TJI: Japanese Hippies

This is what Japanese Hippies look like... in my opinion they're doing it all wrong. You're supposed to pass out the acid before you start playing with this toys.

Sorry for the sideways video.

Gold Mines

Coming to Japan in early March, I arrived to sea of moon faces and sterile medical masks. For the first month I was living in Japan I always wondered why the Japanese wore those damn medical masks. It reminded me of the SARs outbreak from way back when. It reminded me of this beautiful woman.

(I just wanted to use this photo)

Months later I found out that the damn near 50% of the Japanese population suffer from Hay Fever and terrible allergies thus the reason for the sea of stupid medical masks.  I suffer from asthma and terrible pollen-ous days in America damn near kill me... but here in Japan a regular pollen day has no affect on me. 

The pollen plague apparently stems from the 70s and 80s (or maybe the 60s and 70s). I'm no history major but I was told that during Japan's economic boom (post-WWII) construction began rapidly increasing. The Japanese chose the Japanese Cedar and Japanese Cypress tree to fuel the construction boom and with it they sealed their fates. During the months of February-March winds carry the pollen from these trees throughout Japan.

I'm not sure if there is anything else in the air, but whatever there is it makes for one fucking dusty ass house. Now I'm not blaming it entirely on Japan, as I've been known to shed quite a few skin cells and hair (more so than most normal people I think); However, there is no reason for the following photos below.

These before and after photos are from only a day of not cleaning... No that is not hair, nor is it food crumbs; it's dust and other shit that magically floats in through the windows. Notice the entirety of my household too.. The photo was taken, by accident, in the same spot. Photo one faces the balcony and photo two faces the door; that is the entirety of my place. WTF Japan.

But don't despair peoples there is a shinning light through all of this... and that's the boogers!!

If you're a picker like I am then you're going to have tons of fun each morning with bad boys like these:

Same nostril =D

Welcome to Japan! Happy digging!

Like California like Japan

This just in...
Apparently there are illegal mexicans in Japan too. They come for cheap labor.

A student of mine works for a NPO whose mission is to ensure illegal/ alien students go to school. Often when families immigrate to Japan for work, the kids learn Japanese faster than the adults.  So, the adults will then use the kids as personal translators, making the kids miss school to use them at work and etcetera.

Further, the illegals (Mexicans, Brazilians, Chileans, and Peruvians) have permanent residency. My student tells me that the aliens do not give birth to children in their hospital, but birth their children by other means.  This is important because the newborns do not get registered into the Japanese system and live as illegals (meaning they don't go to school because the system doesn't catch them). Why they do this I have no idea, but yeah.


Soooo as these families stay longer in Japan they begin to create their own community.  My student has told me that they often go to these communities and try to round up the kids to take them to school, but the kids have been coached to not speak to them nor reveal any information about the parents whereabouts.

An interesting situation, but for I know I can't really make an opinion about it. The Japanese face population problems and the foreigners living here help that so whatever.