Help Needed

6 months ago, an earthquake rocked the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, killing thousands, and displacing even more. Relief efforts are still ongoing; millions upon millions were donated, and Haiti was all one heard about for weeks.

Now, a similar terror is raging its way through Pakistan, and I don't know about you, but I haven't heard a whole lot about it. Relief seems to be slow in trickling in, but the death toll is already above 1,400, and expected to grow higher. In the meantime, literally MILLIONS have been displaced from their homes, lost their livelihoods, and are stranded waiting on relief supplies and rescue.

The Huffington Post put together a helpful list of non-profits working in the area you can donate to, and what they are doing to specifically help relief efforts. Please, if you have some spare money, donate. If you have some spare time and are so inclined, pray.

Photo: AP/BK Bangash

riding the subway, strange things happen.

Growing up in South Dakota, transportation was either by car or your own two feet. None of these newfangled "trains" or "subways." My first time ever taking a subway that was of substantial size was in London, at 20 years old. I got somewhat used to working the subways and metro systems while in Europe, but not by much.

I got a little bit better when I went to Boston and NYC with Kim in Spring of 2009 - in those larger cities, subway was the only way to get around.

I like to think I got a little more used to it being in NYC on my own in December, but I would hardly call myself "experienced" at working public transit.

So it's a bit nerve wracking for my first major, every day uses of public transit to come when I'm living in a place where I don't speak the language and can't read the signs. My first time taking the bus was an accomplishment. Taking the subway on my own two weeks ago to go see Inception in theaters was major for me - I got there and back with only one missed train.

As I'm getting more and more experienced about how to get to places via bus and train, I'm beginning to pay more attention to my fellow passengers. I've noticed a few things that tend to happen on Japanese public transport that really don't happen anywhere else, mainly: sleep.

In NYC or Boston, you fall asleep on public transit to your own peril - you probably should have a good grip on whatever personal belongings you have if you want them to make the trip with you.

In Yamaguchi-ken in Japan? Not so much.

I don't know what makes Japan so safe. Maybe it's a cultural thing - being a crook is so looked down upon that it makes it hard for anyone to be one. Maybe it's just that this is a very traditional area and people are more trusting of each other - kind of like small town South Dakota. Regardless, I feel incredibly safe on public transit, though I think it'll be ages before I fall asleep on it.

Now, I tell you this first part so that I may tell you the second:

As the foreigner, I tend to get some weird looks on the trains. People notice when a tall white person walks in. But I've been discovering that that won't preclude them from sitting themselves or their children near me.

Yesterday, I took a trip to Kokura to go shopping for a new travel backpack (and was successful, by the by), and a man boarded the train with two small children. One was probably around 5 and the other around 3 or 4 (I'm terribly about estimating ages though). The smaller of the two took a seat next to me, set his shoes on the floor and sat back. It was the cute little kid sort of sitting where the feet don't quite reach the floor so they're just left dangling over the side.

I smiled at the kids and at the old lady seated across from us, and proceeded to alternate between playing games on my iPod and looking out the window. About halfway to Kokura (a 15 minute ride), I felt something hit my shoulder. I turned slightly to see what it was, and the little boy had fallen asleep and slumped over against my shoulder. I stared at him for a minute, unsure of what to do. The father wasn't paying all that close of attention, and the boy seemed to be fine, so I decided to let it be. Heck, if I can be a temporary pillow for a Japanese three year old, why not?

I looked up to see the old woman across the way smiling. Soon after, the father noticed that something was up, and looked down at his kid. He then tried to wake the boy up and looked apologetically at me. I signaled, as best I could, that it was fine and he could sleep. Our stop was coming up though, so the father persisted in trying to wake up his son.

Have you ever baby sat a little kid and when they don't want to do something, they just go limp?

That's what this kid did. When his dad tried to wake him, he faked being still asleep and just went limp in the seat. At this point, the old lady and I burst out laughing and the father smiled. He eventually managed to get his son cooperative enough to hoist him up piggy back style and carry him off the train.

Even though we didn't speak any of the same language, we were all able to laugh together and understand the humor of the situation. It was one of my favorite moments so far in Japan.

what a beautiful God there must be.

My thoughts right now are a jumbled mess of things.

I was going to go shopping, but then I started doing some reading about sweatshops and production, and figured I didn't need to spend that money today. And then I started watching interviews and reading about evangelical responses to abortion, and that got me going thinking about orphans and adoptions. And then I read a very well written blog about fundamentalism and women in the home, and that got me going off in another related direction. And then I read some in a new book recommended to me by a friend - The Purity Myth, and tried to sort out where I sit between extreme feminism, and the conservative church's stance on modesty.

Sorting out where I stand is a hard thing. I am 24 years and 5 months old, and I'm still trying on identities, figuring out what labels to use for myself. I am pretty comfortable with my "liberal" label, often comfortable with the "Christian" label - except when it connotes in the minds of others a foaming at the mouth rabid fundamentalist. I'm pretty okay with the academic label, perfectly happy to be called a nerd (those are two separate things), and I'm proud when convenient of my "Midwestern" label, though most of the time not proud of the "American" label. Labeling oneself is part of what gives us identity because it associates us with a community, claims other parts of a community as part of our identity, and tells people a general idea of how we think and feel. The problem with labels comes when people only pay attention to the label and don't look below the surface, a mistake I myself have made more than once.

There are the even more controversial labels: "feminist," for one. "Activist" for another. "Liberal Democrat" third, even though this last is not one I would even pin on myself, but instead have been called by others.

These are the labels that have preconceived notions others use to vilify. "Feminism" was created so that "unattractive women [could have] easier access to mainstream society," Rush Limbaugh is so famous for saying. "Social Justice Activists" are a danger to America and society in general, Gloom and Doom commentator Glenn Beck is fond of repeating. "Liberal Democrats" are also at fault.

And then there are the labels I pin on others, and use to vilify them: "conservative," "fundamentalist," "anti-women," etc.

In going through life, I'll try on a lot of different labels. Today has been one step in that process as I try to think through what communities I want to identify with, which communities I think Jesus would identify with. And while I don't have a conclusion yet, I do know this: He wouldn't let labels define him. Even at his worst moment, hanging on the Cross, people were trying to pin labels on him, and none of them fit: "King of the Jews," "Criminal," "weak." And what I do know is that, despite whatever labels people identify with for themselves, Jesus accepts them as they are. The tax collectors, the Samaritans, the poor and the oppressed. Those are the types of labeled people Jesus hung out with. And I hope I can learn to ignore those labels as he did.

So I guess the most fitting label for me right now would be "work in progress."

100 Things - My list

Click to embiggen.
comment on #80: Edit to read: VISIT Alexandria, Egypt, where the library was.

Is This Right?

Take the next 5 minutes and 32 seconds to yourself. Put on headphones, get yourself to a quiet place, whatever. Put the above video on full screen and just watch. Don't put it on, and click back to it occasionally while also checking your facebook, IM'ing with your friend, doing whatever kind of multi-tasking that you do while you're reading my blog (it's okay, I click around a lot too, possibly more than you).

Today, though, I want you to be quiet and listen and watch and think and pray and cry and understand.

Victoria Rae, of UNICEF UK, says of the above video, "We want people to think about their own childhood and see what everyday life is like for so many children around the world. This film is a window into a different day-to-day world - it's a childhood where there is no school summer holidays because children don't go to school. These are children who are missing out their basic rights - to learn, to clean water, to be healthy, to be looked after and just to be a child. ... The question is simple - is this right?"

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Living in Japan, I have to be honest and admit that I've sort of lost a little steam in the movement against human trafficking, against child exploitation. Being caught up in moving to a new country, being unable to read labels and unable to ask questions about production, being surrounded by a concentration on style and fashion and a society that is so incredibly private that you can't even see gardens from the road...all this has distracted me from what I believe is my real purpose in this life - to help better the lives of those around me.

Flying into Japan, on the customs form and again at the airport, I had to declare that I was bringing no child pornography into the country. The exploitation of children for one's own benefit is a very real problem to the Japanese government, one they are slowly cracking down on. Granted, making people check yes or no on a customs form is probably one of the most ridiculous ways to enforce such a code, but it's a step in the right direction, even if it is just a baby step.

I'm going to see a lot more of this world in the coming years. I will be in South Korea in less than 5 weeks. I will be in Australia in February. I still plan on traveling to Taiwan, China, and possibly Cambodia/Thailand (the university chaplain here leads missions to Cambodia). I am sure I will see more of the suffering of this world, just as I saw in India. But I will also see a lot of the beauty, grace and mercy that we can offer to our fellow human beings.

Today, take a few minutes to realize your impact in the world. To realize how connected you are not only to those in your immediate neighborhood, but to the children of poverty in India, Cambodia, North Korea, Thailand, Cameroon, South Africa, Bangladesh...all over the world.

Ask yourself: Is this right?

moot points about free speech

-We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to bring you these thoughts-

EDIT: This post is not going to make any sense to my older audience, at least not at first. Rest assured, I do get to a larger point about free speech later on.

I consider myself to be a pretty savvy internet user. I know where to find movies and TV shows streaming within hours of their airing, which is a huge benefit considering the free streaming sites in the US that are legal do not work outside the states (I would be using Hulu ALL THE TIME if this was the case). I am pretty familiar with internet memes, and know how to spot a RickRoll. I have a Facebook, a Twitter, a Tumblr, a blog, and am a regular presence on a message board and several other blogs. The double rainbow meme was already annoying me before it broke on the internet at large.

It sort of goes without saying - I know my way around.

It also goes without saying though that there are also several areas of the internet I know nothing of, and it's of one of these that I would like to spew some thoughts today.

I'm almost frightened to mention it, because the first two rules of this certain imageboard (a board created for posting jpegs and gifs) are, in classic Fight Club style, "Do not talk about /b/." and "You do NOT talk about /b/."

But today, I am going to talk about it. "/b/" (pronounced "bee") is the well known section of a certain notorious website known as 4chan. 4chan was developed in 2003 by a 15 year old kid, as an English copy of a Japanese web format. There's a whole lot more background than that, but for the sake of discussion, I'm going to skip to the important points.

The important things to know about 4chan is that it 1. Has 700,000 posts a day, and 2. Is almost completely anonymous. It's anonymity is part of the massive draw - you can say virtually anything, with almost no repercussions (though I must say there have been cases where someone threatening to blow up an airport or something as a joke was caught and prosecuted by the FBI, so there are some limits). /b/ is by far the more popular section of the site - it is the "random" board and the one where pretty much anything goes.

"Anything goes," in the internet age, translates to virulent racism, lots and lots of porn, and lots and lots of gore. "moot," the now 22 year old who founded the site, refers to this corner of the internet as "unbridled free speech," a last bastion of sorts in an era where everyone knows everything about everyone else. In the safety of 4chan's anonymity, you can spew angry thoughts about your coworkers or boss, rant about the gay/black/latino/pick your poison groups at your school, and, yes, caption cat pictures.

(Yes, that's right, 4chan invented the LOLcat).

Here's the problem, if you haven't spotted it already: the issue with completely "unbridled free speech" is that it only functions positively when it happens among mature adults who realize that what they say has consequences. The anonymity and lack of policing on /b/, combined with a massive amount of teenagers who lie about their age to get around the board's supposed 18+ restriction results, often, in actions being taken too far, in harassing people and shutting down whole websites. Part of the reason I was afraid to post my thoughts about /b/ was the idea of a 4chan member picking up on it and running with it.

When we encourage free speech and anonymity at the same time, we get this weird, non-real world vortex where what you say has no consequence, and you can spew whatever. Most of the time that's pretty harmless, and I'd be willing to bet most people on /b/ are pretty normal people with a weird sense of humor. But, anonymity and an overly emphasized concern for my "free speech" is what results in riots, is what results in hate speech and hate crimes, is something that is a dangerous combination.

Free speech only really works if you understand what it means to say something and have it mean something. The anonymity and lack of consequences on 4chan also is a double edged sword: while it has led to some awesome expression and some pretty damn hilarious stuff, it also means that what you say never means anything real. When it comes down to it, you're an anonymous person in his mom's basement trolling an 11 year old girl. Those who hide behind the veil of both free speech and anonymity are cowards unable to face the consequences for their actions.

Is that really what we want to use free speech for?

Blog inspired by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_1UEAGCo30

-back to your regularly scheduled blog now-

I admit it: For the first few weeks here, I thought the Japanese for "excuse me," which is sumimasen (sue-me-ma-sen) was actually "sushimasen," which I think would mean something along the lines of "I am sushi" (Do not quote me on that; I know very little of Japanese sentence structure at the moment).

I admit that I actually used "sushimasen" a few times before realizing my mistake.

And I admit that I was very embarrassed that I did so in crowded areas, getting some very strange looks from the Japanese around me.

And I am telling you this because I think one thing that anyone, not just those living in foreign countries, not just those traveling outside of their home - anyone and everyone - has to be willing to do is make mistakes. You have to be willing to step out there and make a foible, to make a fool of yourself, to be on the receiving end of some strange looks, if you want to get anywhere.

And it's one of the hardest damn things to do.

One thing that is terrifying for any new teacher is making mistakes. Because you are entrusted with these students' education, you have the inexorably heavy burden of making sure you don't screw them up permanently. That is, if you choose to think about it like that. If you choose to think of teaching as passing on this medicine ball burden of knowledge and how to do things correctly, you're going to collapse by the end of the second week.

But, if you choose to look on it as a learning curve - not everyone is going to be Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, and not everyone should be. One thing that I've learned, especially through my time here in Japan (a mere seven weeks at this point), is that if you're afraid to make mistakes in your teaching, then you will end up not passing on knowledge, but rather solidifying in the kids' minds that school is boring, routine, and not worth spending time on.

And sometimes that means a day wasted in the classroom because a lesson plan didn't pan out. That might mean having to repeat yourself. That might mean being willing to try out a different approach, and failing.

The point is: You never know until you try.

You never know if you can fly if you don't try to jump every once in a while.

Tired, cliche, and probably confusing post finished.

Sumimasen. Arigato.