So, K, you've made a couple of allusions to being in that country. Mind pontificating on that experience?
I visited for two months there about a decade ago. I enjoyed it but lost all of my meager language skills and of course I was a teenager. I visited before I became a huge nerd (so to me at the time it was a very fun country rather than an overly idealized Mecca for weeaboos) so don't worry about that on my part. I was thinking about going overseas either after I graduate and it's either there, Singapore, Dubai, or London.
K's experience in Japan.
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Lago PARANOIA
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K's experience in Japan.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Well I can't comment on Japan. But as someone working for a Singaporean company and been there a few times, it is a shallow and petty police state where all most people think about is how much money are they making and what latest crap they own (which pretty much goes for Dubai and London, come to think of it). Its not exactly cheap either. Its clean and relatively well managed though and close to the rest of SE Asia that actually is fun.
The internet gave a voice to the world thus gave definitive proof that the world is mostly full of idiots.
What can I say?
It was great some of the time and slightly lousy most of the time. I learned a lot about people and about myself. I'll never forget any of it and I have a lot of great stories, and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Your results may vary. I mean, I have a high tolerance for new experiences and a mild apathy when it comes to my own safety.
I had a job as an English teacher so I was literally talking to and getting to know the locals for ten hours a day and on my days off I wandered around to see what trouble I could get into (and this is an attitude that gets you great stories, but can also get you dead or jailed). I was in a country where my race and nationality meant I was hated by some and loved by others. I found a lot of racism and weird ideas that no one questioned and that made me rethink things about myself and about the US. I had romantic hijinks better suited for Three's Company episodes.
At the end of the day, people in other countries are just people. There is a bunch of beliefs they take for granted as obvious and a bunch that you take as obvious, and I found out it's all pretty much nonsense and just tradition without rational substance. You figure out that what connects people is pretty universal.
In Osaka, the foreigners aren't allowed to go into regular bars without an escort, so I was forced to drink in expat bars. I met people from all over the world and heard a lot of people's stories. I formed a lot of weird opinions like "people coming out of a stint in the Israeli army are probably in need of serious psychiatric aid and counseling, so being near them when they are drunk is a poor idea."
I mean, I was never a fanboy of Japan or anime, so I went with my eyes wide open and went out of my way to poke things. I don't even like Japanese food (though I did find some things I liked when I got there).
I would suggest:
*Reading a book on the customs, and then when you get there carefully investigating which ones are real and which ones are just weird old customs that people don't do any more.
*Bring a year's supply of all the toiletries you use. There is nothing more embarrassing than having to ask your Mom to send you condoms.
*Bring extra clothes. There is a good chance you won't find anything the right fit for you. I'm tall so I could find shirts just fine, but pants were right out.
*Be prepared for some awful shits the first few months until your internal flora adjusts and your body adjusts to the unfamiliar poisons in the food and water.
*Facial expressions for emotion varies heavily by culture, so carefully investigate your new home when you get there. For example, in Japan the act of smiling can mean deep embarrassment.
Was that what you were looking for, or do you just want my specific opinions of Japan?
It was great some of the time and slightly lousy most of the time. I learned a lot about people and about myself. I'll never forget any of it and I have a lot of great stories, and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Your results may vary. I mean, I have a high tolerance for new experiences and a mild apathy when it comes to my own safety.
I had a job as an English teacher so I was literally talking to and getting to know the locals for ten hours a day and on my days off I wandered around to see what trouble I could get into (and this is an attitude that gets you great stories, but can also get you dead or jailed). I was in a country where my race and nationality meant I was hated by some and loved by others. I found a lot of racism and weird ideas that no one questioned and that made me rethink things about myself and about the US. I had romantic hijinks better suited for Three's Company episodes.
At the end of the day, people in other countries are just people. There is a bunch of beliefs they take for granted as obvious and a bunch that you take as obvious, and I found out it's all pretty much nonsense and just tradition without rational substance. You figure out that what connects people is pretty universal.
In Osaka, the foreigners aren't allowed to go into regular bars without an escort, so I was forced to drink in expat bars. I met people from all over the world and heard a lot of people's stories. I formed a lot of weird opinions like "people coming out of a stint in the Israeli army are probably in need of serious psychiatric aid and counseling, so being near them when they are drunk is a poor idea."
I mean, I was never a fanboy of Japan or anime, so I went with my eyes wide open and went out of my way to poke things. I don't even like Japanese food (though I did find some things I liked when I got there).
I would suggest:
*Reading a book on the customs, and then when you get there carefully investigating which ones are real and which ones are just weird old customs that people don't do any more.
*Bring a year's supply of all the toiletries you use. There is nothing more embarrassing than having to ask your Mom to send you condoms.
*Bring extra clothes. There is a good chance you won't find anything the right fit for you. I'm tall so I could find shirts just fine, but pants were right out.
*Be prepared for some awful shits the first few months until your internal flora adjusts and your body adjusts to the unfamiliar poisons in the food and water.
*Facial expressions for emotion varies heavily by culture, so carefully investigate your new home when you get there. For example, in Japan the act of smiling can mean deep embarrassment.
Was that what you were looking for, or do you just want my specific opinions of Japan?
Last edited by K on Thu May 19, 2011 10:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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RobbyPants
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Stahlseele
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Size Differences?
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Errrr, yes. The local brands are an uncomfortably tight fit and that causes them to break during use.Stahlseele wrote:Size Differences?
The first time I needed some, I had a Canadian friend in San Francisco send me some. He sent two envelops, one with regular condoms marked "American-sized" and one with Magnums marked "Canadian-sized."
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Stahlseele
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Bwahahahahahaa . . . Friends are aweseome aren't they? ^^
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
I'm surprised to hear about the bars in Osaka. Is that how things are in the touristy regions? I lived in Oita for a few months, and there I could go basically anywhere without people giving me a third glance. But that's a place where pretty much all the foreigners had either a work or student visa.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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lmao, that's awesome. I wonder what nationality that the Magnum XL would be in that case...K wrote:Errrr, yes. The local brands are an uncomfortably tight fit and that causes them to break during use.Stahlseele wrote:Size Differences?
The first time I needed some, I had a Canadian friend in San Francisco send me some. He sent two envelops, one with regular condoms marked "American-sized" and one with Magnums marked "Canadian-sized."
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Lago PARANOIA
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I was looking more for stories than specific opinions, though they have a ton of overlap I suppose.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.