Wednesday allergy

I have made an interesting discovery. . . I am allergic to Wednesday (the cat, not the day -- then again, maybe the day as well).

The past few times I've visited Okia's apartment to see Weds, barely three minutes pass before my eyes start to itch and I develop a fit of sneezing. The first time this happened, I thought it was just a coincidence. But after the second, third time, I'm convinced that it's not.

But how could it be? I lived with the little guy for a year-and-a-half! Sigh. I guess now, my visits will have to be confined to under three minutes -- which would probably suit Weds just fine -- he's going through an anti-human (or maybe it's just an anti-Ini) phase.

Anyway, it's been a while since my last Weds photo, so here's one.

And I thought I was the klutz!

Do you remember this post about the convoluted set-up (cool, but convoluted nonetheless) of my workplace in New York, and my prediction that I would go tumbling down the stairs just when my crush from the video-editing department walked in? Well, looks like I wasn't the one who should have been worried about being a klutz. Behold my former crush at -1:48 (not sure why it's counting backwards)!

I know I'm being a bit mean but it is pretty funny! And I will be the first to admit that I've walked into way more than my share of (visible) walls and doorposts.

The secret signature of my soul

Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop, or the clap clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt, you would say, "Here at last is the thing I was made for." We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

--The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis

Have you experienced this? This sense that you were made for something more, a deeper longing for something greater that even you can't define? Does it feel like what C.S. Lewis describes. . .something just beyond your reach, "promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away as they caught your ear?"

Does it always remain beyond our reach? Or do we choose -- because we are too afraid, or too busy, or too comfortable with our lives as they are -- to not reach out and grasp it?

And if so, is this lack what makes us exist instead of LIVE, settle for functionality instead striving for PASSION and practice religion instead of pursuing a RELATIONSHIP with our Creator.

Is it a fruitless endeavor, at least in this life? Will we go to our deathbeds still longing for something we've never been able to reach? How do we find the "echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself?" And what if we lose the desire altogether?

To know or not to know

At one time or another, we've all been through it. We stand in front of a (metaphorical) closed door, faced with two choices. We can either open it and deal with whatever is behind it, or we can leave it shut and never know.

I've been asking myself which course I would take. Would I rather know, even if the answer turns out to be something I really don't want to hear, or would I prefer to let it remain unknown.

When faced with this dilemma in the past, I've always opted to know, no matter how painful. And painful it has been. But the need to know has always trumped the fear of getting hurt. "I just want to know! I can handle anything as long as I know!" But then, more often than not, when I have found out, I've realized that I'd have been better off not knowing. Surely the wise people who came up with sayings like "ignorance is bliss," and "what you don't know can't hurt you" were right. No?

I'm in a situation now where I could either let the door remain shut and retreat quietly, or open it and face one of two possible solutions -- one that I want -- very much -- and one that I don't -- very much. If I leave it, there won't really be any adverse effect -- after all, if I don't know what could have been, I can't really count it as loss. On the other hand. . . oh, the possibilities if it turns out to be what I want! And yet, even as that unconscious smile begins to appear at the thought of what could be, I'm reminded of what the alternative could mean.

But the familiar mantra is never far away. If only I knew. I could deal with anything, if I just knew!! I can't stand not knowing!

In the end, I know I will choose to find out. I am, after all, in the business of finding things out. I just hope I can deal with the consequences.

Yokohama and turning 27!

Seeing as last Friday was Black Friday, Okia and I decided we were due for another Ikea trip in memory of our U.S. days! Just to keep life exciting, we headed off to Yokohama this time, a different place and a different Ikea. We spent most of the day there, and emerged hours later, duly laden with lots of good (but necessary) stuff.

Deciding that we'd earned a good dinner, we headed off to Chinatown for a wander around and some yummy Chinese food.

Some pictures from Chinatown:
Ini in front of one of the Chinatown gates

The world's best Nikuman (pork bun) shop (or so they claimed)

Enjoying the world's best Nikuman

Okia trying to decide which of two identical pink teapots was prettier

A real rotary phone in the restaurant where we ate

Ahhh! Food!

The next day I turned 27! Something about getting older must have triggered some sort of signal in me, because I spent most of the day huffing and puffing, rearranging my furniture to make my apartment more homey. I think I sort of suceeded (pics to come!) That evening, a few friends and I went out to a bar with some live music for a very low-key celebration.

A tough decision

A recent chat I had with a friend about a career decision he was facing set me thinking. If I had the opportunity to work on behalf of someone who everybody knows has caused a great deal of pain and suffering, but has not yet been tried, and therefore not convicted, would I take that position?

Arguments in favor: everyone is innocent until proven guilty; even the most heinous of criminals is entitled to being treated fairly; and, careerwise, it would be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Arguments against: well, everything else. . . that, despite the fact that he has not been convicted, his crimes are well known and documented. Could I, well aware of the atrocities this person has committed, willingly ally myself with him?

As we struggled through the pros and cons of the situation, I remembered my previous post about the movie Dead Man Walking, how Sr. Helen Prejean remained firmly on the side of a convicted killer, despite everyone around her condemning her for her decision. And I thought of Jesus and the company he kept -- people who had not yet been tried or convicted, but about whose sinfulness nobody had any illusions.

But I still wasn't convinced. This person's crimes are on a much larger scale than your average criminal. And I wasn't entirely sure that my friend really believed his arguments about fairness. Intellectually, yes. In his heart, not really. What also concerned me was whether he could, if he came across the people whose lives had been ruined by this person, justify his decision to them and to himself with a clear conscience.

I told him to pray about it. His immediate response was "Ugh. Praying -- the answer is no." My response: if that's the case, I know what I would do.

But when I thought about it afterwards, I realized that I was pretty sure that my friend had not really prayed about it, but had simply assumed what the answer would have been if he had. But I'm not entirely convinced that would be the answer.

After pondering this for a few days, I'm still not sure what I would do if I was in his shoes. But after thinking about it, I do have this to say to him: go back and really pray about it. You might be surprised!

The latest in Sri Lanka

Yesterday, the Sri Lankan Army killed one of the most senior leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE -- yes, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU and India), S.P. Thamilchelvan, in an airraid, the BBC reported.

The first reaction of those who don't know much about the situation there would be that this is a good thing. If the forces in Afghanistan kill a senior member of the Taliban, don't we celebrate that as a good thing?

But this killing is anything but good news. Thamilchelvan was not just a senior leader of the LTTE, he was also the chief negotiator, communicating with international envoys in their efforts to reach an elusive peace agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Tigers. With his death, that peace agreement has now moved even further away. The GOSL is, as usual, playing on the world's paranoia about "terrorist organizations" to justify this killing, and promises that more will follow. Little do outsiders know that, as far as terrorist organizations go, the GOSL is no better, if not worse, than the LTTE. I in no way condone the means by which the Tigers go about achieving their goal of a separate Tamil homeland. I absolutely don't. But the government uses the very same means, and yet, the President, Mahinde Rajapakshe (who, incidentally, runs the country as a family business, with his relatives in key ministry posts), sits on his high horse and points his finger at his opponents. And naive outsiders buy it.

The government knows that Thamilchelvan's killing will only step up the kidnappings and brutal killings on both sides. And that is exactly what it wants -- to provoke the LTTE, so that the GOSL can then continue to feed on the world's "terrorism" paranoia, and justify its own actions as retaliation, its noble efforts to deal with terrorism . . . all while innocent civilians are stuck in the middle, their loved ones lost, their lives ruined.

For a taste (and it is only a very small taste) of what goes on Sri Lanka, click here. Most people live under the illusion that the capital "Colombo" is a safe place, but, while there is no outright fighting there, the surreptitious kidnappings and killings make it anything but.

Update

The turning woman!

I think I've run out of things to say on this blog for now, so while I try to come up with something worthwhile to say (ok, something to say), here's something to mull over.

Is she turning clockwise or anti-clockwise? Or both?!?!? (Click on the picture if you don't see her turning).

For more info, click on this link.. . . so what do you think? (my theory is that she turns the other way when you're not looking!)

(To give credit where credit is due, Caveboy sent me the link:))

Interesting globalization facts

I came across this story today in The New York Times, about the results of a survey of more than 45,000 people in 47 countries on what they think about globalization. There were several tidbits I found very interesting:

• Despite the increased focus on illegal immigration in the U.S., and individual states implementing their own measures to clamp down on illegal workers, the number of Americans supporting tighter immigration curbs has declined. So did the number in Britain, France and Germany. Jordanians, however, want stricter immigration policy, to stem the tide of Iraqis flowing into the country since the war started in 2003 (from 48 percent in 2002 to 70 percent).
• 55 percent of Americans believe their culture is superior. . . the only other Western country to display such self-confidence was Italy. (What exactly is "American culture?") The Swedes, Brits and French, however, seem in need of an ego boost -- only a fifth of Swedes and less than a third of the other two think their culture is superior. (The French have self-esteem issues?!?! Who'd a thunk??!?!?!)
• In most countries, the strength of people's religious belief falls as their wealth increases. The U.S. appears to be the only country where the opposite is true. Lots of religious rich people there!
• Fewer than half of Americans, Japanese and Israelies believe homosexuality should be accepted.
• Germans and Spaniards appear to be the most peace-loving people -- only a tenth of them said military force is needed to maintain order. This is compared with over a third of Turks and Americans, a fourth of French and Italians and a fifth of Brits. (I'm inclined to believe Japan would be similar to Germany and Spain, because of its general anti-war sentiment and its constitution, which Abe tried in vain to change).
• The percentage of Russians using mobile phones is higher than the percentage of Indians. . . and Russia had a higher level of adaptation -- from 8 percent of Russians owning mobiles in 2002 to 65 percent today, compared with 12 percent of Indians in 2002 to 60 percent now.
• South Korea has the highest degree of computer ownership in the world -- 93 percent!
• Germans are the biggest news junkies -- 80 percent "follow international news closely most of the time."

Can you read this?!?!?!?!?

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

--Not sure where this is from. . . someone posted it on Facebook.

"This we know, all things are connected"*

Most people are aware of the concept of six degrees of separation -- that you can connect yourself to any person in the world through six people. . . as in you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows that person. Yup, I think that's six people.

Now, thanks to Facebook and other social networking sites, there are even fewer connections between each of us. Or I guess the connections might be the same but these sites allow us an easier way to discover them. And yet, when we do find these strange connections, it's mind-boggling!

Case in point:

Last week, someone, a complete, total, random stranger -- let's call her Hakusakana -- added me as a friend on Facebook. I saw that she knew one person on my friends list, a professor at the J-school -- Srisri (who knows the most random people, particularly South Asians, in such random ways that I've ceased to be amazed by his connections). I also gathered that she was a Sri Lankan who was in Japan. So figuring that she was not some person who was randomly adding friends, I accepted her request. A couple of days later, I got an email from her, saying, in essence, "I didn't know there were Tamils in Japan. Are you in Tokyo? Do you want to meet for coffee?"

I assumed from her email that she was an ethnic Tamil, but found out later that she was Singhalese. In any case, I figured, "Why not?" and we decided on a time and place. We met up and she told me that she was visiting Japan for a couple of months. I asked her how she knew Srisri and she told me that someone had put her in touch with him a few months ago when she was in Europe. First semi-random connection established (semi-random, because I guess I actually met her through him, although her connection to him was pretty random in itself).

As we talked, I mentioned that I'd lived in Minnesota. "Oh, you lived in Minnesota! Do you know these two girls. . .?" she started. Even before she finished her sentence, I knew whom she was talking about. I'd met Mindh and Deep (the former a Singhalese painter, the latter a Tamil dancer) through some acquaintances who were alums of my college. The two run an organization that hosts performances by artists in diaspora, and I had wondered, because of Hakusakana's interest in art and in Sri Lanka (her profile made both pretty clear) if she somehow did know them -- the Sri Lankan art world is tiny indeed. So while amazed at the second random connection, I was not entirely surprised by it.

As we chatted about her experiences, I remembered that she had contacted someone else on my list of Facebook friends. I knew him, Yip, also Sri Lankan Tamil, because he went to my high school (in India) several years before I did, and my parents knew his. But I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how she would know him.

"Oh," she said. "My husband went to school with him." Then she stopped and looked at me. "Wait! You went to school with Yip. That means you went to school with my husband!"

We stared at each other in shock. How does a random stranger turn out to be the wife of someone you went to school with, albeit a few years older? She seemed a bit worried at first about this, uncertain about whether I actually knew him, and if so, how well I did, and if so, if we'd been on good terms. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure that I didn't know him personally but that I would recognize his name. At first she wouldn't tell me his name, and, though I was dying to know, I didn't push her. After a while though, she relented. And I found that I actually did recall his and his brother's names and even vaguely remembered what they looked like. (When I got home later, I called Nev and asked him if he remembered them. After thinking for a bit, he said "Oh yeah yeah yeah! His brother was a goalie on the soccer team!")

As I returned home, I pondered the past few hours. I was struck by Hakusakana's pretty crazy experiences over the past few years but also by the strange ways in which we were connected. How do you meet a person whose path would normally never cross yours (different backgrounds, grown up and living in different parts of the world) with the only obvious thing in common being tenous ties, on both sides, to one little island on the other side of the world. . . and then find several people whom we both knew in so many weird ways?

I guess the world is not as lonely a place as it sometimes seems!

*a quote attributed to Chief Seattle, patriarchof the Suquamish Indians.

Daytrip to Kamakura

Okia and I headed to Kamakura on Saturday for the day. We'd been hoping that the weather, which has been unusually warm for this time of year, would have cooled by then, but no such luck (as you can see from the photos). The highlight of the trip was definitely the really cool bamboo forest (home of the zen Hokokuji Temple, where I also got my first taste of Matcha Tea (not a fan of any tea, green tea included, but was still a worthwhile experience. . . it's thicker and more bitter than regular green tea!) And of course, the beach!!!

Soba lunch!

Traditional Japanese Shinto wedding
Okia with a Japanese fall flower (she told me the name but I can't remember:()

Hase dera Temple
Kamakura Daibutsu (Great Buddha)
In the bamboo forest

First bowl of matcha!

At the beeeaccch!!!

Kyoto-day 2

The next day (my last day of travels), I checked out of the hotel, and headed off to Kyoto Municipal Art Museum, which was displaying an exhibit of works from the famous Philadelphia Museum of Art. I spent a considerable amount of time there, trying to memorize the paintings and the stories behind them. Frustratingly, many of the explanations were in Japanese (I usually read every word of the descriptions and information about the paintings in an art museum, so found this especially trying).

From there, I headed off to Heian Jingu, with its several striking buildings, all painted the same bring vermillion colour with green-tiled roofs.

I then went to Fureaikan, Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts. Funnily enough, it was one of the few places that didn't charge anything to enter and view the displays, and yet it was one of the best exhibits I saw -- of wood and stone craftwork, dyed cloths, dolls, clothes, fans, umbrellas, paper lanterns, and several other uniquely Japanese crafts, with videos demonstrating how the items were tranformed from simple raw materials to the exquisite finished products.

From there, I decided to take a walk around the area and headed in the general direction of Murin-An a villa located on breathtakingly-beautiful grounds, built by Meiji statesman Aritomo Yamagata (who also designed the gardens). In addition to the villa, the grounds also have two other structures -- a tea-house and a western-style building where the Murin-An conference on Japan's foreign policy, just before the Russo-Japanese war, was held in 1903.

Me in the gardens of Murin-An

Aritomo's villa

The tea-house

The room in the Western-style building where the Murin-An conference was held

Some of Aritomo's personal items

Then I headed off to Yasaka Jinja in Gion. By this time I was getting ready to be done and get off my feet. But I walked around the shrine for a bit and headed into Maruyama Koen (park), popular for its hanami (cherry blossom) viewing in the spring (guess I'll just have to make another trip next year).

I walked around Gion a little more, hoping for a glimpse of geisha again, but I guess I was too early this time. I finally gave up in disappointment and exhaustion, and headed off to Kyoto Station to catch the Shinkansen back to home sweet home and my own bed! (It was a strange feeling, to come back to Tokyo and feel at home here for the first time ever, simply because I felt like such an outsider in the other places by comparison!)

Kyoto--day 1

The next morning, I woke up and headed off to Nijo-jo. I walked around the grounds, looking at the displays in Ninomaru and Honmaru Palaces and the beautiful gardens that made up the compound. I couldn't take photos of the inside of the palaces, but they have some beautiful, incredibly well-preserved, famous paintings on the walls of nature and animals. One of the rooms (I think it was the visitors room) has "nightingale floors" which squeak when they're stepped on, warning of visitors.

From there, I went on to the Kyoto Imperial Palace where the royal family used to live when Kyoto was the capital of Japan. The Imperial Palace that we visited was not the original one -- apparently, the Royal Family used to stay with courtiers occasionally (like when the Palace burned down, which it seemed to do a lot) and finally ended up moving permanently into one of these homes, which then became the Palace (and burned down a few times itself). The sprawling grounds, with several gates leading in, had huge parks, several smaller, less well-known palaces, and a few ruins.




I made a quick stop at Shokoku-ji Temple, which was very quiet and peaceful after the bustle of the Imperial Palace.





I went back to the hotel, took a short nap, and then headed out to Gion, hoping to see Geisha on the way to their appointments. Unfortunately, I think I was too late (naps must sometimes take precedence over other things!) But I did walk around the area, particulary on a street called Hanami-koji, which was lined with quaint little traditional tea-houses, and, in significance of the changing times, a steak house!