Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: culture

  • Tokyo: smelliest place on earth

    nioibu.com lets people warn others of smelly places
    nioibu.com lets people warn others of smelly places

    According to the new Social Networking  website that relies on Google Maps to point out smelly places in the world, Tokyo must be the smelliest place on earth.

    That is, until you realize that the site is in Japanese, and that it is almost brand new. Of course, those of us that live in Tokyo, and have good noses, would be the first to post sites. Each flag is color coded, depending on the type of smell.

    Google Maps is being used for numerous applications. For example, in San Francisco, they link together the location of searches on mobile phones for key words like flu or disease to try to map out a progression of a breakout and where it might be headed.

    Only would the Japanese think of applying it to avoid smells.

  • Ministry of Education back tracks

    On the backs of babes.

    backpack200-bbIt seems since the scores are falling in international tests, and Japanese kids aren’t learning stuff you can test as much, there is a panic to find a solution.

    About 10 years ago there was a move to restrict time at school because kids were not very well-rounded. They tend not to play together, or learn about cultural activities. To increase “humanity” among the kids, they were given most Saturdays off (yes, they used to go most Saturdays). The number of school days dropped from about 240 to 210 (the US has about 180).

    The drop in scores on these international tests didn’t start appearing until about 5 years after the change. Of course, the first thought on the cause of the drop was the changed schedule. No solid indication of causation here, but everyone thought something must be done.

    So what did the Ministry of Education come up with? Reinstate Saturdays, and double the page count of the textbooks. You see, the system here in Japan is incredibly centralized. There is a week-to-week curriculum that everyone in K-12 follows. So a kid could move from Hokkaido down to Kyushu over the weekend, and pick up exactly where he left off. (The textbooks might be different, the content is the same.)

    So now the kids will be carrying much heavier backpacks, and the publishers fat and happy. There is a constant outcry when new textbooks are brought out, because of their (non) treatment of WW2 and things like the Rape of Nanjing. Now they will have twice as much room, but we can be fairly certain there won’t be twice as much content.

  • 88 Yen

    That is how much a dollar costs these days. Glad I stopped sending money over there about 3 years ago. Sorry I sent over so much in the years before. Then again, things may come around eventually, but I don’t expect a quick recovery. Interesting that the Japanese stock market is tanking because the support for the US car makers is eroding in the US Senate. Just happy to have been saving yen in cash. Lately.

  • Quarterbacks, Teachers, and Financiers

    What they have in common? Skills that cannot be easily measured. This is the point of a very long article by Malcolm Gladwell at the New Yorker: Most Likely to Succeed in the Annals of Education section.

    What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?

    Gladwell’s newest book Outliers: The Story of Success is on my list now. Treatment of micro-skills that lead to success in such varied areas of football, education and investing deserve to be looked at with the detail that Gladwell lavishes on them.

  • Life is what happens…

    While you are waiting to be successful. Watch this short clip of Alan Watts, a 1960’s “guru” of eastern religions, recorded with visuals made and produced by the makers of South Park. Very Curious.