Tim’s Ramblings

Yes…a slightly non-PC title but it’s true.

I may have meantioned the annoying US businessmen in the past but this time it was just annoying tourists. Yes…they were all from the US (at least their accent and dress indicated as much) but I don’t think it’s just Americans….

Now I’m not generalizing either. I have traveled with plenty of people and none of them were jackasses like these examples…I’m just writing about them here as anecdotal stories. There are plenty of Japanese jackasses too :)

Example #1. I’m at that museum with my dad yesterday and in the exhibit for early 20th century Tokyo, there was a car, not unlike the Model-T that was popular amongst the gentry in Japan at that time. It was a full size model and you can even get in it. Plenty of families and such were climbing in and getting their pictures taken and such.

As I was looking at the exhibits around it, my ears perked up when I heard a bunch of guys talking in English. I look behind me and I see about 5 what I think are American college students. At least a few of them were wearing college shirts or hats. Typical jocky type but then again, who knows right?

They see the car and decide to climb in to get a picture so they hand their camera to one of the guys and 4 guys climb in. Then what do I see? All 4 of them proceed to pull their eyes back like kids used to do to mock Asians. You know…the whole “slitty eyes” thing. Holy fuck…

First off, doing it past the age of 10 is questionable… Doing it in a public place? Even more so. But doing it in the fucking country that you are mocking? You gotta be shitting me… They’re all pulling their eyes back giggling like idiots…but as I was walking past the guy taking the picture, I accidentally let out a vocal “you’re shitting me…” when I saw what they were doing.

The guy with the camera I think heard me since he breifly made eye contact with me, quickly looked away, took only one picture and was trying to get the guys to move on. Of coures they wouldn’t but by then I was past that area and I never ran into them again. …wow…

Example #2. On Thursday or Friday, I’m at breakfast when I hear a woman speaking English LOUDLY from the table right behind me. I wasn’t really paying attention at first but from what it sounded like she was at breakfast and she met up with her guide. Either someone from her partner company or someone. Anyway, it sounded like this Japanese guy who spoke OK English was showing her around. Eventually her group appeared and that’s when their conversation caught my attention.

She asked the guide what kind of meat they ate the night before at the restaurant. The guy tells her that it was beef but it was fillet and also tongue. Beef tongue is quite popular in Japan and is quite tasty and tender. It sounded like they went to a yakiniku place where you cook your own slices of meat.

As soon as he tells her it was beef she starts going “Nooooo. That can’t be beef! I cook beef all the time and it NEVER tasted like that! There’s no way Japanese beef can be so different!”

(Note: It is quite different since here, the beef is heavily marbled as we eat it very thinly sliced. In the US the beef is lean but not here. Because of that even the texture and the flavor can be different and quite tasty.)

He keeps explaining to her that it was very high quality beef and that even though he does not know that it tasted any different in the US, that it was, without question, beef.

She then actually tells him, “Well, that couldn’t have been beef! Was it dog or cat? It’s ok if it was dog or cat. It was good! But it wasn’t beef. That MUST have been a dog or cat meat right??”

“Um…no…it was beef.”

“I bet you it was dog. Because that wasn’t beef. It was dog or cat meat I’m sure of it!”

My god….

I just wanted to turn around and go “Listen bitch…the guy who fucking LIVES HERE is telling you it’s beef. Besides study up on Japan a bit huh? We do NOT eat DOG AND CAT!! You IDIOT!!!!”

Instead I quickly finished my meal and left. When I left I realized it wasn’t just her and the guide but she had coworkers with her too but they were all quiet and kind of looking the other way. If I was traveling with her I would have sooooo left her in the middle of Shinjuku never to find her way back again. “It must have been a dog…”…jeezus…

So yeah, I know it’s not just white people… Hell, I’ve been annoyed at other Japanese people in the US too. Many people from China have no concept of getting in a line and that you shouldn’t spit every chance you get (the government is trying to teach them that this is not accepted outside of China…especially with the Olympics around the corner). People from India and other countries have a very different sense of personal space. So on and so forth. But these were the recent examples I’ve run into.

So please, dear readers. Don’t be like them. Because if I find out you were, I’m going to have to smack you upside you head.

*sigh*….

…Charlize Theron is doing a commercial for bodywash here in Japan. Mmmmmmm……yummy… (her…not the body wash…I’m pretty sure that’ll taste like fragrant soap).

Oh, and if there is one thing I like, it’s the soundtrack they use for Japanese TV. Depending on the scene, I’ve heard in the past hour, Sabbath, Faith No More, video game soundtracks (from Tekken, Final Fantasy, and others), and movie soundtracks like Resident Evil and such (yes…I recognized the Resident Evil theme…). I wonder if copyright laws are a tad different here or US TV just doesn’t bother getting rights and will make their own.

But anyway, yes, this is late…but I was dead tired last night. I actually fell asleep before 10pm last night. Ugh. Still tired today too, especially after the morning meeting combined with a 2 hour presentation/Q&A this afternoon. I knew I was beat when my eyelids were getting heavy with just one medium glass of beer with my yaki udon (pan fried udon noodles, this one combined with squid and cod roe) that I had on the way home. Yow.

However, I decided to beat my sleepiness and update :) I know you will all thank me. It’s ok. I do it all for you, my readers. All…what…like what…5 of you? Heh heh heh.

Click on for the pictures!
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Don’t know if I’ll get around to doing a formal update of today’s activities as it’s past 11 and my jet lag is starting to kick in (basically I just hung out with mom and my aunt but I thought I’d take the opportunity to post about the daily life in Japan outside of Tokyo) but I wanted to post this one since it’s just so…weird. At least to me.

Now, I say it’s weird to me because I’m not a woman (yes, it’s true…) so I must ask the female readers here to please comment or e-mail me back about this. I’m really curious if I’ll get a bunch of “what the hell???” or if I will get a bunch of “Screw you!!! THIS is what us women go through every day to meet the ever rising standards of today’s impossible Hollywood inspired falsehoods of beauty!!!”

*ahem*

Or maybe something in between….

Anyway, I was in a typical drug store with my mom and my aunt since they wanted to pick up a few things. But while browsing, I ran into this…and naturally I took a pic.

Um…what the hell????

According to the package, the name of the product directly translated is “Aluminum Double Chin Shape”. It claims that as soon as you put it on you’ll start sweating…alot. By “blocking infrared radiation generated by your body and instead reflect it back into you it will increase the temperature to an amazing level and get rid of any excess water in your body as sweat”.

Huh?

It claims to slim up your neck and chin and even help with getting rid of your double chin. As if the fat in your body will just melt away as water or that your double chin is the result of your chin retaining too much water like a camel’s hump…. Now..if they claimed that they can somehow liquidize the fat in your body and have it start oozing out of your pores, maybe I can understand this (ewwwwwwwwwwwww) but…really… This can’t really work right?

I know the sauna is refreshing by opening up your pores and letting you just sweat it out…but…not sure if you can actually slim up by concentrating the sweating to parts of your body. Because if that’s the case, I know some people that should have some unbelievably skinny armpits…. Though…I’ve also never seen a fat armpit either…hmm…maybe it DOES work. :)

It just looks freaky though.

I did a bit of searching on the web and found out that this company also makes other products…including one that takes this concept to the absolute extreme as seen here…

Holy crap.

Do you really need to look like some futuristic Jason to look good? I mean….Jason X (the one where he was in space in the future….watch it..it’s funny) had a metal hockey mask in that one but he still looked like shit. :)

Anyway, am I the only one that thinks this is just bizarre?? Comments?