By now the rest of the world has probably heard about the latest stabbing spree in Akihabara. It’s the very nature of the place, its popularity, that makes it worthy of worldwide attention. As of this writing, there have been seven confirmed dead. Supposedly killed by a man who indiscriminately stabbed people because he “was tired of life.” The suspect is only 25 years old.

This brings to mind another incident about two months ago. In almost the same manner, someone ran amuck ala Rambo at Arakawaoki Station (Joban line). So, no, it’s not as popular as Akihabara, and it didn’t get covered much except for the local news. But just the same, it was where 8 people were tragically killed stabbed at random by a man, and at least one person died. That station is just about five kilometers from where we live, but when that incident actually happened, we were just 5 minutes away from the station. When we heard the news, it sent shivers down our spines.

Continue reading Disturbing →

Sometime ago, I asked Aya if she knew exactly what kind of work we do. Turned out that she didn’t. So I told her: “We’re scientists. You know, I do experiments everyday, just like the experiments we do at home. Tatay does stuffs on the computer. We’re both hakase.” Hakase (??) refers to someone who holds a doctorate. Aya knows this word because she watches Powerpuff Girls on TV, so I thought I’d use the word to give her an idea. In the cartoon series, the girls refer to Prof. Utonium as “hakase.”

Aya laughed out loud and said: “Eh? Hakase si Tatay? Ikaw rin? Pano ka naging hakase eh babae ka?” (What? Dad is a PhD? And you too? How could you be one when you’re a woman?)

Thanks a lot to the people who created Powerpuff Girls. You’ve inadvertently given my daughter the erroneous idea that for someone to be called Dr. or hakase, that someone has to be a man. But for now, I’ll reserve my rants about gender issues in another blog entry. 

I couldn’t forget that incident, because it illustrated perfectly how many of our misconceptions could start early on in our lives, no thanks to the crap that we are inevitably fed by the media, friends and families, the very environment we grow up in. The images we see on TV or movies are very powerful in influencing our perception of so many things. (Image taken from www.tv.com)

Continue reading Misconceptions →

I was walking back towards our office when I saw a BMW car pass by. I thought, wow, what a really nice car, I wonder who’s driving it? Must be one of the guys on the 9th floor (the powers that be, the ones who run this institute). Then I saw the driver. To my surprise, I recognized the person driving the car. It was one of the janitress whom I occasionally see walking around holding a bucketful of stuffs for cleaning.

Another car drove by, not as stunning as the BMW, but it looked fancy just the same. And just as I thought, I recognized the driver to be another janitress who cleans our toilet. Both of them probably just got off from work and were on their way home. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. In this country, the people who clean the toilets get to go home earlier than the rest of us schmucks, and they get to drive those fancy cars. Only in Japan.

Continue reading Why I Love my (Old) Honda →