My First One-on-One Conversation with a Politician

"Excuse me," the man said, "does this train go to Nagoya?"
"Yes," I said while smiling. "It's two stops from here. Do you want a hand with that bag?" The man was lugging a box from Noritake (a fine porcelain store) and a large suitcase onto the subway.
"Yes, thank you."

We exchanged pleasantries while riding the subway and it turns out I was talking to the former Minister for the Environment of Nicaragua. He was here for the COP (COP stands for the Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity) conference that's being held in Nagoya this year. I asked him in what capacity he was here since he was no longer the Minister for the Environment and he said that he was just here for public relations and to stir up awareness. And also, a very important political position: dirty joke teller. Apparently he likes to tell dirty jokes when he travels.

We continued to talk and he told me that all of the important discussions had already been had before COP 10 had convened. There would be nothing talked about spur of the moment, nothing added to the agenda. There wasn't even anything to sign - it had all been done before any of the nations arrived in Japan. This confirmed a long-standing belief I've had about large, multi-national meetings like COP: they're useless.

Meetings like these (G8, G20, etcetera) could be held over the internet and would save millions of dollars, time, energy, and resources. Instead the host countries waste all of those things for the prestige of hosting these meetings. What a joke. If everything can get agreed upon and signed without having an in-person meeting, then why have one?

There are two other things about giant conferences like COP that bother me: infrastructure that gets built only because there's a big event in town and wasteful advertising.

One:

This is a new bike rental station. I realize that bike rental stations don't fall under infrastructure but I wasn't sure how to classify them. These bike rental stations popped up in about a one kilometer radius of the main COP 10 conference location a week before it convened. They're covered in COP 10 advertising so there's little chance their arrival didn't just happen coincide with the COP 10 conference.

I'm not against bike rentals stations. I think having these stations is a fantastic idea and riding a bike is a great way to see almost any city. Nagoya is quite flat so it's an especially good idea here. My problem is that a project like this likely wouldn't have been undertaken without the COP 10 conference being here. I liken it to Vancouver finally getting a Light Rapid Transit line from downtown Vancouver to the airport. It had been talked about ever since the LRT system first started but it took the Olympics coming to town to finally get it done. Why does something like the Olympics (or in this case a conference whose size pales in comparison to the size of the Olympics) have to come to town to get really useful infrastructure built? If Vancouver was able to throw the kind of money it did at the Olympics then it easily could have afforded to build the Canada Line years ago, so I don't buy the line that the Olympics were necessary to get the money to do it.


Two:

Usually the Nagoya TV Tower is lit up with regular lights but since COP 10 is being held here all of the lights were changed to green. I think this is an unnecessary waste of energy - especially to advertise for a conference about environmentalism. It's also a waste of light bulbs - how many new ones had to be purchased to make the tower green? A better message would have been to have the lights on the TV tower turned off for the conference's two week duration. Having the tower darkened would have caused just as much conversation and would have saved a lot of energy and money.

Meeting this politician was both good and bad. Bad because it made me angry about how much of a waste of time the COP 10 conference is. Good because he was an interesting and funny man. When I asked him what he bought from Noritake he smiled and said, "A beautiful vase for my wife. I have to silence the beast."

After Eight

In North America, After Eight is a delicious after dinner snack. In Japan, after eight is the time you go to the grocery store to get 50% off sushi. Japan's version is substantially better than North America's.

The quality of grocery store sushi is nothing to scoff at. An After Eight bought in Japan tastes the same as one bought in North America, but the quality of sushi from a Japanese grocery store is head-and-shoulders above that from a North American grocery store.

I think the best part of the experience was seeing that we weren't the only people who were waiting around for the sushi to go on sale. Two or three other people were hovering with me waiting for the grocery store clerk to finish tagging the trays of sushi with the discount prices. There's probably a whole sub-culture of people who do nothing but try and buy the best discount sushi they can. I wonder if there's an iPhone app for that...

Idling Cars are Michael's Playthings

Everyone in Japan leaves their car running when they're parked. Every time we walk to the park to go running we walk past parked cars that are sitting idling while their owners are: reading, writing, emailing, talking on the phone, watching movies, smoking, sleeping - you name it, we've seen it. One time when we went running there was a guy who parked his car in front of our apartment and left it running while his wife sat inside it. He was moving boxes in and out of his apartment. When we came back from a 10.4km run (20 minute walk there, 50 minute run, 20 minute walk back) he was still moving boxes into the car and it was still running.

When we walked to a neighbourhood restaurant this evening we walked past a guy who was sitting in his running car watching a DVD and using an electric razor that was plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. When taxi drivers park on the side of the main road here to chat with each other they leave their taxis running.

Where am I going with this? I fantasize about turning these vehicles off for their operators and then giggling my ass off when they get upset. In Canada I would (and have) approach(ed) people who do this but here I lack the language skills to properly lay into people when they tell me to mind my own business. You polluting my air is my business and one day when I'm better able to I'll tell you. Or at least find out why idling vehicles are so prevalent here.

As a society we've become dependent on cars and we've decided that it's necessary to use them instead of mass public transit to navigate our cities. This causes a ton of unnecessary pollution - an amount that is increased by idling vehicles. If your vehicle isn't moving it shouldn't be running.

I remember my grandfather telling me that when he went to Switzerland he was amazed to see signs posted indicating that drivers were to turn off their vehicles at stop lights and were only permitted to turn them back on when the light turned green. I was amazed not at the law but that it hasn't been implemented world-wide. It's so simple to do but the effect would be amazing.

I discussed this last night with some friends and their objections were the objections that a lot of people have: it takes more fuel to start a vehicle than it does to leave one running; and, starters will need to be replaced due to more use of the ignition. I told them the same thing I tell everyone else I talk to about idling: those objections are simply not true.

Stop Speaking Japanese To Me

Aimee and I are both studying Japanese but it's not that Japanese that this post is about. Although Aimee does sometimes find it irritating when I speak actual Japanese (my Japanese skills are higher than hers).

As English teachers we sometimes have to simplify our English when we talk to lower-level English speakers. This was a little difficult at first but after almost 7 months here it's ingrained and automatic. So much so that it's transitioned from a classroom thing to an outside-the-classroom thing. Perhaps this was inevitable.

The most common way to simplify your English is to make it really obvious that you're asking a question. In Japanese a question is made by putting a "ka" at the end of the sentence, so there's never any confusion about whether or not a question has been asked. If there's "ka," it's a question. In English it's sometimes a little more subtle. So one way to simplify your speaking is to make questions really obvious by having a rising intonation at the end of every one. This is natural with any yes/no question ("Did you have a good time?" "Do you want to see a movie?"), but a little less so with what/where/when/who questions.

We had this exchange last night:

Mike: What are you going to buy me for dessert? *his voice rising*

Aimee: Stop speaking Japanese.

Mike: Uh, what?

Aimee: You're speaking to me like I'm a Japanese person. *her voice rising*

Mike: Am I? *his voice rising*

Aimee: Yes, and it's really irritating.

It can be frustrating having to simplify your English but it's even more frustrating when that simplified English migrates into your everyday life. Next we'll be putting an "s" at the end of uncountable nouns.

Pray for us.