Stephen In Japan

The Easter Song

2009-04-16T15:14:00.002+09:00

My newest song. I tried to finish it by Easter Sunday, but I was about 2 days late :(
Thanks to Saki for singing with me.

You can download it here: Stephen Hunter - The Easter Song.mp3

Remember, when you listen to thoughtful music, you should listen loud on good speakers. And for goodness' sake: don't listen on laptop speakers! At least use some good headphones or earbuds.

When Galaxies Collide

2008-04-25T14:09:00.003+09:00

The most complex object in the known universe is in my skull, and yours too! The brain is estimated to have over 100,000,000,000 neurons. That's about how many stars are estimated to be in our Milky Way galaxy. So, congratulations: you have a galaxy in your head. But it's more amazing than that; neurons are way more complex than stars, so your brain really is far more complex than most galaxies!

As you may have seen on many news sites today, NASA has released a few dozen Hubble images of galaxies colliding. It's fascinating to see how one glob of 100 billion stars affects and is affected by another glob of 100 billion stars as gravity does its thing. Sometimes they destroy each other, and sometimes they meld into a new larger galaxy. As amazing as that is, I think something far more interesting and unpredictable is what happens when Person A comes into contact with Person B. Galaxies collide! What's going to happen? It's anybody's guess!

O Holy God, how wondrous is your creation! My awesomely designed 3-pound, 100-giganeuron brain can't even begin to fathom the depths of your wisdom!

Japanese Test Results

2008-04-10T08:55:00.002+09:00

I have been delinquent in my blogging! That's embarrassing.
Anyway, on Dec 2 I took the test, and sometime in early Feb I got the results:

Writing/Vocab: 74/100
Listening: 96/100
Reading/Grammar: 126/200

Total: 296/400
Passed (240 points needed to pass)

I can't believe I'm blogging about this 2 months late.

A podcast you have to subscribe to!

2007-11-11T23:00:00.000+09:00

If you are interested in America's role in the world, and want to know what you're talking about when you have political discussions, YOU HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS PODCAST!

PRI: America Abroad <--Click to subscribe

Goes really deep into the history, background, and root causes of today's most relevant issues. Refreshingly non-partisan (we can only take so much opining, right?) and professionally produced.

Play

2007-11-02T00:21:00.000+09:00

At college, when we played soccer together, I used to say that you could really get to know a lot about a person by how he moves on the soccer court; that athletic self-expression was no less telling than verbal expression.
Then today I read this:

"We obtain better knowledge of a person during one hour's play and games than by conversing with him for a whole year." --Plato

I wouldn't word it quite this strongly (those ancients did have a way of exaggerating for effect), but I was surprised to see this old idea of mine resurface, and come from Plato no less!

The Psychology of Atheism

2007-10-12T23:36:00.000+09:00

"Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would eventually type out all of Hamlet by chance. But when we find the text of Hamlet, we don't wonder whether it came from chance and monkeys. Why then does the atheist use that incredibly improbable explanation for the universe? Clearly, because it is his only chance of remaining an atheist. At this point we need a psychological explanation of the atheist rather than a logical explanation of the universe."
--Peter Kreeft

Actually, the odds of finding any planet in the universe that could support advanced life is a lot bleaker than a million monkeys typing Hamlet. The Anthropic Principle (held by theists and many atheists alike) says that the universe seems specifically designed to accommodate advanced life. A compiled list of 322 design characteristics of the universe reveals "less than 1 chance in 10²⁸²(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles".

So back to "At this point we need a psychological explanation of the atheist rather than a logical explanation of the universe." I always thought that was funny, if not a little sad in its truth. But then I actually found a university lecture on exactly that topic!

"The Psychology of Atheism" by Paul Vitz at the University of Florida

Intriguingly (ironically?), he bases his case on Freud. Have a listen!

Banana Peels: Sinister Slipsters or Misunderstood Myth?

2007-10-04T18:45:00.000+09:00

If you take your standard Websters dictionary and look up "The thing that is most likely to make someone slip and fall if they step on it", you will find a picture of a--you guessed it--a banana peel. But honestly, in the history of mankind, has anyone ever slipped and fallen because they stepped on a banana peel?

Japanese Language Proficiency Test (Part 2)

2007-09-26T14:18:00.000+09:00

I have now officially registered for the test, which will be in Nagoya on December 2. Pretty soon, I'm going to self-administer a second practice test, and hopefully my score will have improved since February. We'll see.

Another Attempt at Electronic Dance?

2007-09-22T00:04:00.001+09:00

I'm trying out some new music technology with the hope that I can make some better sounding music. Here's a roughly thrown together example of what kind of sound quality I can get:

Click to listen

An Observation

2007-09-21T23:19:00.000+09:00

I hate it when people use the phrase "I hate it when (so-and-so)" when actually all they want to do is let you know that they've made an observation that (so-and-so) happens.

*tongue in cheek

It's Sea Day! 海の日だよ！

2007-07-19T16:54:00.001+09:00

---Click for pictures---

It's summer, and wouldn't it be a waste if we didn't go to the beach? So I got some people together to go to Goza Shirahama. A typhoon had just passed, so the weather was perfect. I think we all got a little sunburned, except Tomomi, who stayed in the tent I brought the whole time.

We had a good time swimming, tossing the frisbee, lounging on floating wood "islands", playing with sea urchins, drawing stuff in the sand, um...I can't think of anymore. Unfortunately the typhoon stirred up so much sediment in the sea that we couldn't snorkel.

The beachgoers: Jen, Renelda, Tomomi, Kumiko, Paul, and me. So basically, this is the group of people I've met by going to the English Church in Nagoya.

Younger and Wiser

2007-07-01T17:43:00.000+09:00

I've always been taught about life from people who are "older and wiser." It feels natural to put myself under the teaching of people who have lived longer than me. But I must be approaching the age that I have to learn how to learn from people who are younger than me, like pastors maybe. I guess everyone has to get used to that reversal sometime.

The Wisdom of the Age

2007-06-07T22:23:00.000+09:00

The "wisdom" of the age, as expressed by 26-year-old supermodel Gisele Bundchen (in protest against the positions of the Catholic church):

"Today, no one is a virgin when they get married."
"How is it possible to not want people to use condoms and also not have abortions? It's impossible, I'm sorry."

I'm not trying to make fun of anyone here. Just exposing the ridiculous, shallow common sense of a generation that has grown up with backwards thinking.

日本語能力試験２級

2007-02-04T14:58:00.000+09:00

I recently decided to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 2 (the hardest is Level 1 and the easiest is Level 4). To take Level 2, one should know about 1000 Kanji, about 6000 words, have mastered relatively high grammar, and "have the ability to converse, read, and write about matters of a general nature".

Last Monday, I went to an onsen (hot spring) called Gokurakuyu (Paradise Spa) in the nearby city of Tsu. I brought along Japanese Level 2 Mock Test, and took it there. To pass the test, you have to get %60 (240 of 400 points). It took about 2.5 hours. I got 241 points, barely passing. The crazy thing is that the test is only offered once a year in December. So I have a long wait...er...a lot of time to improve before the test.

Passing the level 3 or level 4 test doesn't mean much, but the level 2 and level 1 test do look good to Japanese employers. Honestly, the test is not that important to me, though. I just want to get better at speaking, listening, reading, and maybe writing; if the test can give me motivation to continue learning, then so be it.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T18:48:00.000+09:00

Christ is born. This changes everything.

One Giant Leap for Khayng

2006-11-24T00:42:00.000+09:00

This week, I've been spending a lot of thought on Khayng (my constructed language in process).
Every time I approach Khayng to work on it, I feel like I'm coming back to a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with just a few of the pieces tentatively put together.

The last major step in the evolution of Khayng came about a year ago, when it went from a postposition language to a preposition language. (This is because I decided that it's nice to know how a word or phrase is going to function before hearing the word or phrase.)

With that decision having been made last year, I was able to make a bigger decision: SENTENCE STRUCTURE! Subject-Verb-Object (like English)? SOV (like Japanese)? VSO, rare but tempting? Free word order?

My ideal was to make it Free Word order (I guess like Latin). But it seemed impossible to make that ideal fit with another of my ideals: being able to drop subjects or objects that are already understood. I almost gave up my free-word-order ideal and went with a strict V-S-O word order (which is actually quite convenient for preposition languages. why aren't more languages V-S-O?). But as I neared the giving up point and VSO looked very tempting, through lots of careful thought and a little inspiration, the solution came.

If you've read this far, you have an amazing attention span.

Here's how free word order works. Just mark the subject as a subject with some kind of preposition, same for the object, and VOILA! now you can rearrange them without losing meaning. So all of these would mean the same: "He saw me; Me he saw; Saw he me; Me saw he; Saw me he; He me saw." Fine for simple sentences, but not so fine for complex sentences with subordinate clauses (I use { and } to show clauses): "I can't believe {that it doesn't annoy you {that he hates reading!}}" With totally free ordering of subject, object, and verb, nightmarish arrangements are possible: "I {you {he reading hates} doesn't annoy} can't believe!" Also, it gets impossible to parse without clause-beginning AND clause-ending markers, which may be fine for computers, but no person wants that kind of system.

So after I wrote that sample sentence in English and proto-free-order-Khayng, I realized Free Order is no good! What I want is Flexible Order! In other words, keep the free order system of marking the S and O with prepositions, but put in some much needed restrictions, namely "You may eat of any fruit of the word-order garden, but you must not put a subordinate clause anywhere but at the end." This sounds complicated, but it's not; we do it in English without thinking:
Simple sentence: "You annoy me."
Sentence with clause: "It annoys me that you always walk in front of me."
Usually you don't say: "That you always walk in front of me annoys me."
See? You put the subject, which is a clause, at the back automatically (and this requires a perverse maneuver that entails highjacking an "it", sticking it where the clause should be, then ungrammatically tacking the clause onto the end of the sentence. At least in Khayng, it's grammatical).

Anyway, I'm happy to announce that Khayng is now officially a Flexible Word Order language, and that I have finally figured out how to implement this while not sacrificing my other ideals or making it unparsable.

Seriously, if you read all this...I should give you an award.

Stolen Bike #2

2006-11-23T23:49:00.000+09:00

My last post was about my nice bike getting stolen. At the end, I said that I got a nice new bike and that I was paranoid that it was going to get stolen.

Well, it did.

It took me a while to recover from the first theft, to get used to borrowing other people's bikes, to file the police report, to do the research to find another bike, to find a good bike shop, and to wait for the new bike to come in. Now I'm back at square one again.

You know how when your work gets destroyed or erased on purpose, so you start over and get it almost back to how it was before, and then someone destroys it or erases it again, so it makes you not want to try again and just makes you frustrated that there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening again? Yeah, it's like that.

(and, whereas I'm not sure whether I locked my first bike, I AM sure I locked it this time. There are pro bike theives here).

A Time of Loss

2006-09-26T22:23:00.000+09:00

At Starbucks, practicing my Japanese writing seriously for the first time (as opposed to just reading), I needed a break. So I went out to put my writing practice book on my bike, but...

Huh? Where's my bike? Haha Ryan must have moved it to play a joke on me. Wait, Ryan lives in America now! Huh?! WHERE'S MY BIKE?!!

Pacing quickly around the bike parking lot, looking everywhere, I came to accept what had happened. I sent a cell phone email to Mike and Bill, those 5 words no bike enthusiast ever wants to be true of him: "Welp, my bike's been stolen."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was a good bike. I'd just done work on it to get it back into like-new condition.
Oh well. It's been a few weeks since the event, and I recently ordered and recieved a new bike, actually the same model, newer edition. It's nice, but now I'm paranoid that this one's going to get stolen, too.

(by the way, I may have forgotten to lock my bike when it was stolen, which would have been the first and only time)

Sexist Language?

2006-06-03T18:08:00.000+09:00

Some complain that the English language can tend to be sexist:
1. The title Mr. can be used for a married or unmarried man, while a woman's marital status must be brought up every time she is addressed (Miss vs. Mrs.)
2. He is the pronoun of choice for referring to a generic person, as if men were a more fundamental type of human being than women (for example "What is a person to do if he finds his language lacking in gender-neutral pronouns?").

But English is not alone. Japanese, to a greater extent, has what might be thought of as sexism built into the language. Let's compare words for "husband" and "wife".
1. 主人 (shujin), used to refer to husbands, and literally means "lord" or "master". (The first character "shu" is the one used in the Japanese Bible in place of the Hebrew word YHWH, where you would find LORD in all-caps in an English version.)
2. 家内 (kanai), used to refer to wives, and literally means "inside the house". I'd love to hear a feminist's take on this one.
3. 奥さん (okusan), used to refer to wives, and literally means "behind", "within", or "further inside", giving a sense that the husband is the face to the outside world and the wife is kept in. (I have heard one woman explain that it could be thought of as a sign of affection, that a husband keeps his greatest treasure hidden away).
4. 愚妻 (gusai), used to introduce your wife, especially to a superior, and literally means "stupid/foolish wife", as in "this is my boss...And boss, this is my foolish wife." It could be said that this too might be a sign of marital unity, that is, when a Japanese man is to speak humbly about himself, he also must be humble about his wife because they are one, and to speak highly of his wife would be to speak highly of himself. But then again, there is no equivalent word a woman could use to introduce her husband which would mean "stupid husband". She could still use "shujin" (lord, master).

I should say that these words don't necessarily bring to mind their literal meanings every time they're used. They're usually just used according to their social function without much thought about the original meanings.

Last Day on Phi Phi Island

2006-04-04T14:20:00.000+09:00

This is my last full day on Phi Phi Island. Tomorrow I go back to Phuket by ferry, then make my way up to the airport by evening, and arrive in Japan the following morning. Then I resume teaching the day after that.

So I'm spending my last day here on a beach in Nui Cove. The snorkelling here is about as good as monkey beach. It's kind of secret, so there are very few people here, but there's no lunch stand here, like on monkey beach, so I'll just starve until my longtail boat comes to pick me up again at 4:00.

But I like it here. The water is clear and the scenery is amazing. I just pulled myself away from typing this to ask a tour boat that just pulled up if they had any extra lunches to sell. No luck. I probably look like a castaway to them: alone on this beach when they pulled up, no food, scraggly beard because I haven't shaved since I left Japan.

Well I guess there's nothing left to do but get back in the water.

Scuba and Monkey Beach Again

2006-04-03T19:42:00.000+09:00

Yesterday's scuba went well. Many people panic their first time, being dropped in the ocean without first being given a chance to get comfortable with the equipment. I was lucky to find a dive shop that gave me a free trial run with the equipment in the pool. By the time we got to the ocean the next day I was ready, though still a little tense. The first dive was near the entrance to a sea cave. The second was around a large, steep rock island that plunged deep into a beautiful bay. We went all the way around, with the wall, all decorated in coral, sponges, and fish, at our right side the whole time. Twice we swam through small canyons; a little intimidating, but fun.

Something I didn't know about scuba was that the jacket fills with air and empties of air from the tank with two buttons. I think it's the hardest part, with equalizing ear pressure coming in at second.

We didn't see any sharks, but on our way back to the main island, we did see some dolphins. We tried for a while to get close enough to swim with them, but they kept on disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else. We had to give up because the tide was going out.

That was yesterday. Today, I'm spending the day on monkey beach. The snorkelling here is the best I've found on the island, and the monkeys love to entertain. I'm writing this on the palm pilot (which is running out of juice), with the waves lapping at my feet. I guess it's time to bring this to an end.

Chill Day

2006-04-02T02:12:00.000+09:00

So yesterday the tour boat picked me up from bamboo island as I had arranged, and we continued on to monkey beach. Unlike bamboo island, monkey beach is appropiately named, as there are actually wild monkeys on the beach.

Today was a day for relaxing. But, in the evening I went to one of the dozen dive shops here on Phi Phi island for a 30 minute scuba crash course. Then tomorrow I'm going scuba diving for my first time. It's going to be just me and the instructor. We are expected to see lots of cool things like leopard sharks, which aren't dangerous. Well time for bed now.

Bamboo Island

2006-03-30T23:01:00.000+09:00

I am really burnt now, despite liberally applying spf 45 twice or thrice a day. Snorkelling is deceptively...um...it's deceptive. You have cool water on your back all day until you finish, when you realize that your back is in a world of hurt. Also, with all that water, your need for hydration goes unnoticed even after spending all that energy. But anyway I got in some good snorkelling today here at...Bamboo Island!!

I woke up this morning and bought a ticket for a snorkelling tour boat around the two main islands here. It also makes a stop at a minor (undeveloped) island, bamboo island. I had asked if they would drop me off there and pick me up on the next day's tour, and they said sure (that's the cheapest way to get there for the night, cheaper than hiring a longtail boat). So off we went.

When we arrived here at bamboo island, there were lots of people swimming and playing, but they all left at around 3:30. So now I'm in my tent on this remote Island in the Andaman Sea with no noise but the waves and crickets, no people but the park ranger. But it's really hot.

Fyi: 1 After everyone left, I walked around the circumference of this island and it took about 45min. 2 There is no bamboo on bamboo island. 3 This is my tent's maiden voyage.

Hammock

2006-03-29T18:21:00.000+09:00

Now I'm in a hammock strung up on some trees with low-running branches at a beach on Phi Phi island, somewhere in the south of Thailand. I'm typing this on a pda lent to me by a student of mine, and sending it by cellphone.

As every travel agency will tell you, Phi Phi island is where the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach" was filmed. It was hit hard by the tsunami, and there is still evidence of that. Also the port area is the ugliest piece of tourist pandering nightlife trash you can imagine. But once you get away from that, it's really beautiful.

The snorkelling at this beach is pretty good with amazingly clear water and colorful fish. Tomorrow I'm going to take a day tour around the surrounding islands , get off and stay on one of them, Bamboo Island, a small undeveloped snorkelling paradise, or so I hear. I'll camp there, then catch the following day's tour boat back to Phi Phi. Wish you were here, whoever 'you' might be.

I'm writing from Thailand

2006-03-28T10:41:00.000+09:00

Yes, I decided to take my spring break in thailand. I originally wanted to go to the Maldives, but it turns out that's wicked expensive, so I researched out the wazoo and came up with this Thai island hopping snorkelling and maybe camping adventure.

Now I'm in Phuket, which is nice, but maybe a bit overcrowded with tourists. After finishing breakfast, I'm going to snorkel, then probably take a ferry to Phi Phi island.

I'll be here until April 5th, but I can still check email, so send me something because I'm here alone:)

A Day of Amazing Chance Meetings

2006-03-19T21:36:00.000+09:00

Today I had 4 amazing chance meetings with students.
1. At a culture festival held at an elementary school where our church's gospel choir sang, I met a former student from my Wednesday night class, a middle aged man who quit my class 6 months ago and happened to be volunteering as a stage hand today.

2. At the same festival, I met a woman who hasn't been able to attend my class at all this year because of her husband's recent cerebral hemorrhage. It was great to get a chance to talk to her.

3. Then Mike (fellow teacher at the English School, from Tasmania) and I went to downtown Yokkaichi to eat lunch, go to starbucks, and walk around the big shopping center. There, I met another former student.

4. As I was talking to her, another former student walked by! She quit my Wednesday night class (same as #1) at the same time as #1 because she was getting married and moving far away. So obviously I was surprised and glad to see her back in Yokkaichi for the first time since she left and got married a half year ago.

All this, and then one of the video games there in the shopping center started playing the tune of "It's a small world after all"...and THAT after some kindergarteners had played "It's a small world after all" on handbells earlier that day at the culture festival!

Grand Re-opening

2006-02-05T20:36:00.000+09:00

I'm REALLY hoping to re-open my music page soon with 2 new songs.
(I haven't released any finished songs since "These Empty Halls" in early 2004, before I came to Japan). In fact, I wanted to finish by this weekend, but I caughtt a cold, preventing me from doing the necessary singing.

Which country am I in?

2006-02-01T00:36:00.000+09:00

I thought two of you might be interested to know that the Japanese guy who owns an Indian curry restaurant near my house has been playing Sitar for 8 years and gave me a demonstration, and that I asked if I could try, so he let me.

So, following his instructions, I rubbed the first and second fingers of my left hand in coconut resin to make them slide easier up and down the strings (because you only use those 2 fingers to push down the strings), fitted the metal pick-like implement onto the first finger of my right hand, took off my shoes, sat in the classic sitar sitting position on a mat he had laid down on the wood floor for me, and played around for 10 minutes while a few other patrons continued eating their dinners (it's a small restaurant, with a bar and 4 tables). I was surprised to see that there are 2 layers of strings: you strum and pluck the upper layer, while the layer underneath just resonates.

Seeing how skillfully I played, he asked if I played guitar, too. He also lent me a book he has explaining the basics of playing sitar. I'm tempted to take either sitar or shamisen (like a traditional japanese banjo) lessons.

Visitor

2005-11-17T09:40:00.000+09:00

Carey arrives tomorrow. She's been studying Japanese in preparation, and I'm surprised at how much she's learned. This is just the right time to see 紅葉 (kouyou), that is autumn colors.

Khayng Update

2005-11-10T15:26:00.000+09:00

The language is really coming along. I think I'd like there not to be a "to be" verb (so hopefully, there will be no equivalent of "be, is, are, am, was, were"). I think it's possible. At least I've heard of languages that don't have a be-verb. Instead of "The shirt is red", the adjective would actually be a verb, so it would be more like "The shirt reds". Of course I'll still have a verb meaning "exist".

Small news

2005-11-06T17:00:00.000+09:00

My email is back up.
I've resumed work on my language (Khayng), so I hope to have updates on the website in a bit.
Tomorrow I go hiking in the mountains with 4 men from my seniors English class.

Japanese Technology

2005-10-21T22:40:00.000+09:00

I really like Japanese technology sometimes. Recently my phone bill forgot to get paid, and so my phone service was cut yesterday. So tonight at 10:30 I went to a Circle K convenience store to pay my phone bill. After the cashier scanned my bill and I gave him the money, I walked out and called my home with my cell phone, and behold! My home phone rang! My phone service had been reinstated instantly! If only reinstatement into the techno-junkie club were so easy...

Spiderjuice

2005-10-16T20:45:00.000+09:00

Possibly my most traumatic experience in Japan to date

Japan has some really big spiders. Where I live, you can't get through a summer without encountering at least a dozen hand-sized spiders. Since I got here, Bill has been warning me about what he considers the most traumatic way to encounter a spider: to be in a bathroom stall, pull out a stretch of toilet paper, and find a giant spider sitting and waiting on said stretch. Apparently this has happened once before. Well, through experience, I came up with an even moretraumatic way to meet a giant spider:

I arrived at the church like I do every Friday morning at 8:45, turned on the lights, the water pot, and the air-conditioner (which is a small unit mounted on the wall above the window). But what's that noise?The flap on the air-conditioner that directs the airflow has opened only half-way, and because of the sound of frustrated whining electric motors punctuated by clicking, I can tell that it's stuck. Presently there is a sharp BANG as something is SHOT from the vent, barely missing my FACE, hitting the ground next to my feet with a loud THUD like a beanbag. It was a huge spider, and fortunately it had been killed by the pressure of the air flap before being hurled out in my general direction. Around the bulky corpse was a puddle of spiderjuice.

Tokuden and Owakare

2005-10-01T18:19:00.000+09:00

特伝
Tonight we had the long-awaited "Tokuden" at church ("special evangelistic event"). Many in the church had hand-delivered flyers to thousands of houses in the surrounding neighborhoods, and I invited all my students. We saw some new faces, so that was good. There was a Bible reading/enactment of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery (John 8). Using this story, Pastor Yamazaki gave a sermon about God's unconditional love. The Gospel Choir (including me) sang "Near the Cross". It was good, and I hope many of the strangers will come to church again.

お別れ
Tonight, Ryan left for his 10-day sayonara trip around Japan. Then he'll come back for one day to collect his things and fly back to America. Of course I'll enjoy the freedom of having the small house to myself again, but I would prefer that Ryan stay in Yokkaichi. But America will be good for him. And here is a "farewell" shot:

Midnight Bike Racing!

2005-09-16T23:50:00.000+09:00

Every weeknight, I have a class from 8:00 to 9:30, and by the time I
finish cleaning up after class and/or talking to Ryan about how classes
went, it's 10:00 or 10:30pm. Then we ride our bikes home (about 8 minutes).

Tonight we finished at 10:30, started off for home, and for the first
time since living in Japan together, we spontaneously burst into a
high-speed, high-stakes, death-defying, all-out bike sprint through the
silent streets and alleys of Yokkaichi.

It was great! The adrenaline was flowing and the competative spirit was
fierce. It was a familiar feeling, but I couldn't remember how long it
had been since I had really pushed myself that hard for the sake of
competition. なつかしい！

Sorry I embellished the title of this post; "10:30pm Bike Racing"
sounded less dramatic, and it's drama I'm going for here.

Yokkaichi International Association

2005-09-15T23:38:00.000+09:00

My city has an "International Association" for foreigners like me. And foreigners not like me.
At the Yokkaichi International Association (YIA), I have a private Japanese lesson every Thursday with a volunteer teacher. It's very kind of him to use his time to teach me Japanese every week without pay. He's an interesting retired man who has always traveled a lot and is still an avid outdoorsman (mountain-climbing, canoeing, hiking).
Another function of the YIA is to ask me to correct the English in their publications. Usually, I stick around the office after my Japanese lesson and talk to the two office ladies: Tamami and Yuri. That's when I am asked to correct various announcements and fliers. I enjoy it. Also, each month they have a different foreigner give a presentation about his home country, and they have asked me to give the December or January presentation. I've never attended one of these functions because they are usually on Sunday mornings. But for mine, we'll do it on Saturday afternoon.
SO...If you have any ideas for what kinds of things I should say about America, please leave me a quick comment here. With your ideas, you can vicariously contribute to the Japanese conception of America.

New Blogging Resolution

2005-09-12T22:28:00.000+09:00

I resolve to write shorter entries and to write more frequently than I have so far. So here's my first post-resolution entry:

Today is Ryan's birthday. Happy Birthday!
We just got back from swimming in mountain river pools.
For pictures, click...

And speaking of bowling,

2005-07-16T21:12:00.000+09:00

I recently went bowling with the college/career group at the church here. I couldn't shake the memories of last year's two embarrassing sub-100 performances (blamed on a huge blister I got from burning my finger that morning). But this year, I regained my bowling pride. In fact, I somehow attained my two best bowling scores ever, 147 and 173. I just thought that should be out there for anyone to know.

I made a website for my English School

2005-07-02T23:56:00.000+09:00

Here you can see the website I made for our English School.
It is called At Home English School (the phrase "at home" has been taken into Japanese, and it means "relaxed").

click

Visitors

2005-07-02T23:39:00.000+09:00

Andy Strauss recently visited, and that was great! (Check the photos site).

Now my cousin Jay is coming, and I'm looking forward to that too. He will be coming from Korea. We don't have anything planned, but there isn't any lack of things to do, so we'll think of something.

Now that I have my photo site working again, there should be no problem getting photos of Jay's visit up without delay.

Existence Survey

2005-04-25T00:17:00.000+09:00

I sometimes listen to audio recordings of debates between Christians and atheists.
Most atheists argue from a position that the idea of God is just so extraordinary or outside of normal experience that no one should be expected to accept it.

I will grant that the idea of God is extraordinary.

But will you not also admit that the existence of the universe(s), and especially consciousness, is also extraordinary. Non-existence would seem to be the default state of things, and yet here we are. Trees growing, planets orbiting, me typing, you reading, communication happening, history being made, beauty being enjoyed. This existence thing is all so extraordinary, but everyone accepts it. The jump from belief in non-existence to belief in existence is HUGE.

A person who has already made the enormous leap to believing that physical things exist is but a small stride away from believing that not only physical things exist (the assertion that only physical things exist is not only unprovable, but unsupportable and dogmatic as well).

Not only that, I think it is a natural and necessary stride because I think the existence of the universe needs a cause (and, no, I don’t think the existence of God needs a cause given His attributes).

So I want to end with a survey:
1) Does ‘something existing’ (as opposed to ‘nothing existing’) strike you as a peculiar/special/extraordinary state of things?
2) Do you think the existence of the universe requires an explanation, or do you think it can exist without a cause?

Your thoughts please.
(a pledge: I won’t post any more entries that use the word ‘exist’ so many times)

Southern Mie Solo Bike/Camp Trip

2005-04-07T07:45:00.000+09:00

Kim Weatherford had been visiting for about 5 days. I planned to take her to the airport bus when she left, and then take my bike on a train 2 hours south to Southern Mie. Unfortunately, I became sick that morning, despite being the only one I know who didn't get sick all winter. But I went ahead with my plan, deciding that if I feel worse 'I can quit anytime'.

Okay: here's a map with the path I traveled.

So I took a train down to Southern Mie, and got off at Ugata station. Because it was already 11:30am I thought it would be good to get lunch out of the way as long as I'm in a largish town. So I stopped at Gusto Burger for lunch. They have very good burgers, so it was a treat for me. For the first 3 hours, I was on a highway between two towns, so there was more traffic than I would have liked. But at one point, I turned onto a smaller road, just to see where it led. For the first time, I got a taste of an empty open country road.

At that point, it began raining. Very inconvenient, but I did bring a rainsuit for me and a tarp to cover the bags on my bike. The rain plus the traffic made for an annoying bike ride, but after I went through the first tunnel, the traffic cleared up. Also, small alternative routes became available. So I took one smaller road to a cliff lookout. From here I could see two towns I had passed through. Also, I could see Goza, where Ryan and I snorkeled last October.

Shortly after, it stopped raining. I rode for about 2 more hours, then set up camp just off of a closed cliffside road that looks over the beach. I could see a lighthouse way off on the tip of Goza. I watched it for a few minutes, listening to the waves. I couldn't have asked for a better place to pitch a tent.

Next day, I slept in, ate a spaghetti breakfast, and started off, hoping to find a convenience store or something in a nearby village so I could buy some food and eat a bigger breakfast. Instead, in a small alley, I found a 'Ma & Pop' grocer, where I bought more breakfast and lunch, and asked to have my water bottles refilled. I rode to a nearby marina and ate more breakfast on a dock, looking on the Gokasho Bay for the first time. A little later, I took this picture of the bay
from this lookout point

Later, I went through a long tunnel. It got darker and darker, until I could see nothing but the light at the end (I couldn't even see my hands). I was glad to get out of that tunnel. Then I made a detour down a neigborhood under construction and took one more shot of the Gokasho Bay, this time with hillside houses dotting the...um...hillsides.

I stopped to cook lunch near a town at the mid-point of the bay. As I was eating, a very loud musical chime was played over the whole town at the strike of noon. It was a nice, inticate, multi-faceted tune about 1 minute long, but what really amazed me was the echo. It seemed as if the tempo of the tune were chosen on purpose to benefit from the echo of the mountains surrounding the bay. The natural delay was just right to create a wonderfully articulate harmony coming from all directions.

After eating, I decided I was too sick to continue on all the way to the next train line. So I took a bus back to the trainline I came from. The southern coast of Mie is such a nice, interesting ride, much more so than ride from Dallas to Houston, for example. Although I wish I hadn't been sick, I got a good taste for what a bike/camp trek is like, and I hope to try it again when I get a chance.

Developments in Visitation Feasibility

2005-03-16T11:12:00.000+09:00

For all who have thought, "I would love to visit Stephen sometime, but the airfare sure is expensive", I have good news. A new airport just opened here near Nagoya, called Centrair. Now many airlines are switching their international flights to Centrair and offering outrageously low promotional airfares, like $300 roundtrip from Dallas or other low prices from other cities. Airlines you should check: Northwest, American, maybe others. Now would be a great time to come (but please double-check your schedule with me before you actually make reservations). I just wanted you to be aware of new lower airfares available because of the new airport.

Also, the World Expo is in Aichi (which means "love knowledge") near Nagoya this year so you could come for that too.

I am thinking about this because Kim Fox--er I mean Kim Weatherford is visiting me now, and I got a chance to see the nice new airport a few days ago when I picked her up. It has been great to see her.

email me if you want more info about when is a good time to come.

My birthday (1 week late)

2005-02-25T22:31:00.000+09:00

In Japan, birthdays are not quite as important as in America. But for my birthday, one of my former supporters (supporters are Japanese Christians embedded in our classes) brought tacos to my house! (not "tako", which is Japanese for octopus). That was nice, and afterwards, I went to a coffee/cake shop with a friend from church, which was also nice. All in all, a nice birthday. Then, a guy from church asked me and Ryan to come to his house on Saturday (3 days later) at 4:00 because we had talked about language exchange.

When we arrived, it was quiet...too quiet. Then, "SURPRISE"! 3 people were there. I didn't know why. For me? Surely not. But I looked, and on the table was a birthday cake with 24 candles and my name written on it! And more people trickled in later, so there were about 10 in all, most from the college/career group. I really WAS surprised. If you are keeping track of names, it was Ai who planned it, knowing about surprise birthday parties because she attended Covenant College in America.

It was a lot of fun, I got to speak in Japanese. Everyone gave gifts, too, with a theme. Each person gave me something in a set of 24 (because I'm 24 now). So Ai gave a nice book with 24 pages, Yumi gave me a bag with 24 candies, Ryan gave me 24 choco moon pies. I thought the funniest one was when Yukino gave a bag with 24 small packs of kleenexes. Companies hand them out for free and use them to advertize. These particular kleenexes came from NOVA, a very popular English school all over Japan. On these kleenexes, she had written "rival". I thought that was funny.

Then, Ikkou, an extremely talented piano player, who can sightread and improvise almost anything, especially jazz, started playing the piano. For my birthday present, he asked me to request a hymn, and of course I chose The Deep Deep Love of Jesus.

Unfortuately, I then had to leave my party and teach English class. On Saturday night? Yes. Oh well, it was a good party, and I was really thankful to everyone. It's hard to explain how surprised I was that so many would come and do that for me without sounding like an outcast. I guess a good way to say it is: I'm a foreigner, so communication and friendships are hard, but they came anyway. So it was good.

The REAL reason Stephen went to Japan...

2005-02-06T18:03:00.000+09:00

"I just got tired of seeing the same 26 letters over and over again." -Stephen Hunter

Advice for people who's friends have blogs or websites

2005-02-01T14:01:00.000+09:00

Advice:
In your web browser, make a new bookmarks folder called "Friends", then whenever one of your friends says "I have this website" or "I have this blog/xanga", or "I have this picture page", then just put the link in that folder.
Then it's easy to check for updates. Right now, I have 10 freinds' sites bookmarked in my Friends folder: Adam Morehouse, Dave Jones, Laura Schmidt, Aeijtzsche, Jay Henderson, Nate Henderson, a former dormmate group blog, 2 Japanese friends' blogs, and my dad's online family tree.

Also, be sure to switch to Firefox, which is 1.5 times better than Internet Explorer. try www.firefox.com
(it will import all your bookmarks and settings from internet explorer, so you can pick up where you left off).

2005-01-24T09:52:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went to my first orchestra concert in Japan. It was held at Mie University in a very nice hall. I went because one guy I know from church was playing cello in it. I was surprised because he started playing cello less than a year ago, but he played a piece that seemed very hard.

It was a great concert that reminded me of why pre-20th century music is so good. As I was listening, a Mariah Carey song popped into my head, and it seemed disgustingly poppish, void of meaning. Classical music usually has conflict and a message. Most messages in modern music I can think of are messages of the meaninglessness that comes with deconstructionism (by the way, deconstructionism was a dead end. We learned some things, but now let's get back to constructionism), or some kind of goofy foundationless happiness. Those are the only two modern messages I can think of (obviously, "baby, baby, baby, hey baby, I love you baby baby, baby" doesn't count as a message).

But I think I was way too focused as I listened. Perhaps to the point of becoming tense. Concerts are too long to be listened to with that kind of intensity. I had the same kind of feeling as I would get if I ate a big bag of hard candy: A little is nice, but I think this is an overdose. There was a constant stream of non-repetative (thank goodness) music coming from up to 60 instruments at once. I should have dozed off like many other people there. hehe.

Dinner with 2 Mormons

2005-01-19T23:00:00.000+09:00

Ryan and I had dinner with 2 young mormons the other day. We didn't talk theology at all, just daily life, living in Japan, difference in schedules, plans after Japan, etc.
I was surprised at how much the headquarters controlled their lives. Basically for 2 years, they do nothing but walk around the city, talking to people. No internet, no caffeine, no phone calls to home (except twice a year on Mother's Day and Christmas), no email, one letter per week, no potentially dangerous sports, no music except church music, 9:00 curfew. Every six weeks (maybe it was 12) they will get a call telling them whether they will move to a new city or stay in the same city. So this basically precludes relationships from forming.
Two things should be said about mormons:
1) They are usually nice people, people you'd want as a neighbor, generally sincere in their belief.
2) They have terrible beliefs:

-Where the Book of Mormon disagrees with the Bible, the Bible is in error because of various translation problems, although Joseph Smith had no problem plagiarizing thousands of verses directly from the 17th century King James Version, and claiming they were from documents over 1500 years old.

-Until recently, the past 'presidents' of the mormon church taught that Blacks could not be saved. After all, they were too sinful, and were cursed with black skin. Thank God they retracted this teaching (even though the 'presidents' are said to be infallibly authoritative).

-The god of our planet used to be a man on another planet, and he was so virtuous in that life, that it was granted to him to populate Earth and become its god. And now all perfectly virtuous mormon men on this planet will become the god of another planet, which they will populate with their many wives.

And how many people are currently suckered into this crap? Would you believe 12 million? I want to talk theology next time we meet the mormons for dinner.

2005-01-18T01:33:00.000+09:00

Being in America for a little was good. Actually, I could have used another week.
But being back in Japan is good.

Now I must press on in my Japanese studies to avert isolation. (and come to think of it, I need to avert isolation to improve my Japanese).

And in other news, I think I am going to start writing more. Not just jotting stuff down (like I am now), but actually writing what I think, revising, editing. If nothing else, it will be a good way for me to organize my thoughts, juxtapose my beliefs, and make sure they cohere with one another. Having already written them down, I should have an easier time explaining my position and reasoning when the time comes.

God wouldn't...

2004-11-08T16:04:00.000+09:00

Many theological arguments begin with, "Why would God....?" or more directly, "God wouldn't...."

The 'problem of pain' argument against God: "A benevolent and omnipotent God wouldn't allow pain in his world. There is pain, so there is no God."

An Arminian argument against God's sovereignty: "Why would God judge people if they can't resist his eternally ordained purpose?" In Romans 9:18-21, Paul entertains this exact objection, and refutes it.

A traditional Evangelical belief: "God wouldn't forgive a person's sins if he hasn't explicitly called on Jesus for forgiveness." If this is God's formula, someone forgot to tell Jesus (Luke 23:34) "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Is ignorance really grounds enough for forgiveness? In at least this one case, apparently so.

So beware of arguments that begin, "God wouldn't..."

They tend to make God into a formula, as though we could plug in the scenario and come up with God's response.

No, God is a person, at least as complex as we are (understatement of the century). He chooses the option we least expect more often that we would expect.

Some "God-woudn't" arguments are safe enough, but when you hear one, put your brain's filter on full alert, lest you think of God as a formula.

Recent Projects

2004-10-26T13:23:00.000+09:00

I'm starting to work on the language again.

And of all those songs in the "Rough Draft" section, I have chosen to work on "I Can Feel Your Love".

I hope to finish it in less than a month.

www.sahv.com

Back from Snorkeling Trip (the facts)

2004-10-04T01:12:00.000+09:00

Ryan and I just got back from snorkeling in Goza Shirahama. We camped there for two nights.
When we arrived, the weather was perfect, the water was fine, and we rightly scorned all those warnings about it being too late in the year to swim. Indeed, this must be the opinion across the entire country because Ryan and I were the only two people on the entire beach. We were more concerned about jellyfish.
Fri: Upon entering the water for the first time, we promptly swam almost head-on into a big red jellyfish, but we later learned that the red ones aren't dangerous. That night, we tried to find a place to eat in the nearby fishing village, but all the businesses were closed. Just then, the owner of the campground we were staying at found us and invited us to dinner at his house. So we followed him to where his mother was cooking yaki-niku. We ate with him, his mother, and his father. We talked about our hobbies, Iraq, and goals. His mother's dream is to finish her business in Goza, say goodbye to everyone and everything, and then sail around the world and never come back.
Sat: We woke up to rain, but we swam anyway, and had our best swims. First, from the beach, we swam east through rocky underwater terrain, where fish like to hang out. Saw lots of interesting fish and underwater terrain. Then we hiked to the top of the highest mountain in the area, got a good 360-degree view of the peninsula, then hiked down the other side to the Pacific Ocean. There we swam in a sheltered cove with many fish, crabs, starfish, and I think I saw a pufferfish. We swam out to the tiny island that sheltered the cove, and climbed on its sharp, rocky shore. Once on the island, we could see the raging Pacific Ocean on the other side. But between the cove and the ocean was a small pool, teeming with fish of all kinds. We enjoyed a long swim here, too. On the way across the peninsula, back to the bay, we had a difficult time keeping our stuff dry in the rain.
Sun: More rain. We tried a swim, but after 2 days of not much sun, the water had gotten too cold, so we cut our trip short and returned to Yokkaichi.
Snorkeling is great; here's why: (1) With a mask, snorkel, and fins, you can tread water indefinately, and you can swim anywhere you want pretty quickly. (2) You can swim with many kinds of fish. Sometimes it feels like they are welcoming you to their world (although in truth, they would probably rather not have you there). (3) When you look out at the sea, the surface seems to be a huge veil, covering a hidden world beautiful and often terrifying. Snorkeling allows you to venture into that hidden place, to see it for yourself. Then you can come back to dry land, look again over the surface of the sea, and say "I know what's under those waves, I know how deep it is over there, I know where the rocks and plants are, I know what kind of fish like to swim there". It's neat. Now all I need is a wet suit so cold water would no longer be an obstacle.

Click here to see pictures of the trip.

Japanese Concept of Christianity

2004-09-22T23:39:00.000+09:00

Japan's Christian population is about 1%. There is not a very good understanding of Christianity among the Japanese. Of course the same is true for most non-Christian Westerners (although unlike Japanese non-Christians, most Western non-Christians believe they understand what Christ is all about, but that's not my point).
My point is: Japan expresses its horribly wrong conception of Christianity in very different ways than the West does, in a distinctly Japanese way: cute.

A picture from a gift shop in Seki, a small traditional town I visited this week
Wear a Christian cross as a charm to bring Love, Success, Money, or Lucky!

A toy that sold in Japan (which probably wasn't distributed very widely)
On the box, you can see a boy praying to the toy for the love of a school classmate.
(the source, Engrish.com, generally only presents examples of bad English from Japan, but in this case, they included the toy because they were struck by its extremely off-base concept of God).

This is a part of the spiritual environment outside the walls of Yokkaichi Christ Church.

The Japanese Concept of Animal Poop

2004-09-21T13:42:00.000+09:00

I don't know what the deal is, or whether many Japanese people had traumatic experiences with animal poop as children, but whatever the cause, the outcome is a disproportionate presence of animal poop warning signs. These signs employ vivid imagery and expressive faces to get the point across.

Poop Sign 1
This one I found in a park near the church.

Poop Sign 2
Ryan took a picture of this on his camping trip in Hokkaido.
Lit. "Beware of seagull poop."

Let's get started with this blog thing

2004-09-20T23:09:00.000+09:00

Well, I have opened up all kinds of communication methods in order to cling to the relationships I have with Americans. And this online journal is one of them.
I don't want this to be celebrate-my-intellect time; this is a chance to share a glimpse of Japan and how I'm living in it, and a chance for you to give your thoughts. And I'll try to avoid mundane details, although sometimes they may help paint a picture of daily life.

God is working here, though in obvious ways not very quickly.
(current reading: Brother's Karamazov. )