Posted on 02/22/2014 10:44:53 PM PST by Slings and Arrows
Ya. Perfect for an impressionable young boy.
I was telling my son about the movie about the people who were stranded on an Island without food. Only there was food. Mushrooms! Beware of the mushrooms because if you eat them you’ll turn into one. Sure enough, one by one they ate the mushrooms.
Darn. I can remember the name. Help me please!
Or the strange foamy substance that would dissolve a person so all that remained were their clothes.
“In Japan, hip hop clothes are considered stylish.”
The tentacles and vending machines were a hint, but now I know for sure Japan is weird.
ing Ghidorah is really cool too. Three heads are better than one!
Oh, yeah, after just short of a decade living there I came back with some very interesting insights on what it is to be an American, not all of them happy but some of them surprisingly so. There is less...structure here, and it makes many Japanese uncomfortable and a little adrift. We tend to think of it as freedom, they tend to see it as lack of guidance where guidance is called for.
The Japanese plan, and plan, and plan, and meticulously plan, and when finally they execute it is with astonishing efficiency and speed. Americans tend to wing it, far more wasteful of resources and replacing efficiency with brute power. In combined operations that has passed the point of frustration and achieved a sense of high humor on both sides. I recall a naval exercise when the concept of "patrol a sector" came up. I explained it as "the ship will go out there and mess around a little bit at random". My counterpart sucked his breath and said with mock seriousness, "Ah, we Japanese do not mess around," perfectly aware of the double meaning.
That can be good and bad, because initiative is sometimes stifled by a determination to plan. Just before I returned to the States there was a case that illustrates this. A very drunk businessman fell off a railway platform with a train coming and three young Americans - Marines - jumped down, threw him back up, and jumped back themselves in the nick of time, with the rest of the people on the platform watching with their mouths open. No one who knows them would accuse the Japanese of any lack of physical bravery, so it wasn't that at all. They were waiting for a consensus and a plan. Where there was no time for either they were at a loss.
But where there is...I watched them build a bank in my neighborhood. It was like a ballet, every move pre-choreographed and probably rehearsed, every component precisely where it needed to be, and the thing was up like magic before my eyes. Very, very impressive. Incredible discipline, incredible teamwork.
I have entertained perhaps a half dozen of my old Japanese friends here in the States since then, all highly organized tours because they have so little leisure that it must be planned meticulously in advance, which - see above - they're inclined to do anyway. What do they all want to do? Shoot guns, every one.
You aren't kidding! I thought Chicago was bad, but at least Chicago drivers will only kill you to get where they're going. In Massachusetts it's personal.
Was there ever any doubt?
NOW you tell me.
There IS considerable overlap.
He is friend of children!
“I thought the way they drove to be psychotic (never mind downright rude) when I visited Boston.”
I took the kid and a friend to Boston years ago, hubby said, oh don’t worry driving there is OK.
Yeah right.
I came home and said: I’ll drive a yellow cab in NYC for the rest of my life as long as I never have to drive in Beantown again!
They are the worst.
Amsoc primesource minis.
The foundation of American Socialist order is its powerful, authoritarian government agencies.
http://www.sacra-pizza-man.org/popups/amsocPrimethink.html
I ran bing translator on your links and it is even funnier.
I’m sure that Japanese travelers will be glad to know that.
This young lady’s journey is interesting but here’s a quick vid she did that can serve as a primer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YO4x4F1yvY
Her journey starts here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPppQT3yXz4
youtube search “foreign exchange students in USA” and there’s lots of them.
Some are vblogs from start to finish, some are single posts.
We use :) and ;) perhaps we need something like, ‘,)
(It’s the best I could do with my keyboard.
Your synopsis was very perceptive and helpful.
Bookmarked for later digestion.
Thanks, Slings.
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