What day of the week do you dislike the most?

I ask folks this question from time to time and more often than not, the reply is usually "Monday."

When asked the reason, most would say "because I have to go back to work or school."

Typical answer yet interesting. If one dislikes Monday because of school or work then why does one continue to go back to work or school? I believe that folks like this are probably in the wrong job or studying the wrong course and probably should look for something that enables them to enjoy Mondays - and every other day for that matter. Those who genuinely enjoy work or school probably wont give "Work or School" as the reasons they dislike Monday.

Quality Not Quantity
I watched an extremely moving documentary about a girl called ashley who had a medical condition called Progeria where her body aged 13 times faster than a normal human being. The condition is said to affect 1 in 8 million newborns. A person with the condition normally dies at the age of 13. She just had her 14th birthday and she knew that she was going to die any day. She said that she was prepared to die and that she had lead a great life up until now - it was all about her experiences, the friends she was able to meet and being happy. Living a longer life was not important. The quality of life over quantity was more important.

Death Is A Reality
We watch the news and see people dying left right and center - people being stabbed, run over or just plain dying in everyday accidents. Many folks who see/read about others dying don't usually think much about it - and the folks who died probably didn't think too much about it either.

I was talking to my estate agent at the time we purchased our house - I asked him how I should go about writing my will - he looked at me as if I started to grow horns and said that people don't usually write their will until they are about 60. I was thinking to myself "apart from being a liar, this estate agent is an idiot too."

This may seem the obvious but the thing is, none of us have been given a guarantee that we are going to live until we are golden. One could live in the "safest" part of the world, be healthy and still have their life cut short by a knife, bullet or drunken driver. None of us know when we are going to die but there is one thing that we do know for sure - we all will die someday - could be in another 30 years time, could be tomorrow morning. Death is a reality that we must all understand - its the final piece of our jigsaw puzzle that we all will collect.

(more after the jump)

The Comfort Zone

Now I would like to talk about something I call the "Comfort Zone."

The comfort zone is where one is content with their current situation and I'm going to use an ex colleague who I shall name as Sally as an example. Sally had a job doing what she was good at (web design) and had a small team to manage. She had a good salary and good working hours considering that it was Tokyo.

But she wanted more from her life than just being content - she wanted to be happy. My personal interpretation is that being happy and being content are two different things. Being content fulfills basic human needs of being able to eat and have shelter. Being happy is going a step further and fulfilling the need to live ones passion.

One day, I asked Sally why she didn't start to do something about her situation. She said that she was waiting for somebody to give her an opportunity. When I asked "who", she said "I don't know..."

Sally was in the Comfort Zone and going nowhere fast. Her comfort made it difficult for her to take her own initiative to seek other opportunities.

The Jigsaw Puzzle

Life is a jigsaw puzzle. You don't know whats going to go where, you don't know where the pieces are but you do know that you need to keep looking for the pieces and figure out where they go. All events that happen to you is a piece of your puzzle. if you are stuck in a rut at school or work and keep asking yourself the "what if" question then its a sign telling you that there are no more pieces of the puzzle to be found where you are.

Passion

I could have chosen 15 years-ish ago to stay in the comfort zone content making shoes back in London. I was content but kept asking myself the "what if" question. I knew I wanted more to life but didn't know what it was until I discovered how passionate I was about Japanese culture.

I chose to seek my passion instead - done everything I could to get me closer to my dream including taking a BA in Japanese at London University, working nights after classes at a Japanese restaurant (t'was the Benihana's in Chelsea) so that I could save enough money to travel to Japan every year to absorb the culture. Ended up as a Computer Engineer at Japan Airlines and finally got hired by the Japan office of the scientific journal Nature. I reached my first destination.

The second destination was for me to start up a business by the age of 35 which I managed to do. I didn't want to take any venture funding or angel investment so needed to find other ways of building up capital.

As Website Manager at Amazon, I helped with the launch of the Japanese Amazon Associates Web Service API. I built the first ever Japanese AWS powered website and with permission of the Finance Director at the time, all Amazon products on my site had an associate tag.

I set up a sole proprietorship in Japan so that I could declare my earnings and expenses which you can legally do on a working visa - if you are doing stuff on the side then I recommend you to set one up and if you are doing it in Japan then here are the instructions.
Learning about the accounting involved in running a proprietorship brought me a step closer to setting up my own company.

At first I thought it would be great to earn something like 60 USD per month to pay for the phone bills. Didn't see the earnings reach that amount at all and realized that I needed to learn more about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), server side caching and what have you. Through this research and learning, the income from Amazon associates not only started to pay for the phone bill but started to pay for just about everything - bills, food and even covered my wife's salary.

While Amazon affiliate earnings paid for the daily stuff, salary from Amazon was being banked and helped with the 50,000 USD needed to set up a company - at the time, foreigners needed to invest that much (about 5 million yen) to start up a company. The affiliate earnings also helped us buy our current house too. These days you can set up a company with 1 yen but would probably find it difficult to do business when potential clients see how much you invested in your company.

Left Microsoft after spending a year with them as a Product Manager managing some of the Windows Live services to start up my current company Mirai Inc which focuses on licensing a community e-commerce platform called Mirai Gaia.

Many of our clients are Japanese companies in the subculture and entertainment field which makes my current job a dream job - doing something I'm passionate about (building websites) for clients who operate in an area that interests me most.

Life is great and I love my job and life in Japan. You can achieve anything with passion and focus. Destination 2 reached.

Getting To The Point
Given today's technology, one can put wo/man on the moon, split the atom and even replace the keyboard with a single wheel. But what humans have not figured out is how to sell bottles of time on the shelf. Just imagine - you walk into a store and say "Gimme the usual bottle of 1 hour."

Time is not on your side - its a friend for the duration for life but it never sides with you - never be under the assumption that time will favor you.

Self - Our Biggest Enemy
Many people make excuses for themselves like "but I got no time to do X" or "by the time I get home I'm so tired." These people are actually their own biggest obstacle because they build a tall wall of an excuse to do nothing.

If one can make time to eat, poo and pee then one can make time if they are passionate enough to start learning, experiencing, building or meeting. Lets encourage ourselves - not discourage buy making excuses.

The human race is still relatively young and we all have basic needs. One of the needs is to eat.

If you just sat in front of your computer for hours on end, most of you will eventually get up from your desk and seek food.

If there is nothing in the refrigerator or cabinets, you will either call for a pizza or go out to get something.

If all the shops around you were closed, you would travel to another part of town to seek food. You could alternatively wait until the morning when the shops open but you will still go out to get food.

The point I'm trying to make here is that if you really want something, you have the ability to get it.

Some of us have health constraints that may prevent us from easily doing stuff but if you are relatively healthy and can easily move around then you really don't have any excuse to do nothing.

Wrap Up
If you are unhappy with your current line of work and presuming that you work for 8 hours, sleep for 8 hours and use the reminder of the 8 hours for commutation, hygiene, recreation and nourishment consumption, you are spending 33% of your life doing something that constantly fuels that burning question of "what if"- don't fuel that question anymore - go out and do something!

It could be anything from starting to meet recruiters, taking up a new course or activity, research, meeting people with similar interests and so on. I may make it sound plain and simple but in fact it is. Something leads to something. Nothing leads to nothing.

Money is indeed important in this society we live in and I understand that one may need to do something that one may not exactly like to make ends meet. But, one can also be doing something on the side at the same time (learning, experiencing, meeting) in order to fulfill ones real passion. If you truly believe in yourself, your skills and ability, then you will be successful anyway - meaning that if you are going to ditch a well paid job to take a risk of a lower paying position where you can fulfill your passion, you will eventually make it anyway - because its you.

Taking the leap from safe comfortable steady ground into an unknown void is not something that comes easily. Humans basic instinct is to protect itself and places priority on food and shelter and taking risks could affect these necessities.

But life is not just about being comfortable - its about living your passion.

You can spend most of your life doing something you dislike to bring in the money which pays the bills which enables you to go back to work another day to bring in the money which pays the bills...

Life is short. One may not appreciate just how short it is while we are young but really start to understand as we get older. I'm in my late 30's now and am under no illusion whatsoever that I'm going to die at old age - I could die anytime like any of us. I want to ensure that I died while living a life doing what I love most. Don't want to live forever and am happy with the time I've been given - will make sure I make the most of the rest of my life and I hope you do too.

As for me - hopefully you can tell I love Mondays ;-)

Photos in this post taken from my last Kamakura visit.

Hi, My name is Taro from Eiburu Estate agents. We have a foreigner interested in your apartments, do you allow foreigners?

We don't have interest in the 3D world. If possible, I want to become the husband of a 2D character. Does not look like this matter can be solved with today's science and technology so at least make it legal to marry a 2D character. If this law is passed then I want to marry Asahina Mikuru.

During the Nuremberg Toy Fair I spotted the new version of the uber geek Lego Mindstorms NXT22 and some danish bricks gadgets like the Lego Camcorder, a colorful photo camera and this MP3 player. The cam and the photo camera seems ready to be marketed but seem that the Lego designers still got a lot of work to do on the MP3 player and its speakers…

So, you've been getting along well with your new Japanese business client but suddenly get told that they are not interested in doing business with you after meeting them on your arrival in Japan.

Well it could have been due to many a reason. One of the reasons could be that you started to eye up your clients lover secretary. It could also have been because you stepped in poo and didn't wipe off before leaving steaming skid marks all over your clients office carpet. Another reason could be because you slipped and stabbed a pencil in your clients left knee.

The most likely reason however is because you didn't hand over your business card properly and to do business in the land of the rising sun, you just need to know how this is done. Luckily, there is being a tutorial floating around the Tubes which you can see below.

Do also remember that you need to learn how to bow properly too - this flash tutorial (click on the thumbs at the bottom) will help you - I've seen people bow down to 90 degrees but 45 degrees for gratitude and apologies is acceptable. The photo is a collection of some business cards collected during my work in Japan - see more designs of Japanese business cards in my previous "Meishi" article.

A collection of Japanese Bento boxes that will starve you - because they are just too adorable to eat - See more pics at Ai Bento.

Ladies and Gentlemen, are you fed up with the side effects of breast enlargement medication? Does that third eye that sprouted up on your left knee really bug you after taking your latest prescription? Well we has some good news for you. Watch the video below (is in English with Japanese subs) to learn how Dr Tomobechi managed to enlarge a woman's bust size by 3 centimeters just by getting her to listen to particular ring tones over the period of 10 days - was on the Discovery Channel so it must be true.

And as for the first picture - its a bra for men which you can buy at Rakuten for 29USD - for men who are happy with their breast size. Thanks Henry!

Tokyo University professor and world-renowned CG artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi had this amazing exhibition at Yushima Seido, a temple in Ochanomizu, which ended yesterday. Lucky me, I was in the 'hood and caught the last bit of it, including a small closing event held by Kawaguchi himself. I wrote an article about him in Wired several years ago, so we had a little chat. He created these ultra super modern sea animal prototypes and planted them in front of the temple's architecture, creating this stark contrast between old and new that somehow perfectly depicted what Japan is today.

Today I'd like to talk about 'haters'. I've encountered quite a few in my time and you may have too.

Haters are folks who hate your very existence for no apparent reason. There you are just minding your own business when a hater appears and starts to do or say things that get on your nut. I used to get depressed by these folks for a while until I realized that they all were a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was needed to get me to where I am now. We actually need haters.

I'm going to talk about two particular haters and how they indirectly helped me.

One was a half Korean/Japanese classmate at university who was native-ish Japanese but didn't learn Korean as a child.

During class I spoke to him as a friend but learned from others how he would suddenly bring up the subject of "Hey you know that Danny? He's such an idiot. Why does he need to learn Korean?" I was surprised to learn how much he hated me!

One day in class, while I was struggling reading some Korean text, he suddenly stood up in class and shouted (in Japanese) "Look! Why don't you just study more! You are keeping the whole class behind!"

The experience left me embarrassed and shaking with anger. It's an experience that I don't purposely choose to remember but can recall it like it was yesterday. I read somewhere that emotional experiences can be easily recalled because when one is emotional, some sort of hormone is released which makes it easier to remember experiences and fixes that time and space in memory - this is the reason why most of your emotional memories (sorrow, happiness, anger) can be replayed clearly. Me not an expert on the subject or terminology though.

Was depressed about the experience but the sadness and anger wasn't doing me any good. I decided to use that energy instead to focus on improving my Korean just as the guy suggested. Spent every ounce of my time learning new grammar patterns and absorbing myself in the language just like I did when learning Japanese. A few weeks after the experience, my effort was beginning to pay off.

(More after the jump)The teacher would basically be going over grammar patterns from the textbook that we done homework from but I made sure that I studied a few chapters ahead and also made the use of other text books. I would be asked to complete a sentence using some new grammar pattern but I would always use new stuff which I studied on my own.

"Very good! Danny! Chal Haesumnida! Everybody, repeat after Danny..." I felt like a kid back in primary school being praised by the teacher for being able to spell "d-o-l-p-h-i-n."

That guys face would stiffen up and turn bright red as he clenched his pen which dug deep into his notebook and I made sure that he didn't have the pleasure of me not looking at him. I guess those who laugh last really do laugh the longest.

The next hater was a lovely piece of work. We were both hired at the same time and he was chosen to be my boss. Everything seemed to be going well until we started to work with each other. He didn't have any previous management experience and took the "I'm-your-boss-so-shut-up-and-listen-to-what-I-say" model. I had just started out in my career and was fine with that and had no problem with taking orders.

I've always been the one to take initiative and tend to do stuff which I think will benefit the company even though its not necessarily in my job description.

My boss however was the type who just wanted to get work done and go home. He really had no passion for what he was doing. I initially heard him arguing with the General Manager that 70,000 USD salary wasn't enough to support himself, his wife and two kids. I'm guessing that he felt his pay didn't cover managing a subordinate who wanted to do stuff outside his job description.

One day, after reporting back to him on a project that the General Manager was pleased with, he slammed his fists on my desk and shouted "Stop Fu*cking wasting my fu*cking time!" - it was another one of those "in-front-of-everybody" thing. I remember blood rushing to my head and feeling dizzy after. Never been so humiliated in my life. The office was silent and the air tense with the other employees not knowing how to react. I was in tears.

Feeling sorry for myself wasn't doing any good so I started to look for solutions. By this time, I had also felt that I was outgrowing my role and It was a small company. I soon realized that I needed to explore opportunities outside.

I started to meet with recruiters who introduced me to many companies. Meeting with these folks helped me grow quickly. My network started to grow over night and I also learned many interviewee techniques. For job positions which I've turned down, the prospective employer would always want to keep in touch. I still keep in touch with recruiters/head hunters and some of them still ask me if I'm available or know somebody who is. I also started to learn what my market value was given my skills and experience. Knowing your market value is essential in making a successful career for yourself.

In the end, I had placed myself in a different company but before I left my current company, they fired my boss - not only for treating me like poo on the shoe but also for several other counts of professional misconduct. I was young at the time and while I knew I was outgrowing my role, I didn't take initiative to look for external opportunities until indirectly pushed by my lovely boss. I thank him for being a piece of my life jigsaw puzzle.

These days however, my haters are mostly of the online variety. My theories as to why folks start to hate you are:-

- Human instinct is to protect him/herself. You see this reaction if somebody falls over - their arms naturally extend to protect them from the fall. If a human feels threatened by your existence, they may try to harm you directly or indirectly.

- Humans with low self esteem may find that attacking you makes them feel better about themselves as it 'places them above you.' I notice this *a lot* on the Japanese Internet. Many folks in Japanese society are given the "I'm-your-boss-so-shut-up-and-listen-to-what-I-say" treatment - needless to say that they feel like poo on the shoe when they get home. They then proceed to take it out on people/companies on the Internet with foul language. This form of gang bashing is known as "Matsuri" which literally means "Festival" - a group of folks having a good time bashing others.

I also personally experienced this form of hatred at school too. I was a quiet weak child who was brought up with foster parents who bullied me at home too - didn't exactly leave me feeling confident at school. Haters took advantage of this fact to make them feel better about themselves.

- Many humans hate the unknown. And because something is unknown, the only means a hater has to protect themselves is hatred which they try to use to expel you.

- Some humans may 'blame' you for how well you are doing at school or in society and see you as the cause of their current predicaments. You do well because of your hard work while others want your abilities (or what you have) by doing nothing. Jealousy is a trait that can even be seen in animals but if they could learn how to feel good about themselves, they need not be jealous of anything or anybody.

- Some humans hate you for not being how they want you to be. In their mind they have already decided how certain sets of humans should behave and when you are being just you and not behaving as they expect, they will hate you because you are not meeting their expectations. They could possibly see this as a threat to them because they don't know how to handle people who are not in their presets.

- Another reason why humans may choose you as a target of hatred is because they use you as a benchmark to 'do better' than you. This is annoying and a compliment at the same time :-) I see this going on between companies. A particular company that I worked at hated another company and used them as a benchmark.

- Some humans may hate you due to some sort of misunderstanding. I always employ and encourage open communication especially for sensitive topics. If the hater is somebody you care about, take the initiative to try to find out the cause of you being hated as it could be something over something very silly indeed. My observations of haters are:

- Haters linger - they want to know what you are doing/saying and this probably goes back to my theory of them perceiving you as a threat. If you are online, they will visit your site regularly and if your hater is a real life offline hater then they will try to find out what you are up to - could be through mutual friends.

- I have come across many haters who start to believe that things you say or do is directed at them. My theory is that they either want you to acknowledge the hatred that they have for you or gain sympathy or recognition from peers - they do this by picking out something you say or do and believe it is directed at them somehow. This probably makes them feel special which could stem from them blaming you for their current position or situation in society.

- Haters will let as many people as possible know how much they hate you. My theory is that they try to recruit the sympathy of fellows which makes them feel wanted and recognized.

- Online haters never use their real name - they usually hide behind an online identity. Being 'invisible' means that a hater can poke n tease at you without you knowing who they are and this may give them extreme heightened levels of pleasure which may make up for their distress at their current predicament in society.

- People who are initially friends can become your best haters. I have experienced this behavior on and offline. I had a few previous colleagues who started off being friendly and turning into monsters! But at the same time, I knew initial haters who turned out to be incredibly good buddies too.

So how about me? Who do I hate? Well I used to hate Ichiro (yes Ichiro ^^;) after I saw a clip on TV of him being horrible to fans who traveled to Seattle from Japan to see him. I feel like a complete pratt thinking that I used to hate somebody who is so far away from me and who I don't even know. I don't hate anybody these days because hating people does not really do anything for me. Hating somebody uses up time and some form of life energy which I would rather be using to focus on my own life.

So what should you do about that person at school or work that hates you for no apparent reason? Well there is a reason they hate you but its probably because you are just being yourself and you should never have to change yourself to please them. I tried to change myself to please my bullies by asking them to punch me - they punched but I was never part of their clan and glad I didn't end up like them.

If you are on the end of being hated, have a look at some of the reasons above and hopefully there will be some comments of advice too which will help you deal with your situation. You should continue to focus on the things that you need to do that contributes to *your* life. Its still day one for all of us and we are always learning and growing in this game of life.

Haters may initially get on your nut but you should realize that they are there for a reason and that fate has made them into a piece of your jigsaw puzzle that slowly gets completed as you go through life.

Society has all walks of people and we would never be able to successfully get through life without experiencing haters and learning how to deal with them. Remember that we need haters to help us grow and that they are in your life for a reason. You must work out what that reason is and learn how to deal with them. By understanding that its most probably because they are jealous, scared or need attention will help you define how to deal with them.

What you must not do is spend large amounts of time worrying or thinking about the people who hate you. This is your life and not theirs. You should not waste your precious life on people who hate you and focus on your beautiful life that you have ahead of you.

If you are happy, passionate about what you do and enjoying the variety of life then you will realize how insignificant haters are compared to the wonderful life you have.

Article and photo plucked from my Motivational Articles.]]> http://boingboing.net/2009/02/18/something-for-the-ha.html/feed 65 http://boingboing.net/2009/02/18/car-decorations-and.html http://boingboing.net/2009/02/18/car-decorations-and.html#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:10:22 +0000 Danny Choo Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

This video, and official release from Peter Bjorn and John, shows a day in the life of a very interesting guy with very big hair, and his dancing comrades. Whether seen as macho to a humorous fault or just so cool we can’t keep up, the dancers in Yoyogi Park have been at this for years.

This abandoned Russian fortress is probably one of the creepiest places I have seen. The reason for it to have such a strange look is because it was used later by Russian army to test the influence of Russian alternative to napalm inside of the brick houses. Due to very high temperature of napalm the bricks started melting just like ice melts in the spring forming the icicles, but those icicles are of red brick.

So why exactly do most Japanese folk do the V-sign when having their photos taken? According to Wikipedia, the earliest confirmed usage of the V-sign was by Winston Churchil during World War II - the V-sign meaning "Victory." The Japanese Wikipedia for the entry Peace Sign however says that there is a theory that the two fingers mean that two nuclear bombs where dropped on Japan meaning that peace is near...

During the 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan, skater Janet Lynn (who was also a peace activist) was photographed by the Japanese media doing the V-sign. Although the V-sign was already recognized in Japan, it was apparently these photos of Lynn that popularized the use of the V-sign.

The Japanese entry in Wikipedia does not mention Lynn at all and instead says that the V-sign took off in the 80's when usage of the V-sign was used when kids were having their photos taken.

A few more pics of Japanese folks doing the V-sign in my previous Japanese V Sign and Seijin Shiki articles.

Do you like your cake? Do you like your sushi? Well how about a sushi cake? These yummy cakes are available from Ryu Gu Jo Sushi Studio and cost between 57 USD and 74 USD depending on the fish used. And for those who are new to eating sushi, the tutorial below will tell you everything you need to know. How good is the sushi served up in your region?

Breaking suchi cake news from CScout