The Art of Selfishness

This article from the BBC pointed towards something unintended.  The tradition in all Asian countries, has been for the subsequent members of family to provide for their elders.  They don't have pensions, banking interest rates are measured in fractions of a percent, and general wealth has been hard to come by.

Japan has bucked this trend recently, with its' declining population and relative wealth, they do the western thing of providing for themselves with pensions, savings and occasional part-time work.

Watch the article and you'll see that china is still some way behind in this respect.  The guy speaking ends his part by saying 'it will be difficult for him [the lone male child] to provide for the six of us.'

Now, when you are so selfish as to expect the child to provide for six people, without even considering the child in question, something must be inherently wrong.  In fact, expectation is the wrong feeling.  It's not really expected that he will do this; he will do it.  It transcends expectation because there is an element of doubt related to expectation.  It's a certainty in the mind of this man.  When you elevate selfishness to the realm of certainty without reprisal, you have created an art form.  Truly.

Poor kid.

Then again, the 'little emporer,' syndrome they talk about lives true and well within all of china.

Having met and spoken with a ton of the wealthiest 'little emporers,' in university, I can honestly say they can be obnoxious.  This is not to say people with brothers and sisters can't be foul, obviously this is not the case - I just feel that this particular breed of chinese (dedicated to pouring their entire being into the new generation) has created a number of monsters.  Just look at me as a prime example of the western equivalent (a term I'm now coining 'little king.') and become afraid.  There is only one of me, but there are billions of them.

Time to get out of here before they all grow up and move abroad!



In other news:  UK terror threat level has been downgraded from 'kiss your ass goodbye,' to 'rip your own eyeballs out, it'll be easier for you when they come and start shooting children.'

If you have any fears over your safety in the UK, just watch James Bond - he is badass.

Also, grow up.

One last thing about the terror warnings - they only ever raise them to the highest level after an attack has occurred, rendering all the 'I urge civilians to be cautious and alert,' bullshit moot, as we should have been alert prior to the bombing.  Not after.  Not exactly rocket scientist material heading government anti-terror units these days.  That in itself is more a cause for concern than any fictitious terrorists.


On an unrelated note, I just visited a class for lunch (every day I have to eat lunch with a class.  This is probably why I've lost weight.  I just want to eat lunch quietly without seeing filthy children vomiting and spitting food at each other and flinging poo around like monkeys.  It's disgusting.) and saw a kid eat his meal like a gannet.  An otherwise impressive feat, it was somewhat disturbing for me to realise that all the kids were eating like that.  It must be a fad or something.  Literally no chewing occurred.

Then again, contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do not possess table manners.  Sure, they kneel down and bow, say prayers of thank you (more on the prayers at a later date) before and after meals, and keenly observe proper chopstick etiquette - but once those formalities are overcome, it's all hands to the troughs.  To see grown men, holding their chopsticks perfectly, dive head first into their bowls of food without using their hands is quite something.  They can go through whole meals without actually using their perfected chopstick techniques, instead preferring the animalistic approach.  Once they have finished troughing, they observe the etiquette laden formality of life once again.

Their children are umpteen times more disgusting to watch eating.

This is of course not to disparage all Japanese people.  I find the women eat in a way that isn't fear-inducing, and some men are tolerable.

This is also coming from the only human being on the planet who feels that meal times are much better alone than shared with another, however, so my views may well be biased on this front.

P.s I just read a ten minute long back and forth internet flame war, arguing which is better: Western music or Eastern music.  Not to put too fine a point on matters, while every country has patriots, Korea and Japan have attracted the anti-patriot.  The 'weaboo,' is a common internet species, who think they're Japanese or Korean (the 'or Korean,' part is still yet to be added to the definition, but it's not long before it happens) despite being 14th generation English, French, German, Dutch or American - and never having left their parents' metaphorical or literal basement.

As such, the defence for the East-Asian music went thusly (to paraphrase): Western music is shit.

The rebuttal was: Japanese and Korean music is equally shit, except there is no variation that allows for the occasional breakthrough artist, or that caters for individual tastes.

The rebuttal is entirely correct.  The only music in Japan is pop music.  It's so generic, people have created computer programs that produce music indistinguishable from 'real,' music.  I recently told the rugby guys that I like a Japanese rock band called 'maximum the hormone,' (another example of why Japan really needs to start taking English language teaching seriously) and they said, 'that's a bit weird.'  They also advised me against telling any women that I like them, in case they thought I was weird too.

They're genuinely awesome, but they're not pop - in essence the reason why the West is better isn't the overall quality of music, (huge swathes of stuff produced in the West is dire, let's be honest) it's the fact that there is no music catering to differing tastes.  If you don't like whiny, nasal pop, you're SOL (something out of luck) in Japan.

Unless you have the internet.

The internet beats the wheel as the best invention ever.

Using the above statement, begin a new flamewar at your own behest.