Today I engaged in something I haven't ever tried before: I went through a full job interview in Japanese. It was for a job I didn't really want, I didn't do very well at it, stuttering through many sentences and searching in my mind for the right words to say in Japanese, but I'm glad I did it.
Tests of courage, or "kimodameshi" in Japan, means literally "testing one's liver," but it's usually like a dare where kids challenge each other to do scary activities like go into a haunted house, or go on a really scary roller coaster. In a way, it can be beneficial: kids are pressured into doing things they normally try due to peer pressure and leave their worries behind (like alcohol for adults!) But just like alcohol, if taken too far, it can have disastrous results.
I remember when I was a kid I did a bunch of things because the other kids did it, and because I was a kid, I could afford to take the risk of getting an injury or something due to jumping a fence, joining the cross country team, doing a backflip into a pool, etc. The adrenaline rush alone makes us remember those times and leaves good, if somewhat painful, memories. Nowadays, as adults, we don't have people pushing us to do something courageous due to something called "laws" and "punishment." Without that extra impetus, we back away from challenging ourselves. Every start to the new year, though, people do get a little more courageous and try out something to change their new luck in the new year.
I started at a new gym with a basketball court! I also went to a new barber that's $5 more expensive than the one I normally go to, but it's a Japanese barber so I brazenly asked him if he was Japanese upon meeting him and launched into a conversation, therefore getting about 30 minutes of Japanese conversation practice during the haircut when I normally wouldn't say anything anyway. I now, real courageous.
But doing a full job interview in Japanese, that's a big step for me. Job interviews in general are not that easy; I struggle sometimes coming up with answers for interviewers in English, much less Japanese. Chinese is kind of in between, I can fill in unknown Chinese words with their equivalent in English, too. I felt that the same strategy in Japanese would work, but there's just certain things about rhythm in language where I could fill in all the small gaps in a sentence naturally without thinking in English or Chinese and catch myself in the middle of a sentence if necessary to change it into a different tense or different meaning altogether, but it's tough when I get stuck in Japanese. I also talk too much in a job interview! Sometimes I'll try to explain something using flowery language and insert a joke in there, but it gets much too involved in Japanese, I panic, and then it's all over. The difference, I guess, between full fluency and proficiency ( I know all the words but can't put all the puzzle pieces together just yet). It epitomizes my language learning though of not being afriad to fail: Each time I open my mouth, I'm susceptible to making a mistake (and often do), but by not being afraid to try it, I get a little stronger each time I take a test of courage.
The stock market is rebounding at the beginning of the new year after bottoming out on Dec. 24 last year (Red Christmas 2018), but it's a true test of courage to see how long the rally can last, because the last few rallies have been beaten back down and actually preceded the market going lower than before.
Cody Parkey just took a test of courage yesterday when the Bears played the Eagles.....and failed, as his field goal in the final seconds missed and the Bears got eliminated from the playoffs, 17-16. It was a 43-yarder, so not exactly a gimme, and sports fans everywhere are being way too harsh on the kicker, when a bunch of other plays in the game, if they went differently, could have made the difference. The kicker just had the unfortunate distinction of being the last to fail and have sole responsibility for the kick (as often happens in football), whereas the Bears could have also won if they got a little closer to get the field goal, their defense stopped the Eagles, the coach managed the time better with timeouts, etc., etc. Sports fans don't really think it through, in my opinion, and often find someone to blame for games that are .
To think, every time humans try something new we are taking a test of courage. Luckily for me, a lot of tests have ended in success and it's snowballed into allowing me to take new chances. Here's to a courageous 2019!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, January 7, 2019
Saturday, January 5, 2019
住めば都 (Wherever you live, you come to love it)
Last September marked the 10-year anniversary of me moving to L.A. for good from Illinois in 2008, so I've lived almost my entire adult life in this city. And as the Japanese proverb I've listed here says, (Sumeba miyako, or literally "if you live there, it becomes the capital), I've come to love L.A. And not just for the weather, which of course is the first thing I bring up when people ask me how I love L.A.
MJ and I have a friend Nathan who hosts a show called Lost L.A., where he explores the hidden secrets of the history of L.A. Fascinating show, and a fascinating dude: he sure knows his stuff about how L.A. was built, grew up as a city, and interesting historical places in L.A. He's also a librarian, something I found interesting because it was one of jobs I was considering when I was in high school......but ultimately decided against it due to well, duh, the internet. But apparently libraries still exist even nowadays with smartphones and the internet, and some would say thriving or at least co-existing with the internet in what some would say is the physical location of a global knowledge hub. Did you know that the Los Angeles city library system has a $183 million annual budget. That's spread out over 72 different branches throughout the sprawl that is Los Angeles, but still, not a sum to sneeze that, and if you've ever gone to L.A. library, they have quite a few
I do appreciate the history of L.A. from the story of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium to Koreatown to the NEW Chinatown and the OLD Chinatown ( I always get them confused, but MJ and I just went to eat at the OLD Chinatown right next to downtown L.A., featuring a restaurant that was used in the filming of Rush Hour, the Jackie Chan movie). The L.A. public library central branch has its own interesting history, mostly stemming from the fire of 1986 that nearly wiped out the Central Branch, leading to a mystery of who set off the fire and the restoration project that turned it into what it is today, all chronicled in a book called "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean that's a fascinating read, and which I ironically checked out to read from the library today. It's not just a history of the Central Library of L.A., it's a history of L.A. itself. If you're anything like me and go to other branches of libraries like the Little Tokyo Branch and even the Chinatown Branch, you'll love this book. I actually quite like the Central Library branch ever since I walked into it on a whim during law school one day; it beckoned me and has beckoned me to come back ever since anytime I am lucky enough to work near the building. It's like MJ when she goes to a souvenir shop: something always catches my eye, and I always have to come out of the library with something.
Generally, I love non-fiction history and interesting accounts through history (go back to my fascination of Forrest Gump), and reading the book made me appreciate being part of the history of L.A., specifically downtown L.A. Despite only living here for 10 years, I can sense the change in the city, whether it's the change from when parking was just $8 to like $15 nowadays, or when the apartment I currently live in was just a parking lot, to when downtown L.A. became a ghost town on weekends when people left to go home after work to now being a true urban city with a Whole Foods and Target! To having worked in the U.S. Bank Tower building when it was the tallest building this side of the Mississippi, to having stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel which became the new tallest building this side of the Mississippi. I've kind of grown up with this city, and if I plan on moving away for awhile, I'll be happy to change it up for a bit and get some new stimulus, but I'll appreciate the history I'm leaving behind.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
MJ and I have a friend Nathan who hosts a show called Lost L.A., where he explores the hidden secrets of the history of L.A. Fascinating show, and a fascinating dude: he sure knows his stuff about how L.A. was built, grew up as a city, and interesting historical places in L.A. He's also a librarian, something I found interesting because it was one of jobs I was considering when I was in high school......but ultimately decided against it due to well, duh, the internet. But apparently libraries still exist even nowadays with smartphones and the internet, and some would say thriving or at least co-existing with the internet in what some would say is the physical location of a global knowledge hub. Did you know that the Los Angeles city library system has a $183 million annual budget. That's spread out over 72 different branches throughout the sprawl that is Los Angeles, but still, not a sum to sneeze that, and if you've ever gone to L.A. library, they have quite a few
I do appreciate the history of L.A. from the story of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium to Koreatown to the NEW Chinatown and the OLD Chinatown ( I always get them confused, but MJ and I just went to eat at the OLD Chinatown right next to downtown L.A., featuring a restaurant that was used in the filming of Rush Hour, the Jackie Chan movie). The L.A. public library central branch has its own interesting history, mostly stemming from the fire of 1986 that nearly wiped out the Central Branch, leading to a mystery of who set off the fire and the restoration project that turned it into what it is today, all chronicled in a book called "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean that's a fascinating read, and which I ironically checked out to read from the library today. It's not just a history of the Central Library of L.A., it's a history of L.A. itself. If you're anything like me and go to other branches of libraries like the Little Tokyo Branch and even the Chinatown Branch, you'll love this book. I actually quite like the Central Library branch ever since I walked into it on a whim during law school one day; it beckoned me and has beckoned me to come back ever since anytime I am lucky enough to work near the building. It's like MJ when she goes to a souvenir shop: something always catches my eye, and I always have to come out of the library with something.
Generally, I love non-fiction history and interesting accounts through history (go back to my fascination of Forrest Gump), and reading the book made me appreciate being part of the history of L.A., specifically downtown L.A. Despite only living here for 10 years, I can sense the change in the city, whether it's the change from when parking was just $8 to like $15 nowadays, or when the apartment I currently live in was just a parking lot, to when downtown L.A. became a ghost town on weekends when people left to go home after work to now being a true urban city with a Whole Foods and Target! To having worked in the U.S. Bank Tower building when it was the tallest building this side of the Mississippi, to having stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel which became the new tallest building this side of the Mississippi. I've kind of grown up with this city, and if I plan on moving away for awhile, I'll be happy to change it up for a bit and get some new stimulus, but I'll appreciate the history I'm leaving behind.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
可愛い子には旅をさせよ (Let Kids learn from their own mistakes!)
Welcome to 2019! Yet again in 2018, I fell short of my goal of 100+ blog posts, but in my defense I was out of town quite a lot especially in the 2nd half of last year, I took an online computer science class that took up a large chunk of time, and just generally, as an adult there's less time to do pretty much everything, from sleeping to eating to reading to playing my favorite sports, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention the hours and hours we're attached at the hip (almost literally) to our smartphones now.
I don't really have any New Year's Resolutions for 2019, other than I need to lose 5 pounds like now. Not for the whole year; just now. ASAP. New Year's Eve and New Year's is usually a back-to-back double whammy of parties and yummy but fatty food for MJ and me, and this year was no exception. Writing 100 posts here would be nice; I haven't set any financial resolutions for the year because who knows if they're attainable or not, and I find that setting financial goals based on the stock market is folly; the great god of the stock market doesn't care what your portfolio says, it doesn't just stop rising or falling just because you "hit your low number" and "hit your high number." Only drives you to make bad/irrational decisions.
The above proverb, meaning, "Let's let cute kids take trips!" is a Japanese one that rings true to me. The background is that the Japanese, more than any other country, allow their children to go off to school and on other journeys from home at almost incomprehensibly young ages, something like 5 years old or kindergarten-level kids. By themselves! I don't think growing up in America I was ever allowed to do that until I was like in 4th grade or so to walk home, and even then I lived really close to home on a well-light, suburban street where it's impossible to get lost. Some of these 5 and 6 year olds are taking the subway and getting on buses to get to school, like a full-grown salaryman going on his daily commute. I think I would have done something pretty stupid if I was walking by myself at age 5,
The real issue in America, and apparently a lot of countries other than Japan, is the safety issue: lots of stories of child abductions and kidnappings (Jon-Benet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart come readily to mind but I'm sure there are others) that prevent this from being realistic in America, whereas in Japanese society the odds of that happening are so low (I guess even criminals in Japan don't resort to the low of going after kids) that they can let kids go off into the streets. And it's an interesting philosophy, as long as it's safe: let kids make mistakes. As parents and teachers and camp counselors (me), adults try to make kids do what's right for their own good ,and they have the kids' best interests at heart, but the method is not always the best. For example, I learned quickly from watching 10-year-old kids, they often do the exact opposite of what you tell them to do, and the more you tell them NOT to do something, the more they want to do it. That's just the way kids are. My parents once told me about a story of a parent who instead of telling the kid not to reach his hand into the oven all the time, they just let him do it one time, the kid predictably got burned, learned from it, and never did it again. Not everything works as perfectly as that example, but the philosophy behind it, I feel, is true. Kids, and really all humans, learn by experience. I can learn as much Japanese vocabulary as possible but forget it, yet if I use it once in a real conversation I've got that down pat (ESPECIALLY if I make a mistake on the word, because I'll be embarrassed enough not to make that mistake again!)
Human beings, and especially people like me, are too afraid to fail. I often convinced myself I couldn't do something and prevented myself from achieving something, like asking a girl out, or just asking a "stupid" question because I thought it would be embarrassing. Kids, though, don't care about being embarrassed! And don't know what embarrassment is! So maybe that is the best time to have them experience things and get it wrong, so that they'll get it right in the future. Cuz when they grow up to be old and cranky like me, they'll have learned from their mistakes. A great lesson from the Japanese that everyone can learn from.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
I don't really have any New Year's Resolutions for 2019, other than I need to lose 5 pounds like now. Not for the whole year; just now. ASAP. New Year's Eve and New Year's is usually a back-to-back double whammy of parties and yummy but fatty food for MJ and me, and this year was no exception. Writing 100 posts here would be nice; I haven't set any financial resolutions for the year because who knows if they're attainable or not, and I find that setting financial goals based on the stock market is folly; the great god of the stock market doesn't care what your portfolio says, it doesn't just stop rising or falling just because you "hit your low number" and "hit your high number." Only drives you to make bad/irrational decisions.
The above proverb, meaning, "Let's let cute kids take trips!" is a Japanese one that rings true to me. The background is that the Japanese, more than any other country, allow their children to go off to school and on other journeys from home at almost incomprehensibly young ages, something like 5 years old or kindergarten-level kids. By themselves! I don't think growing up in America I was ever allowed to do that until I was like in 4th grade or so to walk home, and even then I lived really close to home on a well-light, suburban street where it's impossible to get lost. Some of these 5 and 6 year olds are taking the subway and getting on buses to get to school, like a full-grown salaryman going on his daily commute. I think I would have done something pretty stupid if I was walking by myself at age 5,
The real issue in America, and apparently a lot of countries other than Japan, is the safety issue: lots of stories of child abductions and kidnappings (Jon-Benet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart come readily to mind but I'm sure there are others) that prevent this from being realistic in America, whereas in Japanese society the odds of that happening are so low (I guess even criminals in Japan don't resort to the low of going after kids) that they can let kids go off into the streets. And it's an interesting philosophy, as long as it's safe: let kids make mistakes. As parents and teachers and camp counselors (me), adults try to make kids do what's right for their own good ,and they have the kids' best interests at heart, but the method is not always the best. For example, I learned quickly from watching 10-year-old kids, they often do the exact opposite of what you tell them to do, and the more you tell them NOT to do something, the more they want to do it. That's just the way kids are. My parents once told me about a story of a parent who instead of telling the kid not to reach his hand into the oven all the time, they just let him do it one time, the kid predictably got burned, learned from it, and never did it again. Not everything works as perfectly as that example, but the philosophy behind it, I feel, is true. Kids, and really all humans, learn by experience. I can learn as much Japanese vocabulary as possible but forget it, yet if I use it once in a real conversation I've got that down pat (ESPECIALLY if I make a mistake on the word, because I'll be embarrassed enough not to make that mistake again!)
Human beings, and especially people like me, are too afraid to fail. I often convinced myself I couldn't do something and prevented myself from achieving something, like asking a girl out, or just asking a "stupid" question because I thought it would be embarrassing. Kids, though, don't care about being embarrassed! And don't know what embarrassment is! So maybe that is the best time to have them experience things and get it wrong, so that they'll get it right in the future. Cuz when they grow up to be old and cranky like me, they'll have learned from their mistakes. A great lesson from the Japanese that everyone can learn from.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, December 31, 2018
유튜브 (Youtube)
One of the most game-changing inventions of this century, in my opinion, is the advent of Youtube. Curiously, though, even though Google is the parent company of Youtube, it's really not doing a good job raising its kid because Google Translate doesn't spit out translations for Youtube to Japanese or Chinese, I only got the Korean version. Good thing to research, and good thing to keep in mind now that I own GOOG stock.
Youtube has single-handedly changed my TV-watching habits!
1.) I don't watch sports games in their entirety anymore, or any of the game. I now just watch for highlights to come out when the game is scheduled to end, making sure of course not to spoil myself by checking in on social media (I'm off of it a lot anyway nowadays). It's like watching a condensed highlight reel of the game, and instead of spending 3 hours watching football I spend about 6 minutes getting the best stuff. Sorry NFL!
2.) Especially now that I have unlimited wireless on my phone (Finally, right? Welcome to the 21st century, Robert!) I can watch videos anywhere I go, and basically use it to play podcasts, and language videos where they just incessantly repeat Korean or Japanese grammar words, or sentences. 6000 common words, 6 hours. Play it on a loop.
3.) The advent of the idea of a "Youtuber" allows anyone to be their own star! when I was in high school, my dream was to be famous, a reality TV star and show up on screen so that everyone would see me! But I thought you have to be an actor or someone famous to do that, and I would have to change myself A LOT for that to happen, like build a lot of muscles, or become a genius, save the president's daughter or something, or worse (be known for a crime). Turns out though, I didn't have to change, the world changed! The world allowed each person to be his or her own star and have their own marketing campaign, ads, and content to try to attract people's eyeballs. You are your television show! And there's a wide audience for people who make their own channels, where if you make the right edits, have good content, catchy music, you can have a million + subscribers! A million is a pretty significant number! Perfect for the millenial "me" generation which is apparently very self-absorbed and into themselves and each one is the hero of their own story. We're all "special" and can be whatever we want to be, and definitely anyone can be a Youtuber.
4.) Unlike TV channels, you don't have to have a cable subscription, have to have wires plugged into the wall, or be in the right area of the country, etc., etc. While the TV stations that I grew up watching (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) are still stuck with basic TV and the whole television medium, NFLX and Amzn are moving on to digital and subscription service, you can watch anything you want anytime when you want it, without commericals (for the most part). Youtube has the same idea. It's really not a comparison anymore, Youtube and cable TV. My friend Babak was complaining the other day about having to pay for a cable service. My question is, why pay for a cable service at all?
5.) Great place to put videos of things that happened in the past! It's like a free photo album/ video album (as long as you're OK with everyone seeing it, but apparently nowadays most people are!) - or just use the "private" settings. I pull up old dodgeball videos of myself 3 years ago (ever since I started recording dodgeball games, what a great idea) and it brings back memories of glory games, and eventually will be "the glory days," once I retire from dodgeball, which might be sooner than later, I've been feeling less powerful and worse, maybe because of my time away and decreased schedule of games, but we'll see. Hope to capture a lot of memories too in the future of great trips MJ and I take or at least great moments.
6.) Speaking of which, we just got back from London and didn't make it to a couple spots, and I was anxious but then I thought, why fret? Someone out there must have gone to the same spot and taken some video, and sure enough, it's out there. MJ and I went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada (not pronounced like the country) this afternoon (great place, by the way) and they have a night lights celebration going on called the Enchanted Forest, and I really wanted to see it (pretty expensive), but then just caught up on it on Youtube, like I was really there! And since I had the other senses covered already (smell, feel of the fresh air), I felt like I was there!
Thanks to Youtube, I found a channel where the host compares words between English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. LOTS of stuff I didn't know about Chinese, like how to say "Burger King" in Chinese, or "Louis Vuitton," or a bunch of other things that are commonly known terms in English but don't show up in my everyday life for the other languages, and Google translate apparently doesn't know!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Youtube has single-handedly changed my TV-watching habits!
1.) I don't watch sports games in their entirety anymore, or any of the game. I now just watch for highlights to come out when the game is scheduled to end, making sure of course not to spoil myself by checking in on social media (I'm off of it a lot anyway nowadays). It's like watching a condensed highlight reel of the game, and instead of spending 3 hours watching football I spend about 6 minutes getting the best stuff. Sorry NFL!
2.) Especially now that I have unlimited wireless on my phone (Finally, right? Welcome to the 21st century, Robert!) I can watch videos anywhere I go, and basically use it to play podcasts, and language videos where they just incessantly repeat Korean or Japanese grammar words, or sentences. 6000 common words, 6 hours. Play it on a loop.
3.) The advent of the idea of a "Youtuber" allows anyone to be their own star! when I was in high school, my dream was to be famous, a reality TV star and show up on screen so that everyone would see me! But I thought you have to be an actor or someone famous to do that, and I would have to change myself A LOT for that to happen, like build a lot of muscles, or become a genius, save the president's daughter or something, or worse (be known for a crime). Turns out though, I didn't have to change, the world changed! The world allowed each person to be his or her own star and have their own marketing campaign, ads, and content to try to attract people's eyeballs. You are your television show! And there's a wide audience for people who make their own channels, where if you make the right edits, have good content, catchy music, you can have a million + subscribers! A million is a pretty significant number! Perfect for the millenial "me" generation which is apparently very self-absorbed and into themselves and each one is the hero of their own story. We're all "special" and can be whatever we want to be, and definitely anyone can be a Youtuber.
4.) Unlike TV channels, you don't have to have a cable subscription, have to have wires plugged into the wall, or be in the right area of the country, etc., etc. While the TV stations that I grew up watching (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) are still stuck with basic TV and the whole television medium, NFLX and Amzn are moving on to digital and subscription service, you can watch anything you want anytime when you want it, without commericals (for the most part). Youtube has the same idea. It's really not a comparison anymore, Youtube and cable TV. My friend Babak was complaining the other day about having to pay for a cable service. My question is, why pay for a cable service at all?
5.) Great place to put videos of things that happened in the past! It's like a free photo album/ video album (as long as you're OK with everyone seeing it, but apparently nowadays most people are!) - or just use the "private" settings. I pull up old dodgeball videos of myself 3 years ago (ever since I started recording dodgeball games, what a great idea) and it brings back memories of glory games, and eventually will be "the glory days," once I retire from dodgeball, which might be sooner than later, I've been feeling less powerful and worse, maybe because of my time away and decreased schedule of games, but we'll see. Hope to capture a lot of memories too in the future of great trips MJ and I take or at least great moments.
6.) Speaking of which, we just got back from London and didn't make it to a couple spots, and I was anxious but then I thought, why fret? Someone out there must have gone to the same spot and taken some video, and sure enough, it's out there. MJ and I went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada (not pronounced like the country) this afternoon (great place, by the way) and they have a night lights celebration going on called the Enchanted Forest, and I really wanted to see it (pretty expensive), but then just caught up on it on Youtube, like I was really there! And since I had the other senses covered already (smell, feel of the fresh air), I felt like I was there!
Thanks to Youtube, I found a channel where the host compares words between English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. LOTS of stuff I didn't know about Chinese, like how to say "Burger King" in Chinese, or "Louis Vuitton," or a bunch of other things that are commonly known terms in English but don't show up in my everyday life for the other languages, and Google translate apparently doesn't know!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Bridge (다리)(桥)(橋)
Bridge is one of those words that is completely different in all 4 of English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. They share nothing in common and sound nothing unlike. Maybe the Asian scholars back in the day were confused at the concept of a bridge? "How do we get from one side of the river to the other?" We have to have something to get over it, a boat is not practical, can't swim across......what is a magical invention that can do the trick?
Luckily for us our ancestors figured it out, and bridges came into existence. And now I love bridges. I love walking over bridges, I like being on top of bridges looking down, I like the view from a bridge, I like the idea of a bridge bridging the gap between 2 places. On our most recent trip to London, MJ and I crossed many of London's famed bridges, mostly across the Thames River, like the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Westminster Bridge. I personally liked the Millenium Bridge, it was the first one we crossed upon arriving and has a futuristic, artistic design to it. And it led up to one of our favorite spots in the city, the Tate Britain. All the bridges did have their unique design and peculiarities about them though, to the point where it got me wondering why they needed so many bridges; it was almost excessive. Back home, I love the bridges in downtown Chicago, really brings the city together and connects the Loop to other great areas like River North. In San Francisco, the obvious Golden Gate Bridge is the historic icon, but the Bay Bridge is the one that gets the most traffic and the one that I saw the most often this summer working in downtown San Francisco, connecting SF to Oakland, in one of the busiest areas of the world, the Bay Area. Back home in LA, there aren't a whole ton of bridges because there aren't many rivers or bays, just one large beachfront, but the Venice Canals features some nice European-style bridges and the Manhattan Beach Pier kind of is a bridge between the land and the ocean, as it stretches into the ocean to give one the idea of what its like in the open sea, which is what a bridge usually does too. I love bridges.
I love physical bridges, but also other kinds of bridges, from being able to bridge the understanding between English to Chinese/Japanese/Korean (kind of why I like my job). There's a vast ocean of difference between those languages, but I can construct bridges to connect those understandings, and artfully too through the use of historical background, context, similar words, etc. I like being the "bridge" between being on the defensive end of basketball and passing it up to the offense on a fast break. And I like building temporary bridges from the current to the future (what's going to happen?) or from the current to the past. Really could help with the stock market; right now we're in a low-dipping jungle-like rope bridge (with jagged rocks in shark-infested waters underneath threatening to eat our portfolios alive if the bridge falls) between the all-time highs in late September to the next phase of the stock market (hopefully new highs, but also possible it could be really low lows if we falter). It helps sometimes though to take a bridge to the past like in 2011! Even in February 2011 (2/13/2011, to be exact) I was recommending on this very blog! buying AMZN, AAPL, and GOOG. All 3 stocks have at least quadrupled since then, AMZN has like gone up as much as 10x since then .What was I doing not following my own advice???? I should have a button like the one Jim Cramer uses on Mad Money every time he reminds his viewers he was right that one time in 2008 when he told everyone to sell. I was confident in 2011, and I'm confident now: I think AMZN and AAPL are still the future of technology and the future of the economy, and they're going back up despite the recent pullbacks. (GOOG, not so much, but still good!)
My twenties were a great bridge from knowing-nothing-and-being-mad-about-everything teens to the now-I-have-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-need-to-make-the-most-of-my-life 30's. That bridge of the 20's had a lot of nice views of places I visited, lots of nice locations I worked in, lots of great languages and cultures I learned about, lots of great friends I took the journey over the bridge with. And 2018 has been a great bridge year from bull market to the 2019 bear market! (Jk). Anyway, as with crossing the Millenium Bridge that first time in London, hope to arrive at somewhere really great and worth visiting!
Luckily for us our ancestors figured it out, and bridges came into existence. And now I love bridges. I love walking over bridges, I like being on top of bridges looking down, I like the view from a bridge, I like the idea of a bridge bridging the gap between 2 places. On our most recent trip to London, MJ and I crossed many of London's famed bridges, mostly across the Thames River, like the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Westminster Bridge. I personally liked the Millenium Bridge, it was the first one we crossed upon arriving and has a futuristic, artistic design to it. And it led up to one of our favorite spots in the city, the Tate Britain. All the bridges did have their unique design and peculiarities about them though, to the point where it got me wondering why they needed so many bridges; it was almost excessive. Back home, I love the bridges in downtown Chicago, really brings the city together and connects the Loop to other great areas like River North. In San Francisco, the obvious Golden Gate Bridge is the historic icon, but the Bay Bridge is the one that gets the most traffic and the one that I saw the most often this summer working in downtown San Francisco, connecting SF to Oakland, in one of the busiest areas of the world, the Bay Area. Back home in LA, there aren't a whole ton of bridges because there aren't many rivers or bays, just one large beachfront, but the Venice Canals features some nice European-style bridges and the Manhattan Beach Pier kind of is a bridge between the land and the ocean, as it stretches into the ocean to give one the idea of what its like in the open sea, which is what a bridge usually does too. I love bridges.
I love physical bridges, but also other kinds of bridges, from being able to bridge the understanding between English to Chinese/Japanese/Korean (kind of why I like my job). There's a vast ocean of difference between those languages, but I can construct bridges to connect those understandings, and artfully too through the use of historical background, context, similar words, etc. I like being the "bridge" between being on the defensive end of basketball and passing it up to the offense on a fast break. And I like building temporary bridges from the current to the future (what's going to happen?) or from the current to the past. Really could help with the stock market; right now we're in a low-dipping jungle-like rope bridge (with jagged rocks in shark-infested waters underneath threatening to eat our portfolios alive if the bridge falls) between the all-time highs in late September to the next phase of the stock market (hopefully new highs, but also possible it could be really low lows if we falter). It helps sometimes though to take a bridge to the past like in 2011! Even in February 2011 (2/13/2011, to be exact) I was recommending on this very blog! buying AMZN, AAPL, and GOOG. All 3 stocks have at least quadrupled since then, AMZN has like gone up as much as 10x since then .What was I doing not following my own advice???? I should have a button like the one Jim Cramer uses on Mad Money every time he reminds his viewers he was right that one time in 2008 when he told everyone to sell. I was confident in 2011, and I'm confident now: I think AMZN and AAPL are still the future of technology and the future of the economy, and they're going back up despite the recent pullbacks. (GOOG, not so much, but still good!)
My twenties were a great bridge from knowing-nothing-and-being-mad-about-everything teens to the now-I-have-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-need-to-make-the-most-of-my-life 30's. That bridge of the 20's had a lot of nice views of places I visited, lots of nice locations I worked in, lots of great languages and cultures I learned about, lots of great friends I took the journey over the bridge with. And 2018 has been a great bridge year from bull market to the 2019 bear market! (Jk). Anyway, as with crossing the Millenium Bridge that first time in London, hope to arrive at somewhere really great and worth visiting!
Friday, December 21, 2018
パチンコ (Pachinko)
Sometimes I have deja vu moments like feeling that I've written about the same topic before with the same title "Pachinko," but I can't be sure and with almost 500 entries since this blog began it's time-consuming to go back and double check. But yes, pachinko........an interesting game played mostly in Japan where little balls go into a pinball-like machine and if it goes in the right hole you get more balls that represent money........I managed to lose 1000 yen playing Pachinko in about 2 minutes, not even figuring out how to play in those 2 minutes of max money-losing (still nothing compared to the amount of money that I've been losing in the stock market recently as stocks have been in free fall). The pachinko industry is sometimes associated with the yakuza, or the organized crime syndicate in Japan because of the gambling nature of the game; I once worked on a large litigation involving a Japanese billionaire with some yakuza ties through the pachinko industry, so it's a pretty big deal.
But the Pachinko I'm talking about is the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee (I love saying the author's name because it's almost identical to MJ's name!) about a Korean family who moves to Japan during the Japanese invasion of the early 1900's, then stays in Japan and endures many hardships like racism, surviving through World War II, poverty, disease, etc., etc. It was named one of New York Times's Top 10 books of 2017 (I love those lists to identify really good writing in a world now that's watered down by Instagram feeds and social media posts), and Pachinko really checks off a lot of the qualities I seek in a good book:
1.) it's like the "Forest Gump" of Korea-Japan in the 1900's......it is historically accurate in that the characters live through many real events, so it made me understand the history of that area of the world more and feel like I was living history, not just some pretend-world where everything can fictionalized.
2.) It has great dialogue- characters are fleshed out, seem more real, through dialogue, and Lee is able to incorporate some romanized (written out in English letters) Korean and Japanese in there, I even learned some new words in both languages.
3.) Wrote about something she knew about- Lee moved with her husband to Tokyo and researched the topic of Koreans living Japan and the discrimination they received from native Japanese, how they had to hide their Korean accents and their roots; she interviewed like 30 something different people who actually lived through the times and added her own perspective as a Korean American...it really does help to write about something one knows and the characters kind of resonated that by having realistic worries about money and finding ways to put food on the table, the traditional Asian attitudes about getting a good education and avoiding "water industry" aka gray industries like prostitution and organized crime.
4.) Sudden plot twists- nothing keeps the pages turning (it's a longer book page-wise at 487, but doesn't feel that way due to the short sentences and short paragraphs moving the narrative along quickly) like those, and Lee does master the sudden climaxes, changing from the perspective of a few different characters from chapter to chapter to get the maximum character development and setup for the story. (It's like Game of Thrones where we get to understand a character from his or her point of view, then in a different chapter they are described by someone else's perspective, and then suddenly they have an accident/ pass away and it's shocking that they're ripped away from us......kind of like life I guess, which makes it so realistic).
I think the No. 1 reason I like Pachinko, though, is the insight it gives me to the history of Koreans in Japan and all Asians during the Japanese occupation times. I've mentioned before how ignorant I was before learning Japanese (and now Korean) about those countries' cultures and histories, and if nothing else I'm grateful for being exposed to those cultures, more than just the surface stereotypes that most Americans know like teriyaki, sushi, Pikachu for Japanese and KPop, Psy, Korean BBQ, and kimchi for Koreans. Pachinko just added another layer in my appreciation for those countries as well as the people of those countries, especially Koreans who had to go to Japan in the early 20th century to try to start a better life for themselves, some being forced out of their homes by the Japanese invasion, yet physically looking a lot like their occupiers the Japanese (being mistaken as Japanese or trying to act Japanese to further one's standing in life is a common theme in Pachinko) and resorting to working "dirty" jobs when in the new land while trying to learn the language as well as fit in a foreign land, or at least have their children start new lives and be able to fit in. It certainly rings true to some of what my parents had to go through moving to a new land and sacrificing themselves for their children, but it still applies in today's world of people trying to immigrate to better places. Anyway, the history of the world is not, as it turns out, just revolving around the U.S. as I was sort of induced into thinking growing up in the U.S. educational system, and Korea and Japan certainly have had a rocky, tumultuous, tenuous relationship over the years (and that's not even throwing China into the mix!), and it's good to understand where some of that angst comes from.
I would highly recommend Pachinko to anyway, but especially for those like me who are interested in history and Asian culture, or just a damn good story.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
But the Pachinko I'm talking about is the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee (I love saying the author's name because it's almost identical to MJ's name!) about a Korean family who moves to Japan during the Japanese invasion of the early 1900's, then stays in Japan and endures many hardships like racism, surviving through World War II, poverty, disease, etc., etc. It was named one of New York Times's Top 10 books of 2017 (I love those lists to identify really good writing in a world now that's watered down by Instagram feeds and social media posts), and Pachinko really checks off a lot of the qualities I seek in a good book:
1.) it's like the "Forest Gump" of Korea-Japan in the 1900's......it is historically accurate in that the characters live through many real events, so it made me understand the history of that area of the world more and feel like I was living history, not just some pretend-world where everything can fictionalized.
2.) It has great dialogue- characters are fleshed out, seem more real, through dialogue, and Lee is able to incorporate some romanized (written out in English letters) Korean and Japanese in there, I even learned some new words in both languages.
3.) Wrote about something she knew about- Lee moved with her husband to Tokyo and researched the topic of Koreans living Japan and the discrimination they received from native Japanese, how they had to hide their Korean accents and their roots; she interviewed like 30 something different people who actually lived through the times and added her own perspective as a Korean American...it really does help to write about something one knows and the characters kind of resonated that by having realistic worries about money and finding ways to put food on the table, the traditional Asian attitudes about getting a good education and avoiding "water industry" aka gray industries like prostitution and organized crime.
4.) Sudden plot twists- nothing keeps the pages turning (it's a longer book page-wise at 487, but doesn't feel that way due to the short sentences and short paragraphs moving the narrative along quickly) like those, and Lee does master the sudden climaxes, changing from the perspective of a few different characters from chapter to chapter to get the maximum character development and setup for the story. (It's like Game of Thrones where we get to understand a character from his or her point of view, then in a different chapter they are described by someone else's perspective, and then suddenly they have an accident/ pass away and it's shocking that they're ripped away from us......kind of like life I guess, which makes it so realistic).
I think the No. 1 reason I like Pachinko, though, is the insight it gives me to the history of Koreans in Japan and all Asians during the Japanese occupation times. I've mentioned before how ignorant I was before learning Japanese (and now Korean) about those countries' cultures and histories, and if nothing else I'm grateful for being exposed to those cultures, more than just the surface stereotypes that most Americans know like teriyaki, sushi, Pikachu for Japanese and KPop, Psy, Korean BBQ, and kimchi for Koreans. Pachinko just added another layer in my appreciation for those countries as well as the people of those countries, especially Koreans who had to go to Japan in the early 20th century to try to start a better life for themselves, some being forced out of their homes by the Japanese invasion, yet physically looking a lot like their occupiers the Japanese (being mistaken as Japanese or trying to act Japanese to further one's standing in life is a common theme in Pachinko) and resorting to working "dirty" jobs when in the new land while trying to learn the language as well as fit in a foreign land, or at least have their children start new lives and be able to fit in. It certainly rings true to some of what my parents had to go through moving to a new land and sacrificing themselves for their children, but it still applies in today's world of people trying to immigrate to better places. Anyway, the history of the world is not, as it turns out, just revolving around the U.S. as I was sort of induced into thinking growing up in the U.S. educational system, and Korea and Japan certainly have had a rocky, tumultuous, tenuous relationship over the years (and that's not even throwing China into the mix!), and it's good to understand where some of that angst comes from.
I would highly recommend Pachinko to anyway, but especially for those like me who are interested in history and Asian culture, or just a damn good story.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Doing Vacation Right
After going on numerous trips over the years, I've compiled some tips and tendencies to watch out for next time I'm booking a trip (or anyone is booking a trip):
1.) For me, traveling is a great opportunity to lose some weight. The two birds with one stone (一石二鳥) of not dining out at restaurants is you don't eat too much, just get the bare necessities of nutrition and food and then move quickly to the next stop, thus your wallet doesn't suffer too much neither. And having quick, simple meals also decreases the time you would normally need to prepare food or sit down at a restaurant, thus getting the most bang for your buck. (So really, like 3 or 4 birds with one stone, sorry birds!)
2.) learning about other places, cultures- doesn't mean you have to read every single exhibit in a museum or art gallery, but like the Shakespeare Globe was a great refresher course on Shakespeare- suddenly quotes from Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's dream come rushing back as well as the project I did about who Shakespeare really was or if he was another author (Sir Francis Bacon, or Charles Wren, someone else?) or a combination of various authors of the time. Shakespeare does sound kind of madeup, doesn't it? (But then again, Robespierre or Rembrant sound just as humbug but no one questions their existence.
3.) getting great video for future memorial purposes- when I traveled alone, I would often forget to take pictures because I'm alone, or just do a hasty selfie. With MJ, I have someone built in to take pictures of me, as well as someone to take pictures of, as well as joint selfies and great scenery shots. I still have like old grainy footage in the 90's when my parents took a roadtrip down to Florida for a trip to Disneyworld, with me as the 5-year-old star of the show. There was a long gap, though, between then and adulthood that I don't have many photos or videos, mainly because I wasn't very photogenic as a teen, I didn't like to be on camera, and there wasn't a mirror I liked. Nowadays, though, I've reached acceptance of my physical appearance, I do look a bit better and more stylish, and most importantly I understand the importance of preserving memories and moments in time, just as watching those 5-year-old videos of me makes me reminisce about times long gone. GoPro is nice and compact now and has about 4 hours of memory, plenty of time plus I have my phone I can use for shorter videos before I run out of upload space.
4.) Experience different weather- can't complain about the LA weather, but it does get monotnous- London was as expected wet, damp, and gloomy, but we did get one blue clear skies day! I'd forgotten what it's like to carry around an umbrella all day and have to wear gloves walking out. I'm extremely susceptible to losing all those extra pieces of winter gear, though.
5.) The airplane movies! A big part of the appeal of going on international trips. You got 10 hours on a plane, it's a great excuse to just let my mind enter different worlds 90-120 minutes at a time. It's like Netflix, though, there's almost too many options nowadays (I remember back in the day airplanes gave you one movie to watch, and that's it, no fussing over it!) with different genres. Maybe because I haven't had much time to sit down for consecutive hours and just watch a movie for a while, I thought this crop of vacation movies were really stellar. I did pretty well this time to pinpoint what I needed, including watching TWO movies that came out in 2018 featuring Asian co-stars and being 1-2 in the box offices for a week in the summer. That was Searching and Crazy Rich Asians. Searching can become a cult hit in time, I think because of the number of Easter eggs within the movie that suggested the outcome of the mystery and the fact it was done through social media and warns about the perils of using social media, while Crazy Rich Asians wasn't as great a movie as the significance it had on the Asian American community to have such a movie exist. Its plot and messages weren't bad though, about Asian mother-in-law trying to accept her son's girlfriend/soon-to-be fiance? And class differences.
Isle of Dog was typical Wes Anderson good (Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel) with animal characters taking up sophisticated human personalities, apparently the Chinese are doing a series of movies about the Journey to the West, I watched the newest release where they venture into the Kingdom of Women (only women are allowed in the kingdom), can you imagine the problems an all-woman society would have in our world today, watched 20 minutes of 28 Days Later cuz, you know, it was set in London, and even the newest Predator movie "The Predator" didn't disappoint. And I learned that there is a world puzzle competition that experienced jigsaw puzzle contestants strive to win every year! (The Puzzle- movie with a great idea that we enjoy completing puzzles because in a messy disorganized world where things don't make sense, at least you can count on a puzzle to create a clear picture in the world and have the pieces all fit together, even if life doesn't). Yes, I do think subconsciously I engage in that endeavor to achieve some order.
6.) Hotels- I used to love going to hotels as a kid because they had cable TV and my house didn't. And I liked watching TV in foreign countries to see what kind of channels they had. Turns out, I still like to do so.
7.) Handling other countries' currencies, in this case, the pound sterling. I didn't enjoy it as much this time, and with the exchange rates and converting money over and all that, I've realized it's a bit of a scam which took some of the luster off it.
8.) Have some podcasts loaded up to while you still have WiFi, then play them while walking on long hikes around the cities. MJ and I walked 10+ miles almost every day of the trip.
9.) Get comfortable shoes for walking. And get ready for your feet, back, knees, entire body to hurt since you're walking all day, unlike normally sitting in the office.
10.) Bring snacks and fruit onto the plane! They could be a lifesaver in the new country.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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