I saw this problem when I visited the Huichol Indians 20 years ago. Agribusiness firms had come, provided chemicals that destroyed the ecosystem in the soil, and created economic debt in a community that could not afford to pay it back. Further, this debt extends into another, ecological debt, that affects not only their land, but our world as a whole. As a researcher in Horticulture, I firmly beloeve that it is high time that academia involved in agriculture studied how ECOSYSTEMS work, and focus on them, not on chemicals and biological mutations that destroy them. There is plenty to study there, but it is uncharted territory. To change the paradigms of science requires innovation, creativity, and dedication. Belief in new methods and ideas is necessary, but it can be, and is slowly being done. Let us join this revolution and create a better world through interdisciplinary research that challenges big money and destructive practices. Everyone, not only researchers, but everyone has the ability to change their immediate surroundings. May we be blessed with the inspiration to love our world and make it a better one.
Renewing your US passport in Japan
I had kind of nightmare trying to do this, so I am writing this for my fellow Expats living in Japan. The US government addresses are unclear, and this caused problems.
To renew your passport, if you have lived in Japan for about 10 years and have a Japan Post Bank card, you can use your card to make the payment for the money order (currently $110) payable to the US government.
To get the money order
You will need:
- Your MyNumber card (a Japanese Tax card)
- Your Japan Post Bank Card or Bank Book
- Your Inkan (If for some reason you do not have the password number for your bank account)
Directions:
- Bring in the items above.
- Ask for an in-country “kokusai yubin kawase”
- Address the money order to: “U.S. Department of State”
- In the address area write: “PSC 471 Box 1111 FPO, AP”
- The Country is: “USA”
- The postal code is: “96347”
Then prepare your envelope for sending everything in.
Address the envelope to The American Embassy in Tokyo if you live in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (includes Chiba, Saitama and some other prefectures). If not, please check the internet for where to send it, most likely your local consulate.
In my case, this was what I wrote on the envelope I sent:
米国大使館 領事部 旅券課
〒107-8420
American Embassy, Passport Division
1-10-5 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 〒107-8420
When you are done, it should contain:
1. – Your US passport.
2. – 50mm X 50mm (2×2 inch) photo with a white background (not blue). You can take them at the photo booths outside large stores for ¥700-¥800. Be sure you powder your face. Those things take horrible photos.
Cut out the photo and staple it to your DS-82 form according to the directions.
3. – Your printed out, completed, signed and dated DS-82 form.
4. – The money order fee of $110.
5. – A self-addressed, insured envelope. I chose the one that that they need a signature for, because I didn’t want my new passport sitting in the mailbox outside.(~¥500)
(6.) The envelope itself – An addressed envelope to the Embassy to send all these things in (~¥300).
You should give them 4-6 weeks to process and deliver your new passport. Good luck!!
Gender Roles & Culture
Want to have an interesting evening figuring out how different cultures view gender through pop media? This can be done by accessing Netflix around the world.
I noticed this issue of sexism really deeply when I had the chance to choose different countries’ Netflix. Netflix selects it’s shows based on what they think will be popular (obviously).
People watch shows that identify with their social norms. While Japanese Netflix didn’t show extreme sexism, Sweden’s Netflix floored me.
It contained a lot of shows about women in positions of power, non-prettied up women, lesbianism, and other positions of decision-making and power, leading me to think that Swedish people consider women to be a strong and important part of society, able to make decisions about the world around them and what they want for themselves.
The US Netflix was extremely sexist. There was a clear distinction between girl’s shows and boy’s shows. Women, even if in positions of power, have to fit a physical feminine standard (great example: Wonder Woman). There is not much gender identity swapping, and there are a lot of labels for what is good or bad. Rather than lesbianism, there is a lot of ‘what women can sexually do for men’, like the movies about the nympho, and sexy girl horror flicks. But it is also clear that Americans are struggling with an internal discussion about gender identity and what it means.
As I see it, In the end, as long as women feel that they need to be physically attractive for men, they will be on a lower power rung.
Women should get pretty for themselves, not so that they can fling themselves at men in high places. They should be able to believe that they can do as well as men can, regardless of their physical state. After all, we are not hunting with clubs and spears or living in caves anymore. It’s time for a societal evolution.
Caribbean Blue by Enya
What a lovely song about hope. It has always been one of my favorites. When heard for the first time at age 16, it changed something in my mind.
https://play.google.com/music/m/Tzpfq7zuqelq4lsmchoqszucgii?t=Caribbean_Blue_-_Enya
Bat in the Bat House
I made a cardboard bat house, and put the towel I had wrapped him in within it. Attached it to the wall outside. And hoped that he would be alright. And the other day, when I went outside, he was scratching around in there! I need to make a real one…
Rest In Peace, Ursula K. LeGuin.
Thank you, Ursula K. LeGuin, for your wonderful books. You were my favorite author. Your books always made me think, and brought me much joy. It was interesting, but understandable, to read that your basis was in Taoism. No wonder… About so many things I learned from you. Nothing was stale. My favorite quote was from my least favorite of your books, Searoad, which was about a quiet little town on a US coast. It was about the passion of reading. My favorite of your books… Hmm. I loved the Earthsea Trilogy. But the passion of “The Left Hand of Darkness” was engulfing. I will never forget it. Immense gratitude for your contributions to our world, and to my own little universe.
Look at the little cow I found in the bathroom!!
I found the cutest tiny cow in the bathroom!! Just kidding! He was a bat, but from the front, he looks just like a little cow to me!!
Bina, my kitty, had been acting funny all evening, looking at the ceiling and pacing, but I couldn’t find anything unusual. Then, as I was getting ready for bed, I went into the bathroom and she jumped on the toilet to try to get to something at the top corner of the window… It was a little bat! I grabbed her, and as I did, it swooped down on us, and then fell on the floor, apparently in deep shock. I put Bina in a room, got a towel, and picked him up ever so gently. He was so light, his little body giving off heat, and breathing heavily. I put him outside in the plants, lightly wrapped for warmth, and went to see what to do about a bat in winter. I found that bats hybernate in the winter. But he had come awake, so I was worried. I tried to make a makeshift bat house for him on the fly, but by the time I got back outside, he had flown off. I hope he’s okay. He was a dear little thing.
Now I have to go out and get some materials to make a bat house. After all the videos and websites I found last night, I realized that they aren’t hard to make, and I already provide water for the birds, so they would have water to drink. With that, and a safe place to put it, where it will get plenty of sun (because they need warmth), the bats will have a nice place to live (not our walls — so that was what we were hearing a month ago all through the house!) and will keep the mosquitoes away in the summer.
How and Why to make a bat house by the National Wildlife Federation
Japan’s Aging Society – Ideas and Issues
The elderly have a use in our society. They teach us about the past. They help us make decisions because they have lived a long time and may know more than we do. The tenth one in this article is so sad. People should not have to die alone. A lot of the problems with these is that the elderly are lonely. Another that I see as a long-term resident in Japan, is that the empty houses left behind are a precious asset being laid to waste.
However, in Japan, there are problems preventing some of the issues stemming from this aging society from being solved. The legal system needs to be revamped. And people need to start trusting strangers, since they have no reliable family.
There are some solutions I have thought about regarding the issue of empty buildings. There are at least seven in my neighborhood alone. However, new apartment buildings and townhouses are being built all the time. The empty houses remain empty, and oftentimes are demolished, destroying precious historical and traditional assets. One reason that they don’t rent, is that people don’t trust others to manage their property. The law supports renters, so it makes it difficult to evict them. However, years can go by after someone dies before anything is done with the property, due to legal battles. Squatting is unheard of and out of the question, apparently. To resolve this issue, I think that people needing housing should be able to temporarily live in empty houses, and give the owners a priority for kicking them out if need be. It would have to be a special condition that the house was empty after someone had died. I think that this would solve a lot of housing issues in the cities surrounding Tokyo. That being said, there is an organization that supports managing empty houses, but in this case, the owners of the house are the ones that come forward as the managers, meaning that the ownership must be established first, which can take years. Meanwhile the house is rusting and rotting.
As for the elderly being alone and lonely, there is an organization that supports undergraduate students living with elderly but still active and healthy people, and sets up a contract between them. The organization is called 「NPO法人リブ＆リブ」 or “NPO Live & Live”. Their introduction says: “ＮＰＯ法人リブ＆リブが行っている「世代間交流ホームシェア事業」は、 日常的にあまり接点のない、シニアと大学生の同居によって、 新しく生まれる「血縁をこえた絆を作る」ことを目的としています。 かつての「下宿」とは違い、シニアと大学生が同等の立場で支え合い、毎日を楽しみに生きていける新しい社会への一歩になる事業です。”
Some of the issues I can easily see are that if young people live alone, they have a lot more freedom. They can have guests over to spend the night. They don’t have to come home each night. The rules seem a little strict to me in favor of the elderly. Also, the rent is only 20,000 yen, the cost of utilities every month. Even so, a person can rent a place in the outskirts of Tokyo for a little over this cost. Another issue I can see is that it is only for undergraduate students. What about graduate students? What about when the student graduates but still wants to live there? Other rules are that students must eat dinner with the elderly person at least 3 times per week to establish friendship, and a curfew of 11 is set.
Despite these advantages to the house owner, the NPO is having a hard time finding elderly people interested in doing this! There is a waiting list for students at the time of this post, January 2017. I’m not sure what the problem is. Maybe they haven’t been advertising? Maybe the advertisement is not appealing enough? I’m not sure, but it seems amazing to me. I can only assume a number of things. Maybe elderly people in Japan have high pride inhibiting them from renting out a room? Perhaps they feel badly that they have to do this since their children won’t live with them? Maybe, and I think this is the most likely, they think that the students might hurt them or cause trouble?
Either way, I think that if elderly people were not so isolated, they would be able to live in peace up to the time they couldn’t take care of themselves anymore, and if there were a way to deal with the housing instead of making new ones, we could help our world and save precious historical assets.
The Meaning of Love is Connection
So, I have a theory, a religion you could call it, that everything is connected, like a fractal in time and space, and that the fractal is God. But then, I had to figure out where love came in, and for many years, I couldn’t imagine what love would be. But I knew it was important, because in every major religion it is central to the ideas and ideals.And then it hit me tonight, over the head, like a giant spoonful of partially solidified pudding.Love is the connection. It is what connects the fractal together, it is the glue that pulls things together and propels them forward into space-time. It is what makes babies. It is love at first sight. It is true understanding. It is feeling truly alive. It is surging forward in a race to the finish, and the hugs that ensue. It is smelling a rose and knowing it is rose. It is breathing a first breath.Then there are other things. Like hatred. I would have to think that that is love on a strange vibration that has been ruined momentarily.How about indifference you might ask? Well, indifference is the middle, the place where love is ebbing away.For remember, it is all a fractal. And what is a fractal of the universe but a giant and all-encompassing sine wave?
Future
Monty said, “The answer is remarkably simple but complex in execution. Do what will provide you the most freedom of time and spirit.”
My response, each one considering another need: living with people who are close to me, writing lots of papers, getting a permanent position, maintaining ties with family and friends or even buying investment property near them, saving up… and staying out of economically or emotionally draining relationships.
Another friend, very cleverly I might say, told me the worst-case scenario of what she thought I might do over the next few months, and how it would affect me 10 years from now.
I refuse to prove her right. I have to be strong.