And growing up in America, I thought that tipping was universally done (though not always liked), only to find out that it's practically unheard of in Japan. Try leaving a tip on a restaurant table and the wait-staff will chase you down to give you your money back.
These types of dualities are all over the place. They cause you question your beliefs and understanding, but in a good way. Derek Sivers put it best in this short TED clip: "Whatever ideas you may have or hear, the opposite may also be true".
The other day, I found myself complaining about Japan. A lot. It's become more and more apparent that the honeymoon is over.
Every foreigner I know who has spent at least 1 year here has met a similar breaking point. The point at which something snaps, reshaping their view of this great nation. It's not hate or disdain, but more like, seeing it objectively for the first time. And with that new neutrality, you see not only the good that this country has to offer, but also the bad. In times like these, you have to remind yourself why you came to Japan in the first place. It's easy to get caught up in the negative, but reiterating your reason for being here helps you endure and continue to have a great experience.
Cool concept. Here's an excerpt from the show "La Main et l'Homme" ("The Finger and the Man") by Rodrigue Lino and Yves from Fantastik Armada Crew in France
This is embarrassing to admit, but I still struggle to use Japanese characters on my computer. Despite installing Microsoft's East Asian Language support over a year ago, I still occasionally have problems toggling between roman characters and kana.
Needless to say, I was happy to discover Typd.in, a website that makes it easy to type the characters from the web. 例えば、私はそれがこの文章を書いていた (for example, I used the service to write this sentence). In addition to the web interface, there's also a JavaScript Bookmarklet that you can use to convert text fields on other web pages into kana input fields.
Uganda's underground and sub-culture scene is really flourishing. In addition to breaking, the East African nation is also home to a rising skateboarding scene. The Uganda Skateboard Union is the organization leading the way:
Everytime a web application, service or site requires an e-mail address, I think to myself, "why"? While some businesses have legitimate reasons for asking, the spammers of the world (wide web) always have me thinking twice before signing up.
Paranoia is the enemy of web-based businesses. Most people I know have throwaway/temporary e-mail addresses and there are even services that specialize in them. So when companies attempt to reach users and customers, their electronic voices often fall upon deaf ears.
That's why companies must provide incentives for giving out e-mail addresses and not just making it a required field.
People have an incentive to share their email with social networking companies like Facebook who search address books for friends who also use their services. We also have a good reason to give it to professional networks like LinkedIn for the same reason, except we replace "friends" with "colleagues".
Others, like 2pad, build businesses around it. They has a service that converts email and photos from your inbox into a private gallery. In order to use them, you have to give a valid e-mail address. And since that e-mail address will be likely be one of your most frequently checked, 2pad doesn't have to worry about their messages ending up in an e-mail graveyard.
(I do wonder though: if I signed up with one of my more spammy accounts, what kind of photo album would be created?)
As a web-based business, your only guarantee in reaching users is through your application (which may be rarely accessed) or through the contact info (which is likely to be an e-mail address, though there are other ways in which users can sign up). If you want us to to give you the real deal instead of fake@FakeEmail.com, provide us a real reason to.
This is the trailer for "Bouncing Cats", a film about the Breakdance Project Uganda. The BPU is an organization that uses hip hop and breaking to rehabilitate ex-child soldiers, juvenile prisoners and orphans in war-torn Uganda.
The founder, Abramz, has been doing it for years and has even brought legendary b-boy and pioneer Crazy Legs over to teach area b-boys and b-girls. For anyone who still thinks that breaking is just a fad from the 80's, I'd highly recommend looking into this organization to see how empowering the b-boy art and culture can be.
About a month and a half ago, I created a twitter bot, @tweologian, that searches the Twittersphere for religious-oriented tweets and retweets them. I've always had a fascination with religion and thought it'd be interesting to see how people talked about faith on Twitter. For example, here are some retweets from the last 24 hours:
People are pretty open on Twitter so there have been some really interesting tweets. But another interesting part has been the response!
After creating it (with this PHP bot framework) and setting it to auto-follow any new followers, I took my hands off and let it run. I didn't expect to attract too much attention but almost immediately, people started reacting to the tweets.
After about 3,900 tweets, I have close to 500 followers and have been added to a handful of lists. I'm going to continue running the bot in the same, hands-off way while studying the reactions, but for now, I've gotten a couple of key take-aways:
People are still very vocal about their faiths and Twitter makes it easy to share their beliefs with the world.
The best way to get someone's attention--for better or for worse--is through a retweet.
Here's a great excerpt from the Loco in Yokohama blog about teaching English in Japan:
I teach them how to interact with people they wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to interact with. And I think every student that spends three years with me will go out into the world with little or no fear of the un-alike. To me that is much more important than whatever English they might be able to retain from my lessons. I mean, most of them will never use English in their lives…but what I teach them will probably make them more inclined to open their minds…if I can even approach achieving that goal, then I feel I’ve done a world of good. I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. And the students benefit, as well. It’s a win-win.
Loco is a Black-American male like myself but the quote is applicable to all foreign teachers here. Japan is a very homogeneous country and it's surprisingly (for someone coming from a mixed American city) rare for anyone--students and professionals alike--to come into contact with people who are "different". Here's to remembering that as English teachers, not only are we teaching the language, we're also teaching diversity.
I'm a 20-something year old American seeing more of the world by teaching English in Japan. I dig breaking, web applications and services, African development and life experiences, and so I use this blog to sometimes write about them. See me around the world (wide web) at EbunOmoni.com.
