As part of Tokyo’s Earth Day festivities last weekend, author/rapper Seiko Ito held a poetry reading set to techno music, dedicated to the message of setting Burma free from tyranny. From the Burma Info website:

In the following video clip of the performance, Ito can be seen reading his statement, demanding that the military regime stop killing, beating, and imprisoning monks, and enter into dialogue. Htin Aung, the Democratic Voice of Burma stringer in Tokyo , reads out a statement in Burmese.

With a double DJ, Ito’s reading quickly turns into a hip-hop event. The audience rises, and many begin dancing and responding to Ito ’ s calls, waving arms, signs, and in some cases, babies. It was likely the first time ever that this many Japanese in one place expressed their support for a free Burma.

Watch the video here.

Here is my unauthorized translation of the poem:

You must not intimidate the nonresisting monks
You must not beat the nonresisting monks
You must not imprison the nonresisting monks
You must not kill the nonresisting monks

For they are outside the realm of power
And live under a wholly separate Law

Intimidating, beating, imprisoning, and killing such people is an overwhelming failure to understand, an overwhelming act of violence, in short the destruction of the other.

And, we too are the Other!

You must not intimidate the nonresisting monks
You must not beat the nonresisting monks
You must not imprison the nonresisting monks
You must not kill the nonresisting monks

For they are outside the realm of power
And resolutely possess a freedom to live under a wholly separate Law

Intimidating, beating, imprisoning, and killing such people is an overwhelming failure to understand, an overwhelming act of violence, in short the destruction of the other.

You must not destroy others
You must not destroy them, nor us

Don’t intimidate them!
Don’t beat them!
Don’t jail them!
Don’t kill them!

The junta in Myanmar
The Chinese government!

Free Aung San Suu Kyi!
Free Aung San Suu Kyi!

Free the Dalai Lama!
Free the Dalai Lama!

We are they
And they are we!

You must not refuse dialogue!
For dialogue is the sole path to connect the other with the other
If the other and the other are not connected, hence springs intimidation, hence springs beatings, hence springs imprisonment, and hence springs murder!

So talk to them! Talk to them!
Communicate for the sake of dialogue!!
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press exist to prevent intimidation, beatings, imprisonment, and murder
Calling for dialogue and communication is to stand in the way of intimidation, beatings, imprisonment, and murder

The junta in Myanmar
The Chinese government!

Talk to them! Don’t intimidate them!
Talk to them! Don’t beat them!
Talk to them! Don’t jail them!
Talk to them! Don’t kill them!

Talk to them!

We are they
And they are we!

A large catalog with flash video and downloadable mp3s.

I’m sure you can visualize many possibilities in your head, but if you go to Hamarikyu Gardens in Tokyo you can get an idea of how the shôgun did it back in the day. The general process sounds like it belongs in an ethnic joke book:

1. Build a pond and a creek.


2. Raise ducks in the pond.


3. Hide an iron door and a giant net in the bottom of the creek.


4. Lure the domesticated ducks into the creek using the sound of wooden boards. (I don’t know why ducks like this sound, but maybe that’s why we eat them, and not the other way around.)


5. Wait for wild ducks to follow the domestic ducks into the creek.


6. Pull up the door, scaring the bejeezus out of the ducks.


7. Pull up the net, catching the ducks.


8. Laugh heartily and retreat for wild escapades with concubines.

If you don’t believe me, check out the posted explanation in Japanese and Engrish:

This guy would not be amused.

From The Taipei Times:

A ban on poultry slaughter in traditional markets will take effect on Tuesday as originally scheduled, National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday. “Despite protests by poultry vendors who fear that the ban will affect their livelihood, the policy will go into effect on April 1, and all chicken, geese and ducks should then be slaughtered at licensed abattoirs,” Chen said. But as some complementary measures have yet to be completed, the government will postpone enforcement, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, for three to six months, he said. Chen, who concurrently serves as convener of a Cabinet bird flu epidemic prevention task force, said that preparatory work, such as setting up electric slaughter houses, disinfecting facilities at the abattoirs and launching a food safety publicity drive, is yet to be completed.

I may not exactly be in the habit of buying freshly slaughtered whole chickens at the market (or, for that matter, cooking) I am still mildly and inexplicably saddened at the fact that I will no longer have the opportunity should I once again live in Taiwan.

As I am about to permanently disassemble this computer and bring only the hard drives with me to Japan, where I will then assemble a new system after finding a place to live, I figure it would be a good time to post the various things that had been sitting around my desktop in case I ever found the time and motivation to write something about them.

• Genetic tests have shown that the Taiwanese aborigines are likely to be the ancestors of the entire Polynesian and Micronesian population, which also includes the Malay group, comprising the majority population of the three large countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines. While study of archeology and linguistic variation, as well as phenotype analysis of modern populations, had led some researchers to suspect that the ancestors of most Pacific islanders were descended from the ancestors of the pre-Chinese Taiwanese aboriginal population (who themselves migrated across the Taiwan Strait thousands of years ago, when the Han Chinese probably still lived far to the north) but this genetic study provides the strongest evidence yet for the theory.


• Although Japan may be the only country in which a unique word exists for “chikan”, the phenomenon is hardly unique. I once linked to a New York Times article on the prolificicity of flashers or “bumpers” in the NYC subway, which likely occurs with frequency in any city with a crowded public transit system. Another place famous for it- Mexico City. Apparently the problem is bad enough so they have introduced women only buses, perhaps inspired by Japan’s women-only commuter train cars.


• U.S. anti-terrorism special operations forces assisting the Philippines military have contracted a Manila-based marketing firm to create comic books with an anti-terrorism message. American style superhero comics are extremely popular in the Philippines, but I am very skeptical that a marketing firm would be able to create a comic with a genuinely compelling story, regardless of how slickly produced the graphics and printing may be. I would love to actually see the comics though, which sound like a prime example of the force that American cultural products still carry in the country, over 60 years after colonialism officially ended there.


• Korean’s Chosun newspaper has a truly hysterical article entitled Manhattanites Served Korean Food as Japanese. Just read and laugh.


• “Samurai-Sword Maker’s Reactor Monopoly May Cool Nuclear Revival”. An amazing headline and a pretty amazing article. Apparently, Hokkaido’s Japan Steel Works Ltd. is the world’s largest-and virtually only-supplier of steel-cast nuclear reactor containment chambers, which naturally must be built to VERY exacting standards. Despite an apparently massive surge in demand for these massive products, the company is skeptical how many plants will actually be built in the end, and are therefore reluctant to make the capital investments required to raise their output above the current level of 4 pieces per year. Yes, FOUR. The fact that this single plant is a bottleneck for the global nuclear power industry seems to be the result of some past failure in strategic planning, but the solution is unclear. And yes, they really were a maker of samurai swords- and apparently still are!
  “They’re made in a traditional Japanese wooden hut, up a steep hill from the rest of the Muroran factory. It’s decorated with white zigzag papers called ``shide’’ used in Shinto shrines, creating a sense of sanctity in the workshop.Inside, as the factory clangs and hisses below, Tanetada Horii hand-forges broad swords from 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) lumps of Tamahagane steel.”


• Suriname, the tiny South American nation which was formerly a Dutch colony has been searching for an appropriate national language. Currently this is Dutch-which is also used in government and law- but English has surpassed it for international business, and Sranan-a local language derived from an English creole-has surpassed it as the language of the street. The language situation gets even more complex:
  “Slip into one of the Indonesian eateries known as warungs to hear Javanese, spoken by about 15 percent of the population. Choose a roti shop, with its traditional Indian bread, to listen to Surinamese Hindi, spoken by the descendants of 19th-century Indian immigrants, who make up more than a third of the population. And merchants throughout Paramaribo speak Chinese, even though the numbers of Chinese immigrants are small.Venture into the jungly interior, where indigenous languages like Arawak and Carib are still heard with languages like Saramaccan, a Portuguese and English-inspired Creole spoken by descendants of runaway slaves who worked on plantations once owned by Sephardic Jews.”
  What is an appropriate common tongue in a country like this? When deciding on a common language, what weight is given to the linguistic history of the state itself, the background of the people, ability to communicate with (much larger) neighboring countries or international business?

One of the key doubts about Japanese blogging activity that I expressed in my last real post almost four months ago was that it seemed that an inordinate number of accounts on major blogging sites were nothing but spam generators:

Basically, [a Technorati report claiming that Japanese was the most prevalent blogging language] counted the number of submissions, so dead blogs don’t count, and since it is Technorati, I am sure lots of spam blogs ended up being counted (seriously, go try a blog search on Technorati Japan right now!).

Now it appears I have been vindicated in my claim. CNet Japan reports that Japanese web portal Nifty has announced findings that a full 40% of Japanese blogs are set up as nothing but ad platforms to suck up clicks and affiliate bonuses. The announcement coincides with the release of an auto-filter developed for Nifty’s proprietary blog hosting service.

A Nifty-affiliated research body randomly sampled 100,000 blog entries per month using the filter between October 2007 and February 2008. Over the five-month period it was determined that “40% of domestic blogs are spam blogs.”

While the definition of “domestic blog” is unclear, the sheer volume (and any time spent surfing the Japanese net) should tell you that spam blogs are a major problem. And considering that the original Technorati figure put Japanese-language blogs ahead of English by a mere 1%, I am content to conclude that Japan is most certainly not the world’s top blogging nation, putting the statistics more in line with reality.

While reading about Asia’s newest self-proclaimed democracy I did a double-take at the following factoid:

Bhutan’s first democratically elected prime minister will be Jigmi Thinlay, a charismatic politician who has portrayed the DPT as the party of ordinary Bhutanese. His rival, Sangay Ngedup, leader of the rival People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is the brother of the previous king’s four wives, all sisters.

(Note to readers: I know my last couple of posts have been frivolous. Many apologies. This stuff is just too amusing not to blog.)

March 10

Stop in a local cafe across from the Pike Street Market. Need some cash. As I use the exorbitantly overpriced transaction fee laden ATM a man sitting at a table located directly between the dor and the counter begins speaking. He is somewhat indistinct, but he is saying something like:

“I used to get three hundred dollars a day out of these cash machines. [[something about buying or selling cocaine, unclear]] and you could get out $300 a day without a transaction fee. You got a transaction fee on that one?”

Long white hair and beard, flannel shirt and jeans. 55-65 years age, long slightly pointed nails, with visible dirt underneath. From California originally, he has been in Seattle for 7 years. No matter how one responds, he continues his stream of consciousness elocutions, your own contribution affecting the flow of monologue barely more than a pebble tossed into an actual stream.

“Are you a local?”

“No, I’m visiting some friends here. From New Jersey.’

“Oh,  year Jersey- interesting state. My dad was from outside Toronto, little place near a farm seven miles outside of town.”

“Uh-huh…”

During the 3-5 minutes I am in the cafe, he tells me his favorite pie is key lime blackberry but recommends against carbanero-the hot pepper. I am unclear if this is somehow pie related, but if so I must admit it sounds like a terrible recipe. His favorite restaurant had some sort of meal platter involving a rosemary chicken breast for only $7.50, he sometimes eats two for 13 dollars. He offers to treat me to this lunch as I am already trying to pleasantly say goodbye and head out the door, which I am slowly inching towards. There is no recognition whatsoever of my attempts to politely break off conversation, so I walk out the door, words at my back.

The coconut chai is delicious.

Later, I meet my friend Brian for lunch as he takes his break from work a couple of blocks away. We eat at an Ethiopian/African restaurant which I notice has a dish involving rosemary chicken for $7.50, but I am more in a fish mood. For $8 is it excellent, with some sort of green sauce which looks like, but does not taste like pesto.