The darkness itself.

(Continued from yesterday's entry "The firefly night")

My sister and I wandered around in the night, sometimes hand in hand. My mother dragged behind,　somewhat breathlessly, as I and my sister were walking fast.

It was quite a while before we could get any signs of fireflies. Suddenly, there was a cry. "Look, there goes the firefly!" We dashed on, but could not really observe the light hindered by the walls of people's backs.

Then a little boy came along, with an insect cage hanging from his hand. Lights could be seen going on and off in it. There were fireflies! "Where did you capture these things?" My mother ventured to ask. "Just there, over in the forest!" The boy's caretaker answered.

"Into the forest!" I cried, and I went off in that direction, with the equally excited sister. We looked around and around, but there were no signs of fireflies. Perhaps the had all gone to bed by now.

But then, as if in a miracle, there, in the grass near a big tree, was a flickering and vibrant light. We found the firefly! We made the encounter at last!

Strangely, by this time, the zeal to capture the insect and take it home was gone. I and sister lingered on to watch the fireflies without bothering to capture them. The night breeze was cool and pleasant. And then, gradually, we made friends with the darkness itself. The fireflies did not matter any more.

In a tranquil mood, we went home and slept.

The firefly night.

When I was about 10 years old, there was an announcement in the local newspaper that a "firefly night" would be held in a nearby park. Thousands of fireflies would be released in the park for the public to enjoy, the article claimed.

The park, spacious but devoid of any clean running water, was not naturally a habitat of the light-emitting insects. The event was clearly meant to be one-off, with the fireflies brought in from somewhere else, either captivated in the wild or artificially nurtured.

In the contemporary atmosphere ever-conscious of animal welfare and environmental concerns, such an event would raise the eyebrows of many. At that time, however, thirty-something years ago, nobody seemed to have any objections. The fireflies might eventually perish in a foreign environment, but the joy that these insects give, no matter how temporary, was thought to justify the whole fuss (and mess for the insects).

I got all excited to read the article, and asked my mother to take me to the park. We had to ride the train to reach there. I took my small sister, equipped with insect net and cage. When we arrived at the station, there were already lots of kids with eager eyes. They had only one thing in mind. To see a firefly, and, if possible, to capture it to take home.

From the newspaper article, I had a vivid imagination of light points moving here and there in the dark, overwhelming the vision. The reality turned out to be more mundane. Perhaps the numbers were correct. However, averaged over the spaciousness of the designated park, the number of fireflies per unit area turned out to be disappointingly low.

"There are no fireflies," exclaimed my sister. "I would like to go home," she begun to wail. Perhaps the darkness frightened her. I did not want to go home in a hurry, so I kept saying "the fireflies would be in that direction", and continued to move around in the dark forest.

(This story is to be continued)

The beauty of butterfly watching

When I go for jogging in the park forest nearby, I am always watching out for butterflies. They are lovely creatures. I used to try to catch them when I was a child, but nowadays I just observe their behavior.

The most interesting feature of behavior to watch is the route that they take. The butterfly flight paths should be in principle chosen carefully for the survival value (i.e., in search of nectar, possible mates, and avoiding predators), and yet are full of rapid turns and apparently whimsical perturbations at the same time.

The beauty of butterfly watching is that you never know when and from where they are coming. Every corner of your vision becomes a potential route of entry for the airborne creature. By waiting for the butterflies, your sensitivities are kept alive and vibrant.

Yesterday, I was lucky to observe a beautiful specimen of Great Mormon (Papilio memnon Linnaeus). This magnificent butterfly used to be more southern bound. Probably due to the effects of global warming, we can now observe Great Mormons in Tokyo, too.

Thus, while jogging among the greens, I can sometimes encounter a messenger from the south.


A Great Mormon.

Every child is born into a system of language.

Every child is born into a system of language. I was born into the universe of Japanese, spoken by 130 million people but virtually confined to the island nation.

English came as a second language. Nowadays I use it constantly in my professional and private lives. As a non-native speaker I still have difficulties handling things.

Fortunately the situations are improving. I feel more and more confident and find tremendous joys in going over national borders and getting connected with people on the globe via the lingua franca. Having said that, the fact that English came to me as a second language has been a source of tremendous hardships in my life.

If only English was my native language. Such wishful thinking sometimes do come to me. On the other hand, there must be some advantages of being born into a minority language. I am yet to find the specific blessing. Maybe the point is too subtle to be made in a short period.

At the least, because of the difficulties experienced, I am set out to do a particular kind of soul searching. Hopefully I stumble upon some valuable truth one day because of this wandering around.

Being in a hot air.

So I am back in Tokyo, back into the heat and humidity. When at home, I do not use the air conditioner, as I don't like the artificial atmosphere. The occasional breeze from the window is just fine for me.

Consequently, when I go out, I enjoy the cool air on the train, in the buildings. A tremendous motivation for me to go out!
The reason why I am resistant to heat can probably be sought back to the days when I was chasing butterflies in the field as a child. Butterflies love fine weather, and they roam around when it is hot. I associate good old memories with the state of being in a hot air.

Having said that, today's heat in Tokyo is probably a little bit too much even for me. Good thing that I will be going out soon.

East of Eden.

On the plane back to Tokyo (JL001), I watched the film "East of Eden". I think I had seen this masterpiece directed by Elia Kazan a few times, in the days of my naive and callow twenties. The memory of the famous theme music, which is very easy to capture and remember, did not need any refreshing. On the other hand, I realized that I had forgotten most of the details of the film synopsis. The lettuce and beans, for example.

As I watched on, I was emotionally gripped. The story of rivalry between the twin brothers Cal (played superbly by James Dean) and Aron invoked a strange wave of resonance in my heart. The undertone of a possible romantic triangular relations between the twin brothers and Abra (played impressively by Julie Harris) added an atmosphere of tension.

The final scene of reconciliation between the father and son was moving because of the subtle chemistry portrayed. The presence of the ever annoying nurse added a strangely effective spice to the whole thing, which might have been otherwise too sweet. The chasm of misunderstandings and miscommunications finally melted like a snowflake touched by the warmth of the human skin.
Before I knew it, tears welled in my eyes. In order to hide my face from the flight attendants, I raised my right arm to the level of my ear, pretending I was stretching my body after a long flight.


East of Eden.

2nd day at the Science Foo camp.

2nd day at the Science Foo camp on the Googleplex. Discussions begin in earnest. The sessions are self-organized, scribed down on large post-its on a large schedule board. I chose to attend the Evolution of beauty, Lightening talks (II), Minds, brains and children, Embracing uncertainty, Aliens and search for life 2.0., Death of old media & the birth of new democracy, and Future of authors sessions.

I met quite a few interesting people. E.g., Jaron Lanier and John Brockman.

I just love the atmosphere of free concepts exchange and jazzy dance together of minds. During the sessions, I always made a point of speaking out. But since the exchange of vocalized opinions are so continuous and never-breaking, my own music of thought needed to be precisely timed and had to be explosive when successfully inserted.
I thank the organizers and participants for the awesomeness of the whole thing.

Scince Foo Camp opening.

First day of Science Foo camp 2010 at Google campus.

It was my first visit to the Googleplex. Impressive. The atmosphere of playfulness and serious concentration was resonating and just fine for me.

We registered at building 40. Lots of interesting people around me. We got out badges, souvenior paper weight with 3D laser sculpture. (Mine was the fractal Julia set. Others were DNA structure and geomagnetic field. Cool.)

With a glass of wine in hand, I took a brief stroll in the campus. Four men were playing beach volleyball. There was a whole T. Rex skeleton, with birds sticking out of here and there. There were posters recruiting people for film gatherings and table tennis tournament. The dress code seemed to be "google casual."

In the opening session, we introduced ourselves each briefly with three key words. Daniel Kahneman was there. Larry Page said hello to the participants. The organizers from Google, Nature, and O'Reilly made interesting opening remarks. How stimulating the whole thing is!

This taxi driver has developed a cognitive filtering machine.

So here I am in Sunnyvale, California. It is 2:42 p.m. local time. In the evening, I will be attending the Science Foo Camp sponsored by Google and Nature. After I am done with this blogging, I will most probably take a nap, as I could not get adequate sleep on the plane.

I originally thought of hiring a car, but then judged it was probably too much trouble. Therefore I took a cab instead. I always enjoy conversation with the driver.

We were discussing the high tech devises on the car. The driver pointed to a camera and said it captured 8 hours of video, looping. "Do you get any strange customers?" I asked. "Yes", the driver said. "Especially at night. You know when people are loaded, when they are drunk, they sometimes behave strangely. But you can tell pretty well whether a guy is going to behave strangely when he is standing on the road." "Really?" "Oh, yeah. When a guy is waving his hand like that, or is standing in the middle of road, you can pretty well tell that he is going to make trouble. I just pass by them."

So it appears that this taxi driver has developed a cognitive filtering machine, telling potentially troublesome customers beforehand. A good adaptation. I am curious about the specific details for classification, though.

Being in a minority position is not without its joys.

Throughout my life, I seem to have been enjoying the status of being a minority.

In the junior high, I used to chase butterflies in the field, and read grown-up's books. That was an attitude not ubiquitous among us brats, so I was always looked at as if observing something strange.

As I grew up, my tastes seemed to be shift into increasingly exotic areas in terms of sensitivity and feelings. I had to hide my true nature from time to time, but then I started to encounter people of my own kind.

I remember quite well the rubbishings and abuses we Mac users used to receive from the majority of people who uses the import from Seattle. They said that Macs are for fun and not for serious business. Corporations and schools matter-of-factly announced that their systems and apps were not compatible with the Mac. What do you care? Many computer viruses also turned out to be Mac-incompatible.

When waiting for the train in a Tokyo subway station, I tend to stand in the corners or at the farthest ends of the platform, away from where most people stay for convenience. For me, being alone seems to be more important than seeking convenience.

And the last straw is the problem of qualia. Many "serious" scientists laugh at it as if it is a pseudo-problem. They tend to maintain that functionalist approaches based on connectionist models are sufficient. Again, what do you care. One cannot change what one believes based on empirical observation and application of pure logic.

Being in a minority position is not without its joy. When you are in the majority, it is not that difficult to find people with whom you can resonate. Being in the minority, friend-making becomes an art in miraculous encounters. For example, if and when you find people who are seriously interested in the problem of qualia, that can give you a joy that lasts all your life.

May Ebizo and Mao live happily ever after.

I attended the wedding party of Ebizo Ichikawa, the young and great Kabuki actor. The Kabuki is a miracle, as it is both popular and artistically very refined. Very few genres of art achieve these often incompatible goals.

Ebizo is a great person. He has the savageness of a beast, as well as a fine-tuned intelligence of a noble man. The lady he chose as his partner, Ms. Mao Kobayashi, is a well known newscaster and a very beautiful lady.

Once on stage, Ebizo can become very furious. He can portray characters very remote from human dimensions. His energy then truly approaches that of a dragon. However, this evening, Ebizo was just a very happy man, grinning all the time. May Ebizo and Mao live happily ever after.


Ebizo and Mao cutting the cake. From asahi.com.

EST, EST, EST.

My favorite bar in Tokyo is "EST" in Yushima. The first time I visited this legendary bar, I was with Ken Shiotani, my fat philosopher friend. We had just turned 22. Shiotani was actually not that fat at that time. Then his belly area started to grow rapidly, and outpaced the Japanese economy.

I have a vivid image of the first night at EST. We were wandering in the small streets of Yushima, and Shiotani said out of the blue that he had a place that he wanted to try out. At that time, it was mainly Shiotani that came up with the proposals. I was rather a naive boy in the field of culinary and alcoholic delights. Shiotani was quite eager in this respect, which probably accounts for his big gain in weight.

The walk brought us to a thick wooden door. Inside, we found a polished bar table and a man in white cook coat with a gentle smile. That was Mr. Watanabe, master of EST.

Since then, EST has been my haven, EST has been my heaven, EST has been my home. EST, EST, EST. When do I go to EST next time with my fat philosopher friend?


With Ken Shiotani on the "Hanami" (cherry blossom admiring) night this March.

Passion meter.

As I go about my life, I meet many people. Some are famous. Others are young. Many are experienced. A few are truly awesome. I seem to appreciate the individualities of these persons in many different ways. One of the most important, however, is what I would call a "passion meter".

The question is how passionate a person is about his or her life. Passion can be nurtured in adversities, so the superficial success or failure are not that important. Intelligence also does relatively little to do with the passion level.

When professing a cause, the key concern is how deeply the antagonist actually believes in that cause. In many cases, people are just saying niceties, and do not actually put their energy into the realization of the causes. Some people are too established to really care for other people or themselves.

The greatest tragedy in life is the loss of passion. When a nation or a society suffers from it, inevitable decline follows. In many cases, people do not notice the decline, as their eyes are blind to the fact that they can convert difficulties into passion, if and only if they have the courage to do so.

So I go about the world today again with my passion meter. When I encounter an outlier of magnitude in the passion measure, I consider it as one of the rare blessings to my life.

Sapporo

Responding to the invitation of a senior high school headmaster Mr. Kawasaki, I gave two lectures in Sapporo. After the strenuous but enjoying hours, I strolled in the streets towards a local restaurant. It is always refreshing to venture into the unknown. Your instinct to discern the good from the mediocre, the tasty from the not so tasty, is highly invoked and something in you that remained dormant for so many years become active.

It occurs much slower than in a video game. The number of choices are also limited. You cannot fast-forward or keyword search.
But then everything is embodied, here and now.

Finally, we decided on a fisherman's restaurant. The defining moment is the taste of the evening's first beer. As I talked into the late hours with people from around the northern city, the joy of being on the road slowly unfolds itself.

In traveling, you are lost once and then find a transient home. You rest your weight on the newly found ground and then dissolve it without regret. The rather quick procession of things assures that your life is well revived and taken care of. You find that, once again, traveling has refreshed the life in you.

The 10 years wait of James Joyce

The Dubliners by James Joyce is a sublime example of English prose work. Written in 1904, the classic masterpiece, however, did not get published until 1914. Seen from the perspectives of today, there is nothing objectionable in the work. At that time, however, some of the expressions in The Dubliners (such as "have a girl") were considered inappropriate.

The fact that James Joyce could not get his work of genius published for 10 full years is a testimony of the fact that reception is not always automatic or immediate.

Let the 10 years wait of James Joyce be a source of inspiration for every young would-be creators and young-at-hearts.


James Joyce.

To express oneself.

To express oneself, in particular as a matter of being understood by the widest audience possible and giving pleasure to many, is a hard uphill climb.

You need to forsake yourself. Self protection is the worst scenario. As one famous Buddhist monk in medieval Japan remarked, you need to jump into the water flow to emerge in a new land of tranquility.

These were the words that crossed my mind as I had serious discussions with four other judges over the decision of awarding 8th Takeshi Kaiko prize. What a privilege it is to read the candidates' serious attempts at the genre of non-fiction. The torch is carried and relayed, because of the courage of these upcoming writers to forsake one's old self.


Takeshi Kaiko.

The sublime underdogs.

Nowadays Japanese manga and anime enjoy much popularity and a high respectability. Manga and anime are considered the primary cultural exports out of the island nation. They are also epitomes of "cool Japan". Manga and anime are extolled by culture lovers and government officials alike.

The situation was completely different when the pioneers of modern manga and anime cultures, led by the creative genius of Osamu Tezuka, made their headways. The reaction from the "established" circles were sneers, disgust, disregard, or mild tolerance at best. For a long time, manga and anime were considered to be catering to children's pastime, and were not considered to be serious subjects for grown-ups.

Thus, history repeated itself. It once happened there, and here again. The cold reaction from the society towards the underdogs, and then the growth of popularity and eventual coronation is a well-known pattern of acceptance. No praise could do justice to the immense courage and hard work of the pioneering underdogs. They deserve all the appreciation now bestowed upon the genre.

Now the Japanese manga and anime are in the danger of being too established. The sublime underdogs will be probably somewhere else, in another country or cultural domain perhaps, being sneered by the establishment but silently doing their home works.



Pioneer of manga and anime. The great Osamu Tezuka

The joy of being completely out of your depth.

When I traveled to Korea a few weeks ago, I had the joy of being in a land where I found myself helpless as a three year old child. Hangul, the beautiful system of "alphabets" that the Koreans proudly use, is out of my reach at present. I can read in a very rudimentary way, but then with lots of difficulties and at an incredibly slow pace.

I remember the days when I first started to learn English at the age of 12. Then, even the difference of one letter "s" in the verb between "he plays tennis" and "they play tennis" was a discovery. I then went on to make small discoveries inch by inch, until English became my second language for reading, writing, and casting a web onto the world around me.

It is so blissful to be out of your depth. As I wandered through the streets of Seoul, I found joy in feeling helpless, surrounded by the wonderful and yet unknown universe of the Hangul. I would very much like to be out of my depth from time to time, as it is the only way to rejuvenation.

On English.

My native language is not English. I started to learn English only at the age of 12. Then my struggle began, as English and Japanese are two completely different language systems.

When I was 15, I went to a foreign country for the first time. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, I had the fortune of being touched by the warm hearts of people and being exposed to the universe of the English language in the day to day life.

Lots of water has flown under the bridge. Partly due to the internet (it probably gave the definitive, finishing touch), English has now established itself as the lingua franca of the new world, especially on the web.

Thus, people in the world are divided into two classes. Those who speak English as their native tongue and those who learn English later. There are many different kinds of people, for sure, along the spectrum, but roughly speaking, there are those two categories of people in the world.

Shortly after I started to write about general subjects in English, I realized that writing in the lingua franca is actually a way to connect not only to the native speakers of English, but also to miscellaneous people living in various parts of the world, who have learned English as a secondary language. Thus, communicating in English has broadened my world in two significantly different ways.

The revelation of constellation

Now I am staying in the Kayoutei onsen ryokan in Yamanaka Onsen, Ishikawa prefecture.

This ryokan is famed for its magnificent breakfast, sometimes praised as "Japan's no. 1 breakfast". I am looking forward to it within a few minutes.

Yesterday, after work, we had a small party in the lounge. When the time was up, I went back to my room. There is a balcony attached to the room. Before going to bed, (or rather, going to the futon spread out on the tatami mat), I went out onto the balcony for a brief time.

What a surrounding! There was a mountain forest just behind the building, and I could see the border of treetops against the sky even in the darkness. There were stars scattered all over. The tranquility was awesome. The milky way was clearly visible, trembling with the random motions of air. Some night birds were audible, with their distinctive tones and melodies.

The day had been hot, with the sun glittering, and I think I was still carrying something of the day inside me. The moment I stepped onto the veranda, the sun and the glittering melted away like snow in the spring. Beautified serenity remained after, in which my soul found a deep solace. I felt that my mind was expanded and connected with the entities surrounding me in the universe.

I could have stayed on the terrace for longer, and ever could have slept on it. The allurement was so sweet and strong. As the more practical side of me won over, I went back to my room and put my head down on the futon. The revelation of constellation was still within me, as I finally lost my consciousness.