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George_E_Hale

insufferable blowhard

1 follower   follows 12 users  
joined 2022 September 04 19:24:43 UTC

The things you lean on / are things that don't last

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User ID: 107

George_E_Hale

insufferable blowhard

1 follower   follows 12 users   joined 2022 September 04 19:24:43 UTC

					

The things you lean on / are things that don't last


					

User ID: 107

Verified Email

I'm going to crawl out on a limb and assume you mean white dude.

A friend of mine has a daughter, raised her here though my friend and her husband are from the US and both blue-eyed and white--their daughter is also. But the girl, because of her upbringing, can, and does, move as fluently through Japanese culture as her classmates. She is also perfectly, natively fluent in English. It's a marvel to see her slip in and out of these versions of herself.

In Nihonjinron scholarship (if that's the word to use) there have been many efforts at defining "Japaneseness." Some suggest both parents need to be ethnically Japanese. Because Japanese culture is so much a part of functioning here, however (that's a whole can of worms), others suggest that to be Japanese one has to be fluent in the language and preferably born in Japan.

That, too, sometimes doesn't matter. Returnee students who may have spent a few years abroad (especially if in early youth) are routinely told, on return, that because of some alteration in attitude, dress, or ineffable behavioral trait, they're "not really Japanese," as if their Japaneseness has been stripped from them.

The dimensions of the definition become more and more Procrustean as one goes on, as you might expect.

Eventually the concept "I know a Japanese when I see one" becomes the answer if the subject is pressed--and of course one cannot press the subject very far, for highlighting disagreement.or inconsistency in this way would be poor manners, itself "un-Japanese."

Older people might not consider the girl in my example above as ever having any chance of being Japanese, any more than a Zainichi Korean or third-generation Chinese. It isn't hard to find people using the term "Japanese blood" when the topic comes up. One quickly realizes nationality isn't the issue, or even culture, or language--or even biology (though there is of course that rather infamous book arguing the Japanese person's brain is structurally different from, well, from all the rest of us.)

I have the distinct sense that all this evaporates if you boil it down enough and you'll be left with steam, and, eventually an empty pot.

To address your question, there seems to be no real movement here (with a non-Japanese presence of around 2%) to shepherd anyone into the Japanese fold. Though I am considered uchi (内) or "one of the group/family/elect" in certain contexts here, remove one layer and I am again soto (外) or an outsider. But I haven't ever considered attempting applying for Japanese nationality.

I'd a fairly extreme (if benign) racist acquaintance some years ago who liked Japan and the Japanese fine because of the sense of clear delineation he felt here.

The term whining here is uncalled for. That's a reflection on your irritation, not the complaint. One might also argue that for a mod to use such terms discourages active participation, to say nothing of direct feedback. Just a thought.

edit for typos

I don't really think romance comedies/novelw or whatever are "women's equivalent to porn" and I find that a curious analogy.

OP's point about porn coming (cough) with a price is, I think, spot on--not to be an old man but porn used to be relatively a challenge to get one's hands on. Now free porn of almost any stripe cam be had for free as easily as literally tapping one's thumb a few times.

I expect any quantitative 'data' on this will not be without a significant amount of noise for myriad reasons, but there are various reasonable assumptions one can make about the socially (and even sexually) debilitating effects of long-term porn 'consumption.'

Based on the last paragraph of this post perhaps you might allow me to pose a question.

I am an American citizen (Caucasian, more or less, if it matters, with some Native American ancestry) living in Japan, my home now over two decades. I speak the language passably well though my kanji isn't what it should be (even recently on this forum I goofed a very basic term, and, as one might expect, was gently corrected). Though I am not in a service job, I am public-facing in that I stand in front of adult students every day. Would you argue that I shouldn't make efforts to learn Japanese, or that my learning of Japanese should be done only as a means of communication, and not as one of a larger set of strategies to integrate (to whatever degree) into Japanese culture?

You may suggest that I am "not Japanese and never will be" and that is of course not an unpopular perspective (particularly, even especially here). But surely the old saw about when in Rome carries some water in your mind? It's possible I'm misunderstanding you.

And yet the post practically invites debate while saying "I don't want to debate..."

That's a dark read. It literally threw me into a noticeable sadness, a kind of grim fog of pessimism, as I was reading it the first time. I also found the end frustratingly vague. That said, I did read it twice.

What does "stock" of the people mean here?

edit: I don't mean to sound baiting, I am genuinely curious. Like, breeding? Genetic superiority? Socioeconomic status? More genteel class manners?

This is poor health (obesity in this case) you're confounding with whatever other set of metrics you're using to define "unattractive" (shortness of stature also appears to be loading strongly on your own scale of undesirable traits, at least for men.)

I enjoyed it.

More to the point, he is a Jew, so you can't expect much here.

Wait, is this a joke? And with 10 upvotes? Sometimes I wonder WTF forum I am in.

MLK argued that USA should treat blacks especially better for having treated them in the past especially bad and used both pressure of sit ons and threat of violent protests to demand that organisations upped black representation considerably treating it as evidence of racism where blacks were underepresented.

King's era was, I would argue, of a considerably different social climate than today, and to suggest his aim (or the SCLC's aim at the time) was simply trying to "up" black representation (and you make it sound as if black representation was both fine at the time and that this was the only problem--as opposed to, for example, segregated schools, water fountains, churches, lunch counters, and a general caste system with blacks at the very bottom simply because they were black). The mid century US wasn't the same as it had been 100 years earlier, but it was pretty damn racist, particularly where I am from, the deep south.

Anyway possibly you weren't implying what I inferred from your quick gloss of MLK, but that certainly jarred.

Wait, you prioritize the hiring and advancement of whites because whites have decreased racial bias? Is this itself not racial bias in its clearest form?

I live in Japan, and am more or less white, and regularly experience what is usually called racism but is more probably often a mix of cultural biases and in-group preference based on language and shared values (but undeniably too has a factor based on shaky, pseudoscientific views of race). I'm also from the deep South of the US. So it's always interesting to me to read/hear people expressing what are baldly racist views and rationalizing them.

King's affairs were well-documented, though the "watching a rape and laughing" bit is new to me and I'd probably want a bit more in the way of substantiation. Regardless, I am not holding up MLK as a bastion of morality and did not suggest that I was. What I am suggesting is that hindsight is easier than foresight, and to attribute as intention the many missteps of both the civil rights and feminist movements is to perceive a genie that isn't there. Law of unintended consequences.

I don't have a "partisan bias in favor of progressive movements, no matter how extreme." I'm not sure where that's coming from; it's possible you're being slightly over defensive.

I would suggest it's not wildly irrational to sympathize with the ostensible and stated desires of MLK's version of the civil rights movement (which may seem like fluff to the cynical, but MLK was a preacher) while simultaneously acknowledging the considerable shortcomings of, say, BLM. The same with 1st wave feminism and its descendant distortions.

I did say it was my inference, but okay. I see. Well, I disagree with almost all of what you're saying here so I don't feel I'm erring too much in dismissing your other conclusions.

I nuked my entire 9 year account last week. Wiped all my posts, nearly 5,000, and deleted. Reddit really lost the plot. Shame.

Let me insert here that although I disagree with you, I appreciate your persistence in offering counterpoint and I am not among the downvoters. While I do downvote unnecessarily antagonistic and low-effort posts (including yours at times) I don't think this is either.

Bush Sr. is regularly pilloried by many on the left as a warmonger due to Panama and the first Gulf War, as well as, later in his life, accusations that he was a sexual assaulting perv (see the David Copafeel joke). In my view he was the last honorable man to be elected president, though full disclosure I did not vote for him. The world was different then, or seemed so to my younger self.

You were doing pretty well standing your ground until now.

They definitely do. My boys have allowed me to relive many holidays: Hallowe'en, Christmas the big ones. Good times.

Based on the extensive list of treatments the obvious "See a dermatologist" I suppose has already been covered? I only mention this at all because you did not. Some of what you've listed appear to be treatments for acne rosacea.

Usual medical treatments for acne vulgaris include benzoyl peroxide, azelaic acid, erythromycin, clindamycin, or dapsone. None of these are over-the-counter, at least as far as I know, depending on where you are. There is also systemic therapy, such as the use of minocycline or doxycycline. These are oral antibiotics with an anti-inflammatory effect. There is also the synthetic retinoid isotretinoin, which is highly regulated due to all sorts of possible side-effects. None of this is relevant information for the skincare hobbyist, however, unless you see a specialist, which I recommend if that route hasn't been taken--though I suspect it has. If it has, consider seeing different doctors until you attain a therapy you are content works to greater degree than what you've done tried so far.

What's up with the hot showers? Cholinergic urticaria is when you break out in hives from contact with hot water (but also an increase in body temperature and sweating), but is that what you experience? I imagine any real dermatologist would be eager to have you as a patient (This is not meant as a slight in any way).

None of this may help in the slightest, but I wish you luck.

Sorry to see you go.

You don't want to know. Yes it's a terrible waste, and I am constantly reminded of it. A cruel joke of fate. I go to sushi places with family and they enjoy whatever raw pieces of ocean thing and I sit there. I eat shrimp, so that's something.

Japan takes seafood to a whole new level. Writhing squid tentacles in ponzu, shirako (the infamous fish sperm), and other abominations like namako (sea cucumber) have, alas, prevented me from even trying.

You are not alone but I don't have the slightest desire to engage.

I am not making any sort of suggestion as to what you should believe or what criteria you should apply to verifying or holding that belief, I was just trying to get a handle on your point of view as to what we need to classify something as acceptably believable. I'm still not sure I have it.