Love... is a beautiful thing....

Nice love story, with a happy end...
Happy Tree Friends style...

check it out...

Fall Out Boy - Carpal Tunnel Of Love
Uploaded by thehackfilm

Intelligent Humor....

Living in Japan, people often ask me, what do I miss the most. The first thing people ask is if I miss the food, the people, the language but I find it quite difficult to answer such question.

A few weeks ago, just screwing around the Internet and checking youtube, I finally found the answer to that question. What do I miss the most ? Intelligent Humor. 

I was never the classroom's clown, or someone who had the talent for telling jokes and making them interesting. I was never someone that would draw everyone's attention at a bar table so that I could tell a joke. I am more of a quiet kind of guy, but quite the observer. I love sarcasm. I tend to use it a bit too often, and that has gotten me in quite a few bad situations. However, I still like to make witty remarks on different situations, and I pride myself in having a general background that enables me to know enough to link situations and make them humorous.

However, living in Japan kinda makes it a handicap to try to use humor. Japanese people's humor is completely different than the traditional Western Humor. I love stand up comedy. One one my idols is Chris Rock. Recently, talking to a Japanese friend about the elections in the US, I recommended him to watch Chris Rock's latest HBO special "Kill the Messenger".

The guy watched the special and said he didn't find it that much interesting. 

Sure, stand up comedians like Chris Rock make a lot of references to Western Culture, that most Japanese don't know, so I guess that makes it a little difficult to understand.

The so-called Warai-Geinin (the Funny Personalities) in Japan are famous for making weird faces or weird routines, that have very little appeal to us foreigners. A few of them are kind of funny, but after a few times you get tired of them...

 

So, yeah, the thing I miss the most is intelligent humor.

I will post a small youtube video of Chris Rock's special, and a recently discovered brazilian stand-up comedian (the only video from that guy that has English subtitles), so enjoy...

Punk'd by the Sheets

Scene - After 40+ hours of traveling, arrival at Osaka International House 1 - Hall 2

Date - April 6, 10pm"ish"

The longest trip I have ever taken in my entire life originated quite a funny story. My first comical situation after arriving in a completely different country. Differences between Brazil and Japan go deep into the culture, even into the "sleeping" culture.

Growing up in Brazil, close the United States of America, we are subject to the North American culture in so many ways that we don't even notice. Ever since I started paying attention, in my house, we have always used box-sheets (you know, those sheets that have an elastic band on the bottom part, so that we can easily wrap the mattress with the sheets). On top of the sheets, we usually have another "layer" of sheets. And on top of the second layer of sheets, we usually put a blanket. That is how it was, that is how it has been, and that is how it will be.

A few years ago, I  decided to use a Japanese style blanket, called Futon, that was very common in my grandma's house. The Futon is a very thick blanket, but even with the Futon, I was still using the "second layer sheets" and the traditional blanket. (I do that because I move around quite a lot when I'm sleeping, so I put three layers so that I can increase the probability of having something covering me when I wake up....)

So, arriving in the Dorm where I am currently living, I was given a big plastic bag with all the linens I would be using. 2 sheets, a futon, a blanket and single-sized "white thingy", that I didn't know what the hell I was going to do that. Let's call it "Blanket #2".

Remember, this is already close to midnight, after 2 full days of very little, uncomfortable sleep.

I get the bag line everything up on the floor, to start thinking what is going to happen next.

First off, the sheet that will cover the mattress. I look at the all the goods on the floor and think: "That should be a kind of box sheet". I pick it up and look at it. It has a weird egg-shaped hole in the middle.

"Hum, that can only be the whole I should put the mattress in, right?!"  So I start by taking the sheets and wrapping it around the right corner of the mattress. OK. Next, the left corner.

I look at the situation and realize that something is not right. That left corner of the sheet cannot possibly reach the end of the left corner of the mattress to fit.

"Well, maybe it is a very tight fit. You know, Japanese are so advanced that they probably engineered sheets and mattresses to fit together perfectly! I will put a little bit of elbow grease on it and try to shove it in...."

After a couple of tries, I realize that if I keep that up, I will probably tear the sheets, and give up.

I decided to just place the sheet which was intended to be the second layer of sheets on top of the mattress and then cover myself with the futon, blanket and the white thingy. (Remember, it was April. Not completely cold like January, but still quite cold for someone who 2 days earlier was enjoying a nice summer barbecue in Brazil.)

The next day, I wake up and meet my neighbor (who came with me on the same flight from Tokyo) and he asks me how did I manage with the sheets. 

"I forgot that in Japan they use Futon Covers instead of sheets, and that they wrap the mattress around with the plain sheet", said the neighbor.

"Oh yeah, the Futon Cover was really nice", said I, but in reality, I was thinking: "Goddamn, that was a Futon cover and not sheets...."

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At that point, I decided to keep my mouth shut and not leak this story to anyone...

April 6th, 2007, the day I became Homer Simpson... heheh

Video Debut

For all SWYers,

A week before the departure ceremony of SWY20, I was invited to show up for a Fuji TV interview about the Ship for World Youth.

Sure, it was a promotional video, but I had fun doing it... there you go

禁煙 X 喫煙 - A filthy habit

Since I came to Japan, people often ask me if there is anything that I don't like about the country. Right there, on the spot, it is hard to think of an answer, so I usually say that I don't like the fact that all trains stop running around midnight, so we can't party until late at night, or I usually say that I don't like not having a car in Japan, because it makes me have to worry about rain and cold when getting out of the house or something not so meaningful like that.

However, as I was having dinner today, I had a revelation of sorts. I went to Hard Rock Cafe in Ueno Station in Tokyo, around 6pm, which is a bit after rush hour, but is usually the time when restaurants and cafes in Japan are really crowded and I realized that I hate the fact that Japan doesn't have stricter rules towards tobacco. Most restaurants still have "Smoking" and "No-Smoking" areas, but in some places that distinction doesn't exist.

My "beef" is not with the people who smoke. Most of my best friends do smoke, and smoke quite heavily, but they are still my friends! However I hate that I stink cigarettes when I come back home, I hate that I have to immediately wash my clothes if I don't want the whole place to stink cigarettes, or if it is a jacked or a scarf, I have to hang outside for a few hours until the smell goes away.

My cousin lives in the US, a country in which I witnessed the arrival of the Phillip-Morris' "Promotion Team" to a bar, and I was asked to show my passport to the guy and get my cousin a couple of extra packs of free cigs. The company employees just scanned everyone's driver's licenses, and gave away 2 packs each. Because I was holding a passport, which didn't have the barcode required for scanning, the guy just said to me - "Here, I will give you 2 packs". Incredible

That very same cousin came to Japan last July and went for a coffee and a smoke in a Tully's Coffee in Tokyo. After 30 minutes, he left the coffee shop feeling a bit intoxicated with the smoke. A couple of days later, he was in bed for a good 25 hours feeling completely sick...

Makes me wonder why a country that has people who have never seen a joint and walk freely with a Marijuana leaf pendant or T-Shirt, completely oblivious of its meaning, doesn't have stricter rules against tobacco!

As a friend once pointed out to me - "Dude, if I ever woke up and realized that I was Japanese, I would definitely need some sort of inebriating substance to make me feel a little better".

I don't agree with that, but I am sure that the strict Japanese social standards make life a lot harder, that people only escape route is smoking and alcohol!