子供の頃、夏の間チィアしペアク湾でピクニックしていました。その時、カニの珍しい性質について習いました。

カニは、一匹バケッツに入れられると、すぐに逃げようとして登り始めます。他方、10匹入れられると逃げません。カニが登ろうとすると、バッケツにいる他のカニが足をつかんで、引っ張るからです。

このようなわけで、カニが一匹でも逃げられないときは、すべて食べられてしまいます。

今月から、せめて毎週一度水泳することにしている。

体重を減らす運動としたら、たしかに水泳は最高です。一番カロリの使う運動とは限らないけど、ジョギングやエアロビクスなどの服装はぶかぶかな運 動着でするけれど、水泳は水着を着なければいけません。

泳ぐ前に水着を着て、ロッカールームの鏡の前を通り掛かって、実勢の脂肪がはっきり見えます。それでもっとがんばろうと思うからです。

外国人にとって、日本社会に慣れにくい場合が多くあります。しかし、東北関東大地震の日に日本文化の特長がはっきり表されました。その日には、二百万人が冷静に東京中心から歩いて帰りました。

人通りが大変多いのに、もみ合うのは大変少なかったです。コンビニで長い列に並んでいる人は順番に待っていました。道に迷っていらいらしているような人々も丁寧に道を尋ねていました。

欧米であったら、きっと、その秩序と協力の水準にならないはずです。

前は、クリスマスと正月休みに毎年アメリカに帰ることになっていましたが、もう８年ぐらいクリスマスに帰っていません。アメリカへ帰りたくないわけではないけど、９１１の後は、列が長くなり、空港と飛行機は大変混雑するようになりました。そんな一週間の休みは楽しいものではありません、疲れるだけです。

実は、私は東京の正月休みが好きです。人が少ないので周りが静かです。そして車が少なくて、一週間だけで、大気汚染がなくなって、きれいな東京の冬の空気を楽しめます。

それも、新聞によると、今年は江ノ島水族館に電気ウナギの電気で光るクリスマスツリが立てられたということです。休みの日見に行こうと思っています。

私は日本のお化けは怖くないのですが、日本人形は怖いものです。そんな目をした人形はおもちゃらしくないです。普段は日本文化や歴史が面白いのですが、全然分かられないこともあります。このような目をした気味悪いものが、純粋な若い娘に与える習慣はいじめに近いように思えるのです。

私がアメリカで子供時代を過ごしていた頃、お化け屋敷に行ったり、怪談を聞いたりするのが怖いのも半面、面白いのも半面でした。

日本では夏になると怪談話がよく語られますが、私にはそれらがあまり怖いとは思えません。実は、カッパは怖いというよりも、むしろ可愛いと思えるのです。それに、日本人は西洋のお化けのことや怪談話を聞いても怖がらないと言います。

子供のときから培われた、それぞれの「畏怖」に対するイメージは大人になってもそれぞれのバックグランドにより、違ってくるのでしょう。

I grew up Catholic, and today I attended the the Buddhist one-year anniversary funeral rites for my grandfather-in-law. The Catholic and Buddhist approaches to life and death could not be more starkly different.

The Catholics are up front with you. While you are alive, the Catholics endeavor to make you feel as guilty as possible. Not feeling guilty enough is actually considered a sin. They then leverage this guilt to extract the maximum financial return from you in the brief time they have. After you die, however, you are fully amortized, and the Earthly church is done with you. You are considered to be, no matter how long the odds, “with God”.

The Japanese Buddhists play the game in reverse. You can do what you want to in life without guilt. I’ve been out drinking (and more) with a number of priests here in Japan and believe me, they are pros. Aside from the isolated blessing of a building site here and the occasional festival there, the Buddhists don’t demand much in the way of contributions.

After you die, however, the extortion begins. The assumption seems to be that your loved one has screwed up and will be waiting for reincarnation for quite some time. If you want to avoid problems, the priests need to intervene on your behalf. You need to pay up or the dearly beloved will suffer for it.

First, the deceased needs to be given a new name, and “good” names cost millions of yen. The priesthood is not too specific about what happens if they decide to give the soul a “bad” name, but I’m assured it’s something horrible. Not that the priests want to give anyone a bad name, you understand, but a lack of sufficient cash upfront can affect their concentration and, hey, they obviously can’t be held responsible for what happens if the family is preventing them from concentrating.

The shakedown doesn’t stop there, of course. The family needs to come up with additional protection money on the 7, 49 and 100-day anniversaries of the funeral as well as the 1, 3, 5, 7 and 13-year anniversaries to ensure that the now wandering soul does not “have an unfortunate accident” while waiting for their next incarnation.

In 20 years the Japanese will be just as fat as today’s super-sized Americans — although by that time the Americans will be even fatter.

A few years ago I blogged about my shock over the popularity of the McGriddle in America (seriously people, its not food) but it has turned into a best seller here in Japan as well. They have also introduced the MegaMac here in Japan. It’s basically a Big Mac with a two extra patties, and they literally can’t keep it in stock.

Two years ago Krispy Kreme opened its first outlet here and the lines are still hundreds of people long. An unending flow of petite 45kg Japanese girls wait for an hour in the cold to get to the front of the line and and then scurry off with their box of dozen glazed donuts: each one ready to cite without a hint of irony the conventional wisdom about how healthy the Japanese diet is.

Most nauseating and vile of all, however, has to be Pizza Hut’s new special crust. (I think this is a Japan only thing, but I could be wrong.) The outside rim othe the pizza crust is actually made from detachable, rolls or cheese that have been battered and deep-fried, and it comes with maples syrup that you are supposed to pour over the crust before eating.

The Japanese are currently the longest-lived people on Earth. I wonder if the next generation will be able to claim the same title.

The Japanese have this thing for heated toilet seats with built-in bidets. That’s all fine, but Toto has announced a partial recall of one of its more popular models because of a nasty tendency to burst into flame.

That’s gotta hurt.

The gullibility of Japanese girls is legendary. In fact, I’d just finished writing a newspaper article on that very subject when I stumbled across this.

Japanese Fooled in Poodle Scam

It seems that thousands of Japanese women have been sold “exotic poodles” only to discover that they were, in fact, sheep. (I mean the poodles. They literally were sheep. The women, on the other hand, only figuratively were sheep.)

The pet importers would have gotten away with it to, if not for those meddling kids! No, what tipped them off was when movie star Maiko Kawamaki appeared on a talk-show with her new poodle complaining that it would not bark or eat dog food.

This is a family-style restaurant that I saw in Yokohama the other day. For those of you who don’t read Japanese, the name of the place is Broccoli Land. Yes, it sounds every bid as bad in Japanese as it does in English. It’s the kind of place you would threaten your kids with.

“Now Jenny, if you clean up your room and are nice to your little brother, we’ll take you both to Disney Land, but if you don’t behave yourself, we’re going to Broccoli Land.”

“Nooooo! Don’t make me go to Broccoli Land. I’ll be a good girl. I promise!”

The kids don’t even have to know what the place is. The name alone sounds like torture.

Vietnamese girls have strong opinions about their Japanese counterparts. I’m not sure where the image comes from, but I had variations of this conversation with three different Vietnamese girls:

“So you’re American?”

Yeah, but I live in Japan.

“Oh, so do you have a Japanese girlfriend?”

Sure, dozens of them.

“I like Japanese girls. They’re really fashionable and beautiful.”

Really?

“Oh yes. They smile a lot and seem really sweet.”

They do? …Japanese girls?

Interestingly, it’s the girls who have these high opinions of Japanese girls. In general, Vietnamese guys have no comment one way of the other.

It seems Maid Cafes — where the waitresses dress as French maids wearing (I kid you not) cat ears — are becoming passe here in Tokyo.

Lately it seems the otaku boys lurking about Akihabara are hanging out in coffee shops where the waitresses treat them rudely and insultingly until they get up to leave. At his point, the girls become very affectionate and beg and plead with the customer not to leave or to at least promise to come back soon.

Of course, if the customer decides to stay and sits back down, the abuse begins again.

I got my new bankbook today, and it’s covered with Disney characters. This kind of branding used to strike me as strange, but with all the financial scandals going on these days, I suppose Micky Mouse and Goofy are indeed perfect representations of Japanese Banks.

Young Japanese ladies are being pampered at the new ear-cleaning boutiques that are opening up around Tokyo. (I’ve been in Tokyo so long, that didn’t even strike me as strange.) The full ear-cleaning takes an hour, and according to my friend “It’s better than sex!”

I’m sure it’s nice, but my friend really needs to get herself a better boyfriend.

Someone stole my Harley Davidson last night during the typhoon. Quite a professional job really. Lock was snapped, alarm removed and put neatly beside the cover and tie downs. I spent an hour in the local police office with three officers who seemed exhausted by the effort it took to fill out the report. Nice enough guys, though.

When we were done, they gave me this parting advice “We’ll do everything we can to find it, and we’ll be sure to call you if we do. There’s no need to contact us about it any more.”

How encouraging.

I was in Hawaii on business and (Huh? Yeah, business. A friend of mine just started a company there and…look I don’t have to explain this to you, OK?) The odd thing was that in my hotel in Waikiki (Yeah, Waikiki. … Because that’s where all the hotels are, that’s why! My friend’s office was 10 minutes from the hotel and. What? Well, the hotel was pretty much right on the beach, but all Waikiki hotels are pretty much right on the beach. Look, it was business, OK?! I really don’t have to justify this to you.)

Anyway, for the first two days the only time I heard any English in my hotel was when I was part of the conversation. It was like I had never left Japan. Waikiki is basically Omotesando with palm trees. Row after row of designer shops and Japanese window shoppers.

Providing further evidence that all of Asia is secretly governed by 12-year-olds, the AP reported that the Prime Minister has been forced to tell lawmakers not to read comic books and play with their cell phones while the Diet is in session.

TOKYO … Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi scolded rookie lawmakers Thursday for reading comic books and talking on their cell phones during legislative sessions, according to a newspaper report.

The national Asahi newspaper said Koizumi scolded 30 first-term lawmakers from his Liberal Democratic Party during a luncheon.

“Don’t send e-mail on your cell phones or read comic books in Parliament while in session,” Koizumi was quoted as saying.

“You can be seen very clearly from the prime minister’s seat. You should really stop that … it’s disgraceful.”

I can’t make up stuff this good!

From Kyodo News

A total of 162 carp have died due to carp herpes in moats located on the outside of the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, the Environment Ministry announced Monday.

Another “Only in Japan” story from Kyodo News.

11 officials admonished for directing plane to land on closed runway

TOKYO … The transport ministry admonished 11 airport and government officials on Friday, including a supervisor for air traffic controllers, for instructing a passenger aircraft to land on a closed runway at Tokyo’s busiest domestic airport last month when all 18 controllers on duty forgot it was closed for maintenance.

The Japan Airlines plane, an Airbus 300 service from Obihiro, Hokkaido, with 51 passengers and crew aboard, landed on the runway at Haneda airport April 29.

Of course, that’s the end of the story. It’s possible that this is an example of extreme group think and gross incompetence — even by Japanese standards — but I don’t think so. All eighteen controllers on duty cannot simply “forget” that a runway has been closed.

Far more likely, someone higher up screwed up and has arranged things so he does not have to admit it.