Tokyo Vice

If there is one thing that makes commuting bearable (and I daresay fun) it is NPR.

On my way home tonight, I stumbled upon an interview with Jake Adelstein – author of ‘Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan’

Jake has led an extraordinary life by any standard. Here is an excerpt from an interview with him on Amazon:

“Question: What drew you to Japan in the first place, and how did you wind up going to university there?

Jake Adelstein: In high school I had many problems with anger and self-control. I had been studying Zen Buddhism and karate, and I thought Japan would be the perfect place to reinvent myself. It could be that my pointy right ear draws me toward neo-Vulcan pursuits–I don’t know. When I got to Japan, I managed to find lodgings in a Soto Zen Buddhist temple where I lived for three years, attending zazen meditation at least once a week. I didn’t become enlightened, but I did get a better hold on myself.

Question: How did you become a journalist for the most popular Japanese-language newspaper?

Jake Adelstein: The Yomiuri Shinbun runs a standardized test, open to all college students. Many Japanese firms hire young grads this way. My friends thought that the idea of a white guy trying to pass a Japanese journalist’s exam was so impossibly quixotic that I wanted to prove them wrong. I spent an entire year eating instant ramen and studying. I managed to find the time to do it by quitting my job as an English teacher and working as a Swedish-massage therapist for three overworked Japanese women two days a week. It turned out to be a slightly sleazy gig, but it paid the bills.

There was a point when I was ready to give up studying and the application process. Then, when I was in Kabukicho on June 22, 1992, I asked a tarot fortune-telling machine for advice on my career path, and it said that with my overpowering morbid curiosity I was destined to become a journalist, a job at which I would flourish, and that fate would be on my side. I took that as a good sign. I still have the printout.

I did well enough on the initial exam to get to the interviews, and managed to stumble my way through that process and get hired. I think I was an experimental case that turned out reasonably well.”

Some interesting nuggets from the interview on NPR.

• The sex trade is big business in Japan, and is largely legal. According to one Joan Sinclair (via Wikipedia), “the sex industry in Japan ironically offer[s] absolutely everything imaginable but sex.” This is because other than the actual act of intercourse, nothing else falls under the legal definition of ‘prostitution’.
• In case someone is apprehended, neither the prostitute nor the customer are liable for punishment, only the ‘pimp’ or the brothel owner is!
• The Japanese have strange fetishes.

Bottomline? I am putting Tokyo Vice on my wish list. And I intend to contribute to NPR’s next fundraising effort!

We ‘want’ them broken

Hat tip to Aristotle the Geek for this one.

”You honest men are such a problem and such a headache. But we know you’d slip sooner or later—and this is just what we wanted.”
”You seem to be pleased about it.”
”Don’t I have good reason to be?”
”But, after all, I did break one of your laws.”
”Well, what do you think they’re for?”
Dr. Ferris did not notice the sudden look on Rearden’s face, the look of a man hit by the first vision of that which he had sought to see. Dr. Ferris was past the stage of seeing; he was intent upon delivering the last blows to an animal caught in a trap.
”Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Events

I read Funes the memorious, and thought* – what is an ‘event’? Some Wiki-diving reveals that philosophers are still divided over how to define an event.

What is an event? [To my lay brain, an 'event' is the temporal equivalent of a point in space**. You can see it (in your minds eye), assign co-ordinates (properties) to it, but "it" is infinitesimal.]

What is the extent of my memory? [I distinctly remember Scotland - 1989, I remember some vague stuff about Mini KG and nursery - 1987]

What is the granularity of my memory? [Definitely not points but some larger intervals of time - incidents, places, smells, sounds]

What is the capacity of human memory? [Landauer did a study that estimates it at a few hundred megabytes! A summary is here]

*Says Borges, “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes, there was nothing but details, contiguous details.”

**I have not studied relativity and don’t understand spacetime. My thought process is firmly Euclidean.

Conservatory of monkeys.

“Show me something original!” said the producer.
“Original?, but there is no such thing Sir!”, replied Benjarong.
“What do you mean there is no such thing?”
“A musical piece is but a permutation of notes that sound pleasing to the ear, is it not?”
“Yes”
“If I had a million monkeys and gave them a million pianos and left them in a room, one of them would likely come up with a musical piece, could he not?”
“A trillion monkeys perhaps, but I see your point.”
“And what if there was an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of pianos kept there forever. Is it not guaranteed that all the musical pieces that ever were, are, and will be, will be produced by them, eventually?”
“You have been reading too much Borges, Ben!”
“Guilty as charged Sir, but why pick on this glorified monkey?! Let us just make the audience happy and leave ‘originality’ to the critics!”

Just another conversation?

Me: Who am I?
Me: Who wants to know?
Me: I do.
Me: Who am I?
Me: Ok, this cycle is fake. I think, therefore I am, so the existence of I is not in question, the nature and description of I is in question.
Me: Ok, what is the nature and description of I?
Me: Umm, how do I tell you?
Me: With words of course, how else?
Me: Words? What do words mean to you?
Me: Words mean what they are meant to mean.
Me: Who told you what they are meant to mean?
Me: Life did. Experiences and all that. Plus, I agreed to agree with the meaning of words so I could talk to other folks, you know!
Me: I see. So the best description of yourself that you can come up with, is one based on “ideas based on your experiences (in other words, words)”?
Me: It appears so.
Me: In that case, you are what you do.
Me: I’d rather say I am what I think I am.
Me: But you can only think within the framework of ideas that were based on your actions with respect to your universe, can’t you?
Me: I suppose so. I can’t imagine the unimaginable. I am a sentient being, given ways to interact with and interpret the universe and that is all that I am.
Me: Hmm, so aren’t you just a glorified animal?
Me: Yes, a questioning animal, I certainly am. Is this question tending to mu.
Me: Why mu? Don’t you think “unasking” this question is escapist?
Me: No. I am not running away from the question, just attempting to understand it better. Perhaps I will re-ask it later and better and close the door on mu.
Me: Ok, understand it better, then.
Me: I will procrastinate. Right now, the animal is hungry and must be fed.
Me: Dang it, you’re right! Just feed the animal. Feeding us is going to take forever anyway and our hunger will probably never be quenched.

Thus spake Nietszche

A fable.— The Don Juan of knowledge: no philosopher or poet has yet discovered him. He does not love the things he knows, but has spirit and appetite for an enjoyment of the chase and intrigues of knowledge—up to the highest and remotest stars of knowledge!—until at last there remains to him nothing of knowledge left to hunt down except the absolutely detrimental; he is like the drunkard who ends by drinking absinthe and aqua fortis. Thus in the end he lusts after Hell—it is the last knowledge that seduces him. Perhaps it too proves a disillusionment, like all knowledge! And then he would have to stand to all eternity transfixed to disillusionment and himself become a stone guest, with a longing for a supper of knowledge which he will never get!—for the whole universe has not a single morsel left to give to this hungry man. – Nietzsche

To have an ‘unquenchable’ thirst – that sounds like hell. But Sisyphus must be happy, mustn’t he?

Was Sisyphus happy because he had hope? Was Sisyphus happy because of his ignorance of the fact – that his task was unending? Did Sisyphus know that his existence was – in a sense – absurd?

I am Sisyphus. I must find my absurd task and make my peace with it.

Uisge beatha

Life is an acquired taste.

There are times when it is unpalatable. Just suck it up, and learn to enjoy it. Eventually you (me) acquire a taste for it. Like single malt Scotch whisky, perhaps?

Uisge beatha, n: Gaelic
Water of Life.The original name given to that Golden nectar by the Celts Of Scotland,  also known as whisky, never whiskey.

Interesting entrepreneurs

I came across this article about some very interesting African entrepreneurs on the Freakonomics blog. But what caught my eye was one of the comments below by one Joe Smith. He very succinctly summarizes the “preconditions for economic development”:

We’ve known for a long time what the preconditions are for economic development: (1) physical security (no one will accumulate capital if it will only result in their being murdered) (2) the rule of law (property rights are enforceable and corruption is at a minimum) (3) the right to trade more or less freely.

These pre-conditions of economic development have not changed in thousands of years.

— Joe Smith

Sound bites

Life is a series of “who has the better soundbite?” pissing contests. — he (she?) who shall not be named, on Facebook

Here’s a list of my favorite “soundbites” from the week past.

…To “succeed” I really did have to quit pursuing success, and quit blaming myself for failing…

Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal (which I have only heard effusive praise for, but have not read), talks about his Vipassana experience on the Happy Days blog at NY Times.

Taraste hue uske hathon ne || Teri kalayi ko yun chhua hai || Jaise uski dhadkan pooch rahi ho || Bhaiya time kya hua hai

From the fecund mind of a friend who they call GPD on Facebook

Bhakarwadi was invented by Gujaratis, but Maharashtrians make it better. (citation needed)

Another random claim (along the lines of Mumbai was founded by Maharashtrians but Gujaratis made it what it is)by Bongo-Mandongo

Finally, an actual Sound Bite that I am hooked on from Dev D.

Raag Bihag

Simple bandish, beautiful thought, sung by the maestro (video courtesy of sj6288 on YouTube):

laTT ulajhee sulajhaa jaa baalamaa
haatho me mehendee lagee hai moree |

mathe kee bindiyaa bikhara gayee moree
apane haatha sajaa jaa re ||