“His press corp is bigger than mine,” Bush joked. “And we both have trouble answering questions in English.”

A quote from (soon to be former!!) President Bush regarding Daisuke Matsuzaka when the Red Sox went to the White House.

One thing the average Joe might not know about Japan is that they are so obsessed with baseball that they have made it into their national pastime. Instead of national leagues, however, all eyes are always turned to high school baseball teams, and you wouldn’t believe how dedicated and how seriously the players take their teams.

It’s kind of funny how I interned in Boston and saw lots of Matsuzaka jerseys, and now I’m in Japan and see lots of Red Sox gear…

Japan’s gender inequality puts it to shame in world rankings - The Japan Times Online

Then there is the “attractiveness” factor. As robotics expert Yukiko Nakagawa points out, “Girls are considered ‘uncute’ if they go on a date to a science museum and if they know more about the exhibits there than boys.”

But are women and science really such a bad mix?

Man in girl’s uniform arrested for sneaking into Saitama school - The Japan Times Online

The suspect was quoted by police as saying, “I bought the Niiza schoolgirl uniform at an online auction. I thought I could camouflage myself at school.” Police said Nanpei was wearing make-up and a pink bra but no other underwear.

Filipina to file rape case against US serviceman in Japan - Global Nation

A Filipina allegedly raped by a US serviceman in Okinawa is to take her case to a Japanese court, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

Japanese cellphones to turn into ‘robot’ buddies - AFP

The telephone comes with enough artificial intelligence to learn the user’s habits.

If the user calls a particular person many times, a text phrase such as “You’re calling her often these days, aren’t you?” might appear coming out of the face’s mouth, according to Softbank Mobile spokesman Katsuhide Furuya.

Japanese schoolkids have whale of a lunchtime - Herald Sun

JAPAN’S whaling researchers dumped 10 tonnes of unsold whale meat into primary school lunches, labelling the event “traditional school lunch week”.

Fearless flashers bag bonus points for landmark exhibitionism - Mainichi Daily News

“Exhibitionism overwhelmingly starts with guys doing the initiating, but there are definitely more women becoming actively involved in the practice. About 70 percent of our submissions come from couples, with the husband taking nude photos of his wife. Some people even send in CD-ROMs filled with hundreds and hundreds of photos or movies with people in the nude. A lot of these images are taken in public places or areas where it’s easy to understand where the shot has been taken, so we can hardly use any of these.”

女子プロボクシングが初のプロテスト　２６人参加 - asahi.com
Translation: Protest for the First Female Professional Boxer, 26 Participating

菊地は「無事終えてほっとしている。これだけの報道陣と顔を合わせるのは初めて。女子が注目されることに喜びを感じる」と話した。
Translation: “I am relieved that this is peacefully resolved. Just being able to meet face-to-face with the press. I feel joy that they are noticing women,” said Kikuchi.

There is an interesting interview on New York Times with graphics editor Steve Duenes. A lot of people might take advantage of diagrams and images that appear in media, but for artists and designers, those are the things we notice first. And to be able to read some of our questions answered by a graphics editor for a well-established news source is something us art-lovers shouldn’t pass over! 

In one of Duenes’s answers, he mentions a basic principle that I was taught in high school drawing class:  draw what you see and not what you know.  In other words, when drawing from a reference, don’t assume features are there when they’re not.  A common mistake in drawing is that people want to draw everything they know is there.  A hand has five fingers, a head two ears.  But at angle, an ear disappears, or a hand is less three fingers.  This is why the best artists constantly look at their reference over and over obsessively in order to prevent any mistakes.

Duenes mentions this principle when referring to diagrams that artists draw for media outlets:

When we create diagrams, we keep a couple of things in mind. We want to be clear, and we don’t want to invent anything. Maybe it’s obvious what I mean when I say we want to be clear, but I’ll elaborate a little. It means we want to eliminate superfluous detail, and we want to establish a clear visual hierarchy. So, if the story is about someone firing a gun in City Hall, we want readers to look at our diagram and quickly understand where the event occurred in the building, and where the important players were when it happened. We have some extraordinary 3-D illustrators on the staff like Mika Gröndahl, Frank O’ Connell and Graham Roberts, and they’re more than capable of rendering every last detail of the ornate balcony in an old building like City Hall, but that’s usually not the point. More often than not, a simple line drawing is the best solution.

Now, when I say that we don’t want to invent anything, I mean we don’t want to guess that a building was five stories tall. We don’t want to assume that the staircase turned left, and we don’t want to speculate about the color of the drapes. We have software that lets us create photo-realistic renderings, but it can be a problem if we don’t know how everything was configured or what it looked like. This may seem like an obvious point, but back in 2003, when Saddam Hussein was captured, just about every news outlet did a diagram of his small hiding place, and not everyone got it right. It happens all the time.

This is an visually stunning site featuring a gallery exhibition at MoMa entitled Design and the Elastic Mind:

Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and history—changes that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior—and translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use.

You can easily spend hours here, as I’m sure you could at the actual Museum of Modern Art in New York. But since I’m oceans away, I have to live vicariously through their website and behold the genuis of these designers in the form of a flash interface.  (I recommend watching the mesmerizing Electric Sheep video–I’d like the see Windows come up with a screen saver so moving.)

If you’re lucky enough to be in the area, be sure to check out the exhibition, which runs until May 12, 2008.  (And tell me about it!!)

Yanagihara Kanako (柳原可奈子), a fast-speaking Japanese comedian imitating a schoolgirl on a bus

One major obstacle in learning a foreign language is listening to it being spoken by natives. By default everything you learn yourself or in class is at a slower pace. But what happens when you hear it being spoken in a dialect? Slurred? Slang? There are so many variations on a language that it seems next to impossible to get good at hearing and recognizing words.

Needless to say, you’re not always going to find someone whose native language is the one you’re learning. So how to do you practice listening to your language being spoken–not by a teacher, but by real people in real conversations? Here are some tips.

Study Abroad
This one is the most obvious one, but at the same time most difficult and expensive to do. You have to be lucky enough that your school participates in a study abroad program with your country of choice, you have to have the enough funds, and the acceptance from said participating school. However, this is the best way to practice listening because you will be in an environment where you can hear the language being spoken 24/7.

Participate in a Home Stay Program
If you do study abroad, try getting into a home stay program where you live with a family instead in a dorm, where you will be with fellow English speakers. (The phrase “blind leading the blind” comes to mind.) You will learn your language the fastest by staying with a family, and learn listening skills very quickly when your family is trying to convey something to you.

Listen to Music in Your Foreign Language
Listening to music is a great way to practice listening skills because the replay value is greater than say, a language cassette tape or CD. You can find the lyrics to the song and read along as its being played. You’ll also be able to pick up new vocabulary that you hear over and over.

Subscribe to Podcasts
I love podcasts because they’re free and easily accessible. Some of them even include videos! You can access them from the iTunes store and subscribe to as many as you want. This is great to listen to while browsing the Internet as the podcasts are usually pretty lengthy.

Use Headphones
When listening to a foreign language through media like podcasts, music, or movies, use headphones for better clarity. You will be amazed at how clear the language sounds when you can hear it right against your ears. You’ll also increase your chances of recognizing phrases or grammar points that you’ve learned.

Watch Movies and TV Shows
If you watch movies or TV shows in that foreign language you are learning, you’ll be able to both see and hear natives interacting and study how the two go together. (Not all body language is the same in all countries, you know!) You should first watch them without subtitles and see what you can pick up. Then watch them again with subtitles, and while reading them listen for words or grammar you know. Finally, watch them for a third time without subtitles and see how your listening has improved.

Study Regional Dialects and Slang
Schools for the most part will only teach standardized languages, so you should look into any regional dialects or slang in your foreign language as well–they are just as (if not more) important than the standardized language since you will probably hear it more often. Chances are if you can’t understand something you think you should, there might be a variation of the language involved.

Listen for Key Words
You already know that you can’t follow every single word being spoken, but you can look for key words that can give you an idea of what is being said. Think of the context of what you’re listening to: If it’s a romance movie, do you know the words “love,” “hate,” “girlfriend,” etc.? Or if you’re listening to a song about spring, can you recognize the words “rain,” “flowers,” “sun,” etc.? It seems simple enough but I think a lot of people blank out as soon as they hear a string of words they can’t understand. Take it easy and just listen for anything that sounds familiar to you.

Don’t panic if you feel like you are being overwhelmed by words you can’t understand–this is part of the learning process. Immerse yourself as much as you can by listening to natives speak the language you are learning, and you will notice your listening improve considerably.

More of my Language Articles:
- How I Skipped An Entire Semester of Japanese in One Month
- Tips in Building Up Vocabulary in a Foreign Language
- Improve Your Foreign Language Skills By Being Consistent
- Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language