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Blood type and personality
In Japan, discrimination about blood types is common. Many Japanese people more or less relate blood type to personality. However, repeated investigations deny this relationship. In spite of this scientific research, some companies choose employees by blood type.
This hairdresser refuses AB type!!
This article is about “Mitubishi Denki”. This company makes electrical appliances. Their product development team features only type AB employees.
During job interviews some companies ask interviewees their blood type. I don’t think they realize that they are discriminating by blood type.
Our Lady of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
This is a photograph of Our Lady of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich, a so-called ‘miracle’ in which The Virgin Mary appeared on a – erm – grilled cheese sandwich.
Some Catholics believed that “The Holy Mother” had chosen to appear on a cheesy snack.
It’s possible, I guess, that she felt this was a better way of communicating than appearing on TV, in St. Peter’s Square or showing up at The White House to see the President.
It’s also possible that this is another example of the pattern-seeking discussed in a post below. If so, it shows how easy it is to assign meaning to random events which happen purely by chance.
Especially if you don’t know how to think critically.
More entertaining examples:
Christ on a Fishstick
The Miracle Chapati
Our Lady of the Office Window
Michael Jackson’s Ghost
What do you think? Is God communicating through cheese sandwiches and fishsticks, or are people seeing evidence where none exists? Which seems the most likely explanation?
Rabbits Everywhere! Psychic Photos and Pattern-seeking
In my comment on the post below – “More on Psychic Photos” – I mention how as humans we naturally look for patterns in our immediate environment. That’s why we often say, “Hey, that looks like such-and-such!”
It’s easy to see that this would have been useful to our ancestors, who lived in close relation to nature and possible dangers like wild animals etc. Having the ability to spot the patterns of a wild tiger could save your life!
This happens all the time in everyday life, for example babies must learn the patterns of their parents’ faces. Living in Japan, I also recognize the patterns of certain Kanji, even though I often don’t know the pronunciation.
The photo I have posted shows an example of pattern-seeking.
In this case, I was sitting in a bar and, as I looked at the table in front of me, I spotted a familiar shape.
Can you see it? The random scratches on the table look to me like…a rabbit!
Obviously there isn’t a rabbit on the table, but this is a good example of how our visual senses naturally seek out patterns. It also helps explain why people think they can see Jesus Christ on a piece of toast, or the Virgin Mary in an ordinary window, then claim to have experienced a ‘miracle’.
More on Psychic Photos!
Are “psychic photos” real? Nobody knows the truth. This time, I would like to introduce some “psychic photos.”
Here is the first photo that i took on Easter island in Chile.
I took this inside a cave. It was too dark to see anything, so that I had to always take pictures with a flash for brightness. After, I found there is “someone” in this picture.
There was no person in front of us and no dead end inside the cave. What’s interesting about this picture is we can find stone’s gray color, but the human-like shape is only white. If it is just a human being, why can we see any color of jeans or shirt?
Let’s take a look at another psychic photo. This is a picture that my friend took in my high school days.
Obviously, we can see something white flying between two people.
This picture was taken with a cheap disposable camera in the day time.
This is all the info that I can give. How can it be falsified?
( These pictures are only for academic critical thinking, not for having fun. )
Psychics…genuine or charlatans?
Noted skeptic Michael Shermer explains the techniques used by psychics and mediums who claim they can contact the dead.
In fact they are ‘reading’ the people who attend their performances.
The three main techniques are COLD READING, WARM READING and HOT READING.
On Gay Issues
When I was an elementary schoolkid, I saw a gay person on TV for the first time. At that time I felt gays to be unnatural, because I had thought humans were sexually attracted only to people of the same sex.
On Japanese variety TV, many gays appear , for example Ikko, Kabatyan, Ai Haruna, and MatukoDX. I think this is not because Japanese accept gays but because they have strong individuality and seem a little strange.
Being attracted only to people of the same sex is strongly emphasized on TV and also how to speak to a member of another sex is emphasized. I think Japanese TV shows are discriminatory and Japanese people are influenced by this. The Japanese education seldom picks up gay issues (I haven’t come across this issue before this class).
I guess in Japan gays face discrimination, so it is difficult to come out. I think reducing gay discrimination it is important, so TV should this issue seriously (not variety program) and people should be educated in school.
Summary of “A question of education”
I would like to summarize Masao Miyamoto’s opinion. Miyamoto is a man who fought with the Japanese bureaucratic system and the traditional Japanese educational system. According to Miyamoto, the educational system of Japan castrates young people by not giving them a chance of individual self-expression.
This educational system exists to perpetuate the bureaucratic system. The bureaucratic system stops people from developing independence and encourages dependency on bureaucracy. This system is bad for society, because it robs people of creativity and their characteristics. Fortunately, he did not go to a typical Japanese school, so Mr. Miyamoto managed to avoid these effects. However, when he worked at the Ministry of Welfare, he was forced to brainwash himself with concepts of “tatemae” and voluntary overtime.
To change this cycle, he suggested abolishing the Ministry of Education and giving complete freedom over education to local government. If his suggestions were adopted, Japanese would realize that each individual is different, start to compete and the free market principle would flourish. Miyamoto says Japanese people would gradually become free from these castrating effects if they took long vacations and stopped voluntary overtime.
I agree with most of his opinions. However I disagree that things are starting to change. It seems things didn’t change when he was alive.
About the Japanese education system
Miyamoto said Japanese students have no independence. I agree. Now I’m doing job-hunting. When I read many journals, personnel managers say most students have no independence because they write resumes following a manual which is written in books.
Recently Japanese students have trouble getting jobs. This year 56% students got jobs, but the rest didn’t. I think the main reason is the Japanese education system. I had no experience of solving problems by myself. Most teachers suggest answers. At university, most professors don’t talk to students. They think it impossible to talk to many students (There are more than 100 people in the class). But it makes them bad. I think the Japanese education system (including university) must change.
My feelings about the Japanese educational system
I think the Japanese educational system isn’t good, because it teachs only a straight-forward way to make a success but doesn’t teach how to recover from a bad situation. If a student makes a mistake, most Japanese teachers offer a formulaic way to solve a problem, but they don’t offer to improve a student’s wrong answer. I think this is notgood, because this way makes people uniform.
What do you think about the Japanese educational system?
Masao Miyamoto
Today we discussed Masao Miyamoto’s opinions about the Japanese educational system.
Please post your response to his observations.
Also, please read the following experience described by Miyamoto:
The following incident took place at the Akasaka Prince Hotel. It was around 6 p.m. and I was waiting to meet a friend. He had asked me to wait for him at the bar on the top floor. Since I arrived early I sat at the counter. A waiter came and asked what I would like to drink. I noticed an open bottle of white wine in an ice-bucket behind the counter, and the following was our dialogue:
“I would like to have a glass of white wine.”
“I’m sorry but we can’t offer you white wine. “
“Why can’t I have a glass of white wine?”
“It’s not on the drink list.”
“But I see an open bottle of white wine right over there.”
“I will bring you a wine list and you can choose a bottle from there.”
“But I only want a glass of wine.”
“I’m afraid you will have to order a bottle.”
“But all I want is a glass of wine.”
“. . .” (Silence)
“Why can’t I have a glass from the bottle which is already open?”
“I’m sorry, I will have to talk to my superior.”
After waiting for a couple of minutes, the waiter came back with a man in a tuxedo.
“Sir, I’m sorry but we do not offer wine by the glass in this bar.”
“If that’s the case, why is there an open bottle of white wine over there?”
He goes to the bartender, who whispers into his ear, then returns to me.
“That wine is used to make cocktails.”
“What kind of cocktails?”
“The cocktail is called Kir. We mix it with Cassis liqueur, sir.”
“I see. Okay, then give me a Kir without the Cassis.”
The floor manager thought about it for a second, with a slightly perplexed look on his face.
“I’m sorry but we cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
His look of perplexity increased.
“I will have to speak to the assistant manager of the hotel. Please excuse us.”
I waited for about five minutes, and a gray-haired man came. His first comment was,
“We are trying to accommodate your request as much as possible, but up until now nobody has made this kind of request.”
“Well, you should be happy that I’m setting a precedent for you. Charge me for the price of the cocktail, but just give me a glass of wine.”
“You see, we’re happy to accommodate you with anything from the drink menu, but I regret to inform you that we don’t offer anything not on the menu. It’s our policy.”
“You just told me that your job is to accommodate guests’ requests as much as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t think I’m requesting anything outrageous. All I want is a glass of white wine, and there is an open bottle right in front of us. I don’t understand your inflexibility.”
“. . .” (Silence)
“You run a first-class hotel.”
“Thank you sir.”
“I believe that the first thing you learn in hotel management course is to try to accommodate guests’ needs.”
“You’re absolutely right sir.”
“So don’t you think that granting my request would be staying within the principle of good hotel management?”
“That is correct, sir.”
“So if I’m correct, why can’t you offer me a glass of white wine?”
The assistant manager, with a strained smile on his face, replied,
“Okay, we will offer you a glass of white wine, but please understand that it will be only for today.”
I finally got what I wanted, but it took more than 15 minutes. This is just one example, but this kind of rigid behavior is rampant in Japanese society. This rigidity reminds me of patients who exhibit symptoms of frequent hand-washing, which is often diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is difficult to think that so many people in Japan have neurotic symptoms. In fact, most people I meet privately do not exhibit any signs of neurosis; they are normal individuals. The question then is why do these people become rigid in an official setting? My answer to this question is that it is not the people, but the system, that is neurotic.
The problem lies with the bureaucrats, the architects of Japan, Inc., since they are not aware of their illness and they continue to educate, or to be more fashionable, to “mind control” the people. Once people are in a group setting, they become disciples of Japan, Inc. In the case of the incident at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, the assistant manager’s job, instead of accommodating customers’ needs, is to keep customers within the bounds of the existing rules and regulations.
