All I Want From You Is Love

Tonight is the last goodbye to Seoul. Yesterday, when I was walking through an underground mall late at night, Hyunjoo and a couple of her friends were in front of me, and I was walking behind with her little sister. I eventually said, "After I leave again, we might not see each other again. Is that okay?" and she looked at me and said "It's not okay" and started crying. It was so touching, I was shocked. Hyunjoo told me she gets emotionally attached pretty easily and all the time she spends making fun of me (which is a LOT of time) shows how much she likes me. I'll miss her a lot.

Today was a pretty emotional day I guess for a lot of reasons. And tomorrow I have to say goodbye to Korea probably for a very long time. It's going to be a difficult goodbye. The end of the year and this last 5 days here has made me think a lot about what separates someone or something from being forgotten or remembered. And not just think, but worry about it. But I won't get into any heavy existential musings on memory here.

On to today's Top 5, a double dosage. From afar, I have been able to consider Japan as a whole and produce these ideas.

Top 5 Things Japan Needs More Of:
(5) Trashcans - One of the great mysteries of Japan is how it remains one of the planet's most impeccably clean countries with such a dearth of waste receptacles. This actually isn't so annoying to me anymore because i've grown accustomed to carry trash around with me until I can find the tiny little trashcans spread throughout the country (the majority of which are in front of convenience stores). But then, the fact that I had to get used to that is kind of annoying itself.
(4) Large-size quantities of things - When Hyunjoo was here, we had a hell of a time trying to find ice cream larger than a small cup. And the huge chip bag size is the same as the 99 cent bag back in the states. I can see why Japanese people weigh so much less than Americans and live longer.
(3) Personal odor prevention products - A lot of people either need to wear deodorant or do their laundry more often, because there are way too many people who smell like they just took their hockey uniform off walking around. There is also a large halitosis problem around here, and the reason could be a host of things: weak toothpaste, lack of mouthwash, diet. I don't know. But the country needs one giant tic-tac.
(2) Buildings with insulation - this one is easy. I'm freezing to death in my apartment right now, but I'm living in one of the world's most developed countries. That just makes no sense.
(1) Close Personal Relationships - Japanese people seem to keep people at arms length, both emotionally and physically, not really getting into deep emotional discussions too often or even hugging each other. I think a lot of social problems could be solved here if people started getting into each other's business more.

(other nominees: Mexican food, braces, time-management skills)

Top 5 Things Japan Needs Less Of:
(5) Paper-based Organizational Systems - Today, when returning from Korea, it took a form with 2 carbon copies, 3 people, and about 15 minutes to change $40 of Korean won into Japanese yen. That is ridiculous and a small example of how much form-filling-out and waiting you have to do around here. And it's like that for pretty much everything.
(4) Sketchy Relationships - When my friend happily tells me she had dinner bought for her by some older man she doesn't really know, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react. But there is a lot of sketchy stuff going on around here. Just walk through Kokubuncho (Sendai's entertainment district) and take in all the business men with their young mistresses or going to hostess bars. Yuck.
(3) Defeated Salarymen - Too many sad, faceless men walking around living dead-end lives filled with only work. And they all dress the same. They all could use new suits, new haircuts, and new glasses. They could use a new employment system too.
(2) Clutter - For a country so cramped for space, there sure is a lot of clutter around here. Or maybe it's precisely because it's so small that there is a lot of clutter. All I know is that my relative's houses are just filled with shit lying around and my school's campus basically just has old junk like broken desks and chairs, boxes filled with outdated equipment, and old file cabinets just lying around everywhere. In hallways, outside buildings, outside the club houses. Best of all is the professor in the econ department who just sits in the center of the room surrounded by mounds of journals and publications. You can't see any proper furniture - just mounds of paper.
(1) Foreigner Worship - Japan is constantly in the midst of some kind of "boom" where something foreign becomes illogically popular - two years ago it was David Beckham, soccer, and England. Right now, it's Pae Yon-joon (referred to as Yon-sama) and Korea. There is a tendency to view forein things as automatically incredibly cool (in a way that is more obsessive than most countries) and foreign people as really good looking or really sophisticated or just really cool. It gets a little old.

(other nominees: an unnecessarily high number of people working the same shift, excessive packaging, shy introverts)