Pwn3d!

There you have it — the latest fad in the media, including blogs. Everywhere you look, you read that people protest “in solidarity” with Tibetan people and in opposition to “China’s human-rights record”. Good, good. That’s very nice. So nice, in fact, that I’ve decided to go with this fad, too.

For all these people who’ve been making such a big fuss over Tibet lately, here’s some food for thought: why didn’t you do anything to “support” Tibetans one, five or fifteen years ago? Most people who cry foul now barely had a clue of what was going on in Tibet — until an unfortunate chain of events made China be chosen as the host for the Olympic games this year.

Anyone with at least some decent knowledge on international affairs should’ve seen this coming.

And here’s another fact. China is big. China is powerful. And China blatantly doesn’t give a crap about what the rest of the world is saying, going so far as to huff the international media and even call journalists liers — even when they are obviously reporting the truth. International media would have no reason to churn out “lies” such as that the protests in Tibet killed over a hundred people or that the Olympic torch was extinguished several times in Paris. The Chinese, however, have every single reason to try and block out or dismiss this kind of news, which obviously tarnish their image even more.

If we’re to be honest with ourselves, the world knew what was happening long before the protests in Tibet drew the attention of the whole world. And what did the world do? Obviously, not much. Why? Because, as I said before, China is too powerful to be messed around with. This, in turns, leads to another question. What’s worth more? Military and economic power, or human rights? Common sense would incline the balance in the favor of the latter. Then again, given how twisted international politics are nowadays, the former seems a lot more important than the fact that some people are suffering in a land far, far away.

I doubt we’ll see any spectacular developments with this issue in the nearby future. The Olympics will go on, more or less as planned, and in less than a year Tibet will be swept under the rug once again — as once again, humanitarianism and common sense will bow before the almighty power of money and nukes.

One of the annoying things about Google is that it “reads” the default region set for your computer and, if possible, displays its page in a language to match that region. This can be a pain in the behind for some people (including myself, since my computer’s region is set to Japan and I consequently used to get Japanese-language results by default). What’s even more annoying is that, even though you try to access google.com, you’re still taken to a regional version in the end.

The easiest way to fix this is by typing http://google.com/ncr in your browser’s address bar. This will override any automatic redirection and take you to the plain ol’ Google instead.

Another way to fix this is by accessing the “Preferences” area and manually change the settings you want from there — but let’s face it, that’s way more trouble than it’s worth

As for what NCR stands for — well, personally, I don’t have a clue. My take is that it’s an abbreviation on “Not Change Region”, or something of that sort. Oh well.

I was buzzing around the ‘net earlier today, when I came across something… kind of unusual: a list containing The 100 Oldest Currently Registered Internet Domains.

According to the list, symbolics.com was the Internet’s very first registered domain on March 15, 1985, followed by bbn.com and think.com. While the last two websites (owned by BBN Technologies and the Oracle Education Foundation) are still going strong, symbolics.com points to what one may call the most basic kind of website — the kind of website that people learning HTML for the first time might throw together when they’re bored. This is enough for us to get an idea of what the Internet might have looked like ten to twenty years ago, before JavaScript, Flash or fancy DHTML.

The same list also reveals that Xerox, IBM, Sun, Intel and Adobe were among the first companies to register their own .com domain. Surprisingly enough, Microsoft is nowhere in the list, showing that the world’s most hated corporate giant IMHO dismissed the Internet as nothing more than a “fad” at that time — an opinion shared by lots of people who know a lot more than I do on that subject

* Some of the following facts may or may not be 100% accurate [remember that rumors are, after all, rumors and nothing more]. Also, some students asked me not to disclose their names in this article — hence the series of innitials and abbreviations.

Throughout the year I spent at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies (大阪外国語大学) — which has recently become the Osaka University School of Foreign Languages (大阪大学外国語学部) — many of the odd, funny or downright disgusting events that rocked my dorm had something to do with the satisfying of one of the most basic human needs: the need to pee and poop.

IT ALL BEGAN WITH THE PEE BAG

Sometime around Golden Week [beginning of May] last year, somebody thought it would be really funny to pee in a bag and abandon it on the fifth floor toilet ~ where, at least in theory, the residents were girls only. This lead to an “emergency meeting” by the dormitory supervisor and a desperate plea that “if you need to *go*, then *prease* (…yes, prease) use the TOILET and not… a bag”. At the time, it reminded me of a scene in the movie Borat where the protagonist shows up at the table with a bag full of douche and asks innocently what he should do with that.

EXAMS CAN SRSLY STRESS PPL OUT

I., a Japanese Culture student from Netherlands, caught one of the Vietnamese undergraduate students using a shower as a toilet cubicle. When he reported the culprit to the dorm supervisor, the only answer he received was that “classes and exams must’ve seriously stressed the poor fellow out, don’t be too rough on him”. The next day, someone took a crap in the same cubicle. I wonde, who’s stressing out who in this case?

SMELLY FRIENDS

On the fifth floor, a girl took another crap in one of the showers. This time, the culprit was unknown. The dom supervisor posted an announcement on the notice board the next day stating that the office “does not tolerate smelly friends” and respectfully asks all residents to report any such incidents as soon as possible. Things were a little more quiet after that — although it seems that some people still have to learn the difference between a shower cubicle and a bush.

IN VIETNAM, WE POOP IN THE GARDEN

N., an undergraduate student from Croatia, says that a Vietnamese student told him that “in Vietnam, we pee or poop in the garden or behind the house”. N. also says that some of the Indonesian male students “don’t use toilet paper; they bring a bottle of water and wash themselves after they’re done”. As for Indonesian female students, they have — as I came to notice several times — difficulties in understanding the concept of flushing the toilet after after you’re done.

In China, things look even more grim. A., a Hungarian student, says he heard from a Chinese girl that in some regions of China “there are no toilets at all”. People “line up and squat alongside water canals and they just let it all out”. In bigger cities, however, “you can find a squat toilet if you look hard enough”, says a Japanese friend who studied in China for half a year. “If you can’t find anything and you really have to go, you can just look for a back alley and do your thing there. Nobody really pays attention to what you’re doing there”.

CULTURE VS. BEING CIVILIZED

People from different countries have different cultures. That, I can comply with. Lack of any decency or respect for your peers, however, is something I could never go with. Some people might call me racist, Vietnamese [Indonesian / Chinese] hater or other pretty stuff like that. Truth be told, I have absolutely nothing against either these countries or their people. I do have a problem with some of the Vietnamese / Indonesians / Chinese I met on-campus, and nothing can change that. For some of them, I hate their guts for certain reasons — like shooting fireworks inside the doorm [yes, fireworks, and yes, inside the dorm], crapping in the shower or attempting suicide and causing a fuss for absolutely no reason.

…Since I’ve been living here for almost a year, I figured it’s time to sum up that so-called ‘culture shock’ thing. The idea has been playing around my head for quite some time, and here’s what I came up with in the end.

Top 5 WOW

1. Japan is a free country. And I mean, FREE. As in, EXTREMELY free. Japanese value the freedom of expression more than being “politically correct” and all that other sh*t. If you feel like running down the street and shouting “Nuke Vietnam!” [or go around in a van and broadcast from there], you’re free to do so. Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone has to nod and say, “Yes, that’s right”. Extreme stuff might lead to extreme repression from some folks — but the police won’t raise a finger to stop you. It is, indeed, a free country

2. People are polite and everyone has their fair share of respect. Although foreigners are looked down upon. A little bit. But even if you’re foreign, people will still smile and nod, clerks will do their job impecably, and old ladies will refuse a couple times before taking the bus / train seat you’re offering.

3. Shinkansen is made of pure w1n. Which is my personal favorite means of transportation ATM. Which, by the way, is an abbreviation for “At the moment” rather than a not-so-subtle [and equally stupid] reference at cash dispensers. Shinkansen pwnz big. You can eat, sleep, read the latest news, admire the view, and travel over 500 kilometers in less than three hours — all that, while sipping a b33r and enjoying a cig. Not to mention that the shinkansen is ten times more “environment-friendly” than a plane. And faster.

4.  Japanese people have an awesome sense of fashion. Well, most of them, anyway, and some gothic lols or visual kei hotheads are even pretty to look at. Aside from that though, I love Japanese fashion — it’s really easy to get a sw33t outfit with an original dash, even when you’re running a low budget.

5. Japan is SAFE.  Unlike my home country, where you can get robbed or molested in a packed train without anyone raising a finger to help you, in Japan you can walk around almost anywhere [except for Kabukichou (歌舞伎町) in Tokyo, where the Yakuza hang out] and at any time without having to be constantly on the lookout for rapists, burglars, serial killers, gangs or whatever else. This is one of the reasons I fell in love with this country. For r34l.

Top 5 WTF

1. Talking… things. Whether it’s an escalator, an elevator, a toilet (YES, a toilet!) or the train doors, things in Japan have this annoying tendency to play a pre-recorded warning every other minute — something along the lines of, “Doing … is very dangerous, please be careful”, “This … can be dangerous, please be careful” or “Please be careful [not] to…”. As you might notice, the “please be careful” [”gochuu-i kudasai” (ご注意下さい)] is a must. And when I heard that “This escalator is VERY dangerous!”, I WTFed.

2. Chikan. “Chikan” (痴漢) translates as “sexual maniac”, “pervert” or “rapist”, depending on the context. Now, either Japan is absolutely packed with perverts (which I actually doubt), or Japanese women srsly need to pop a chill pill and relax. I’ve seen more than a dozen signs with “Please look out for chikan” or “Chikan is a crime”, and in some big cities there are even train carts exclusively for women. Does having your ass groped leave you with a trauma? I… srsly don’t think so.

3. The “Yes / No” Dilemma. Japanese absolutely CAN’T say “yes” or “no” [especially “no”] straight to your face. It appears to be part of their culture to accept as discreetly as possible, and refuse as politely as possible, so as to “not upset the other person”. The funny thing is the endless twists and turns they employ in super-sophisticated phrases can sometimes get on your nerves even more than being refused straight off the bat.

4. Yu- supi-ku Japani-zu? Oh WOW! …This happened quite a few times, actually — salespersons, clerks or just random people I met in the train marveling that I can speak Japanese, even though I’m tall, have blue eyes and big boobs [which means I’m a foreigner, which in turns means I couldn’t possibly speak Japanese apart from “Konnichiwa” or “Doumo arigatou gozaimasu”]. Being talked to in English is actually more distressing than being talked to in normal Japanese [”hyoujungo” (標準語)] or even the Osaka dialect [”Kansai-ben” (関西弁)], seeing as I absolutely CAN’T make out what they’re saying most of the time.

5. Engrish. While we’re on the subject of English language in Japan, let me say that 99% of the English I’ve seen here so far was by no means correct or accurate — and sometimes, it made no sense at all. Example: bilingual poster saying that room doors will be checked on day X and adding an ambiguous “We expect you to keep your key” at the end. Nobody figured that we were actually supposed to take the key with us or we’d end up locked outside […and locked up outside we were LOL]. Don’t even get me started on “Please waste” [instead of “Please put your waste here”] or “Barnables” [instead of “Burnables”].

*looks around*

I s’pose this thing is up and running now. It took me some time to learn how to get around PHPMyAdmin [seeing as EZ Web Hosting’s cPanel has a few quirks when it comes about finding the stuff you need, ESPECIALLY if you’re a WordPress n00b like me :)]. I finally did it though, last night at around… wait, was it this morning? OK, never mind.

‘Newayz, this is my public blog [as opposed to oneofthe1337, which is my private (friends-only) blog]. Expect lots of rants and facts in the nearby future. If you want to exchange links, drop me a mail at odeena_rockstar@yahoo.com