The inspiration for this post came from what I heard on the radio. I think the station was PBS (stands for Public Broadcasting Station), but I'm not quite sure. On the radio, the topic was Japan, and how it has kind of "swept the world" and become known as "cool". The Hayao Miyazaki films, such as Spirited Away, were mentioned. (I was pleased with that, seeing as I am very fond of those films.)

A man went to Japan, and was guided by a woman called Lisa (or Risa, if you want it to be more Japanese :o ). Lisa showed the man a place that was totally filled with photo booths. Photo booths are not that common in the USA. I've only seen them in two places - in Chuck E. Cheese (I know because I have a picture taken with my dad from there. It was fairly simple, though, we didn't get to decorate it or anything like that) and at a local mall (there is a place with a couple of photo booths. The place is called Angel Pix, I think). There were a few people trying out a photo booth, actually.

Well, Lisa told the man that he wouldn't have been able to go inside the photo booth place unless he was accompanied by a girl. Apparently guys aren't supposed to go into the establishments. On the radio, they even said that "If a guy asks to see a girl's photo booth sticker collection, that's very offensive. It's like asking to see someone's underwear." (I don't really know if it's true, but I'll go with the flow) The man and Lisa picked a photo booth that would make you into a Beautiful Girl. The man was given the chose of being a Sweet and Pretty Beautiful Girl or a Colorful Beautiful Girl, and he chose the former. They had to make a certain pose for the picture (not sure what the pose was, since this was on the radio, not on TV). Then they could decorate it, adding bees, and butterflies, or whatever things you can add. And then some sheets came out of the machine, with many identical little stickers of the decorated photo. (I heard that it cost 400 yen. That's like $4 in the USA.) Thus, the man had become a Beautiful Girl. XD

Afterwards the man said that he had seen girls in schoolgirl outfits just like the ones in the manga his daughter read. I thought this was interesting since when I had been in Japan, I had seen some students, but their outfits were black, and not like those sailor-style seifuku (uniforms) that you'll see often in anime. I wonder if I just didn't go to the right place. I'd like to go to Japan again, and go to Hokkaido so I can see the Sapporo Snow Festival, but unfortunately the Snow Festival is in January, so I'll be in school and I can't go.

There are other things I think about besides just things that are impossible are highly unlikely to happen, though. I think many of my peers are still caterpillars. They are young and restless and still innocent. They're still gold, like that poem by Robert Frost...

"Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

I saw this poem in the book The Outsiders. The meaning of the poem could be said to mean that nothing perfect can remain; something will go wrong and ruin it, because that's part of human nature. And it can also mean that you might be young and innocent, but you won't always be.

Some people strive for things, like getting all A's or becoming a doctor or making a million dollars or finding a cure for cancer. I've been wondering why they have such goals. If you want to be a doctor, is it because you truly think you can save lives? (If you're a veterinarian, you'll have to be prepared for killing animals, too, because sometimes you must euthanize them.) Or is it because your parents wanted you to? Because it was a respected career or for the money? Or for the title of Doctor? (Ashamedly, if I wanted to be a doctor, I would probably want it for the title.) I hope that my fellow people understand what their motives are for doing things. If you want good grades, is it to better yourself? To feel that you have improved and are striving for your limits? Or is it to keep your parents from hitting you and from taking away your privileges? It'd be good if everyone would take a little time to look at what they want to achieve, how they will achieve it, and why they want it. If they can't answer the why, a very important part, then probably they're truly a part of the rat race. I heard the rat race being described as, "We keep going and going even though we don't know why we do."

It's when you know yourself and your dreams and are fighting to achieve them that you truly turn into a butterfly.

Labels: beautiful girl, doctor, dreams, hayao miyazaki, innocence, japan, nothing gold can stay, photo booth, poem, radio, rat race, robert frost, sapporo snow festival, seifuku, the outsiders, uniform, youth

I thought of this while I was reading a book called The Outsiders for school. The book is about the 60's, and it takes place in Oklahoma, I think, or somewhere around there. The main character is a boy named Ponyboy, who is part of a gang made up his two brothers and his friends. Well, I'd never really read this kind of book before, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but it turned out to be better than I expected. Ponyboy and his brothers are fond of chocolate, and Ponyboy's brother said that if there was a such thing as a chocolate cigarettes, Ponyboy would've had one made. (By the way, Ponyboy is an avid smoker. One time he went to the countryside and a man told him, "You shouldn't be smoking." Ponyboy looked around for a No Smoking sign and didn't seen one. "Why not?" asked the confuzzled Ponyboy. "Well, uh...You're too young," said the man. Ponyboy was surprised - Ponyboy is only 14, by the way.)

Whenever I see people with lollipops in their mouths, I think that they're smoking at first. I saw a book full of pictures of flashy outfits people in Japan were wearing. (There were some things that looked fairly normal, but some of the outfits were pretty strange.) I saw lollipops in their mouths and assumed they were cigarettes at first but it turned out that they were lollipops...Whew.

I remember when I was young I used to just stick a carrot in my mouth and pretend I was smoking since I never want to try it for real. It's way too easy to get addicted to smoking so it's just better not to ever do it. Good people get ruined by smoking.

I overheard two of my classmates talking. One of them said, "A man walks into a bar." (He's telling a joke.) So the other guy said, "So?" And the one telling the joke said, exasperated, "Don't you get it? You're so slow!" Basically, in this joke, a man doesn't walk into the kind of bar where you drink alcohol. He walks into an actual bar. Now that would hurt. (I only understood the joke because I had heard someone else tell it before)

Anyways, back to The Outsiders...There was something in the book that I found interesting. Ponyboy, as he narrates the story, mentioned that he liked Two-Bit's mom because she was humorous, but not lazy like Two-Bit. (Two-Bit is a joking guy who likes school for some weird reason and is in Ponyboy's gang) Then Ponyboy said Two-Bit's mother let Two-Bit get away with murder. Ponyboy was making Two-Bit's mother sound like a good person, so this was a bit of a shock. That's a very interesting parent there.

I've been wondering about something for a pretty long time now. One time I was at school, because I heard there was free ice cream (but the line was too long. Just earlier there had been a dance so many students were at the school). A woman asked me, "Are you J?" (J stands for the name of the person, I didn't want to reveal her name) I said, "No," and moved on. I bet that person didn't know how J looked or something - I mean, I don't wear glasses. Anyhow, J is of Korean decent. And people sometimes think either that I look Korean or my dad does. (Then again, maybe it's because some people aren't good at telling, people occasionally ask me if I'm Japanese) Plus, both my mom and dad's last names are Korean last names. It's sort of uncanny. I keep wondering if I could be Korean instead of Chinese but all my relatives live in China. Then again, Koreans once came from China. I mean, even the language has some similarities, and names for nobility used to be taken from Chinese. I'm always been curious about where I really come from. (Well, Africa originally, it can be traced back there, even if people insist they aren't from there, like my dad said the aboriginals in Australia said they were from Australia, not Africa, even when DNA tests were taken) I wonder if there is a way to find out. It would probably take a long time trying to trace it all the way back. I mean, for one thing, China has a huge population, so would there even be any documents? And it would be written in Chinese (Mandarin) so I wouldn't be able to read it...

Labels: africa, bar, chinese, chocolate, cigarette, heritage, joke, korean, lollipop, name, parents, ponyboy, smoking, the outsiders, two-bit

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