You know I love 20th Century history. Wikipedia is a great tool for high-level, non-academic understanding of historical events. I found this little nugget while reading about the French Resistance in World War II:

When Adolf Hitler received word from the French Government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, Hitler selected Compiègne Forest near Compiègne as the site for the negotiations. As Compiègne was the site of the 1918 Armistice ending the Great War with a humiliating defeat for Germany, Hitler saw using this location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France. Hitler decided to sign the armistice in the same rail carriage where the Germans had signed the first armistice in 1918...

In the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair in which Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat when he faced the defeated German representatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_with_France_(Second_Compi...

That's some serious vengeance right there!

I was way disappointed to discover today that the Japanese version of the Milky Way candy bar is really just a 3 Musketeers bar in disguise. You all don't realize how much you need that thin strip of caramel in your life until it's not available to you. Heartbreaking, indeed.

I get back from China and find a new ad campaign on the Yamanote Line for Boss Coffee featuring Tommy Lee Jones. When I was here last September they were my favorite billboards, and I'm glad to see Suntory bring TLJ back for another round of ads.

Here are a few tips for enjoying sushi, provided by the internet. Apparently, sushi chefs are a pretty cagey bunch who don't like to give good sushi to ordinary people. They reserve their best sushi for the the sushi snobs/connoisseurs. So, here are the tips provided by the internet:

1. Eat rolls sparingly. If you order a roll, then the sushi chef will assume that you are a noob and will give you subpar sushi. This is akin to a drug dealer selling bags of oregano to high school kids.
2. Order something other than Tuna or Salmon. Salmon and Tuna are delicious. They also make you look like an amateur. Ordering octopus or eel will show the chef that you are a discerning customer.
3. Sit at the bar and talk to the chef. It there is one thing that the chef loves, it's talking shop with customers. Consider this quotation:

   In Japanese culture, the sushi chef is not just a guy with a knife - he's your gastronomical navigator in unpredictable waters.

4. Order omakase. This means that the sushi chef chooses for you. It is EXTREMELY sophisticated to do this. The chef will recognize this and reward you with some of the best sushi from his secret stash.
5. Use soy sauce sparingly (and call it 'shoyu'). The internet says that, "This is the ultimate faux pas in the eyes of the chef and is a truly unforgivable sin." If you put soy sauce (shoyu) on your sushi, you are blacklisted and will be getting shwag every time you return to the restaurant.
6. Don't mix wasabi in your shoyu. By adding wasabi, you are telling the sushi chef that you hate him. Avoid this.
7. Eat the sushi upside down. This way, you taste the fish before the rice. Also, it's sort of a stunt. Dude! Check it out, he totally flipped that diggy before he ate it!
8. Eat with your hands. It has to do with culture and stuff.

It's a strange business model: give subpar food to the majority of your clients, and save the best for the people who come into your restaurant all the time.

In conclusion, your sushi chef is always judging you.

Disclosure: I tried to load pictures onto this, but it took forever. Tim, I don't know what i'm doing wrong.

Questions for discussion:

1. Are you ashamed because you like California Rolls?
2. Would you be willing to eat octopus sushi if it raised your standing with the sushi chef?
3. Which sort of snob would you like to be? Sushi snob? Music snob? Some other kind of snob?
   

Played tourist this morning, went shopping again this afternoon. Got a bit sunburned -- it's warm and dry today, but the air is much cleaner than yesterday -- and came in for a nap. Then went out for a long walk tonight. Tomorrow I'll see the Great Wall.

[I left Joel in charge of my blog while I'm in China, but it turns
out that my hotel room has a desktop computer in it with free
internet, so I'm still able to post. I hope that doesn't preclude Joel
from blessing us with his rich, well-studied analysis of Japanese
culture. So, even though I'm posting this right now, Joel still "has
the conch."]

Well, I'm in China. The thing China is most known for is Chinese
people. There are many of them here in Beijing. Another thing China is
known for is Chinese food. Everywhere I look here I see plenty of it.
Those two things are really what China is known for.

Tonight for dinner I had Chinese food made by Chinese people. Pippa G.
hooked me up with a great Peking Duck joint east of Tianenmen Square,
so I went there and then ate it all. I ate a whole duck, a whole
Peking Duck. It was sooooooOOOOOOoooo good, my friends. SO good. Plum
sauce, cucumbers, and duck on those little pancake thingees. Just a
great meal.

Before I went for the duck, though, I went to Silk Street and bought
myself a sweet real-looking fake watch. I admit that it's pretty
bourgeouis of me (sorry, Mac), but the thing is beautiful. Tomorrow I
may go back and buy some real-looking fake designer shoes. I have to
go easy, though, so that Japan Customs doesn't hunt me down and make
me pay (figuratively) for my "crimes."

Now I'm going to meet friend at the Donghuamen Night Market. I'm
hoping to eat a scorpion. Or a silkworm. Thoughts? Tomorrow I'm going
to get up early and be a tourist for a few hours, then I'll get back
to my normal vacation ritual of sitting somewhere and watching people.
It's so intoxicating! Speaking of people watching, I've been here 6
hours and I've been stared at dozens of times already. You'd think it
was the first time these people had ever seen a fat, bald, American
man. Although, maybe they were just staring at my fake watch... I
swear it looks real!!!!!!!

I'm off to Beijing for a few days of vacation. No computer for a few days, just this iPhone. Hopefully I'll remember to turn the 3G service off so I don't get charged a fortune in data roaming charges. It should be a fun little trip.

I got up early this morning to pack for the trip and take my scooter to the Mylroies' (I can't leave my scooter parked on the street that long), and as I was walking through Shibuya afterward, I had a strange sense of peace; there are millions and millions of people in this city, but it's still a peaceful and relatively quiet place. It's quite impressive.

I found a noteworthy quote in a New York Times article about the decision in Scotland to allow the perpetrator of the Lockerbie bombing to return home to Libya for the last few months of his life, as he is dying of prostate cancer. Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill said, "the perpetration of an atrocity and outrage cannot and should not be a basis for losing sight of who we are, the values we seek to uphold, and the faith and beliefs by which we seek to live."

Calpis Zero and Pocari Sweat

...is that they AREN'T prostitutes. Or so I'm told.

The word 'geisha' comes from a combining of the Japanese words 'Gei' and 'Sha' (I am not making this up). The term, translated roughly means "art person." And they are not prostitutes.A Geisha spends years studying the delicate arts of walking in small wooden sandals, pouring tea, and lighting cigars for tourists. She is an artist, not a prostitute.
She wears the most expensive kimonos and must always paint her face to look like a member of the band KISS who isn't done in the makeup room. Remember, that unlike KISS, they are artists, not prostitutes.

But wait...there's more...GEISHAS ARE PROSTITUTES! During a process called the mizuage, a young geisha auctions her virginity to the highest bidder. Sounds like a prostitute to me.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Do you think that geishas look scary?
2. Will you be going as a geisha to any halloween parties?
3. Confused about this whole geisha/prostitute cover up?
   

Editor's note: It's a privilege to have Joel on board as our Japanese Culture Specialist. His in-depth knowledge and analysis is already beginning to benefit this blog. Please join me in welcoming and supporting Joel.

(I'll post a map of Great Tokyo Scooter Ride #1 later.)



Start in Sakuragaoka, go down to Shibuya, left at the fork toward Akasaka, left at Omotesando crossing, up Ometesando to Meijijingumae, u-turn and head back toward Omotesando crossing, through Aoyama, follow left at the weird fork, through the cemetery, over the viaduct, around Midtown, back to Roppongidori, left to Roppongi crossing, right toward Roppongi Hills, follow the highway back toward Shibuya, stop at the gas station on that one corner for gas, down toward Ebisu, right through the hills in Ebisu, along the road on the north side of the Toyoko Line, stop at Peacock in Daikanyama for some grocery shopping, head back home.

I'm discriminated against at times and it enrages me. It's never bold
nor in my face, but after it happens I know exactly what's happened.
It's minor and I don't want to go into it too much, but I know it
happens. Luckily it's not institutional, and it's done on an
individual basis, but it sucks whenever it happens. Japan is a
wonderfully fair place, it's true, and I know that my discomfort is
but the prick of a pin compared to some of the discrimination I've
seen elsewhere. I hate to see it anywhere, and I despise it happening
to me.

I'm privileged to introduce you, dear readers, to guest blogger Joel Mikkelsen, the newest member of the mynameistim.com family. After much consideration and pondering, I decided to bring Joel in to cover topics in which I struggle to convey my expertise: salsa dancing, for example. Um... you know... Clamming. Winter-season snap bean cultivation. These are things Joel excels in. I think you'll all agree with me that this blog needed something -- all of this Japan stuff is just boring!

Joel's the smartest guy I've ever met, and don't forget that I once met ALBERT EINSTEIN. He (Joel, not Albert) has four PhDs: Subcontinental Literature, Family History, Athletics, and Pastry Cream. Plus, if you'll recall, he was once the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA!

The point is clear: if you don't read Joel's guest posts on this blog, you clearly hate life and should just go back to bed.

It has a mini pad of paper in the packaging so you have something to
put your gum in after you're done with it. Brilliant!

Testing my new iPhone.

We just had a little quake here. Not sure how big. Just a bit of shaking. Glad I live in a new building, though.

I've never been much of a cereal man. I was always more of a bacon and eggs kind of guy. I guess I like cereal when I was a kid, but by the time I was a teenager I had lost interest in it. I went through college eating the occasional Marshmallow Mateys or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but after one box/bag I'd be tired of eating cereal. I have always loved granola, and I ate a lot of chocolate granola with strawberry yogurt when I was on my mission in Spain, but even loving the stuff hasn't gotten me to eat it regularly.

[Side note: There's a place right by my office that does soft-serve vanilla ice cream in a cup with granola at the bottom. It's exquisite!]

A couple months ago I was walking through Costco and saw this bag of Calbee brand Fruit Granola, thought it might be good, and bought it. It sat on my shelf until a few days ago, when I busted it open for a quick dessert. OH. MY. GOODNESS. So good. Tons of dried fruit, dried nuts, granola, rice crispies. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM I love the stuff.

Now I'm going to have to make another Costco trip.

George (identity hidden -- Japan privacy laws are very strict!) has asked me a couple times when I was going to make my blog archive available, since he and his wife are apparently so amused by yours truly that they just want to see everything! Well, I'm happy to oblige. Today I finally decided to tweak my template to allow for the archive to show. I've been running this site since 2001 or so, but I didn't move to blogger until 2006. I'm not sure where the older content is. Lost, I assume.

For more "old Tim stuff," check out the old photo album, which appears to have had its dates messed up, but the pics are fun nevertheless. Also, the new photo album has a bunch of good stuff, too.

I finally got around to uploading pictures of my apartment. I took these back in June soon after I moved in.

I had the privilege yesterday of attending a concert put on by my co-worker Daisuke Kitazawa's wife's gospel choir.



I had heard about the growing popularity of American gospel music in Japan, but even still, I was shocked to hear such passion and dedication to the music from these Japanese women. A very cool experience, indeed.

I told Kitazawa-san that I wondered how it was possible for non-Christians to sing songs about Jesus (even sometimes saying his name in the songs) with such fervor, such soul, such conviction, and he translated a comment made by one of the singers between songs: They love gospel music because it helps them get through tough times of loneliness or sadness. They sing not for Jesus, but for how singing the music makes them feel about themselves. (I, of course, being a Christian, would suggest that those two are indeed related.)

It was amazing to see what the Japanese have done with gospel music!