Monday, January 17, 2011
Differences I
Stroll through a park in Japan. What do you notice? It is true that it is generally cleaner and that it is probably a bit less noisy, but based upon stereotypes almost anyone would have made these guesses. The bag of salty squid crackers that you were eating has made you thirsty and with the empty wrapper in your hand you go to look for a drinking fountain and a trash can, all the while noting other small differences between this park and one in your home country. After about twenty minutes of walking you will realize that this entire five acre park does not contain a single trash can or drinking fountain. You see a public restroom and speculate that you will at least be able to find a trash can inside this. Frustration begins to awaken in you as you realize that not only is there no trash can in the restroom, there is also no apparatus for drying one’s hands. Now with damp hands you continue on your search. Depending on your determination, it could be hours later that you finally give up, put the wrapper into your pocket and walk home. It is then that you suddenly realize that I set you up with that bag of crackers.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Complex Logic of Shoe Removal.
Enter a Japanese school and you will be asked to remove your shoes. This in itself is not so surprising, many Japanese buildings require shoe removal, including some restaurants and athletic areas. What seem like straightforward rules though, "Come to school, change into indoor slippers when you enter" quickly become more complicated. For example: in practice, it is possible to not remove your shoes, provided you arrive in slippers and enter through the back. In a hand-wavy sense, the vector field which describes the social pressure to remove shoes is not conservative. Two paths are not always equal when it comes to removing shoes.
Furthermore, as gyms are usually a separate building from the high school, attending assemblies and sporting events requires one to walk outside through the dust, yet one is not required to change back into outdoor shoes to do this. Perhaps we should admit certain outside areas to what we consider "inside the school". After all, there are certainly architectural features that suggest the notion that we are still in the "school" during these transition periods. There is clearly a lot of intuition required to understand the exact times when one must remove one's shoes. It was be interesting to create a map that showed the topography of shoe removal, just as one might use different colors do indicate different ecosystems in a given area.
Furthermore, as gyms are usually a separate building from the high school, attending assemblies and sporting events requires one to walk outside through the dust, yet one is not required to change back into outdoor shoes to do this. Perhaps we should admit certain outside areas to what we consider "inside the school". After all, there are certainly architectural features that suggest the notion that we are still in the "school" during these transition periods. There is clearly a lot of intuition required to understand the exact times when one must remove one's shoes. It was be interesting to create a map that showed the topography of shoe removal, just as one might use different colors do indicate different ecosystems in a given area.
The beginning of a story inspired by grading tests...
For some reason he had always found the answer slightly haunting. He was not sure why. Certainly, red houses are not something that one comes across often, thus adding extra mystery to why the house was empty. He looked at it again:
“…find the red house empty.”
Of course the students had fumbled through it in the beginning. By now he had seen every possible permutation of the five words. But this was the third test that the sentence had appeared on and this time at least the majority of students from the top class, 1-1, were getting the right order of words.
“…find the red house empty”. It was a peculiar sentence. One whose incompletion was particularly frustrating. He pictured a maroon house, which would (outside of its color) easily fit into a lower middle class American suburb, probably, he speculated, built in the 70’s. It is late afternoon on a summer day, that time when everyone is experiencing the second largest dip in their metabolism for the twenty four period. This, coupled with the hot sun, now at the perfect eye-striking angle, lends a sickliness to the stagnant air. The lawn is yellow around the house, contrast garishly with the maroon walls. There is no garden, just a cracked walkway through the golden front lawn. The dilapidation could be indicative that the house is inhabited by young adults (college students perhaps), but that seems unlikely considering the lack of life around the place.
He imagined walking up the driveway and onto the path. He notices that the door is slightly ajar. Inside it is dark.
“…find the red house empty.”
Of course the students had fumbled through it in the beginning. By now he had seen every possible permutation of the five words. But this was the third test that the sentence had appeared on and this time at least the majority of students from the top class, 1-1, were getting the right order of words.
“…find the red house empty”. It was a peculiar sentence. One whose incompletion was particularly frustrating. He pictured a maroon house, which would (outside of its color) easily fit into a lower middle class American suburb, probably, he speculated, built in the 70’s. It is late afternoon on a summer day, that time when everyone is experiencing the second largest dip in their metabolism for the twenty four period. This, coupled with the hot sun, now at the perfect eye-striking angle, lends a sickliness to the stagnant air. The lawn is yellow around the house, contrast garishly with the maroon walls. There is no garden, just a cracked walkway through the golden front lawn. The dilapidation could be indicative that the house is inhabited by young adults (college students perhaps), but that seems unlikely considering the lack of life around the place.
He imagined walking up the driveway and onto the path. He notices that the door is slightly ajar. Inside it is dark.
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