The reason for resilience.

Talk given by Ken Mogi at TED Long Beach on 29th February, 2012, 10 days before the 1st anniversary of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of 2011.

twitter: @kenmogi
e-mail: kenmogi@qualia-manifesto.com

On March 11th 2011, a massive earthquake hit Eastern Japan. About 30 minutes later, devastating waves of tsunami came ashore across the Tohoku area. It was a natural disaster of a scale unprecedented in the remembered history of Japan. Scientists later confirmed that it had been an event once in a thousand years. Then the nuclear power plant accident at Fukushima followed, casting shadows over people’s lives and hearts. It was a “black swan” event that even experts had failed to predict. The tsunami swept cars, houses, to the utter despair of those looking on in disbelief. Children cried, while their parents could do nothing but to comfort them. Tens of thousands of people lost their loved ones, their cherished homes, and their long-held ways of life.

In memory of the people who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami, I would like to dedicate here a moment of silence.

Almost immediately after the disaster, recovery efforts started. People around the world were impressed by the resilience of the Japanese people, who never forgot smiles on their faces, despite the incredible difficulties encountered in the wake of a disaster.

Here I would like to share with you a philosophy behind the resilience of Japanese people. Among Japanese fishermen, there is a saying that “under the board, there is hell.” Once the Mother Nature rages, there is nothing you can do about it. Despite the risks, a fisherman ventures off into the ocean, to do his best to make a living.

This old proverb is true for all of us. As the world becomes small, we are facing newly emerging oceans of contingencies. Just like the Japanese fishermen, we don’t give up. We proceed, with smiles on our faces. In fact, we can even say that risks and uncertainties are the mothers of hope and wisdom.

Here I have a flag, given to me by a fisherman in Kamaishi, who has been personally affected by the tsunami. In order to cheer us up, I swing here the Japanese fisherman’s flag. Under the board, there is hell. That’s why we all hope to build peace and prosperity on our humble boat, through our resilience and hard work. And that’s why we are all here today. Thank you very much.

St. Valentine’s day, the Japanese way.

The 14th of February is a day on which the hearts of many Japanese men throb, in (literally) sweet expectations of pleasures to come.

The day is recognized as the “St. Valentine’s day”, a day on which you express your love to your sweethearts. That bit is pretty much the same all around the world. What is unique in Japan is that it is mainly a girl that is expected to express her love, giving a box of chocolate to the boy held dear in heart. Often the presentation is a surprise one, coming from an unexpected admirer of the opposite sex. That’s why the boys’ hearts throb on this fateful day.

Conspiracy theories abound as to how the Japanese Valentine’s day has “degenerated” into a unidirectional offering of cacao based sweets. Some say that it was a campaign of the chocolate manufacturers which kick-started the now (in)famous tradition. Brainwashing aside, chocolate giving has taken hold most probably because it somehow resonated with the Japanese psyche.

Japanese girls seem to like the idea of giving a box of chocolate to the loved one, as it fits the image of sweet feminineness. Boys, on the receiving side, admire the tenderness and considerations expressed this way. It is thus the result of a cultural marriage between the Western tradition and Japanese conception of what is feminine that has made chocolate giving on Saint Valentine’s day such a runaway hit.

It is interesting how much and deeply one could delve into the traditions and cultures of a particular nation, by taking note of a seemingly trivial custom. One would be able to reveal many things about the Nation of Japan, just thinking about the chocolate giving on Saint Valentine’s day. This short essay is intended as just a starter. I would be able to deepen my thoughts better, with the help of a box of chocolate.

If I get one, that is.


A Japanese girl offering a box of self-made chocolate, from http://umasou.com/barentain/, a recipe site for Valentine’s day chocolates.

How a Japanese prime minister has become MHP.

When I was a kid, it used to be that the prime minister was considered the nation’s top job. A boy often had the aspiration to become one some day, pouring out in school essays how he would then change the nation. Quite apart from the obvious flaw of Japanese society that girls usually did not (and still do not) aspire to become politicians, the classic picture does not hold anymore. The times they are a-changin’.

The prime ministers come in and go through the now famous revolving door of Japanese politics. When a prime minister is elected and comes into the spotlight, he (sadly, in Japan, we don’t have yet to write “or she” here as a historical fact; same applies to U.S. presidency) enjoys the “honeymoon” with the Japanese populace for a very short time. That period is then followed by a series of humiliations, both public and private, fueled by the overjealous attention of the Japanese media whose main job these days are forcing politicians to step down. One government figure resigned, one mission accomplished.

Thus, a Japanese prime minister (“JPM”) has become the synonym for the “MHP” (Most Humiliated Person) of the nation. No wonder a boy doesn’t aspire to become a P.M. any more. Nobody wants to be humiliated, or deserves to be.

This thought is just in. A female prime minister might really change the situation for the better, as it is not such a decent job to humiliate a lady. Even the media bastards know that.



Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. He has had his share of humiliation. I am personally sorry for him.

The decipherer of an enigma.

Last night, I was having drinks with my best friend and literary agent Hamish Macaskill, in a Tokyo wine bar. While we were waiting for the British novelist David Peace (now resident in Tokyo) and Spanish film director/writer David Trueba, Hamish said something quite interesting. There is a trend, Hamish said, of English writers producing contemporary or period dramas based in Japan. In the genre, Hamish said, it appears that it is essential to write the details that a Japanese writer or those who are familiar with the Japanese culture (like Hamish himself) would omit. In fact, Hamish often finds the details described in a novel based in Japan (the smell of a soy source, etc.) unnecessary and disturbing.

"It seems that the novels that I don't like sell well!" Hamish said.

Hamish's comment stroke a chord of truth in me. We take for granted what we are accustomed to. The merit of an outsider is that he or she can decipher the implicit cultural codes. The writer becomes the decipherer of an enigma.

As the two Davids arrived, we went on with the wine drinking and deciphering business, bringing together different backgrounds, prejudices, hopes and dreams. (Hamish is originally from Australia) It was a fitting action for the soul and the body on an evening of pre-Christmas merriments.


David Trueba (left) and Hamish Macaskill. David Peace went to the restroom.

Confessions of an atheist.

First of all, happy holidays, everyone!
This is a season of goodwill.
So it is with a spirit of goodwill that I jot down the confessions below.

One of the most salient endeavors of notable intellectuals in recent years has been the effort to spread the philosophy of atheism. The late Christopher Hitchens was one of the most active proponents. And of course, Richard Dawkins, whose book "The God Delusion" laid out persuasive arguments as to why religions can be sometimes oppressive, did a great service to humanity in pointing out the road toward more freedom.

It is a trivial matter, in my own perspective, that a concept of God where "he" or "she" possesses a personality like our own, is passé. In fact, Baruch Spinoza presented a beautiful argument about the absolute infinity of "God" in his magnum opus "Ethica" in the 17th century. According to Spinoza, a concept of God where he has a body, will, and intellect, is self-contradictory as these properties pertain to finite existences like ourselves. I think that was a conclusive argument. The concept of observing and punishing God has been passé for more than three centuries.



Thirty something decades after Spinoza, I think the only intellectually interesting and challenging problem about the concept of God today is why we sometimes do have illusions of a "finite" God. There might have been psychological and/or evolutionary needs. For example, the central thesis of Christianity, as I understand it, is the belief that Christ was the Son of God, and yet was incarnated to have a finite body like us, and went through all the hardships that led to his eventual crucifixion.

Although as a rational human being I remain an atheist (strictly speaking, as I am resonant with the Spinozan concept of God, I might qualify as a "pantheist"), I do find the "story" of Christian incarnation and crucifixion fascinating and deeply moving. That an "absolutely infinite God" could voluntarily put Itself in the position of a finite and mortal being like ourselves by incarnation and go through the agony and pain of persecution and death, is, I think, one of the most beautiful "fictions" that human beings have ever conceived.

After all, the very nature of our phenomenal experience is illusory. Love is an illusion, and so is perhaps the very concept of scientific truth. To say something is illusory does not mean that it must forever be marked by stigma. When an illusion has proved powerful, it is useful to study the nature of its epistemological origins, and clarify the continuing effects on people's lives.

Thus, although I hope to remain a rational thinker, I feel as if the basic claim of the "atheist" movement has now been well received and accepted, at least in the intellectual circle, so that it is probably time to proceed with business of the elucidation of its nature of the "illusion" of God, in a spirit of goodwill.

Well, that was my confession, folks. Happy holiday seasons, again.


The Crucifixion, seen from the Cross, by James Tissot, 19th century.

Beauty and dictatorship as defense mechanisms.

The “dear leader” of North Korea, Kim Jong-il is dead. The dictator could not control his own heart condition. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn’t put the dear leader together again. Although he was feared by the people, I think Kim Jong-il was feeble as a man, deep down. And perhaps he knew that himself.

As everybody knows, dictatorship is a kind of defense mechanism. The very concept of a political power suggests a dependency on others, in a big way. If you don’t have other people, on whom can you exercise your earthly powers? It is not very much fun to be a dictator, if there is only one people (you!) in the nation. As a dictator you depend on your people. So much so, that it becomes a dangerous addiction before long.
Reports suggest that when Kim Jong-il succeeded his father Kim Il-sung, he was not sure of his power base. He judged, correctly, that the military was to be the key for securing power. He went on with his business of strengthening the military. The nuclear weapon, the missiles, and the rest is now history. After all, these were manifestations of the defense instinct of a feeble man, who was dependent on his people for his very existence.

At this point, I should say that there is a completely different mechanism that could be taken by a fragile existence.

Beauty.

Take the painting of Mona Lisa by Leonard da Vinci, on display in the Louvre in Paris, for example. As a physical entity, it is very fragile. It has no means of defending itself. If an evil will wishes to destroy it and set it on fire, it can easily do so. However, the extreme beauty of the Mona Lisa has been the strong defense machinery which has preserved the painting over the centuries. And it will be preserved thus, for all eventualities, in the centuries to come.

So here is the spectrum of self-defense for you. On one extreme, you have dictatorship, nuclear weapons, and the missiles. On the other, you have beauty. What a bewilderingly complex and enigmatic world we live in.


Kim Jong-il, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011 (image from Wikipedia)



Mona Lisa, circa 1503–1519 to …. (image from Wikipedia)

What a wonderful pet you have on your iPad.

With the advent of e-books and e-book readers (right now I am an avid user of the kindle reader on iPad), my childhood habit of being turned into a bookworm without warning has returned with a vengeance. I am reading several books at the same time, flipping between them as my whim seems to dictate.

The list right right now are: “Cycles of time” by Roger Penrse, “Linked” by Albert-laszio Barabasi, “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin (reading for a third time!) and “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv. Last week, I finished “the Doors of Perception” by Aldous Huxley for the third or Fourth time.

Although we have an abundance of texts scattered all over the cyberspace now, looking back on my own experience, books remain the significant and perhaps sole life-changer. The duration, concentration, and the sheer synthesis involved in the experience of book reading seems to be an indispensable ingredient of a dramatic change in one’s world views.

For example, “Free to choose” by Milton Friedman that I read when I was about 20 changed my idea about competition and market. I confess probably I am still under the influence of this book. An Albert Einstein biography that I came across at the tender age of 10 (I read the Japanese version as I did not speak English at all at that time) inspired me so much, that I found myself wanting to be a scientist and revolutionize the world conceptually.

Thus, although I do find the timely arrivals of latest news and comments on the web now an essential part of my reading experience (powered, nowadays, by Flipboard), I do keep my insatiable hunger for more books, from all genres.

It is my view that you can look around the world from the vantage height in proportion to all the books that you have read in your life, with all the books stuck on top of each other. Thus, reading a book is an act of building that famous Newtonian giant. You can nurture your own giant by reading books. What a wonderful pet you have on your iPad.

“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

(Isaac Newton in his letter to his Robert Hooke on February 5, 1676)

The Flipboard user experience.

I have been using the Flipboard on iPad for a week. Yes, I am VERY late to arrive on this. I am like that sometimes, failing to register an important technical trend. I am still unable to appreciate the usefulness of Facebook, for example, although I have been a registered user for over a year now.

I must say that I find Flipboard extraordinarily interesting and useful. It has changed the way I read texts of interest. I mainly browse through the news and tech sections. The way relevant sources are curated and brought to my fingertips provides an interesting insight into how the meshed up web will evolve in the future.

I read somewhere that “every millisecond counts” was the hidden ethos among engineers at Google. When you search something, it is important to return the results as quickly as possible. It is not computation, it is also about the user experience. If you extend that logic to modes of sensorimotor interaction on the web in general, you begin to see why and how an application like Flipboard is a substantial innovation.

Even if you could have arrived at more or less a similar list of information sources through traditional search engines, the ebb and flow of the pages curated through Flipboard provides a completely different user experience.

Traditional ways of “gathering” information on the web begin to pale and fade in the face of Flipboard. It is interesting to witness the latest innovations happening on the web in the direction of enriching user experiences in general. A company which does not regard user experience as an integral part of its business is prone to fail in the coming era. A few names come across one’s mind.

The cloud has finally arrived, and it is here to stay.

I used to have the notion that natural language processing was lousy and unreliable by default. And it was not simply a Luddite sentiment. With the sort of new technologies like Siri, however, the times they are-a-changin’. The artificial processing of natural language seems to have finally arrived. And it is here to stay.

Although from the strictly theoretical point of view the juries are still out, it appears that the cloud is definitely a crucial element in the remarkable innovations. The computations are distributed, and the resources are on the web. A self-contained system on the client device would not have succeeded so much. One element is the computational capacity, but the very nature of the network is also a defining factor.

And when you think about it, language has always been about the cloud. When we humans comprehend a word or a sentence, a whole network of knowledge and memories is invoked. The pattern of activation is likely to follow the famous power law. In such a distributed environment, there is no strict central control. The scattered and haphazard nature of processing has always been the defining factor of the conversations that we carry every day. And the chain of causality does not end with an individual brain. Words have been passed on from people to people, over the years, mediated by spoken words, written records, on the air, and through accidental encounters.

In the technology world the cloud has just arrived. Among our brains, the cloud has always been here. The cloud has finally arrived, and it is here to stay.

To build or not to build, that is the question.

I have made several visits to the tsunami devastated areas in Tohoku. The damages have been tremendous and heartbreaking. Now that the sorrow of lost lives and memories start to sink deep into the psyche, a hard question emerges.

To build or not to build, that is the question.

Historical records show that the area has been hit repeatedly by massive tsunamis in the past. Measures have been taken, including towering concrete walls to fend off the waves. While these precautions have helped to diminish and delay the effect of tsunami in some places, the size of the massive waves caused by the earthquake on 11th March meant many such walls were destroyed and/or overcome, with the water coming into the land with a brutal force.

The hardest choice to make now is whether to go ahead with rebuilding in the tsunami devastated areas. If it were not for the risk of tsunami, the seaside areas provide the most beautiful and comfortable living opportunities, with a convenient access to the sea for those people involved in fishery and related industries. On the other hand, the probabilities of future tsunami damages are understandably very real in people’s minds.

To complicate matters, no coastal area in Japan can be said to be safe from the threats of tsunami. Although the Tohoku area might stand out because of recent events, the possibility of a tsunami attack exist, both in theory and practice, throughout the land of Japan. Thus, making the choice of building and not building poses a hard question not only for people in Tohoku, but also for the rest of us all over Japan. It is a case where one’s philosophy of life is tested, on top of the probability estimates by seismology experts.

Facebook and twitter.

I still cannot find a useful angle to come to terms with Facebook. I am not a heavy user. I should say I am perhaps not an active user at all, although certainly registered. Given the reported popularity of the service, it is a strange enigma, as I tend to embrace new web services.

It is not the problem of Facebook specifically. It is a common defect, in my view, of Social Network Services. Perhaps the problem is not for everyone. It is a problem just for me, and the likes of me.

There is too much cognitive load compared to the benefits. I don’t so much like to see my friends’ candid photos or their casual observations. Surely these things are nice, but there are other interesting matters in this world too.

The thing is, I much prefer the brutal and swift way that people (or rather, issues) are connected in twitter. There, you don’t have to submit or respond to a friend request. The connections and comments are made without the embarrassing diplomacy and niceties. It is all about memes, not personal relationships per se.

Thus, I find myself in the domain of minorities, while the rest of the world is apparently head over heals on Facebook.

Meeting with Mr. Clive Williams Nicol.

On a day when a cold rain started to fall, I met with the famed writer Clive Williams Nicol. The severe weather was fitting, as Mr. Nicol is a man who has traveled in wilderness, one trip taking him to the North Pole.

Mr. Nicol is one of these rare people who can combine the fire of passion with the coolness of intelligence. He has written extensively and deeply about nature. It is all about experience, and you need to reflect on your own mind in order to write well in this genre.

Listening to Mr. Nicol is like hearking to an old oak tree. You feel the flow of time embodied in the shape of a man, and you have the desire to attain that maturity when you are old. That becomes your inspired ambition.


With Mr. Clive Williams Nicol

The absolute nature of separation.

There is nothing more interesting than the enigma of time. The future becomes the present, and the present turns into the past. Once the transformation is over, there is no going back.

In psychology, people talk about the specious moment, and there is a fundamental asymmetry to that. The duration of the present is usually described in milliseconds, but that is strangely insufficient. The essence of transformation would not be captured in milliseconds. We need other ways to describe the specious moment.

The key question here is to deal with the transformation in an explicit manner. The transformation is happening all the time, even as I write these sentences.

This morning I find myself in Washington DC. I just finished my breakfast. Some moments ago, I was waiting for the breakfast to arrive, and there is no going back to that recent past. The absolute nature of separation is one of the fundamental aspects of our experience, and yet we have not successfully described it.

The no-show of iPhone 5 was only a minor disappointment compared to the absence of the wizard.

This morning, I woke up to find a world without iPhone 5.

The revision to iPhone 4S was a good and sensible one, although my enthusiasm at this moment is not strong enough to make me rush to update my iPhone 4 straight away. The delivery by Tim Cook was impressive. The Apple stock will surely recover in due time. But there was something deeper and disturbing last night (JST).

The wizard is gone. There would be no more “one more thing”. Our hearts would not be throbbing in anticipation of a world-changing gadget. There would be no more Steve Jobs on stage, and the world would forever be a place minus that particular enchantment.

When we were kids, we looked up at our parents as if they were wizards. Nothing was impossible for dad. Mom would give me the most incredible present on my birthday. As we grow up, these expectations waned. We inevitably realized that mom and dad were ordinary human beings, with their own limits and shortcomings. We found ourselves independent and grownup when there were no more “wizard elements” in our parents.

It seemed that we never grew out of Steve Jobs. Steve was always a wizard, smiling rather mischievously, coming back to stage, with the now immortal “one more thing”. These days are gone forever, much to our regret.

Apple fans care about the health of Steve Jobs as dearly as their own greying parents. Long live Steve! Probably it is a good idea for Steve to stay away from the chores of running a company. Somehow, we probably took it for granted for too long that Steve would be wizard for us forever. Perhaps it is time were on our own, however strange it might feel.

Yesterday, observing the stage without the former CEO, we realized that it was now time for the growing pains. The no-show of iPhone 5 was only a minor disappointment compared to the absence of the wizard.

Loosening order, new realities

It is difficult to characterize a particular era, especially when one is living in it. The last couple of decades have been marked by many unexpected events (beautifully argued as "black swans" by Taleb) and newly emerging value systems. To use a musical metaphor, we are listening to many exotic and new pieces, but they are so numerous now that we have almost forgotten that they were once novel. Many things we take for granted today were rarities and oddities only a few decades ago. How fast the human brain adapts to a changing environment! And we keep marching.

I was studying in the United Kingdom in the middle of the 1990s. I remember quite vividly when a BBC anchorman remarked to an IT guy speaking live from the West Coast via satellite that "you do not have to wear a tie and a jacket when you are a millionaire". This idea, that a businessperson with power and wealth does not necessarily have to dress "seriously", is such a cliche nowadays that it is almost not worth mentioning it. We are so accustomed to millionaires and billionaires dressed in T-shirts and jeans, looking like complete nerds (in many cases they actually are in a big way). Indeed, there is no apparent "correlation" between the way one dresses and one's degree of affluence any more. Class is gone, as far as outward looks are concerned. Nowadays a restaurant imposing a strict dress code looks almost moron. "Smart casual" is perhaps the only acceptable dress code, apart from, perhaps, no dress code at all.

Once, attending a conference in Googleplex, I noticed that there was a rather nice looking young fellow. It was none other than Mr. Larry Page himself. Mr. Page must have been worth billions of dollars then, but his outlook did not tell. There were a few admiring girls around Mr. Page, but that could happen to any nice fellow about his age. Judging from how he looked, he could have been a graduate student. Actually, Mr. Page was probably a graduate student in his spirit. Remaining a graduate student in spirit is probably the name of the game and the strength of a company like Google.

There have been several defining moments in the history of information technology. When Jack Kilby conceived the idea to implement circuits on a silicon chip, he was laying down the formula for a whole industry. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin hit upon the idea to analyze the web as a graph structure, they were effectively bootstrapping themselves to super-successful entrepreneurship. When Mark Zuckerberg was dumped by his girlfriend, his unique method of revenge, putting a pair of girl's faces on a webpage asking the visitors to click which was hotter, opened the door to the most successful social network service, the Facebook.

The general trend of the information revolution, combined with the procession of globalization, where people from various cultural backgrounds are brought together to interact, have led to the loosening of the old orders, and emergence of new ones. The evolution/revolution happens in unexpected and haphazard steps, challenging assumptions, upsetting notions.
When put in a state of chaos, we seek order and meanings. A religion, an ideology, a value system, a theory, an empirical evidence, an illusion. We are always in search of life-saving ideas. We are badly in need of one now, in this remarkable era of transitions and redefinitions. Ideas come, ideas go. And some stick and remain, through a mysterious process of evolution of memes.

(Fragment from a book I am writing, codenamed "Malmesbury")

This is entropy!

The novelist Yoshinori Shimizu once wrote a masterpiece titled "Don't talk about entropy on your date". This humorous short story (written in Japanese) depicts how a science student, once he starts talking about entropy, gets carried away and forgets to take care of his lover, only to be dumped. Serves him right, right?

Don't talk about entropy on your date. This is a very valuable piece of advice for certain kinds of people, including myself. The subject of entropy is so fascinating, deep, and engrossing that it is really a danger to start talking about it.

Oh, you don't know what entropy is? Well, in a nutshell, it is a measure of the...wait, don't get me started. I will never stop.
Mr. Masanobu Koike, a long-time editor for the great literary critic Hideo Kobayashi, told me this fascinating story. One evening, Kobayashi drank with his artist friend in Tokyo. On their way back to Kamakura, Kobayashi started talking about entropy.

Kobayashi was a man of incredibly broad and deep learning. He once discussed at length the philosophy of Henri Bergson, in a famous unfinished work titled "Reflections".

They talked all the way on the train, but the artist friend did not understand what entropy was. Getting off the train at Kamakura station, they kept talking, walking along the road that runs parallel to the precincts of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine.

As the artist friend did not get it, Kobayashi became all the more excited. While explaining entropy, Kobayashi got closer and closer to the artist friend, with the result that the artist was cornered towards the shallow stream along the road, until finally, he lost balance and dropped into the water.

Splash! The artist lay on his back, quite surprised and bewildered, wet all over. He looked up at Kobayashi, who triumphantly said, "now you see? This is entropy!"

We don't know how and if the artist got even.

I sometimes visit the beautiful old residence of Hideo Kobayashi on the mountain. Getting of the train at Kamakura station, and passing the aforementioned road, I tend to remember this great story of a passionate intellect. With entropy even Hideo Kobayashi can be carried away.

Perhaps fireworks are mirrors.

The great Fireworks Festival of Nagaoka started, I learned on my last visit, after the city was burned to ashes during the Second World War. Thus the beauty and splendor are dedicated to the souls of the dead. Most of the onlookers would probably be unaware of the significance of the airy show. That's OK. The fireworks work for our aesthetics even in sheer ignorance.

We were standing on the snow, and were looking at the fireworks above, an annual winter display of the magnificent technology. Although on a smaller scale compared to the summer one, it was still grand. There was an eerie quality of the beautiful, lived and experienced, enshrouded by the cold.

Takumi was standing next to me. He has been my sidekick ever since I met him when I was teaching at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

Takumi is a terror to many girls. He is known as "P. Ueda". The prefix comes from the fact that the subject of his oil painting is mainly his private part. He claims that his thing is shaped like the Jaguar emblem.

We were standing on the white field, far from the cheering crowd. All of a sudden, Takumi started to tell me about his mother. She left home when he was six years old, never to return. The next day an aunt came, and made him the first milk coffee of his life. He has not seen his mother ever since.

It is not clear, to this day, what made Takumi tell me the story of the tragedy of his life on that evening, in the show, shivering from cold, looking up at the great display of the fireworks. Maybe it had something to do with the souls. Perhaps fireworks are mirrors.

Cannot go to school.

I recently met a few pupils who had extraordinary characters. And they can't go to school. Chatting with them, looking at their faces, they appear quite normal, lively, and thoughtful. And yet they cannot go to school. Something within them apparently tells them that going to school is not such a good idea. And I must say that, as far as I could trust my intuition facing them, that it was a sensible choice.

In a country where "home schooling" is an exotic idea, if a boy or a girl boycotts school attendance, parents panic and teachers reproach. Because there is such a narrow range of what could be considered to be "normal behavior", once a pupil steps out of the fairway there's a tremendous pressure to go back.

Talking with headmasters and chairman of the educational board, I sometimes feel that the disease is in the system, rather than in the pupils who boycott it. The air of conformity is so thick that it is suffocating, rather than life saving. If you can go to school, that's fine. Myself, I could go to school everyday and rather liked the experience. But if a child finds it difficult to go to school, that's fine and normal, too. The disease is not in the child. The disease is in the society that enforces conformity, where "home schooling" is still an exotic and "illegal" idea, after all these years.

First bitterness.

As can be observed from my earlier blog entry (Red bag was the object of desire), I was fond of coffee flavor as a child. Coffee, however, always meant a sweet drink. I never took black coffee. Actually, properly ground and brewed coffee was not so ubiquitous when I was a child.

It was therefore only at the age of 11 that I had a proper black coffee. I was with my mother's sister in a bar, in the southern city of Kokura. My aunt was a woman of the world. She had a wide knowledge of the pleasant and the adorable. She was a gateway into the grown-up world, at least in the eyes of the child.

On that day, for some reason I did not quite comprehend, the bar was open in the afternoon, and I was there, in the ambience of sophistication and posh. My aunt offered me to buy anything I wanted. I looked at the menu, and was quick to see that the most expensive item in the soft drinks was the "blue mountain" coffee.

"Blue mountain coffee, if you please", I said timidly. My aunt looked at me with her big round eyes. "You're a child, and yet you crave for the best", she said. "All right then, a blue mountain coffee. But listen, since you're taking it, no sugar or milk. You've got to drink it black. OK?"

I said fine. My heart was pounding wild as I took my very first taste of the black coffee. To this day, I remember quite vividly the sensation of the black liquid going into my system. It was the encounter with my life's first bitterness. And I didn't regret it.

My father and the motorbike

Ever since my infancy, I knew one thing for sure. My father was not the type of person who would ride on a motorbike. He might drive a car (he actually did and still does), but he would never ride a motorbike.

So strong was my conviction, that I was quite shocked when my father started taking lessons. Soon he got a rather big motorbike. He would put me in the back seat, and ride in the countryside. Apparently, it was the thing to do for man. Maybe he was having a midlife crisis.

One day, I was walking with my friends towards the playground. In the distance, I noticed a policeman questioning a couple of people. My friends started to say "the police has captured someone! The police has captured someone!" I tried not to look in the direction, and suggested, very casually, that we take alternative routes.

Actually, it was none other than my father, with my grandfather. Apparently, the police was questioning them, for not wearing the helmet. Oh, God, that was embarrassing. My friends kept making fun of the unfortunate couple, while I prayed that my father would not look in my direction. Fortunately, none of my friends there recognized the face of my father.

When we were safely in the playground, I sighed a deep sigh of relief. I then apologized, in my heart, for ignoring a family member (actually, two family members) in a socially perilous situation. When I met my father that evening for dinner, I did not say anything about the incident. My father hushed about it too.

Soon after this day of embarrassment, my father had a minor accident on the motorbike and had his collarbone broken. He was hospitalized for one month. After he got out of the hospital, he got rid of the motorbike. I never saw a motorbike again in my house. The midlife crisis of my father was over.