On my former blog, I once mentioned that service in Japan is often over-praised and over-rated. I still believe that is true as I've had my share of bad experiences. One of the most recent ones this past week was with Acer Japan who ripped us off and lied to us albeit they were relatively polite in the process. I guess getting screwed is supposed to be okay as long as, in doing so, one conforms to socially-condoned business forms. I can say that Acer has now joined Dell as another company we will never make a purchase from again and I would discourage anyone from buying computers from either of these companies because of their troublesome after-service. Though they are not perfect, Apple is looking better and better by comparison to the dismal PC service.
One thing that is generally true is that most service in Japan is offered according to set forms and rules. I'd say that 95% of the time, you're dealt with in a reasonable or positive manner. People greet you, thank you, and offer your goods in a ritualized way. Their eyes may be dead and their hearts not in it, but they say what should be said and do what is supposed to be done in order to conform to what constitutes a polite exchange with a customer.
I hadn't intended to revisit this topic, but reading about Emily's experience with service in England got me thinking about why service back home can be indifferent, surly, and flat-out rude at times. Such experiences are not unheard of in Japan (and are certainly not outside of my personal experience), but they are rare. If I had to estimate, I'd say 2% of my experiences here could fall within a range of "rude" or at least inappropriate in some fashion (e.g., being ignored by cashiers, surliness, refusal of service, sloppy work, no greeting or expressions of gratitude, etc.). If this is compared to what my husband experienced back home when he visited a little over a year ago (and Emily's experiences in her post), that's a very low rate.
Part of the reason for this, I'm sure, is that the ethic is different in Western countries. I'm not talking necessarily about the work ethic as I believe the work ethic in many countries is just as strong as that in Japan (sometimes stronger depending on the individual), but tends to manifest itself differently in the West than in Japan. Mainly, I'm talking about malleability and the role adherence to rules, guidelines and form plays in Japan relative to Western culture. The Japanese do not promote or permit autonomy on the job in many cases and tell you how to behave and you just do it. In the West, they may expect you to be polite to customers, but they expect you to know how to be polite and won't be instructing you on precisely how to carry out every little action to ensure that you are doing things properly. Employers generally leave how you choose to interact with customers up to you until you prove your judgment can't be trusted because of customer complaints. Even then, they aren't likely to train you explicitly and are likely to issue a general warning to shape up or they'll just fire you.
Another part is likely that cultures where individuality and equality are stressed do things differently than cultures where group interests, conformity, and status are a strong element. The customer is not "king" (at least not in most establishments) in Western countries because we don't like to view our status as being inferior to that of the customer. Being polite is seen as kowtowing to the customer or being obsequious. We don't want to elevate others above ourselves by treating their interests as superior to ours, even when they're paying for the privilege so this sometimes produces indifferent, sloppy, or overly casual interactions with those who are supposed to be providing service.
Finally, and I think this is by far the most important, in Japan the crappy low-paying service jobs like being a waitress, clerk in shop, etc. are very rarely seen as an inescapable option for survival. Most people in those jobs don't feel "trapped" in them, but rather see them as a temporary job, a means of making extra cash which they have the freedom to abandon at any time, or a retirement job that they do as much to occupy their days as for spare money. Japan has a (currently eroding) social situation where people for the most part can still count on moving on to bigger or better things with income stability. When you work an unfulfilling job where you have to pander to customers, it's a lot easier to do it with a good attitude if you're not looking at a future of nothing but the same because you're stuck. Many people back home know that the only escape from one low-paying, demoralizing job is to move to a similarly unpleasant circumstance.
I'm not trying to justify people who are rude to their customers or the people they are supposed to help, but rather trying to understand their motivation and mindset. One of the things I always value about life in Japan is how the difference allow you to reflect on your own culture and gain insight into what makes each particular culture work the way it does.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Tales From A Japanese Office — The Interview and "S."
I'm 44 years old and I have, arguably, held 11 jobs in my life, so I've had a bit of experience with job interviews, but not so much as one might guess. I've only been interviewed 7 times and failed to get a job in one of those interviews. In chronological order, the 11 jobs were:
I do have enough second-hand interview experience to know that an interview in Japan isn't the same as one in the U.S. Several of my students have discussed interviews in Japan with me and I've been told that they rarely or never get asked questions that are already answered by the resume. The whole point back home is to probe the veracity of the claims on your resume as well as get a feel for the type of person you are. In Japan, they are interested in what you're capable of, but tend to take what you say on the resume at face value. There's generally (but not always) an expectation that the company may need to train you here to fit their particular way of doing things whereas companies back home want you to hit the ground running fast and hard.
Regarding my first hand experience with interviews in Japan, my first interview in Japan, for Nova, wasn't much of an interview at all. A Japanese man looked at my passport and said they could sponsor me and that was it. If anything supported the oft-held idea that all Nova wanted was warm bodies, that interview did. My second interview in Japan, which resulted in my long-term work at an office, was rather a different kettle of fish. First of all, I was only interviewing for a temporary position so perhaps the bar wasn't set incredibly high, though I do recall the interview taking a bit of time. Also, I was interviewed by two people - an Australian man (D. from henceforth) who would become my boss and friend and a Japanese manager type (S. from this point on) who could speak English.
D. handled most of the interview and asked me questions about my experience as a teacher, my availability, and questions about how I'd go about correcting certain types of written errors in students' homework. After he was finished, he invited S. to ask any questions he wanted to ask. I can't recall exactly what he asked, but the first thing he asked was something along the lines of, 'you've worked at a conversation school...so, you've never worked at a Japanese office?' When I heard this question, I had the distinct impression that he wasn't attempting to ask me anything useful, but rather focusing on some point to rule me out. This impression was strengthened by the fact that he repeated it after my first answer. It seemed to me that he wasn't focusing on how well I might be capable of doing the job like D. was, but rather on my lack of experience with something few foreigners who would apply for a temporary instructor's position would have had any experience with.
At the time, I recall feeling a bit "trapped" by the question because I felt it was designed to make me look bad and there was no escaping a negative answer. It appeared to be a deliberate attempt to focus on a lack of a qualification. After all, the only thing I could say was, "no, I haven't." I had the impression that D.'s questions were "reasonable" and that S.'s were designed to discredit me, even if he had to reach for something which no one would answer differently than I would. While I felt pretty confident during D's questions, I was left feeling as if I'd blown it by the end because of S.'s line of inquiry.
In retrospect (and now many years later), I realize a few things about that interview. One was that S. had no interest in discrediting me or putting me in a position where my answers would reflect poorly on me. As the manager of the section I was going to work in, his concerns were not with how well I'd do the job, but rather with how my presence would affect the office. He didn't ask me about my qualifications to do the job because that was D.'s responsibility, not his. He likely did not expect anyone who applied for the job to have experience in a Japanese office, but he asked the question because he probably would have preferred someone who knew what the dynamic was like and knew some of the unspoken rules of Japanese business situations. Someone with experience in Japanese ways would would be less likely to be disruptive or fail to conform to expectations.
As time went by and I learned a few things about S., I realized a few other things about his manner in the meeting as well. One thing is that he was (likely unintentionally) abrupt when he spoke English. I'm not sure if that was because he was insecure about his English (though I think that was the case to some extent) or if it was just this tendency among Japanese men to come across rudely when they speak English because they fail to make proper adjustments to be polite. I can't tell you how many times I've had to advise men not to say "I want you to (do something)" or to say "I want" rather than "I'd like" or make a polite request in situations like making a request from friends.
I also believe, in retrospect, that he was pretty nervous about things going wrong. I have a hazy recollection that he may have been relatively new at being in charge of the section. Well, actually, he wasn't at the top of it. That was reserved for the president's wife who was the head, but she didn't actually work all the time and only occasionally came around to write a bit and to rag on everyone else's work. I think if any real bad seeds had been hired, he'd have been held accountable because he was supposed to be making sure D., who was a foreigner and had been there only a year, didn't hire any axe murderers or deviants.
This suspicion is supported by (or confirmed by) the fact that S. was a salesman who was "kicked upstairs" by the president to keep an eye on the foreigners when the company was occupying two floors of a small building. There were other Japanese staff members there, but one was the president's wife and the other was female. Women weren't given positions of authority unless they'd had the misfortune of marrying the president and the woman who had paid that price for being near the top of the heap wasn't around enough to watch over those untrustworthy foreign workers. This was a fact that D. shared with me quite a few years later after S. got put back into the salesman pool once the office was consolidated on one floor (due to falling sales) and the president could station himself outside the area the foreigners worked and watch over us himself.
I always felt a strange vibe with S. because he seemed perpetually awkward. In fact, I often imagined that he was the perfect specimen visually of the Western stereotype of the "geeky" Japanese guy. Other than having a deep voice, he looked the part - short, slim, wearing glasses, short, straight hair (always immaculate) and in the requisite dark business suit. He also always gave off a vibe of not feeling comfortable in the office or around any of the authority figures around him.
That being said, I'm perfectly comfortable saying that this awkwardness may have manifested itself around me only. It was probably fueled by my lack of cooperation with certain wishes on the part of the company, but also maybe just by the fact that he always seemed like the sort of person who was uncomfortable in his own skin. When I made smalltalk with him about his work, no matter what job he was doing, he said that he didn't feel he was very good at it. That's not to say that this awkwardness meant that I disliked S. After all, I gave him an old Mac of mine to do some music-related work, but I worked with him for quite awhile and never did have what felt like a comfortable chat with him.
When I left, S. was surprised. He told me that he thought I would never leave the job. I'm not sure if he meant that as he felt they'd be stuck with me forever, or if he felt I had been around so long that he believed I'd become a part of the "family" and wouldn't leave the comfort of the position. The pessimistic part of me feels it's the former, but the part of me that is trying to be less negative about life in general would like to believe it's the latter.
- maintenance crew member at a nursing home (part-time, I was 15 and quit after a week because I had no idea what I was doing and never should have been hired in the first place)
- assistant to a professor at my college (part-time, obviously, I was in college)
- (Christian) camp counselor (full-time, stop-gap job for 2.5 months just after college - a story all its own just waiting to be told)
- fast food waitress/cook (full-time, forced into it by my mother and quit after 2 weeks)
- program worker at a halfway house for the mentally ill (full-time and in my field)
- program worker for a United Cerebral Palsy assisted living home (part-time, in my field, and done simultaneously with job #5)
- housing counselor (full-time, after moving to California, arguably in my field)
- language instructor at Nova (2 years)
- "instructor" at a correspondence school (12 years - the job title is misleading as it was a catch-all job that including writing books, laying them out, doing graphics for them, teaching company lessons on rare occasions, and developing vast amounts of course material for said company lessons-I still do portions of this job freelance now)
- private language teacher (current freelance job)
- professional writer (current freelance job, though only very much part-time)
I do have enough second-hand interview experience to know that an interview in Japan isn't the same as one in the U.S. Several of my students have discussed interviews in Japan with me and I've been told that they rarely or never get asked questions that are already answered by the resume. The whole point back home is to probe the veracity of the claims on your resume as well as get a feel for the type of person you are. In Japan, they are interested in what you're capable of, but tend to take what you say on the resume at face value. There's generally (but not always) an expectation that the company may need to train you here to fit their particular way of doing things whereas companies back home want you to hit the ground running fast and hard.
Regarding my first hand experience with interviews in Japan, my first interview in Japan, for Nova, wasn't much of an interview at all. A Japanese man looked at my passport and said they could sponsor me and that was it. If anything supported the oft-held idea that all Nova wanted was warm bodies, that interview did. My second interview in Japan, which resulted in my long-term work at an office, was rather a different kettle of fish. First of all, I was only interviewing for a temporary position so perhaps the bar wasn't set incredibly high, though I do recall the interview taking a bit of time. Also, I was interviewed by two people - an Australian man (D. from henceforth) who would become my boss and friend and a Japanese manager type (S. from this point on) who could speak English.
D. handled most of the interview and asked me questions about my experience as a teacher, my availability, and questions about how I'd go about correcting certain types of written errors in students' homework. After he was finished, he invited S. to ask any questions he wanted to ask. I can't recall exactly what he asked, but the first thing he asked was something along the lines of, 'you've worked at a conversation school...so, you've never worked at a Japanese office?' When I heard this question, I had the distinct impression that he wasn't attempting to ask me anything useful, but rather focusing on some point to rule me out. This impression was strengthened by the fact that he repeated it after my first answer. It seemed to me that he wasn't focusing on how well I might be capable of doing the job like D. was, but rather on my lack of experience with something few foreigners who would apply for a temporary instructor's position would have had any experience with.
At the time, I recall feeling a bit "trapped" by the question because I felt it was designed to make me look bad and there was no escaping a negative answer. It appeared to be a deliberate attempt to focus on a lack of a qualification. After all, the only thing I could say was, "no, I haven't." I had the impression that D.'s questions were "reasonable" and that S.'s were designed to discredit me, even if he had to reach for something which no one would answer differently than I would. While I felt pretty confident during D's questions, I was left feeling as if I'd blown it by the end because of S.'s line of inquiry.
In retrospect (and now many years later), I realize a few things about that interview. One was that S. had no interest in discrediting me or putting me in a position where my answers would reflect poorly on me. As the manager of the section I was going to work in, his concerns were not with how well I'd do the job, but rather with how my presence would affect the office. He didn't ask me about my qualifications to do the job because that was D.'s responsibility, not his. He likely did not expect anyone who applied for the job to have experience in a Japanese office, but he asked the question because he probably would have preferred someone who knew what the dynamic was like and knew some of the unspoken rules of Japanese business situations. Someone with experience in Japanese ways would would be less likely to be disruptive or fail to conform to expectations.
As time went by and I learned a few things about S., I realized a few other things about his manner in the meeting as well. One thing is that he was (likely unintentionally) abrupt when he spoke English. I'm not sure if that was because he was insecure about his English (though I think that was the case to some extent) or if it was just this tendency among Japanese men to come across rudely when they speak English because they fail to make proper adjustments to be polite. I can't tell you how many times I've had to advise men not to say "I want you to (do something)" or to say "I want" rather than "I'd like" or make a polite request in situations like making a request from friends.
I also believe, in retrospect, that he was pretty nervous about things going wrong. I have a hazy recollection that he may have been relatively new at being in charge of the section. Well, actually, he wasn't at the top of it. That was reserved for the president's wife who was the head, but she didn't actually work all the time and only occasionally came around to write a bit and to rag on everyone else's work. I think if any real bad seeds had been hired, he'd have been held accountable because he was supposed to be making sure D., who was a foreigner and had been there only a year, didn't hire any axe murderers or deviants.
This suspicion is supported by (or confirmed by) the fact that S. was a salesman who was "kicked upstairs" by the president to keep an eye on the foreigners when the company was occupying two floors of a small building. There were other Japanese staff members there, but one was the president's wife and the other was female. Women weren't given positions of authority unless they'd had the misfortune of marrying the president and the woman who had paid that price for being near the top of the heap wasn't around enough to watch over those untrustworthy foreign workers. This was a fact that D. shared with me quite a few years later after S. got put back into the salesman pool once the office was consolidated on one floor (due to falling sales) and the president could station himself outside the area the foreigners worked and watch over us himself.
I always felt a strange vibe with S. because he seemed perpetually awkward. In fact, I often imagined that he was the perfect specimen visually of the Western stereotype of the "geeky" Japanese guy. Other than having a deep voice, he looked the part - short, slim, wearing glasses, short, straight hair (always immaculate) and in the requisite dark business suit. He also always gave off a vibe of not feeling comfortable in the office or around any of the authority figures around him.
That being said, I'm perfectly comfortable saying that this awkwardness may have manifested itself around me only. It was probably fueled by my lack of cooperation with certain wishes on the part of the company, but also maybe just by the fact that he always seemed like the sort of person who was uncomfortable in his own skin. When I made smalltalk with him about his work, no matter what job he was doing, he said that he didn't feel he was very good at it. That's not to say that this awkwardness meant that I disliked S. After all, I gave him an old Mac of mine to do some music-related work, but I worked with him for quite awhile and never did have what felt like a comfortable chat with him.
When I left, S. was surprised. He told me that he thought I would never leave the job. I'm not sure if he meant that as he felt they'd be stuck with me forever, or if he felt I had been around so long that he believed I'd become a part of the "family" and wouldn't leave the comfort of the position. The pessimistic part of me feels it's the former, but the part of me that is trying to be less negative about life in general would like to believe it's the latter.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
"Plant Soap" (植物石鹸)
The 4-bar box and the 3-bar box, both with identical soap and the same price. The bars used to come wrapped in paper, but were changed to plastic, unfortunately.There's an episode of "3rd Rock From the Sun" where Sally, the alien who has been stuck in a female body during their mission to earth, is informed by her three cohorts who have conveniently been placed in male bodies, that she doesn't smell as good as other females on earth.
In response to this, she goes to a department store and attempts to buy soap. The woman at the counter keeps asking her if she's tried a variety of designer skin care products. After each query about moisturizer, exfoliating solution, etc, Sally, asks, "is it soap?" With growing impatience, she keeps saying she just wants soap, but the saleswoman wants to sell her some expensive, luxury skin care products. Eventually, the clerk tosses a bunch of samples into a shopping bag and Sally ends up comically addicted to skin products she can't afford to buy.
This scene reminds me of my quest in Japan for soap because, like Sally, I just want soap. I don't want perfume. I don't want moisturizer. I don't want pretty colors. I just want something that lathers up well, cleans well, and has as little scent as possible. I fail to see the point of using soap which coats you in some sort of lingering perfume-like smell. The soap is supposed to get you clean so you don't smell at all. Having perfume applied by your soap seems to imply that you've got an odor that needs to be covered up. If you're a perfume fan, on the other hand, you're likely going to do better than whatever scent the soap leaves on you by applying actual perfume to your body.
Avoiding the perfume in soap goes a bit further for me than merely not wanting to smell like nothing rather than some warped approximation of a flower (though I'm guessing that sounds ironic coming from a talking orchid). In small enclosed rooms in the summer, any sort of fragrance will fill the room. I've had students with modest levels of scent who have left my living room tinged with their soap or perfume for hours after the lesson is over. If a person is very sensitive to a scent, the experience of being trapped in a 4.5 mat room (about 9' x 9') with that person can be unpleasant. Also, my husband has an intense dislike for perfume and doesn't want to use any soap with a scent so the quest for just soap is a righteous cause for both of us.
There is a lot of very nice Japanese soap, but the majority of it is scented. Even the standard bar of white Kao soap, which is quite a creamy and luxurious soap for a low price, is a bit too heavily scented for our tastes. For years, my husband and I bought Ivory soap that was imported from the U.S. for about 100 yen a bar (about a dollar). At some point in the not so distant past though, the price went up and our income went down. Instead of 4 bars costing $4, they now cost $6 or more, and it just seemed like too big a luxury on our 1.3 incomes.
After Ivory scaled beyond our budget, I started sampling Japanese soap again. Fortunately, you can usually sniff a package and know if it has too much perfume in it as they are usually far from hermetically sealed. At one point, I bought a box of extremely cheap (4 bars for about a dollar) soap and found the closest thing we've come to Japanese scent-free soap. The second phase of the test though would be how it lathered up in hard water. Fortunately, it does adequately in that regard.
The soap is not made in Japan, which likely explains why it's so cheap though clearly it is made for the Japanese market when you look at the box design. Some of what it says is that it's made with milk and that it's gentle. It's made in Malaysia and the company name appears to be "Nid". However, about a year ago, the box size changed and now it's 3 bars for a dollar (about 98 yen) most of the time. Occasionally, a box with 4 bars will show up again. It's still a bargain in either size. There is a tiny little logo on the box which is hard to read. I did a little searching and found that they make several varieties of soap which are all priced the same, but none of those varieties is sold in my area.
In fact, finding this soap at all requires me to shop at a drug store. Markets rarely carry it. I'm guessing this is because the margin for profit on such items is razor thin (or it's a loss leader). In general, personal care goods like toilet paper, soap, etc. are always appreciably cheaper at drug stores than markets in Tokyo and, at 33 yen (30 cents) a bar, this is cheap soap.
If you just want soap, and you're trying to save money, I recommend using this particular brand. It's certainly no worse than the more expensive brands in terms of effectiveness and fills the bill if you just want to be clean, but not perfumed. However, I don't think I'm translating the characters right as "plant soap", but the first two characters can be read as "plant" and the second two as "soap". Besides, there are all these leaves on the box design so it's not such an absurd conclusion that the first word might be "plant". ;-)
Saturday, August 30, 2008
What is the Placebo Effect?
These days, most people are familiar with the placebo effect thanks to the plethora of medical dramas on television. Back in the dark ages when I was in college and there were only 3 television networks, limited cable programming (which consisted mainly of Gilligan's Island repeats), HBO (which was mainly for movies with nudity), and MTV (which used to show music videos), there were fewer shows and they tended to underestimate the sophistication of the audience. The word "placebo" wasn't tossed around casually at that time, but, being a psychology major, I learned of it in one of my classes.
The idea behind the placebo effect is that we "fool" ourselves into believing an effect is being had on our bodies when administered treatment which biologically has no measurable effect. Though I've known about this for quite some time, I didn't really think deeply about until recently. Let's break down the placebo effect as it generally works:
What medical science obfuscates with a complicated-sounding word (placebo) is that the truth of what the placebo effect represents. It represents the ability of your mind to regulate your body's healing or pain management without the intervention of an external treatment. What the placebo effect really is, is a form of self-healing.
Encouraging self-healing is a tricky business. For one thing, it doesn't always work and believing it might work may discourage people from seeking proper treatment. It most certainly does not work when an injury is inflicted on the body which requires resetting of bones or stitching of wounds and this rather undermines the perception that we actually can self-heal in some cases. However, just because we cannot apply mental focus to achieving the equivalent of lifting a boulder over our heads does not mean that we can't do the equivalent of lifting a few pebbles. What I mean by that is that you may not be able to mend a broken leg by the use of mental processes, but you may be able to overcome a headache or diminish the intensity and duration of a leg cramp. You may even be able to maintain better health on a regular basis by mentally applying yourself to all aspects of its overall health.
The notion of self-healing is further undermined by the idea that it's some New Age pie-in-the-sky concept that is practiced by hippies who are interested in keeping their chakras aligned and their auras healthy. This is a notion that medical science prefers to perpetuate, not because of financial self-interest as many cynical sorts like to believe, but rather because they firmly believe it does not work and are afraid that people will be conned by opportunists or fail to seek life-saving treatment for serious problems.
The placebo effect is not some New Age myth though. It is a scientific fact. Many studies have been done on it and it works in a statistically significant number of cases. The reason placebos work and directed self-healing does not is that when an authority figure tells us we will get better, we believe it. When we tell ourselves we will get better, we often lack the true conviction to bring about the desired improvements. There is a vicious circle at work in this situation. If we believed we had more control over our body, we'd be better able to self-heal or pain manage. However, we don't believe it so we can't, and if we can't self-heal or pain manage, then we don't believe we can.
The curious thing about the placebo effect to me is that there is actual evidence of a concept that is embraced by a variety of spiritual beliefs, yet people still do not believe they can regulate their own bodies or cure themselves of some problems without involving an external application. This ability is written off as a mental trick or our ability to fool ourselves when it really is, for lack of a better word, "power" to control a situation we're frequently told is not under our control. Instead of allowing this power to be written off as part of a scientifically curious result, it should be regarded as a revelation of which we should explore the potential.
•••••••••••••••
As a personal aside, I will note that I have worked with controlling my pain and problems since I gave up on doctors ever helping me with my back problems. I also mitigated a lot of the discomfort of chilblains using what can best be described as a form of "active meditation" or "directed thought." It's my impression that this does help appreciably. When I went through my first bout of chilblains, it was excruciating. During the two subsequent bouts, I applied myself mentally to reducing the inflammation and discomfort from the itching and the two bouts that followed were each greatly less bad than the first one.
One of my motivations for this was the fact that I discovered during my research on back treatment that 1/3 of all people suffering from severe back problems in a controlled study got better with no treatment which is equal to the number of people who got better with surgery or non-invasive therapy (medication, exercise, topical treatment, etc.).
Another of my motivations was the fact that we communicate with every part of our body through various systems unconsciously. There's no reason to believe that we cannot communicate with them consciously or willfully as well except for the fact that we don't tend to believe it is possible.
The idea behind the placebo effect is that we "fool" ourselves into believing an effect is being had on our bodies when administered treatment which biologically has no measurable effect. Though I've known about this for quite some time, I didn't really think deeply about until recently. Let's break down the placebo effect as it generally works:
- An authority figure tells you your are going to receive a treatment which will solve or diminish the problem.
- He gives you the equivalent of a sugar pill.
- You take the sugar pills.
- You get or feel better.
What medical science obfuscates with a complicated-sounding word (placebo) is that the truth of what the placebo effect represents. It represents the ability of your mind to regulate your body's healing or pain management without the intervention of an external treatment. What the placebo effect really is, is a form of self-healing.
Encouraging self-healing is a tricky business. For one thing, it doesn't always work and believing it might work may discourage people from seeking proper treatment. It most certainly does not work when an injury is inflicted on the body which requires resetting of bones or stitching of wounds and this rather undermines the perception that we actually can self-heal in some cases. However, just because we cannot apply mental focus to achieving the equivalent of lifting a boulder over our heads does not mean that we can't do the equivalent of lifting a few pebbles. What I mean by that is that you may not be able to mend a broken leg by the use of mental processes, but you may be able to overcome a headache or diminish the intensity and duration of a leg cramp. You may even be able to maintain better health on a regular basis by mentally applying yourself to all aspects of its overall health.
The notion of self-healing is further undermined by the idea that it's some New Age pie-in-the-sky concept that is practiced by hippies who are interested in keeping their chakras aligned and their auras healthy. This is a notion that medical science prefers to perpetuate, not because of financial self-interest as many cynical sorts like to believe, but rather because they firmly believe it does not work and are afraid that people will be conned by opportunists or fail to seek life-saving treatment for serious problems.
The placebo effect is not some New Age myth though. It is a scientific fact. Many studies have been done on it and it works in a statistically significant number of cases. The reason placebos work and directed self-healing does not is that when an authority figure tells us we will get better, we believe it. When we tell ourselves we will get better, we often lack the true conviction to bring about the desired improvements. There is a vicious circle at work in this situation. If we believed we had more control over our body, we'd be better able to self-heal or pain manage. However, we don't believe it so we can't, and if we can't self-heal or pain manage, then we don't believe we can.
The curious thing about the placebo effect to me is that there is actual evidence of a concept that is embraced by a variety of spiritual beliefs, yet people still do not believe they can regulate their own bodies or cure themselves of some problems without involving an external application. This ability is written off as a mental trick or our ability to fool ourselves when it really is, for lack of a better word, "power" to control a situation we're frequently told is not under our control. Instead of allowing this power to be written off as part of a scientifically curious result, it should be regarded as a revelation of which we should explore the potential.
•••••••••••••••
As a personal aside, I will note that I have worked with controlling my pain and problems since I gave up on doctors ever helping me with my back problems. I also mitigated a lot of the discomfort of chilblains using what can best be described as a form of "active meditation" or "directed thought." It's my impression that this does help appreciably. When I went through my first bout of chilblains, it was excruciating. During the two subsequent bouts, I applied myself mentally to reducing the inflammation and discomfort from the itching and the two bouts that followed were each greatly less bad than the first one.
One of my motivations for this was the fact that I discovered during my research on back treatment that 1/3 of all people suffering from severe back problems in a controlled study got better with no treatment which is equal to the number of people who got better with surgery or non-invasive therapy (medication, exercise, topical treatment, etc.).
Another of my motivations was the fact that we communicate with every part of our body through various systems unconsciously. There's no reason to believe that we cannot communicate with them consciously or willfully as well except for the fact that we don't tend to believe it is possible.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
My Computer is Freaking Me Out (Little Help, Please)
The PC that seems to have a ghost in the machine.About halfway through my evening lesson, I started to hear what sounded like a tapping noise behind my television. It was raining outside so I thought it was some sort of referred sound from water dripping or that there may possibly be a leak such that water was dripping between the walls.
About 10 minutes later, the old PC that I keep under the television spontaneously turned itself on. It has a very loud fan so it's impossible not to notice that it has revved itself up. I mentioned it to my student and made a joke about a ghost turning it on. I reached over and turned it off. Very soon thereafter, I heard the tapping again and this time I noticed that the power light on the USB speakers attached to this particular PC was flashing and then the PC turned itself back on again. The second time, I let it go since I didn't want to disrupt the lesson. As soon as the lesson was over though, I unplugged my self-starting PC.
I've never had this sort of problem with a computer before, but I have to imagine this isn't good. This particular PC is about 6 or 7 years old and I'm guessing there is some sort of power supply failure going on, but I'd really appreciate any advice or feedback from others who have more knowledge of the electronics of a computer and what might be causing this.
I had planned on re-formatting this computer's hard drive because it had been acting wonky when connected to the television (which is all it does now). It was having a weird crash where the T.V. would blank out and we couldn't get the screen back unless we restarted. I thought it was a software issue, but now I'm starting to wonder if it was something else.
So, is this computer ready for the happy hunting ground?
The Art of the Oven Fry
If you visit any of the popular food porn sites (e.g., Food Gawker, Tastespotting), you'll notice that certain choices tend to spread like that annoying Faberge shampoo commercial where someone tells two friends and so on and so on. If you're too young for that commercial, it's on YouTube here. That is to say, once a popular and approachable dish shows up on the food porn sites, you see a small explosion of more people making it. And if you don't know what a food porn site is and you've got visions of nubile, naked babes lounging amongst grapes and bananas seductively, think again.
About two or three weeks ago, the big fad among food bloggers was eggs in the hole or whatever you grew up calling cooking an egg in a hole in the center of a piece of bread. That mundane recipe, which was an old camping favorite due to the efficiency with which it cooks both the egg and bread in one pan over a camp fire, showed up again and again in tasteful shots by food bloggers who jumped on the bandwagon. Each one carefully wrote out a "recipe" and a description and took an artful picture for something which is essentially 'poke a hole in a piece of bread, break an egg in it and fry in butter.'
Though the "explosion" has been far smaller, oven fries seem to be the new mundane recipe that everyone is making and showcasing. Unlike my bland plate of boringly horizontal fries pictured at the top, their fries are artfully arranged (usually vertically or with a few of the sexier fries sticking out at odd angles) and look like the real deal, the ever appealing french fry. They also attempt to put a new spin on the recipe by using different spices or different types of potatoes, but the method is pretty much the same - fries tossed with some sort of oil, seasoned, then baked in the oven.
While I don't presume to know all there is to know about "perfect oven fries", I do know a few things that I've learned which don't seem to be reflected in the "recipes" I've been seeing. Here are a few pointers:
- Don't spray the cookie sheet with non-stick spray and place the fries on them or put the fries on the tray and drizzle them with oil. Unless you have good non-stick cookware, they're probably going to stick a bit if you do this. I get better results by heating the tray during the oven's preheat cycle and placing the fries (which have been tossed in a bowl with oil) onto the hot baking sheet. As Jamie Oliver has said in his cooking show, heat stops things from sticking (if the food already has oil on or in it) so you don't need to grease up the sheet if you pour the fries on a hot sheet. For the record, most Japanese ovens come with cookie sheets that are custom fit to the ovens size (not the standard oven racks you get in the U.S.) and they are not non-stick. My first trays were enamel-coated metal and my current ones are ceramic and my oven fries always stuck (even when both the fries and sheet were oiled) before I used the "heat the ungreased tray" method.
- Soak the raw fries in cold water for awhile first to remove some of the outer gum. This is less important if your potatoes are new, but most of what I get in Japan is clearly not freshly dug up. Soaking makes the texture better though it does leach out the potassium which may be a good or bad thing depending on your diet.
- The type of potato you use matters a lot, but so does the type of oil. In my experience, Canola oil browns better, but olive oil imparts more flavor. I usually use olive oil and settle for paler fries.
- Always dry the potatoes very well, coat evenly in oil and then salt and season. Never salt then add oil as the salt will leech moisture out of the potato and make it harder for the fry to be evenly coated. It also increases the chances that the potato will stick to the pan you use. This was a mistake I made for a long time.
For those of us living in Japan, the main problem is that most of the potatoes are tiny, and russets, which are highly desirable, are almost unheard of in Tokyo. It's a lot of effort to peel a lot of little potatoes compared to one big fat one. I usually pre-prepare them earlier in the day when I have time and just keep them in cold water in a sealed container in the refrigerator until I'm ready to use them. If you're got the time and energy, it's really worth it and a nice variation from rice-based dishes which are so often de rigueur in Japan.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Griefers
When we were kids, one of the tests of our concentration and dexterity was to simultaneously pat our heads and rub our stomachs in a circular motion. I'm not quite sure of what is involved in accomplishing this feat, but most people can do it (for awhile, at least) though there was always a kid who couldn't manage it in a group that gave it a try. Given that most kids couldn't keep it up for long, I imagine it's about focus.
Over the weekend, my CH demonstrated incredibly good concentration as he was relaxing and playing one of our favorite multi-player on-line games, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (LOD).
If you look at the picture, you can see that he's got each hand on separate mice controlling two characters on two different computers simultaneously. I have enough trouble controlling one mouse with my left hand, let alone keeping tabs on a mouse's action in a game. The only thing that makes this a little more manageable is that the characters he controls move close enough to one another that he can track them both on one screen.
My husband was controlling two characters at once because he wanted to "rush" them. Rushing means that the player wants the characters to advance and develop as quickly as possible. This is a fairly common thing to do when someone has played a game for a long time and no longer enjoys the lower level play as it isn't very challenging once one becomes proficient in the game.
In Diablo II: LOD, one of the fastest ways to rush is to join what are called "public" games because the experience comes faster if the game has more players (8 is the maximum). A public game is open to anyone who wants to join so you end up playing with strangers. Playing a multiplayer game with strangers can be a very enjoyable experience or immensely disheartening. Sometimes you get chatter which is witty and fun and sometimes you get ugly, racist nonsense or unnecessary criticism of other player's playing ability or character "wealth" (or lack thereof).
The biggest pitfall to playing a game with strangers is that many multiplayer games have the possibility of allowing "griefers" to ruin the game experience. A griefer is someone who goes out of his way to cause difficulty or destroy the game playing experience for others. One of the most common ways this is done is for a vastly higher level character to enter a game with new characters of very low level and declare hostility on them. The high level character is well-equipped and has between 10-20 times more life (hitpoints) as the characters he's trying to kill. There's no challenge in killing the other players for griefers. In fact, they aren't interested in challenge, they are only interested in causing others to suffer.
In Diablo II: LOD, there are several ways to grief. One is to go hostile on players and hunt them down and kill them or to go hostile and cause a bunch of formerly cooperative players who were enjoying a good game together to abandon the game. Another, more subtle and insidious way, is to find out what sort of quest a player is doing and then complete the last portion before they can fulfill the steps leading up to the final challenge. Doing this disables their ability to complete the quest. Last night, my husband experienced this when someone blocked the entrance to a chamber where players were to face a big boss that had to be killed. A team of griefers actually performed this. One of them went down stairs to kill the boss and the other stood in front of the entrance so other players could not get through.
I've often wondered why griefers do what they do. Why would anyone extract pleasure from spoiling the fun of others? When you don't operate from a similar mindset, it's hard to grasp their motivation. I've always concluded that it's just like any other form of bullying where a person preys on a weaker party to feel powerful and compensate for their feelings of low self-esteem and self-worth. A lot of griefers justify their behavior by claiming they're "training" people for the fact that they'll have to deal with jerks in real life. However, I believe this is a weak justification and is telling of the fact that the griefers themselves have suffered unfair attacks in other areas of their lives. They seek to rationalize their pain by viewing it as a helpful process rather than their projecting their anger onto innocent targets just as someone else has done to them. It helps them distort their reality so they don't have to feel like victims and gives them a feeling of power to couterbalance the helplessness they felt when they were victims.
When I've discussed this on occasion in gaming forums, I've been accused of making too much of anti-social behavior in situations which "don't matter." That is, behaving poorly in an arena which is virtual and has no real consequence aside from upsetting people who are trying to relax and have fun isn't the same as behaving badly in real social environments or "real life." I agree, but not in the way the argument is meant.
I believe that real morality and personal ethics are conveyed only in situations that are of little or no consequence. If you have something at stake (social rejection, promotion at work, possible arrest), your ethics are not under any real test as you are acting for reward or out of fear of censure and not from your moral center. I think that the way you behave when no on is looking and when you can't be held accountable is a reflection of your true ethics.
Over the weekend, my CH demonstrated incredibly good concentration as he was relaxing and playing one of our favorite multi-player on-line games, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (LOD).
If you look at the picture, you can see that he's got each hand on separate mice controlling two characters on two different computers simultaneously. I have enough trouble controlling one mouse with my left hand, let alone keeping tabs on a mouse's action in a game. The only thing that makes this a little more manageable is that the characters he controls move close enough to one another that he can track them both on one screen.
My husband was controlling two characters at once because he wanted to "rush" them. Rushing means that the player wants the characters to advance and develop as quickly as possible. This is a fairly common thing to do when someone has played a game for a long time and no longer enjoys the lower level play as it isn't very challenging once one becomes proficient in the game.
In Diablo II: LOD, one of the fastest ways to rush is to join what are called "public" games because the experience comes faster if the game has more players (8 is the maximum). A public game is open to anyone who wants to join so you end up playing with strangers. Playing a multiplayer game with strangers can be a very enjoyable experience or immensely disheartening. Sometimes you get chatter which is witty and fun and sometimes you get ugly, racist nonsense or unnecessary criticism of other player's playing ability or character "wealth" (or lack thereof).
The biggest pitfall to playing a game with strangers is that many multiplayer games have the possibility of allowing "griefers" to ruin the game experience. A griefer is someone who goes out of his way to cause difficulty or destroy the game playing experience for others. One of the most common ways this is done is for a vastly higher level character to enter a game with new characters of very low level and declare hostility on them. The high level character is well-equipped and has between 10-20 times more life (hitpoints) as the characters he's trying to kill. There's no challenge in killing the other players for griefers. In fact, they aren't interested in challenge, they are only interested in causing others to suffer.
In Diablo II: LOD, there are several ways to grief. One is to go hostile on players and hunt them down and kill them or to go hostile and cause a bunch of formerly cooperative players who were enjoying a good game together to abandon the game. Another, more subtle and insidious way, is to find out what sort of quest a player is doing and then complete the last portion before they can fulfill the steps leading up to the final challenge. Doing this disables their ability to complete the quest. Last night, my husband experienced this when someone blocked the entrance to a chamber where players were to face a big boss that had to be killed. A team of griefers actually performed this. One of them went down stairs to kill the boss and the other stood in front of the entrance so other players could not get through.
I've often wondered why griefers do what they do. Why would anyone extract pleasure from spoiling the fun of others? When you don't operate from a similar mindset, it's hard to grasp their motivation. I've always concluded that it's just like any other form of bullying where a person preys on a weaker party to feel powerful and compensate for their feelings of low self-esteem and self-worth. A lot of griefers justify their behavior by claiming they're "training" people for the fact that they'll have to deal with jerks in real life. However, I believe this is a weak justification and is telling of the fact that the griefers themselves have suffered unfair attacks in other areas of their lives. They seek to rationalize their pain by viewing it as a helpful process rather than their projecting their anger onto innocent targets just as someone else has done to them. It helps them distort their reality so they don't have to feel like victims and gives them a feeling of power to couterbalance the helplessness they felt when they were victims.
When I've discussed this on occasion in gaming forums, I've been accused of making too much of anti-social behavior in situations which "don't matter." That is, behaving poorly in an arena which is virtual and has no real consequence aside from upsetting people who are trying to relax and have fun isn't the same as behaving badly in real social environments or "real life." I agree, but not in the way the argument is meant.
I believe that real morality and personal ethics are conveyed only in situations that are of little or no consequence. If you have something at stake (social rejection, promotion at work, possible arrest), your ethics are not under any real test as you are acting for reward or out of fear of censure and not from your moral center. I think that the way you behave when no on is looking and when you can't be held accountable is a reflection of your true ethics.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Burying It
Last week, I was talking to my friend and fellow Carl "the wombat stuffer" about a recent post on his blog, Carl's Kitchen. The stuffer's blog is about his food experiments and sometimes things don't go as hoped. I value his blog both because he writes in a very amusing style and because I believe that his is a rare food blog in that it's honest about everything in the cooking experience. Where other people showcase their best results and either fail to mention any of the recipe's shortcomings or gloss over them, he is completely upfront about what goes wrong and isn't afraid to show the unfortunate outcomes as well as the fortunate ones.
While discussing his most recent post about a recipe which was about a bit of a disaster (his loss is my gain since the post is funny), he mentioned that he expects to bury it by making another post soon. I'm sure he was joking about "burying it", but it reminded me of something that used to happen to me back when I was still reading my brother-in-law's blog.
As you know from one of my earliest posts on this blog, he had a hand in the death of my former blog. The whole truth is complicated and not something I'm prepared to air in its entirety right now, but he and I never got along very well. Part of the problem is that he's an opinionated, highly reactive person who reaches conclusions and spouts off about things that he doesn't know much about. Another part of the problem is that I'm an aggressive arguer who doesn't hold her tongue when someone spouts off about something which they don't know much about. The bottom line is that if he was wrong in my estimation, I pointed it out. I didn't do it in a nasty fashion, but I also didn't sugar-coat it or beat around the bush. I was forthright and I backed up what I said with facts and supporting arguments. It may be fair to say that I argue "like a man" in some ways as opposed to "like a woman" who may be more inclined (through socialization) to consider the other person's feelings first and hers second in such discussions.
The problem with this was that my brother-in-law doesn't like to be disagreed with. It's not just me that he dislikes providing counterpoints to his points and asserting that his conclusions aren't well-based. He doesn't like it from family either, but maybe he tolerates it better from them or they, knowing his character, are able to tiptoe around his hot buttons when they argue with him. I know that they argued with him enough about the imprudence of investing a large chunk of his life savings in one company that the mere mention of the topic from the CH and I was met with much arm waving and excited refusal to hear anything further on the topic from anyone. Clearly, even his family were capable of stepping over his (considerably short) limits on occasion.
At any rate, I'm no angel in the conflict with my brother-in-law. Even my saintly CH had problems dealing with the aggressiveness of my arguing style early on in our marriage. And when I say "aggressiveness", I'm talking about intensity and energy, not language. I don't insult or flat out say anyone is wrong (except in jest to break tension and generally only with the wombat stuffer or the CH), but I am a person with passion and that passion can't always be contained in a debate about an issue. That being said, I've learned a lot more control over the years and am a lot more reserved when I speak in such discussions. I am a lot less aggressive than before in my manner, though I still prefer not to be circumspect as it smacks of trying to avoid expressing true feelings.
I've changed a lot, but I'm pretty sure my brother-in-law hasn't noticed as his image of me is frozen at the person I was nearly two decades ago. I will note that seeing my CH and I as who we were instead of who we are is a problem we have with his family in general because they have so little contact with us (being in two different countries and all), but it's a lot less understandable with the CH's brother who lives in Japan. In fact, I suspect the fact that my brother-in-law has lived on and off in Japan (mostly on) since the age of 19 has a lot to do with his problems handling disagreement. He's not spent much time in a culture where people debate or quibble over points much. Japanese people tend to keep their opinions to themselves as that is the expectation in their culture. Though certainly that is not true of everyone by a long shot as I've met some very opinionated Japanese people (and have delighted in dealing with them by and large), it is usually the case, particularly with women.
Getting back to the point that I had started making at the beginning of this post about "burying" posts, I had no small number of experiences when I was reading my brother-in-law's blog where he clearly "buried" any comment that I made which pointed out how he was incorrect or that his conclusions weren't considering all the facts. He moderated comments and any time I agreed or offered a neutral aside, the comment was posted rapidly. Any time I disagreed or offered information that said he was reaching a hasty conclusion, he wouldn't post the comment for at least a day, and only then after he'd posted either one super long post or several short ones on top of the original post that I'd had an issue with. In other words, he buried such comments deep beneath his latest rant.
Another commenter of his once pointed out this tendency to bury dissenting voices to my brother-in-law and his excuse was that he was in Japan and time zones were different so there was a delay if they posted in the day-time for them and at night for him. Also, he said that he worked and didn't deal with comments for long periods of time if he was busy. The problem with this excuse was that it didn't apply to me since I'm in Japan and in the same time zone and I know for a fact that he has his notebook computer with him at all times. He'd also posted to his blog from work before and can send e-mail from there. It's a credible-sounding excuse, except when you know his habits, and there was too consistent a pattern between delayed and buried comments being of one particular type and promptly-posted ones being of another.
I often wonder why he didn't just decide not to post dissenting voices at all since they were so frustrating or embarrassing that he buried them. My guess is that a wish to believe he could handle disagreement wouldn't allow him to admit his ego couldn't take the dissent, but the desire to see himself as balanced and fair-minded didn't extend far enough to leave a comment expressing disagreement sitting there below a post at the top of the page.
At any rate, I have been endeavoring to put the whole situation behind me and lay the past to rest because I wasn't supposed to have any relationship with my brother-in-law anymore. A "truce" of sorts had been worked out through my father-in-law who suggested we essentially act as if there were a restraining order keeping us at least 500 yards apart at all times between us so that conflicts wouldn't arise. The truth was that, on my part, I only continued to have contact with him because there was concern that cutting off all contact would upset my mother-in-law and father-in-law. I was pretty happy when he suggested we not speak or read each other's blogs at all in order to keep the peace.
If you're wondering why this is on my mind again after this "truce" was worked out, it's only partially because the wombat stuffer joked about burying a post which he felt detailed a disaster. It's also because my brother-in-law called our apartment several weeks ago when only I was home. I don't know if his father didn't relay the message that I wasn't going to talk to him anymore in order to ensure peace or if the fact that he is holding a wedding reception in Japan and wants my CH to be present selfishly made him decide to just call and pretend he and I don't have an issue so he could get what he wanted.
If all of this sounds painfully petty and juvenile to you, well, I'd probably have to agree with you there. However, some personality types aren't a good mix and he and I are not. I can't stand having conflict hanging in the air with someone and not working through it, but he likes to just pretend there's no problem. I like to hash everything out and he likes to put up a defense and not talk about it. I will argue an intellectual point if I feel my argument is better grounded than someone else's and he's sure he's smarter than me. I'm a spiritually-minded person and he's an atheist who likes to mock all forms of spirituality.
We simply can't get along and I thought that was part of the test or the lesson for me in life is to accept that there are people who I'm not going to get along with and I have to be okay with that. Unfortunately, circumstances seem to be indicating that that was not the test. I'm starting to think that the real test is accepting not only that there are people I can't get along with, but also that I have no choice sometimes but to allow them into my life anyway.
While discussing his most recent post about a recipe which was about a bit of a disaster (his loss is my gain since the post is funny), he mentioned that he expects to bury it by making another post soon. I'm sure he was joking about "burying it", but it reminded me of something that used to happen to me back when I was still reading my brother-in-law's blog.
As you know from one of my earliest posts on this blog, he had a hand in the death of my former blog. The whole truth is complicated and not something I'm prepared to air in its entirety right now, but he and I never got along very well. Part of the problem is that he's an opinionated, highly reactive person who reaches conclusions and spouts off about things that he doesn't know much about. Another part of the problem is that I'm an aggressive arguer who doesn't hold her tongue when someone spouts off about something which they don't know much about. The bottom line is that if he was wrong in my estimation, I pointed it out. I didn't do it in a nasty fashion, but I also didn't sugar-coat it or beat around the bush. I was forthright and I backed up what I said with facts and supporting arguments. It may be fair to say that I argue "like a man" in some ways as opposed to "like a woman" who may be more inclined (through socialization) to consider the other person's feelings first and hers second in such discussions.
The problem with this was that my brother-in-law doesn't like to be disagreed with. It's not just me that he dislikes providing counterpoints to his points and asserting that his conclusions aren't well-based. He doesn't like it from family either, but maybe he tolerates it better from them or they, knowing his character, are able to tiptoe around his hot buttons when they argue with him. I know that they argued with him enough about the imprudence of investing a large chunk of his life savings in one company that the mere mention of the topic from the CH and I was met with much arm waving and excited refusal to hear anything further on the topic from anyone. Clearly, even his family were capable of stepping over his (considerably short) limits on occasion.
At any rate, I'm no angel in the conflict with my brother-in-law. Even my saintly CH had problems dealing with the aggressiveness of my arguing style early on in our marriage. And when I say "aggressiveness", I'm talking about intensity and energy, not language. I don't insult or flat out say anyone is wrong (except in jest to break tension and generally only with the wombat stuffer or the CH), but I am a person with passion and that passion can't always be contained in a debate about an issue. That being said, I've learned a lot more control over the years and am a lot more reserved when I speak in such discussions. I am a lot less aggressive than before in my manner, though I still prefer not to be circumspect as it smacks of trying to avoid expressing true feelings.
I've changed a lot, but I'm pretty sure my brother-in-law hasn't noticed as his image of me is frozen at the person I was nearly two decades ago. I will note that seeing my CH and I as who we were instead of who we are is a problem we have with his family in general because they have so little contact with us (being in two different countries and all), but it's a lot less understandable with the CH's brother who lives in Japan. In fact, I suspect the fact that my brother-in-law has lived on and off in Japan (mostly on) since the age of 19 has a lot to do with his problems handling disagreement. He's not spent much time in a culture where people debate or quibble over points much. Japanese people tend to keep their opinions to themselves as that is the expectation in their culture. Though certainly that is not true of everyone by a long shot as I've met some very opinionated Japanese people (and have delighted in dealing with them by and large), it is usually the case, particularly with women.
Getting back to the point that I had started making at the beginning of this post about "burying" posts, I had no small number of experiences when I was reading my brother-in-law's blog where he clearly "buried" any comment that I made which pointed out how he was incorrect or that his conclusions weren't considering all the facts. He moderated comments and any time I agreed or offered a neutral aside, the comment was posted rapidly. Any time I disagreed or offered information that said he was reaching a hasty conclusion, he wouldn't post the comment for at least a day, and only then after he'd posted either one super long post or several short ones on top of the original post that I'd had an issue with. In other words, he buried such comments deep beneath his latest rant.
Another commenter of his once pointed out this tendency to bury dissenting voices to my brother-in-law and his excuse was that he was in Japan and time zones were different so there was a delay if they posted in the day-time for them and at night for him. Also, he said that he worked and didn't deal with comments for long periods of time if he was busy. The problem with this excuse was that it didn't apply to me since I'm in Japan and in the same time zone and I know for a fact that he has his notebook computer with him at all times. He'd also posted to his blog from work before and can send e-mail from there. It's a credible-sounding excuse, except when you know his habits, and there was too consistent a pattern between delayed and buried comments being of one particular type and promptly-posted ones being of another.
I often wonder why he didn't just decide not to post dissenting voices at all since they were so frustrating or embarrassing that he buried them. My guess is that a wish to believe he could handle disagreement wouldn't allow him to admit his ego couldn't take the dissent, but the desire to see himself as balanced and fair-minded didn't extend far enough to leave a comment expressing disagreement sitting there below a post at the top of the page.
At any rate, I have been endeavoring to put the whole situation behind me and lay the past to rest because I wasn't supposed to have any relationship with my brother-in-law anymore. A "truce" of sorts had been worked out through my father-in-law who suggested we essentially act as if there were a restraining order keeping us at least 500 yards apart at all times between us so that conflicts wouldn't arise. The truth was that, on my part, I only continued to have contact with him because there was concern that cutting off all contact would upset my mother-in-law and father-in-law. I was pretty happy when he suggested we not speak or read each other's blogs at all in order to keep the peace.
If you're wondering why this is on my mind again after this "truce" was worked out, it's only partially because the wombat stuffer joked about burying a post which he felt detailed a disaster. It's also because my brother-in-law called our apartment several weeks ago when only I was home. I don't know if his father didn't relay the message that I wasn't going to talk to him anymore in order to ensure peace or if the fact that he is holding a wedding reception in Japan and wants my CH to be present selfishly made him decide to just call and pretend he and I don't have an issue so he could get what he wanted.
If all of this sounds painfully petty and juvenile to you, well, I'd probably have to agree with you there. However, some personality types aren't a good mix and he and I are not. I can't stand having conflict hanging in the air with someone and not working through it, but he likes to just pretend there's no problem. I like to hash everything out and he likes to put up a defense and not talk about it. I will argue an intellectual point if I feel my argument is better grounded than someone else's and he's sure he's smarter than me. I'm a spiritually-minded person and he's an atheist who likes to mock all forms of spirituality.
We simply can't get along and I thought that was part of the test or the lesson for me in life is to accept that there are people who I'm not going to get along with and I have to be okay with that. Unfortunately, circumstances seem to be indicating that that was not the test. I'm starting to think that the real test is accepting not only that there are people I can't get along with, but also that I have no choice sometimes but to allow them into my life anyway.
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