Then to Roppongi Hills. On the way there, she said she was wearing hotel's slippers because her boots killed her. At Malaysia it would be so embarrassing, but here in Tokyo everyone seems wearing so odd, so it's okay, she said. Seeing her walking in the crowded, it really didn't catch my attention that she was wearing Shinagawa Prince hotel's vinyl slippers.
Later at Roppongi, we sat down to have coffee and talked lots of things which we would never have talked about at home. All the relatives, how some of them slandered her when she opened her salon 8 years ago. "Can you cut? Don't bring shame on us." etc. I told her because she was the only one who could do it, that's why the jealousy. It's not easy to be a boss, and she did it, for 8 years! She is 31 this year, I think. I started work only in 26.
Later she asked me if I will be living here forever. I told her I don't know. I didn't really mention about the reason why I am here. It seemed she didn't know why I came to Japan for the first time, how I got a job, etc. I wanted to do something on my own. She commented that I am not that close with my brother. May be. My brother - 19 years older than me - has lots of expectation on me after my mum passed away. Show that you can, show that you are capable to the other relatives. I never tried that. It only made me hate study. I recalled in my diary, I was always winging in the sky in dreams. There was significant desire that I wanted to get away from my brother. Ironically, it was only I left for Japan, then I started to understand him. Perhaps we needed a distance in between to be able to see each other clearly.
Last month, all the realtives decided to hold a big Buddhist service for the dead, a total of 15 (may be 18, too many that C got confused as well). Yes, we are a big family. That included my grandmum who died a day before Erin was born. I don't really know all these things, may be on the third year of her death, there was plan to hold a Buddhist service for her, then everyone agreed to make a big one.
It may sound illogical when this sort of experience were to put in English. For instance, the word "a priest" has totally different image and meaning to me, that is not even about the different religious background. So just read it as a fiction if you can.
So, this Buddhist priest chanted a sutra for the whole group. There was this part where a sutra was chanted by the Buddhist priest, each spirit was called in order to cross a bridge. Buddhist priest was the one who could give guidance to the spirits. We had one granduncle (grandfather's 4th younger brother) who got killed by a Japanese army while the Japanese occupied Malaya. Everyone thought he would be the one that was hard to call to cross the bridge. Hard in the sense he might still wandering around, felt regretful about the incident, or may be something unfinished in the spirit's mind, or might not know that he was dead. Those who died naturally seems to be much easy to cross the bridge. Somehow, the most difficult one was my mum, who died of diabetes. C said my mum died of excessive bleeding. I didn't know that. All of a sudden, I wonder how my reaction would have had been like if I were to know the truth at the age of 7 or 8 but not now.
When my mum died, I wasn't allow to go into her room at the hospital to see her, that was my first year or second year of primary school. I knew something happened, everyone was crying but I didn't know the answer, though the atmosphere indicated that she might not be around anymore. When the time I saw her, she was lying down at the living room, in a coffin.
Nights of nights with dreams that I saw her in the living room. From under the table, I looked upward, couldn't see her face properly, perhaps my memory has faded out from time to time. At the stomach part, there was a big whole which I could see through it. I didn't know what it meant all the while. It could be meaningless.
I sent C back to the hotel. She then passed me a big parcel, with red meat and moon cake in it. Inadvertently, I said thank you. She said, family doesn't say thank you. I nodded. My grandmum used to say that too whenever I said thank you to her. She said, manners are only for outsiders.
Postscript to myself: Not related, Yoshimoto Banana, a Japanese female writer, wrote a story before her debut, Moonlight Shadow. At the end, when the heroine met the dead lover, it was at a bridge. Got to check out that part how it is been translated.