The average Japanese doesn't know how good they've got it. In Japan, crime is virtually non-existent, the police don't hassle people (never hear of "police brutality") and one can feel safe in their own neighborhood at night. America is not a free country at all anymore. Nevertheless, I often meet Japanese people who have been to the United States and they tell me that they love the country because it is "freedom."
I've come to the conclusion that the idea of what "freedom" is to a Japanese person is different from what "freedom" is to an American.
The Japanese confuse "wide open spaces" with "freedom."
Watch the video below of the famous Japanese girl's group, "Puffy." This video was shot in the USA. This is pretty indicative of what Japanese people consider "freedom." Watch it for a minute.
You see? Wide roads, convertible cars the size of boats, wide open spaces, Statue of Liberty, California palm trees, having a big assed dog, sandy beaches, Los Angeles freeways, driving out in the middle of the desert... These are the things that represent "freedom" to a Japanese.
What represents "freedom" to an American? Well, of course I can't speak for all Americans, but huge cars, big dogs, sandy beaches and Los Angeles freeways (as well as concrete statues) do not represent freedom to me in the least.
Freedom is, to me, is the ability to walk down the street in a major city and smoke a cigarette (I don't smoke) or drink in public or to be able to walk out of my house any time at night or day without the oppression or fear that I am going to be attacked or robbed... And that means being attacked or robbed by criminals or the police, but I repeat myself. These are all things taken for granted in Japan.
Freedom is, to me, to be able to do what I want as long as I don't interfere with other people or bother them. Or to not have other people or the police infringe upon me for no apparent reason.
Freedom is not the United States in 2012 that is for sure.
Sandy Beaches in California? Sure. Just make sure you don't barbecue or throw a Frisbee or a football or dig too deep a sand castle on an Los Angeles beach. It's now a $100 dollar fine if you do.
According to Lucy Kim, from the LA County Department of Beaches and Harbors, a first-time offender will have to pay a $100 fine. For a second offense, beach-goers will face a $200 fine. Three or more infractions within one year will result in a $500 fine, Kim said.
The new ball and Frisbee tossing rules will be relaxed during the winter off-season.
The ordinance also prohibits digging any hole deeper than 18 inches into the sand, except where permission is granted for film and TV production services only.
♫ The home of the brave...
and the land...of the... freeeeeeeeeeeee! ♫
Right! They are going to relax the rules in winter off-season... Great! Nobody goes to the beach in winter off-season!
Of course throwing a Frisbee or football at the beach isn't the complete or comprehensive definition of freedom. Nor is children being able to make sand castles as they wish; neither is the ability to drink or smoke at the beach (neither of which is legal on California State beaches). But I think these are pretty symptomatic of a very un-free country.
Freedom in Japan today blows away freedom in the USA today... Evidence? Here, here, here, here, here and here, just to point out a few.
We can drink and smoke in public, throw Frisbees and make sand castles as we please... Heck, we even have convertible cars too... Admittedly we're a tad bit short on the wide roads department but we have the best public transit and train and subway system in the entire world to make up for that.
Probably not the perfect definition of freedom, but a heck of a lot closer than today's USA is.
Sorry for the misleading title. There is no Thanksgiving in Japan. Well, not at least, at most folks homes. We have turkey around this time at my house every year, though.
I just received an email from my dear uncle who lives in North Carolina, USA. As older folks do, he told me of his ills and he also wished for us to have a good Thanksgiving.
Thanks uncle. I hope you and aunt have a healthy and happy holiday season.
Like I said, there is no Thanksgiving in Japan but we have a turkey. We had ours yesterday. We have it every year on 11/23 which is some sort of Japanese holiday. Japan has a lot of holidays. American people think they take it easy, and they do, but Japan has holidays all the time.
Most foreigners, like me, know that the day is a holiday, but we have no idea what the holiday is. Japan has holidays for old people, working people, children, the emperor's birthday, first day of winter, perhaps summer and besides newspaper holidays, we have a holiday for newspapers (or at least, that's what I thought it was!) 春分 is Shunbun (Vernal equinox). 秋分is Shuubun (Autumnal equinox). 新聞 is Shinbun (newspaper) so when I first heard "Shunbun no hi" (first day of spring) I thought people were saying "Shinbun no hi" (newspaper day). Get it? Shunbun, Shuubun and Shinbun. They all sound the same! "Newspaper day? What a bizarre holiday!" I thought (Don't think I'm so stupid, many foreigners thing the same thing! Or is it just that all my friends are as dumb as I am?)
The problem with Japanese holidays is that everyone goes on vacation at the same time too. So, during holiday season, the best place to be is home. Hopefully one's home isn't so crowded (though, sometimes, two people can be a crowd!)
Japan doesn't have a Thanksgiving because the Japanese didn't wipe out a bunch of Indians and then try to cover their tracks by making a Holiday that looks like white man and the Indians were good old buddies. They weren't. In Japan there were no Indians but the Japanese also had their little expeditions in Okinawa several hundred years ago and in Ezo (now Hokkaido) a few hundred years ago... So if the Japanese did have a Thanksgiving, I suppose, instead of a turkey, they roast a fish or something.
Also, space is a premium in Japanese homes so no one has a big oven like they do in the USA. We have an oven though. A 14 pound turkey is really about as big a turkey as our oven can take. So that's what I roast for the family every year.
I wrote back to my uncle and told him that I roast a turkey every year. I also mentioned that I do this because I want my children to recognize that there are some good things from America and nice traditions that I'd like them to know about. Christmas is celebrated all around the world.
Thanksgiving is, just about, the only tradition from America that I do want them to know about.
Thanksgiving is nice because there are no presents. You don't feel like you have to buy any presents for people you don't really like (so you wind up buying some junk or cologne at the last minute). Or some other occasions when you have to get together with people you don't like either.
Thanksgiving doesn't exist in Japan. But we get together and enjoy good food with family and friends...
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
May the holiday season see you and yours healthy and prosperous.
-Mike
PS: We always eat and drink too much on 11/23 in Japan... Well, exactly speaking we eat too much on that day. I drink too much everyday!
I want to write something that I think will be received by most Americans like my article on Lew Rockwell (LRC) entitled, "America is Bankrupt." According to Lew, that was the #2 most read article on LRC in 2005. It was roundly criticized by many Americans and even got me death threats.
Now, over 6 years years later it doesn't raise an eyebrow. I predicted the future. In fact, things are even worse than I could have imagined.
JUNIOR MURVIN - POLICE AND THIEVES
Today's article is another one ABOUT how bad life in the USA has become for the average person.
I went to America a few months ago to see my deathly ill father. I didn't want to go to America. I hate going to that place.
Why do I hate going to America? Well, there's something very wrong about that country. From the moment you land at the airport - I always land at Los Angeles International (LAX) - there's a tension in the air. I can't put my finger on it exactly but it seems like a racial tension. It certainly got worse after the Los Angeles riots of the early 1990's after the LA police beat up Rodney King.
Most Americans realize that America is an extremely messed up place and they will talk about it and complain about it amongst themselves but they will take umbrage with you if you, as an outsider, bring it up.
People may know that their kid is an idiot but they don't like it if you say so....
America is only royally screwed up place. Though most Americans recognize that fact, many are in serious denial or think that it is "still the best". Americans are so used to being treated like third-class citizens that they fail to comprehend what has happened to their country. Americans are so dense that they think it is normal to be yelled at by police or at the airport and treated like cattle. They think that this kind of behavior is normal.
Well, it is not. It's bizarre and uniquely American.
Why don't Americans recognize how bad that country has become? I suppose it's kind of like the frog in the slowly boiling water: The sh*t has been hitting the fan so slowly that Americans cannot see what kind of a crappy third-world country that place has become.
The biggest reason I hate that place are the police and the airport. You know, when you go to any other civilized country in the world, and leave, they don't ask you to strip down naked and take off your shoes like the USA does. They don't ask that you go through an X-ray machine like the USA does.
The last time I went to a foreign country, besides the USA, I went to Hong Kong. Weird, those Chinese. Those people are polite and actually pleased that you come to visit. They are polite and kind to you. They treat you with respect. What's their problem? I had the same problems whenever I visited any other country in Eastern Asia or Oceania: The border and customs officials were polite and seemed happy to have me and my wife and children visit.
Odd balls, aren't they? I mean, who wouldn't think a guy who looks like a white American with his Japanese wife and 6 year old son and two teenage daughters with their Gucci bags aren't terrorists with bombs strapped to themselves under their clothing ready to suicide themselves for the freedom of designerbagistan?
The USA? The immigration agent looks at my USA passport, his lips curl at the corners and he barks in a most foul attitude,
"What is your purpose in visiting the USA?"
"Uh, duh! Hello. I have an US passport, dummy! I am an American." I think, "What is your purpose in being such a dolt?" (of course I don't not verbalize what I am thinking).
And that brings me to an interesting thing I heard from an American woman the other day. We were talking about this very same subject. She said that she recently went back to New York and was surprised because people were "nicer" than she remembered them being. She had been living in Japan since the year 2000.
I asked her to explain what she meant by "people being 'nicer'."
She said that wherever she went, to stores or shops, it seemed that people were friendlier and more polite than she remembered. She said that when she was at a coffee shop, whenever customers walked in, they would always say a very polite "good morning" to the clerks and staff.
She's right. American people do this. I've noticed it too. It is much more pronounced than it used to be before 9/11. In fact, I have pondered about this and why it happens as I love to watch people and, in my amateur views on humanity and social behavior, reason why people act the way they do.
When I was in the USA a few months ago, I saw this very same behavior by people in many places I went. It has been becoming more and more pronounced as the US police state grows and crime grows along with it.
Not anymore, they don't
I didn't usually notice these overly friendly salutations at chain restaurants such as a McDonald's or fried chicken establishments or at large, very crowded restaurants. (I did, though, notice many security cameras at a McDonald's that I stopped at to get a cup of coffee off the 101 freeway heading back to LAX). I noticed this sort of overly friendly greetings and gestures at small restaurants like corner donut shops, liquor stores or out of the way mom & pop coffee shops.... You know, the kinds of places that didn't have wide security apparatus and cameras like the famous chain restaurants that did or the large restaurants that were heavy with customer traffic, those were the kinds of places whereby customers would walk in (seemingly somewhat nervous) and give out a hearty "Good morning!"
I noticed this sort of behavior by customers at these small shops.
"Now, I wondered, "why are people acting so overly friendly? Isn't it strange?"
I did some very surface research about crime in my home county and found that more than 10% of all felonies were robbery (with 85% being assault)... When it came to property offenses, over 1/3 were theft.
Perhaps my image is wrong, but it seems to me that robberies of these little corner shops and mom and pop restaurants are far more prevalent than robberies of big chain restaurants and establishments that are full of customers. Low traffic and poor security seem to me to make an easier target.
So, how does this abnormally high amount of extremely friendly greeting work as a self-defense mechanism? It dawned on me at a coffee shop in Oxnard, California.
I walked in. The shops clerks looked at me. They were a Vietnamese couple. Nice folks. I quietly said, "Good morning." I made my order. After me, several others came in. They all gave out a very loud "Good morning!" (It seemed too loud, in fact)... Everyone did this as they filed in and out of the shop. I sat down and enjoyed my coffee at one of the two (dirty) tables available.
One after another, people came in with a very loud, "Good morning to you!" "How are you today?" etc. Nevertheless, there was that tension in the air. The same one I always felt at LAX. If you always lived in Southern California, you'd probably never notice it. But if you lived outside of the USA, this tension is very heavy and like soup in the air; it is a very heavy fog.
The tension is in the air. The people all greet in a loud, yet mechanical way. "What is the reason?" I thought....
Then it dawned on me.
I believe that this excessively friendly greeting and attitude was a method of self-defense. When these people walk into an establishment like the ones described above, they say a hearty (exaggeratedly friendly) "Good morning!"
The true meaning of this greeting is not, de facto "Good morning!" it actually means, "Don't worry about me. I am a safe person and mean you no harm. I just want to come and go about my business."
The greeting disarms people and allows them not to worry and can give them a chance to relax... Like I said, it is a defense mechanism.
It is just one more reason why the USA has gone to hell in a hand basket. People must now announce their intentions in coded language to others to show that they mean no harm. It used to be the other way around; people expected others to be civil; that was normal and a matter of course.
It used to be that it was normal behavior that everyone was not a criminal and only criminals announced their intentions upon entering and establishment by way of saying something like, "This is a robbery! Put your hands up!" Now, in 2011 USA, normal people must disarm others by announcing that they are not criminals by saying "Good morning!"
Many Americans will scoff at this idea (like they scoffed at my 2005 article). But, deny it as you wish, it is pretty difficult for any human being to shut off their basic human survival mechanism regardless of what country they are living in.
In today's USA it is necessary to let others know that you have no ill-intentions. It used to be obvious and common that people had no ill-intentions towards others... In today's USA? One never knows. In today's USA you must broadcast your intentions. It is a bizarre and sad state of affairs.
