It's bad for you!

Karada ni warui!

When I got back from Hokkaido, I got, as expected, a rather lukewarm welcome from the Pumpkin Princess. At least she had a pleasant stay with her granny.

Today's phrase is in honor of the poor Chinese babies who drank milk tainted with melamine and developed kidney stones, but whose government hadn't done much to prevent it.

It is also in honor of the current tainted rice scandal in Japan. The sale of rice is regulated by the government. Most of the rice sold as food is domestic, but we've succumbed to foreign pressure and started importing a while back. Which, is in itself, not a bad thing. The down side is that when rice is imported, you don't know the quality of the rice (rice production is heavily regulated in Japan, which makes for high prices but at least if you buy domestic, you have a pretty good idea of what you are getting). Sometimes it comes with a higher than acceptable level of pesticide. This rice gets labeled unfit for human consumption, and is used for things like adhesive. Sounds good, right?

Well, it is. If it worked the way it was supposed to. As it turned out, one company was buying rice for industrial use (i.e. cheaper than the market price for rice intended for human consumption) and selling it to food manufacturers to make things like rice snacks. They were buying rice with a high concentration of methamidophos (pesticide not used in Japan but still sometimes used in China), letting it sit in their warehouses until it got moldy and, more importantly, the concentration of methamidophos went down to acceptable levels, and then sold it to snack manufacturers. They've released a list of companies that have bought tainted rice, and I would not be the least bit surprised if the Pumpkin Family had eaten toxic rice snacks once or twice. It's also made its way into school lunches and convenience store onigiri.

One more good reason to base your diet mostly on whole foods...

Go home quickly!

Hayaku kaette!

When post WWII Japan was occupied by Allied (read: mostly American) forces, the occupying government was known as the GHQ (General Headquarters). After a couple of years of being occupied, the then Prime Minister of Japan quipped "GHQ stands for Go Home Quickly!"

I'm posting this from Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. I'm here for a work conference. I left the Pumpkin Princess with her granny. I'd kind of figured that she would be just fine with her beloved Granny, but I didn't realize just how.

My flight dictated that I would have to leave very early the next day, so the night before, I took the Pumpkin Princess to her Granny's. Shortly after arrival, she announced, "(Pumpkin Princess) is going to go to bed at Granny's house, so go home now!" and she put the strap of my purse around my neck.

So I did.

Are you going to have another baby?

Tsugi no okosan ha?

I get asked this once every so often, and when I do, I tell the truth, which is that I would like for the Pumpkin Princess to have a brother or a sister soon. Like many only children under the age of four, she seems to believe the world revolves around her, and I think she needs a reality check :) Plus, I'll be 37 this year, and everyone knows fertility goes downhill with age. Not to mention the older you are, the more likely you are to have a difficult pregnancy. This is objective medical data, not some kind of conspiracy by old men trying to keep young women barefoot and pregnant. Not that barefoot and pregnant are bad things to be, of course, as long as you also have the chance, should you want it, to wear pretty shoes and have a professional track career.

Still, I find it amusing and annoying that people ask me this question, particularly if they are not close friends or immediate family. First of all, my plans for my family are none of their business. Unless, of course, you happen to be my mother, and know for a fact you will be seriously involved in caring for any children of mine :) But mostly, it squicks me out because, well, you know how babies are made? So when you ask me if I'm planning another child, you are asking me, albeit indirectly, what I, um, do with my husband when we are together. Which, um, seriously? None of your f-ing business.

Literally.

You've become so pretty!

Zuibun kirei ni natta ne!

I got a Facebook account for the sole purpose of keeping in touch with my oldest friend, the Peapod (soon to be the Pea Mommy. Why have I chosen to dub her the Peapod? Well, she has been my friend since 6th grade, and is my first real friend, so she is my oldest friend. Peas are the world's oldest vegetable, so my oldest friend who is currently pregnant with her first child, is the Peapod, OK?). That place is dangerous. I entered the high school I attended when I lived in the US, because I figured people from the high school where I graduated (Pumpkin Girls' High School in Pumpkin City, Japan) would probably not have Facebook accounts. I got a bunch of tiny little pictures linked to profiles I could not access, but I did recognize quite a few familiar faces. I ended up spending a couple hours I didn't have on that site.

One picture was of a beautiful sari clad Indian woman. I recognized her as a girl I'd gone to elementary, junior high and high school with. Her mother spoke limited English and was not familiar with the mannerisms and customs of the US (not unlike my own mother). She dressed plainly and wasn't really part of the "in crowd" (and, as you will probably guess, neither was I), so it made me happy that she looked so happy and beautiful in her Facebook picture.

(btw, I'm on as "Ayako Maidenname-Currentlastname" but I haven't put up any pictures or interesting information yet, so it's not worth checking me out. If you have a lot of time on your hands and you don't know my family names, ask me.)

I am so lame.

Watashi tte dame jan.

But in all honesty, when I saw "we interrupt this program to give you this special report" on TV, my first thought was "They'd better not cancel tonight's SMAPxSMAP because the Olympic Gold Medal Softball Team are supposed to be the guests for Bistro SMAP!"

Why now?

Naze ima?

Prime Minister Fukuda just resigned.

When a doctor thinks you are developing senile dementia, he will ask you a series of questions which include simple addition problems, naming random vegetables, and the current President of the USA. This won't work in Japan, because PMs come and go faster than fashion trends and the doctor himself might quite possibly not be sure of the correct answer.

The Americans lament that they have had continuous one party rule, but Bill Clinton was in office only eight years ago. Japan is where they have regular elections but continuous one party rule for decades on end.

One thing about continuous one party rule is that you know exactly which political party is responsible for what is going on in your country. The crumbling medical system and social security system, the ruinous public school system, the disastrous level of debt, the increasing gap between the haves and have nots, you know that what the Liberal Democratic Party (which, as we all know, is neither very liberal nor very democratic) did or did not do caused it or at least did not stop it from happening.

Quite honestly, I don't think anyone has a straightforward answer on how to make this country a better place to live. But isn't it kind of irresponsible to cop out before your term runs out and create yet another former PM who gets a former PM pension.

How much is true?

Doko made hontou?

I thought this video was interesting, chilling, and amusing at the same time.

I can't place the show, but judging from the television personalities in the clip, it seems to be from to be a semi-legit news show somewhere between "Inside Edition" and "60 Minutes".

Assessing photographs for their authenticity is a valid academic field. I haven't bought and read the book, but I am convinced that at least the photos shown in the clip are either doctored or from entirely different incidents from the Nanking Massacre. I am more than willing to believe that the Chinese side did not have convincing photographs of what happened. They were overpowered and underresourced. I would not be surprised if none of them had cameras, or even if they did, none of them were able to take photos. I can understand how the Kuomintang thought it necessary to use doctored and unrelated photos for propaganda purposes.

However, I am seriously frightened that the commentators (most of them are not legitimate commentators as in educated and informed critics, but television presenters and personalities) conclude that it supports evidence that the Nanking Massacre did not happen. These people are Nanking Massacre naysayers, and they need to be lumped in the same category as Holocaust naysayers and Hiroshima naysayers. It scares me that they are on television and expressing these views to the general public.

Oh, and could we please use the word "rooster" or "cockerel" to describe male chickens?