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I apologize for any inconveniences. This has been necessitated by a flow of SPAMs.
This requirement seemed to the most mild one out of the choices provided by blogger.

(I trust that many users have a google account anyway. )

Looking forward to reading your insightful comments.

Ken

That's the spirit, although not in so many words.

This morning, I woke up to find the headlines on the front page of Japanese newspapers to have a happy tone for the first time since this crisis began. A 80 years old grandma and 16 year old grandson have been saved from the debris of their house 9 days after the strike of the terrible quake. With the situation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant now apparently closing in to controllability, people in Tokyo are noticeably breathing easier. The rain falling in Tokyo this morning, without any significant level of radioactivity in it, has a soothing effect on the agitated minds.

The crisis is far from over. As of this morning, the confirmed number of deaths has surpassed a staggering 8000, with more than 13000 missing. When you face these deaths one by one, imagining the individuality, unique character, smiles, tears, loves, friendships, dreams, and despairs, then it becomes simply too hard to take.

The full extent of the disaster is not known yet. With the easening of the nuclear crisis (although it is far from being over), a sober and grim realization of the tremendous loss of life sinks in.

It is not that people in the afflicted area were unprepared. The communities along the coast have been subject to repeated tsunami attacks. The tsunami caused by the Great Chilean earthquake in 1960, for example, propagated all the way on the globe's watery surface to the Sanriku area, killing 142 people. Going back further in history, there was the Meiji-Sanriku earthquake in 1896, which caused a massive tsunami reaching a height of 38.2 meters and killing more than 20000 people.

Learning from history, they have built high anti-tsunami walls, some of them 10 meters or even higher. "When an earthquake strikes, immediately escape to high places. Tsunami is expected." Such notices have been ubiquitous in those communities, and people took very educated notice of them. In short, the people have been well prepared, both in physical and psychological terms.

And yet, the tsunami caused by this quake of 9.0 magnitude was beyond any people's reasonable expectations in its scale and brutal force. It is reported that the wall of water caused by this earthquake exceeded 20 meters in height in some places. In Ofunato, it has reached 23 meters. The concrete anti-tsunami walls were easily overcome and destroyed, resulting in a rampage of sea water over the inhabited area, crushing houses, sweeping buildings, taking precious lives away from mothers, fathers, brothers, friends, lovers, people.

That the sheer scale of natural disaster sometimes exceeds even the most sophisticated and careful precautions is something that has affected the Japanese mindset deeply. Some people might call it "fatalism". It may well be so. But if the word "fatalism" also implies that people are being passive, that is not the case. Resoundingly not the case.

In relatively disaster free regions like central Europe, planned continuation of human efforts for hundreds of years might make more sense. The Cologne Cathedral, for example. The building of this magnificent building started in 1248. Its completion took more than 600 years. When completed in 1880, the Cologne Cathedral became the tallest artificially made structure in the world, only to be surpassed four years later by the Washington Monument in the United States.

The perseverance of the German people to keep working on a plan through the generations is admirable. That is not to say that the Japanese are not capable of perseverance and arduous efforts. Here, perseverance takes quite another form. The Japanese spirit of perseverance does not aspire to physical permanence or feigned eternity. In this country, perseverance is nurtured rather in the resigned acceptance of the fact that nature sometimes beats us.

In the city of Ise, people have been maintaining the most important Shinto shrine in the country (Ise Grand Shrine) for more than 1300 years. The will to keep going no matter what did not take the form of physical permanence, however. They have been rebuilding the main shrine architectures such as Naiku and Geku every 20 years, with only a few recorded irregularities in times of turmoil.

It is difficult to say exactly what was the origin of such a convention. The shrines are built of wood, as opposed to stones in the case of Cologne Cathedral. The wears and tears would show after, say, 20 years. It has been believed that the Shinto "gods" prefers new and shining things, and people respected these divine preferences. Japan is a country rich in forestation. Finding an appropriate tree for logging has been possible with careful planning, although becoming harder in recent times. Efforts to renew the forest for the purpose of shrine rebuilding have been conducted since the beginning of recorded history. It is also often said that the 20 years rebuilding cycle has provided a valuable and indispensable opportunity for "on the job" trainings, transmitting the necessary skills and know-hows of shrine building to the next generation.

The Grand Shrine at Ise might certainly be a special case, but the ethos is there. The spirit of perseverance in the form of rebuilding is a hallmark of the Japanese mindset. That would explain why, for example, the Japanese have made such remarkable recoveries after numerous calamities throughout the history of the nation, after the almost entire destruction of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and downtown Tokyo in the Second World War, for example.

The myth of the phoenix thus portrays very well the Japanese spirit of perseverance, albeit not necessarily expressed in so many dramatic and grandiose words.

In the near future, when people have regained enough strength, the sound of hammers will surely start to be heard in the lands of devastation. The danger of tsunami striking the cities again in the future might be in people's minds. However, that would not prevent these people from rebuilding the communities, perhaps with an increased level of precautions and planning.

That's the spirit, although not in so many words.

Earthquake

SInce the earthquake on the 11th March, life as we know it has changed beyond recognition in Japan.

I am tweeting @kenmogi about situations developing in my beloved country.

May calm and happiness prevail!

Ken Mogi

The bizarre backwardness of Japanese job market.

The fact that Japan is an island nation has led to the preservation of many unique customs. Some of them (e.g. Kabuki and Bunraku) are cultural gems. Others are simply outrageous and should be abandoned in the modern era asap. However, saying good bye to old customs is sometimes hard to do, especially when it concerns a value system tightly woven into society.

The manner in which Japanese companies recruit workers is bizarrely backward. Not only is it stifling the economy, but also, which is more serious, it is crushing the spirits of the young. Japanese companies, especially those big ones whose stocks are traded in the Tokyo stock exchange, impose age and college graduation year restrictions on the applicants. Typically, they state that the applicants should be less than a certain age. At the same time, the companies often allow only the fresh graduates (or, to be more precise, those students who expect to graduate from college at a definite period in the near future) to apply to their supposedly lucrative jobs.

The bizarre system (which is totally without any economic merits, although some old guards do claim there are some advantages) means that you need to follow a tightly scheduled lifeline. Once you step out of the line, then there's no question of getting a "proper job" at a "respectable company". The establishments are failing to see how this restriction of personal freedom is suffocating the Japanese youngsters, an intellectual and moral failure totally unjustified in the contemporary world.

The immediate victims of the Japanese system are those with atypical cv. Going around the globe, in the style of the "gap year" so widespread in U.K. and elsewhere, is totally out of the question. The jealous guards of the Japanese system, in the form of questioners at job interviews, typically demand explanations for any "holes" in the applicant's cv. A "hole", in the strangely medieval mindset of Japanese corporate culture, means any period of time you have spent away from institutions and organizations as a free individual. By this definition, Prince William of Wales, who took a gap year in South America, would not qualify for a position in a Japanese company.

Naturally, youngsters make some noise, but it falls on deaf ears. The plain fact that the present system constitutes a serious violation of basic human rights seems to have escaped the attention of powers that be so far. In cognitive neuroscience, we do study a phenomenon called "inattentional blindness", but the inaction of Japanese companies possibly qualifies for an "oddball".

(This theme to be continued)

We need sunshine, not the bomb: The QI incident.

An episode of QI, BBC's popular comedy quiz show hosted by Mr. Stephen Fry has caused an uproar in Japan. In this particular episode, Mr. Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, was introduced as "the unluckiest man in the world". As it was reported that the Japanese embassy made a protest to the BBC and the production company, indignation and anger spread in Japan, as was apparent from television shows, newspaper editorials, and tweets and blogs that followed.

It might be difficult for someone outside Japan to understand the sheer horror and anger associated with the atomic bombs. After all, other nations just imagine how damaging it is. Japanese people, by the turns and twists of history, have actually experienced it. It is not just a fiction or a movie scene. It is a hard reality. In this respect, the BBC and the production company clearly lacked imagination and respect to one of the most traumatic human experiences in the 20th century.

Having said that, I would also like to point out that the outrage came perhaps from a miscommunication rather than an intentional malice. As someone who spent two years of happy and stimulating postdoc days in University of Cambridge, and who have been visiting the U.K. almost annually ever since, I deeply love and respect the British sense of humor. I know Mr. Stephen Fry to be an intelligent, loving, and liberal man. I adore the QI show, just as I admire other Stephen Fry legends like the Blackadder series. How sad that this particular episode of QI caused anger and sadness in my native land.

The British sense of humor means that you confront difficult social issues, sometimes verging on the outrageous. It is like an act of walking on a tight rope. When I met with Mr. David Walliams in Tokyo several years ago, he said that it is always difficult to strike the right code. In creating Little Britain, Mr. Walliams, together with Mr. Matt Lucas, had to seek a difficult balance between being enjoyably provocative and saddening innocent people.

Trying to be courageous in comedy making is laudable and reserves all the respect. I know Mr. Stephen Fry has been very
courageous and inspiring. Being a pioneer, however, sometimes comes with a price, a point all of us should perhaps appreciate.

I hope that this incident will start a much needed in-depth communication process between Japan and the U.K. I sincerely wish that what started with a dark cloud of anger would end in a peal of laughs.

We need sunshine, not the bomb.

The Universal Human (1)

An inspiration came to my mind when I was spending the new year's vacation with my mother.

In the previous year, the world witnessed several quite intriguing and significant changes. Liu Xiabo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but was unable to attend the ceremony due to restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. A number of exposures by Wikileaks led to a fiasco in the democratically elected governments. The founder of Wikileaks, Mr. Julian Assange, was arrested for a crime deeply smelling of conspiracy not on the part of Mr. Assange, but of those trying to convict him. Those turmoils in the world at large contrasted very vividly with the cozy and small world of my mother, aged 73, who spoke mainly of the old times.

I thought to myself. My mother is very distant from the "realitities" of today's world. Probably justifiably so, considering her age. She does not use the internet, knows nothing about twitter or facebook. (She might have just heard about these things). She probably would not understand what a "hashtag" is. I would not dream of asking my mother the significance of Mr. Julian Assange's activities.

And yet, my mother was very real. I could almost feel her soul. As she talked about the old days, discussing how I was when I was a boy, this incident, that uncle, I gradually started to understand (or rather, remember) what the world was like, seen from her eyes.

To my astonishment, her world was as real as the globalized and digitized web of relations that was emerging on this earth as the definitive new reality in which we would all have to breathe. This particular realization, I should like to claim, was not necessarily one propelled by sentimental emotions and attachment.

The key problem is that we tend to dismiss a certain type of living as not "fitting" to the trends of the time. We create fashions, and discriminate against those who do not subscribe to them. Haven't we made the same mistake repeatedly in history, where we contrived some ideas for a "model human being", and excluded those not fitting these criteria as "outside the circle"? Haven't we discriminated against people in other nations, people with minority sexual tendencies, people with exotic skin colors, people with certain personality traits?

That is when I realized that I needed to consider the concept of the universal human in a very serious manner, and with some degree of urgency. A part of the urgency comes from the emerging new nations. The rises of countries like China and India have made it necessary to reconsider the world order in a context of heterogeneity. And these nations are not alone. The news of the World Cup in 2022 being awarded to Qatar, the first Arab nation to host the competition, was a clear message that the world has become much more diversified. Differences in religion might appear to be significant, but is in fact getting less and less intruding into our lives. The time has come when we had better start appreciating the differences in people in a very serious manner.

We may impose by moral requirements that people be treated equally, without regard to the superficial differences. But our heart might not necessarily be in such an action. Unless we understand how the different modes of behavior emerge, we cannot really respect the difference. We live in a scientific era. We cannot "feel" it, unless we come to some understanding of the whys and hows.

Now you need an element of the Leviathan to shine

It has been sometime since I last updated my blog. In the last few weeks, I have been privately occupied, with this and that. Meanwhile, the world seems to be moving into a chaos zone. I think an era of the Leviathan has come.

Used to be that order and justice were simple matters. There were several accepted authorities, and the rogues were easy to point out. Now, with the advent of forces that ignore the long respected institutions, the world has come to a state where the Leviathan roams.

Probably it started with China. Its defiance of the world order, as typified by the Nobel Peace Prize fiasco, is both worrying and inspiring. When I say inspiring, the point is that it reminds us of what kind of animals we remain to be. Then came the wikileaks saga, which is still going on. The reaction from governments of the United States, U.K., and Sweden revealed to us the sometimes murky nature of the nation state. Even the democratically elected governments are now “suspect”.

So it is an era of the Leviathan, in which laws and orders are not automatically guaranteed. The most intriguing fact of the day perhaps is that now you need an element of the Leviathan to shine, whether as a nation or as an individual.

My long-standing relationship with the airborne ghosts is thus revived again.

Memories are sometimes so intriguing. Consider the time when I was in the forest of Kyushu, near my mother’s parents’ house, and suddenly encountered a huge swarm of butterflies. The species was Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon). Common Bluebottle, as the name suggests, is not a rare butterfly. Numerous times, I have seen them in isolation, or in a group of few. However, never before had I seen literally tens of them flying around a tree in full bloom. The flowers were white and small. The Common Bluebottles were scattered over the sky. It was such a breathtaking sight.

I was about 6 or 7, and lots of water has flown under the bridge since then. It is such an enigma why and how such memories stay, and from time to time surge out of my unconscious. It did surge this morning, and that is why I am writing about this particular piece of childhood memory in this journal.

It is also interesting how with the procession of time the memory has kind of “purified” itself, assuming an almost mythical nature within my mind. I know these butterflies to have perished long ago, in that summer of my throbbing encounter. Their phantoms however continue to thrive in my mind, synaptically reinforced every time I remember that chance meeting. My long-standing relationship with the airborne ghosts is thus revived again.

Becoming China 2.0

Several years ago, I was in the Tiananmen Square, mingling among the crowd. There were various kinds of people. Those who apparently came from rural areas had red cheeks, very excited, trying to absorb everything that were around them. I was in the category of first comers, opening my eyes to the sheer vastness of the nation of China.

When I imagined the massive land that surrounded me, I felt I understood why the Chinese culture tends to be self-centered. They can afford to be. When you have a long history, massive land, with over a billion of people, you have the illusion that you are at the center of the world. You can put yourself under the delusion that you don’t have to really care for what’s happening outside. You feel that you are entitled to have your own way, supported by the great mass of momentum that is behind you.

The recent series of squeaking noises that surround the nation, notably this ongoing fiasco about the Nobel Peace Prize, seems to reflect a widening gap between the traditional Chinese mindset and the reality of the globalizing world. Yes, China is massive, yes, China is rapidly growing, and yes, there are more Chinese than any other ethnic group on earth. It may be true that in the past the Chinese could do pretty well by considering themselves as being at the center of the earth, having their way and imposing it on the nations around.

But things have changed. The brutal fact of the day is that China is only a part of the world, albeit a very important part.

The tendency of the Chinese media, fuelled by the self-confidence resulting from the recent economical growth (which is a good thing in itself), to regard its relation with the West in a confrontational context might be self-serving in the short run but is ultimately untenable. China needs to grow into “China 2.0”, where it recognizes the fact that it is an integral part of the grid that is covering the earth, for everybody’s benefit, based on the principle of cooperation and mutual respect. By becoming China 2.0, its excellent tradition of flamboyant and deep culture would shine even more, bringing benefit not only to the Chinese but also to the world at large.

China please wake up.

The universal human remains hidden, deep in the layers of collective psyche.

I am attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, and I am thinking about the universal human, on the floor of the gigantic poster sessions.

Nietzsche famously conceived the superhuman. Experience in the last few days made me ponder the universal human, albeit not in the Renaissance sense.

Globalization has brought about crushes between cultures, where people tend to stress the differences. And yet at the same time we start to notice that there are much common hidden agenda among us. And the noticing sometimes takes detective work and intelligence.

The basic biological needs are easy to decipher. We all become hungry, thirsty, and yearn for a mate no matter what part of the world we come from. It is more fun to consider the underlying universality in seemingly contrasting social behaviors.

It is not just about differences in national cultures. No matter what profession you are, whether you’re a scientist, journalist,
broker, grocer, housewife, cartoonist, or a sportsman, you’re likely to be motivated by a set of reinforcers. Since social reinforcers are heterogeneous and not easy to decipher, the universal law of underlying dynamics often go unnoticed. Hence the universal human remains hidden, deep in the layers of collective psyche.

It is almost noon in San Diego, and I am getting hungry. I may go to a Sushi place. Other people would make different choices, seemingly reflecting cultural differences. The underlying pattern of reinforcement is the same for the universal human, however.

Missing the “what” questions.

When I was an undergraduate, I often used to ask the “what” questions. As I was a Physics major, most of the puzzles were Physics-related. What is a mass? What is energy? What is space? What is time? There were other questions, of course, like what is life and what is love. I was wont to argue for many hours about these profound issues with my friends. We strolled along the river banks, we drank beer, we weathered the cold winter wind, we smiled at the cherry blossoms No matter what we did, we never stopped asking the “what” questions.

Almost 30 years later, it seems that my mind is nowadays mostly occupied by the “how” questions. How can I make this happen? How could one construct something? How do you bring about peace among these people? How are sustainable energies generated in principle? How can I make the person in front of me understand what I mean? How do you enrich life?

It is certainly true that the “how” questions are more practical, leading one to endless endeavors in the everyday towards the betterment of the general conditions of life in general. From the point of view of maturing, the progress from the “what” questions to the “how” questions was surely an advancement.

And yet, I sometimes find myself missing the “what” questions. I miss the pale-faced youngster who insisted on asking these simple-minded, but fascinating questions. I long for an encounter with someone who is stupid enough to ask the “what” questions, in this day and age.

Perhaps, if I dig deep into myself, I will still be able to find that youngster. Just a thought. It is such a fine day in Tokyo, a good opportunity for reveries, you know.

Nationalism is a luxury made possible by globalization.

The fact that nationalism is on the rise in some parts of the world seems to be indicating the ubiquity of growing global interdependence. It is only a long overdue recognition of the self, mirrored in the mind of others. When in isolation, people do not have the way of thoughts leading to nationalism. Nationalism is a luxury made possible by globalization.

That is why patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel (Samuel Johnson), as luxury is always the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Stupidity of the second kind.

I think there are two kinds of stupidities. In one, you try to protect yourself. By looking down on others, for example. In the other, you don’t protect yourself. You just do whatever urges you, and get hurt, ridiculed, and quite often misunderstood. It is the second type of stupidity that I very much adore.

I am always after the stupidity of the second kind, and shy away from the first. I would like to remain stupid, for the rest of my life. I would never stoop so low as to regard myself invincible, morally impeccable, or pride on saying the right thing at the appropriate time. I would like to drop a lot of bricks.

15 years old farewell

Everybody knows that Japan is an island nation. But we sometimes forget that, because the main Honshu island is so large.
Recently I flew to the Kozu island off Tokyo bay from the Chohu airport. A 35 minutes flight took me from the heat of metropolitan Tokyo to the cool breeze of the island. From island to island, literally. But we sometimes forget the former is one.

The Isu islands, the Kozu island being one of them, are united in proud isolation. Every two years they hold Parents and Teachers Association meeting. I was invited to give a talk. I always say that I cannot resist an island invitation, again forgetting that I live on one.

The island children grow up in a cozy atmosphere. There is only one class, and each one of them knows their classmates by heart. When they reach the age of 15, however, they have to say goodbye to the island, as there are no senior high schools. It is called the “15 years old farewell”. They have to live separately from the parents, and study on the mainland (which is again an island, but we forget that.)

These children say goodbye to the familiar and cozy in the spring of the 15th year. When I heard this story from an experienced educator, my heart felt a sweet pain. Maybe that is the destiny of all Japanese people, as we jump into globalization. We should not forget about the 15 years old farewells.



Life on an island. The Kozu kids displaying their festive dance.

Born with a mother tongue non-transparent to the “outside” world

Language policy is really serious here in this country, and has grave implications for my own life, too. I love Japanese as my native tongue, and am fairly articulate in it. For the last few years, I have made it my policy to improve my English, to the point that I would be able to express myself in some way or other so that my inner voice would be heard, by my conscious self, too. There are several difficulties, though.

Non-English speakers always accuse that native English speakers have it too easy. I have thought about this long and hard, and now I feel that would like to make a science of it.

Born with a mother tongue non-transparent to the “outside” world, as defined and constrained by the lingua franca status quo, there are certainly issues to be studied scientifically, towards a consolation for the soul as well as satisfying intellectual curiosities. Perhaps there is a new field here. My mother speaks only Japanese, and some rudimentary English. She would be incomprehensible on an American cultural highway, but she is a valuable woman all the same. Japanese is fairly lucky. There are even more minor languages. How could these souls be saved, in the face of the arrogant Hollywood type pitchers of “universal” language?

Language policies and strategies, studied from evolutionary, game theoretic, ethical points of view. I have already started a modeling effort. Maybe I would ask Yoshihide Tamori to participate.

The size problem.

I have been to Singapore on a few days trip, attending a conference and giving a talk. The energy in Singapore is incredible. Even politicians are open-minded and quick in making decisions, a rarity in my home country. One of the officials said that Singaporeans had to reinvent themselves constantly. I have never heard a remark of similar nature from someone in power in my native country.

Coming back to Tokyo on the plane, I was thinking about the size effect. The size of Japan is intermediate, not too big, not too small, and therefrom arise lots of problems. Japan is not big enough to assume a superpower role like the U.S. or China. Japan’s domestic market is large enough to sustain its publishing and broadcasting industries, two areas where globalization was supposed to happen but never did, probably due to the language barrier.

Japan’s peculiarities should arise not only from its unique history but also from the sheer size of its economy and culture. There one has a chance of drawing universal conclusions from a seemingly peculiar problem.

Ideally, I would like to do everything en plein air.

Even small children are fond of moving their hands and leaving tiny traces of colored lines on the paper. A whole career can be built, starting from the doodling. If you take the business of drawing and painting seriously, there is no end in sight. It is an infinite process.

For sometime, I have been fascinated by the idea of the French impressionist’s “En plein air”. You paint something on the spot, without deliberation, devoid of painstaking days of hard work. Everything is conducted spontaneously, on the spot, with a dazzling result artistically.

When I visited the Musee d’Orsey a few years ago I was taken by the paintings by Monet (refer to the entry into this journal on the 9th October 2004). It was at this time that the concept of “En plein air” became so important within me that I have been thinking about its universal applicability to other fields of activities ever since.

Ideally, I would like to do everything en plein air.


En plein air.

Mozart was a forerunner of John Lennon.

People might think that Mozart was a naïve guy who left for others to write the librettos of operas. If you look carefully you notice otherwise. There is something very consistent in what he wrote, not only in terms of music but also in the sense of universal humanitarian values.

At the end of the opera “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail”, the hostages are released and people dance in rejoice. The celebration of humanity, without religion, without border. Unity of men beyond the classes, races, and cultures were the penetrating theme of ALL his works. Mozart was a forerunner of John Lennon.

My personal revolution.

In the last few months, I seem to have learned that to bring about revolution to the society is a very difficult task. Yes, I am stupid enough to come to learn this at the mature age of 47.

Perhaps this is something felt only by some residents in Japan. Hopefuls truly sensed that the long overdue revolution (or evolution) of the nation’s political and government system would come about soon. Then the hopes kind of faded, with the defeat of Mr. Ozawa in the election for the leadership of Democratic Party of Japan.

Now I feel that revolution needs to start at a personal revel. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a middle-aged man in much need for revolution. The way I organize my life, breathe the culture, write, say, hear, needs to be modified in order to accommodate my dreams. I must think more of my personal revolution.

You are a fine gentleman (2).

(Continued from the previous entry)

I walked on along the twilight street, but my inner turmoil did not seem to calm down. It was obvious now that the lady in a black formal dress at the restaurant rejected us because of how I looked. I was wearing a jacket, but underneath it I had my T-shirt on, with very vivid illustrations.

Apparently it was a question of dress code. The salaryman and his girl, who came after us, were welcomed into the restaurant without any problem. In my view, they were rather homely people, without any particular distinctions. The fact that the lady at the restaurant welcomed them seemed to tell me something deep and sinister about society in general.

Maybe it was only my youthful imagination. Perhaps I should have worn a jacket and tie like the salaryman. But then I never wore a tie, unless it was absolutely necessary. And you never know beforehand that you would walk into a restaurant with a draconian requirement as to how customers should be dressed. It seemed not at all sensible to live in the shadow of a possible encounter with such an establishment.

The more I thought about it, the heavier my heart became. At least, the lady at the reception should have told me explicitly the dress code of their place. It was not sensible at all just to tell that we were not welcome. One might take it personally. I took it personally. I had to call the place.

I happened to have the card of the restaurant, which I took casually as I left. I phoned the number. After some ring tones, a woman's voice answered. I tried to be as calm and to the point as possible.

"Hello. we are the customers who have just visited your place. You told me that you had no table this evening. After we left, we saw a salary man couple walk into the restaurant. Apparently they had no reservation. If your rejection was based on a dress code, you should have told us so. I think it would have been only fair. I don't think we would visit your restaurant ever again. Good bye!"

When I told the lady about the salary man couple, she seemed to gasp on the other end. When I hung up, I felt I had done all I could do, and the best thing would be to forget about it. But my inner wounds seemed to remain unhealed, tormenting me with every step.

I started to walk on street again, looking for a place to rest my soul.

My girl friend, who was listening to my conversation on the phone and therefore understood the situation for the first time (she was not someone who would naturally notice these things), held my hand and said, "you know, you are a fine gentleman".
Her gentle voice finally provided the consolation for the evening. It came as unexpected as the rejection at the reception.

(End of this essay.)