{"id":135,"date":"2008-02-06T16:29:02","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T15:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morbidcornflakes.ch\/thduggies_blog\/?p=135"},"modified":"2008-02-06T16:29:02","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T15:29:02","slug":"would-you-like-to-review-what-your-life-should-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/2008\/would-you-like-to-review-what-your-life-should-be","title":{"rendered":"Would you like to review what your life should be…?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Go to www.yoshikawakuni.co.jp<\/a> and choose “Product,” then “Dust.”\u00c2\u00a0 Or just browse through the product range.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s delightful.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a trash can in the restaurant washroom ask me the profound question in the title of this post.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday we visited a customer whose company sits between a rusty Ferris wheel (kanransha) and lake Biwa.\u00c2\u00a0 It mostly went well, but it also showed how sensitive AFM<\/a> measurements can be: we could tell whenever a truck outside the building started up its motor.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the way back to Osaka I finished Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.”\u00c2\u00a0 I found it very readable and an interesting look at how an African\u00c2\u00a0society worked before European colonisation.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t feel like Achebe called for approval of Igbo society, but he does a good job of showing the finely tuned checks and balances that sustained it, even if some of those shocked me, such as the custom of throwing away twins.\u00c2\u00a0 That this society should fall apart and with it many of its members seems more understandable, and it also helps explain, at least to me, why after the end of colonial rule African countries are having such a hard time reverting to anything resembling stability.\u00c2\u00a0 The point Brenda makes in the Snow post comment about a culture in which the\u00c2\u00a0concepts of sin, guilt, and redemption\u00c2\u00a0don’t compute is one that occupies a lot of Shusaku Endo’s writing and lies at the core of cross-cultural communication and missionary work.\u00c2\u00a0 How often do we rely on cultural pre-suppositions to explain the gospel, on imagery and a world of ideas that is so alien it elicits nothing but baffled, pitying smiles?\u00c2\u00a0 It makes one wonder what kind of conversions come of that preaching, especially when it is combined with subtle bribery, be it intentional or unintentional.\u00c2\u00a0 The story also shows how most people react to change with resistance, no matter what kind of change it may be.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the evening I met up with Jo\u00c3\u00abl, who works in the Nara area.\u00c2\u00a0 We went for dinner in an izakaya opposite the yakitori place he knew, but which was full.\u00c2\u00a0 The food wasn’t bad, but the different dishes varied greatly.\u00c2\u00a0 I ordered black beer, after asking if they had any.\u00c2\u00a0 The longer I sat there and the more beer I’d had, the more signs boldly announcing their black beer I discovered.\u00c2\u00a0 We spent a nice evening catching up: girlfriends, experiencing Japan, different approaches to Japan, food, beer, tax declarations, and recent trips.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today our customer visit took us out to Kobe.\u00c2\u00a0 I spotted a building with the sign “La Vie En Soft” which to me would suit a toilet paper packaging better than what I assume is a love hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 We left the highway at the Fusehata interchange<\/a>, which is worth a brief look from above just for\u00c2\u00a0its ramen noodle complexity, and had lunch at the Kamomeya (“seagull house”) restaurant which sported the ponderous trash can.\u00c2\u00a0 The restaurant advertised “Beef & Lobster,” which turned out to be beef and prawns, but good beef and prawns.\u00c2\u00a0 The beef in particular surprised me in its tenderness.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The visit was my shortest ever.\u00c2\u00a0 The customer declared himself busy, we did him a quick favor, and returned.\u00c2\u00a0 I suppose we made a good impression, although I wonder if the time couldn’t have been spent to better effect.\u00c2\u00a0 I used the extra time at the hotel to write reports and business e-mails.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

At about ten past six I left and walked to the next subway station, Nishi-Nakajima-minamigata.\u00c2\u00a0 It must be one of the longest station names I’ve come across in Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 My goal was Shinsaibashi, where I met up with Naomi and her two friends with whom she’s touring Japan for four weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 We headed to Naomi’s friend Lionel’s Dragonfly Caf\u00c3\u00a9<\/a>, where the girls had croque monsieur and I convinced Lionel to make me a tomme pan\u00c3\u00a9.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s originally from Geneva and knows where to source some really good European food.\u00c2\u00a0 The girls had to catch a night bus to Tokyo, so we left at a reasonable hour and stopped at a conbini to get some snacks for the road.\u00c2\u00a0 I bought a shirodaifuku<\/a>, a mochi ball with smooth red bean paste filling, and when I discovered the tatsuta-age chicken<\/a> at the checkout I had some of that and shared it around, since I’d praised it before as one of the tasty Japanese foods.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I finished Orson Scott Card’s introduction to “Speaker of the Dead” on the subway ride home and look forward to the book, even though I feel slightly dishonest at having told Janet’s mother I didn’t really read science fiction much anymore and then going out and buying two science fiction books in the Orlando airport.\u00c2\u00a0 At any rate, I much prefer a Mormon science fiction author\u00c2\u00a0over a Mormon president, so in that sense Tuesday had its other advantages.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, while I review my life should be, it occurs to me that Lent is upon us.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought about giving up alcohol again, but decided against it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll try something harder: giving up internet videos.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll see if I can give up something that\u00c2\u00a0requires a much less conscious decision for participation…\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go to www.yoshikawakuni.co.jp and choose “Product,” then “Dust.”\u00c2\u00a0 Or just browse through the product range.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s delightful.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a trash can in the restaurant washroom ask me the profound question in the title of this post.\u00c2\u00a0 Yesterday we visited a customer whose company sits between a rusty Ferris wheel (kanransha) and lake Biwa.\u00c2\u00a0 It mostly went well, but it also showed how sensitive AFM measurements can be: we could tell whenever a truck outside the building started up its motor.\u00c2\u00a0 On the way back to Osaka I finished Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.”\u00c2\u00a0 I found it very readable and an interesting look at how an African\u00c2\u00a0society worked before European colonisation.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}