Life In Japan: Excellence Begins Young

Every modern country is struggling to deal with the pressures of new technology, pressures which are accelerating exponentially as new technologies accelerate in number, sophistication, and appeal. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, games, smartphones, tablets are all in the mix, offering on the plus side unparalled opportunities for learning and communication, quick and easy ways of getting things done, but on the negative side pulling our focus, scattering our energies, wasting our time, and attenuating our capacity for deep, extended concentration.

We deal with this as adults. Similarly kids are more distracted and tempted with the fun, ease and convenience of technology than ever before. With each passing day, there are more and more technical shortcuts for just about any task.

Now with AI, we apparently have at our fingertips a tool to get just about anything done . . . EFFORTLESSLY! Type, hit enter, BINGO! A new song, a new poem, a novel, an article on just about any topic, a plan to conquer the world!

Maybe I’m too stuck in a legacy paradigm — after all, I am a product of celebratory mating prompted by victories over Germany and Japan . . . a Baby Boomer! — or maybe there are truisms which simply are timeless.

Here’s one I believe makes sense: Human satisfaction and personal reward is not necessarily in getting something done, but in doing that something, i. e. the effort to do it.

You can buy a computer program that plays an incredible game of chess. But the real reward comes from playing an incredible game of chess.

Same with music. I know I could buy some AI software which writes on command whatever kind of song I might want to hear. Is that supposed to somehow compare with the incredible child-like joy, the exhilaration I get from writing — however good or bad it turns out — a song myself?

That concept is not lost on teachers here in Japan. My wife, Masumi, teaches music in a nearby school system. She competes with computer games, the internet, iPhones, yes the entire array of distractions which her elementary students carry around with them — and the increasingly pervasive levels of ADHD which the foregoing produce — still manages to teach her kids how to play and how to appreciate music. She deserves a medal!

Masumi loves to show me success stories she comes across, examples of how the educational system in Japan serves the real needs of students and doesn’t abandon its core mission by pandering to the latest technological fads.

Here are two such examples. These are not Masumi’s students, because she teaches grades 2 through 6, elementary level. These examples are — are you ready for this? — nursery school kids! That means 5 and under! Try to process that as you watch the Yayoi Nursery School orchestra play a piece from Phantom of the Opera.

Here is a performance at the Toddler Music Festival, playing excerpts from Camina Burana.

Are you impressed?

I know I am!

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Excellence Begins Young | John Rachel

Don’t mess with woke!

I’ve always considered myself out on the fringe, cutting edge, pushing the envelope. Life is more interesting that way. But this time I pushed things too far.

A few months ago I jumped feet first into a new music project. Bunny Yō is a Q-pop star, unlike any I’ve ever worked with before, unlike anything out there these days. I won’t try to describe her. Just go to the website and try to figure it out for yourselves.

It has not been going smoothly at all. I love the music. I especially love the attitude, because it’s so weird and irreverent. But apparently no one else gets it, at least so far. Bunny’s first single, Orphan Sex Club, has been banned on TikTok. Most of the song’s YouTube videos have been age restricted, which is ridiculous. There’s nothing obscene about any of it. The censors fail to appreciate that it’s a joke. Orphan Sex Club? Come on! Get a sense of humor!

But that was just for starters.

Let me explain something. Bunny is in no position to do any of the technical stuff, none of the promotion, nothing but what she does. So yours truly has been handling everything. I put together the website, designed all the Bunny Yō accessories — t-shirts, truckers caps, coffee mugs — building everything around the Bunny Yō persona, lyrics, music, imagery, doing my best to capture and be faithful to her vision.

Well . . . this t-shirt was where the real trouble began.

Apparently, it caught the attention of some woke bloke and his indignation and gut rage spread through the woke community like monkeypox. They looked at the entire Bunny Yō project and for some reason thought I was making fun of them.

Let me tell you something. As J. K. Rowling will attest, you don’t want to mess with these people. There’s no reasoning with them. They’re like a mob of rabid witch hunters!

Anyway, here I am. In a jail cell of my own creation, waiting for the verdict.

Things don’t look good. My attorney (pictured on the right) apparently studied law at an auto mechanics trade school in Moldova. She raised no objections when a motion was entered — and approved by the court — to skip the trial and just let the jury decide on my guilt or innocence. I still don’t know what I am charged with. No matter who I ask, they just roll their eyes and sneer at me like I’m a big festering sore on the butt of humanity.

It gets worse.

How is that possible, you ask?

Here’s my jury.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Don’t mess with woke! | John Rachel

Life In Japan: “Let it snow . . . let it snow . . .” | John Rachel

Understandably, with my thousands of friends, millions of acquaintances, uncountable fans and followers, I am overwhelmed with curiosity about the details of my life here in Japan. Here’s one question I’ve gotten . . . well, hmm . . . taking a microscope to the past thirteen or so years . . . I’d say at least three times: “What’s the weather like there?”

Granted, this query might on the surface seem rather superficial. Which if you think about it is where superficial things reside . . . on the surface.

But let’s face it. Weather determines everything from what kind of clothes to wear, to the fecundity of food crops, to maintaining excellent hair styling and make up, to how much Chapstick to pick up at Walgreens, to how much over the speed limit you consider driving. Obviously the challenges generated by weather may not result in very deep, profound philosophical questions about life, the nature of the Universe, the competition between fate and free will, the epistemological trappings of solipsism. But without any doubt, we pay a very high price for not posing the right weather-related questions at the right time, with an abiding passion for uncovering the truth: Should I bring an umbrella? Is my toupée glue waterproof? What’s the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning? Is that a cumulus cloud or a radioactive mushroom cloud?

I’m not going to get into all of the nuances of weather here. I’ll just say that it’s almost identical to the weather of my last home town in the U.S., that being Portland, Oregon. Keep that in mind and a quick Google search will provide all the weather stats you need.

At the same time, rather than have you leave empty-handed as you mount a demoralized point-and-click escape from this page to surf the latest TikTok videos, pit-stop Facebook to see how many friends deleted you today, tweet Photoshopped pics of Donald Trump naked in bed with Bill Hillary Clinton, or better yet, to Google ‘weather Portland, Oregon’, let me take a minute to share with you a little meteorological joy we’ve experienced over the last couple weeks.

It’s been snowing almost every day!

Yes, this is quite unusual. We typically get snow at most three or four times over the entire course of winter. But it’s really been coming down! Just about every morning, we’ve gotten up and our already beautiful valley is white from one end to the other. Several times it kept on snowing well into the day. Here’s what it looked like . . .

And here . . .

There you have it. Glad you asked?

Stay tuned for more stories from the land of the rising sun!

(If you can handle the excitement.)

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: “Let it snow . . . let it snow . . .” | John Rachel

Stealing My Thunder | John Rachel

Mysterious “hut” recently photographed by the Chinese Lunar Rover.

I go out of my way to keep my readers and loyal fans ahead of the news, 1) by not just regurgitating the usual stuff that passes for BREAKING NEWS, garbage that mysteriously keeps “breaking” for months on end with panel discussions and tedious updates; and 2) by always providing accurate stories and insights that sometimes takes years for the typical mainstream media outlets to finally get right.

So I’m frankly getting tired of media outlets “scooping” my stories.

A truly aggravating example is the photo at the top of this page.

“A lunar rover has spotted a strange cube-shaped object and will alter its official course to check it out, needing 2-3 months to arrive.”

“The Chinese Yutu 2 lunar rover spotted a bizarre shape in its cameras while traversing a C-shape enclosure made up of ferocious impact craters on the moon’s far side.”

“The drivers zoomed in on the pictures, slowly admiring them one by one. Suddenly, an obtrusive cube on the northern skyline attracted their attention. This object pierced through the winding of the skyline, like a ‘mysterious hut’.”

Those comments are from an article about this under-whelming breakthrough in lunar exploration, on a site called Good News Network. It should be called Old News Network.

Not only is this amazing new discovery old news, but to put it mildly, it’s less than spectacular. What are we looking at here? A blurry photo taken with a camera with vaseline on the lens, pointed by robotic command from 240,000 miles away, probably using a refurbished Dell computer running Windows 95. You know how primitive those Chinese scientists are, still doing critical calculations with an abacus.

More to the point, why is this new news? Because over a year ago, I provided this photo.

You can’t help but notice the stark difference in the quality of the images. My sources are GOOD! And reliable! This incredible shot was posted by a dance team I follow on TikTok, and they’ve become an invaluable source of “hot off the press” information for me.

They also alerted me to the dangers of eating GMO-laced products, especially junk food and quick-and-easy meals like TV dinners and instant ramen. Here is the photo of a young man whose mother lived on Macaroni & Cheese In-A-Box for her entire pregnancy.

The point is, if you want to know what’s really going on in the world, you know who to turn to.

If on the other hand, you prefer getting compromised, ancient reports of inferior quality and dubious merit, just keep looking to the usual suspects: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, Washington Post, Rachel Maddow, and the Good News Network.

OMG!

Just got a desktop alert about a talking zebra in the Amsterdam Zoo that channels Jesus.

Gotta go!

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Stealing My Thunder | John Rachel