The Japanese after action report from the battle of Midway

My knowledge of the battle of midway comes mostly from American sources. But this was from Japanese sources. Amazing to read it.

They were basically shite after coral sea. Go read the entire thing. 

http://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/j/japanese-story-of-the-battle-of-midway.html

Historical GDP growth rates

these figures are very thought-provoking.

Forget the current situation where we have seen a significant change in the GDP figures, but nations rely on a very long history to develop. Patents. Universities. Infrastructure. Dams. Irrigation Networks. Institutions. All those help and have a very long chain. 

Look at the UK, its growth rate was extraordinary and that is what provides you hope that the UK will prosper and develop much more. It will have to rely on the institutions, infrastructure, universities to keep on developing further. 

Catholicism and Violence in Late Chosŏn Korea

You know kannu, I was surprised when I first found out that Korea is a huge Christian country. Seriously. I guess my initial impression was coloured by the fact that both japan and china managed to keep the Christian missionaries at bay. But Korea didn't and has therefore managed to have a huge Christian population. 

Proselytisation has had a bad rap down the years son. With good reason. People have killed each other over which god is better. Heck, people have killed each other whilst belonging to the same bloody religion. See what's happening in Israel to Iraq to India. Maybe they operate on the principle that kill them all, God will sort them out. How weird. 

But it's a salutary exposition on how governments use religion son to keep us under control. And the sad part is, the governments lose control over religion. And then you see the mess that you can witness in the USA to France to uk and in rest of the world. Which is why a strong secular perspective is the only way forward for governments. 

Anyway. Happy reading about a small aspect of Korea. They make the most amazing kimchee. And if I may point out, they are one of the hardest working people in the world. Absolutely gobsmacking. For them to rise from pretty much ruins after the Japanese occupation and then the Korean War to where they are at the moment is simply amazing. Much to learn. 

Love

Baba

Catholicism and Violence in Late Chosŏn Korea - Dissertation Reviews
http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/9089

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A review of The Ambiguity of Violence:  Ideology, State, and Religion in the Late Chosŏn Dynasty,by Franklin Rausch

Why do governments and those who oppose them use violence to advance their aims? What are their justifications for the use of violence? These are some of the questions that Franklin Rausch confronts in his dissertation centered on two case studies in late Chosŏn Korea between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. They involve two famous Catholics, Alexius Hwang Sayŏng and Thomas An Chunggŭn, and it is in its elucidation of the complex history of Catholicism in Korea that this dissertation particularly shines.

When a tiny group of people in southern Philippines kicked Spanish, American, Japanese and Filipino butt for centuries

This is an extraordinary story of a war of independence stretching over 400 years. The Moro in Southern Philippines have been fighting for independence against the Spaniards, then the Americans, then the Japanese, then the Filipinos (whom the Americans also helped again) and it is still going on.

this is a photograph of American soldiers at the massacre of hundreds of Moro civilians and soldiers, including very large number of women and children in the early part of last century.

Surprisingly, I learnt that the Americans asked for the help from the last Caliph in Turkey to help manage the insurrection. Like what the Americans did in Afghanistan, asked for help from Saudi Arabia and then Saudi's went and killed thousands in Afghanistan and also in 9/11. People who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. And we are still sucking  up to the Saudi's. We dont learn do we?

but they are still fighting for their independence, these Moro's have tenacity. you have to give them that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Conflict

The Gruesome and Excruciating Practice of Mummifying Your Own Body

This is an extraordinary practise. Forget the religious back-story behind this but what caught my attention son was the amazing dedication and perseverance these guys showed over years and years of diligent fasting and diet control. I find it so difficult to control my diet. Forget about mummification I just want to lose weight but it's difficult. And here people are dieting with an eye for immortality? Bloody hell.

Love

Baba

The Gruesome and Excruciating Practice of Mummifying Your Own Body
http://io9.com/the-gruesome-and-excruciating-practice-of-mummifying-yo-1515905564
(via Instapaper)

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way to preserve a person’s remains, whether to be worshipped or because they’re planning on using that body at a later date. But some people have gone to incredible lengths to prepare their own bodies for mummification while they were still alive.

Top image: Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai-Shonin.

Why have people practiced self-mummification?

Book Review: the story of sushi

so whilst I was pottering around a bookstore in Singapore, I noticed this book and snaffled it. Its called as the Story of Sushi written by Trevor Corson. It is one of the most extraordinary foodie books I have ever read. Its a non-fiction book so I can give away the plot. Its about Sushi :).

it follows a group of trainee Sushi Chefs who are getting trained on a sushi course in a Japanese restaurant in USA. Very personalised and I loved it. Week by week, the author takes us through how the trainees learn how to do Sushi. In each chapter, he delves into the history of sushi, the history of each of the fish, the anatomy – bio chemistry – bio engineering of all the fish. How to prepare them, how different chefs did sushi, how to make nigiri and and and.

Seriously recommended for anybody who likes sushi, buy this. If you like making sushi, then I am not sure how much this will be of use. I like making sushi for the kids and I love cooking as well, but the level at which these chefs operate, the knowledge you need, the practise you need to have, is at a level that I can never achieve. Will require just way too much investment in time, energy and money that I can devote. So all I can do is to try to do some basics. I will never be able to get the quality of tuna, salmon, etc. etc. that you require. I might be able to make the rice rectangles (right now, they end up looking like demented torpedoes).

the author talks about rice, the religion of sushi – the idea that every grain of rice has a deity inside, it talks about how to carve radishes and cucumbers. How the sushi chef is more a counsellor than a chef. How to order sushi at a restaurant. How and when to use chop sticks. Where is the fatty portion on a tuna. How to distinguish between fast twitch and slow twitch muscle in a fish and how they taste. He talks about unami, the 5th sense.

Seriously, I loved this book. Anybody, as i mentioned, anybody who likes sushi, should have a copy of this book. And you can also use this book, but forget being a sushi master…that’s at a level where gods roam, not for mortals like me.

oh! he also talks about knives and the discipline to keep your cooking station clean. How to avoid waste. sighs, this is a real foodie book, comes highly recommended.

End of the day

1. Dont dip your rice into the soy sauce

2. dont use chopsticks to eat sushi, use fingers

3. dont put wasabi in the soy sauce

4. the pickled ginger is meant as a mouth cleanser between courses

'Why I Resist

I'm going to get this book son. Fascinating. Not the finest hour for the USA. And as I keep in saying, we don't learn. We have Islamist terrorism and every Muslim is under suspicion with civil liberties under threat. 

Love

Baba

'Why I Resist' - PageView - The Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/why-i-resist/31595

In May 1942, in the wake of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Gordon K. Hirabayashi had no doubt that the United States government was acting unconstitutionally in imposing curfews, loyalty oaths, and mass removal and internment on Japanese-Americans living along the West Coast.

So Hirabayashi, then a University of Washington student, defied two orders—one imposing curfews, another requiring anyone officials deemed a possible enemy to fill out a “loyalty questionnaire.” For that he was arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1943, it ruled against him. In 1987, via a rarely used legal doctrine, the high court overturned his conviction.

Hirabayashi’s stance made him a household name in Japanese-American circles, and among civil-rights advocates, more generally. As a result, his struggle and case have been analyzed every which way—but one.

It has not been, until A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States, that readers have had access to Hirabayashi’s reflections at the time of his resistance.

The novelty of the book, says one of its compilers, Hirabayashi’s nephew, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, is that it reveals what was going through the mind of an exceptionally principled university student subjected to enormous pressure to toe a line. It is composed of Hirabayashi’s youthful writings in letters and a large trove of notebooks. Those came to light when the project first began, fully 20 years ago. Now, the book, just out from the University of Washington Press, may be the last piece of an infamous passage in American civic and legal history.

The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945.

Kannu

Wars have the unsettling ability to make countries lose their equilibrium. And normal trajectory. One of the reasons why I hate wars. They end up wasting resources on a colossal magnitude. If the uk had not got involved in the Iraq and afghan wars, all that material and money and men could have helped the country recover from recession better. Our leaders got distracted. And this will keep on rumbling on for a long time. 

Second, history is very west centric at least what's taught here in the uk. But for you son, china will be important. Just like USA was/is for me. So you need to know and learn where they are coming from. The rivalry between Japan and china is important. China has had geopolitical disputes with pretty much every neighbour. It's a strange country. Spend much time learning about it. 

Love

Baba

H-Net Reviews
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35560

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Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea, Hans J. van de Ven, eds. The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945.Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010. Illustrations, maps. 664 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-6206-9.

Reviewed by Roger H. Brown (Saitama University)
Published on H-War (December, 2012)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey

The Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45 was immense both in its scale and consequences. Nevertheless, Western military histories of World War II have focused overwhelmingly on the campaigns of the European and Pacific theaters, and those specialized studies of the conflict that do exist deal primarily with such matters as diplomacy; politics; mass mobilization; and, in more recent years, Japanese atrocities and public memory. Indeed, as the editors of the volume under review attest, “a general history of the military operations during the war based on Japanese, Chinese, and Western sources does not exist in English” (p. xix). In 2004, Japanese, Chinese, and Western scholars gathered to remedy this situation and in the belief that such a close study of the operations and strategy of the Sino-Japanese War would “illustrate that, in this period, warfare drove much of what happened in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres in China and Japan.” They further recognized that because “much of the best scholarship on WWII in East Asia is naturally produced in China and Japan,” there was a need to “bring the fruits of Chinese and Japanese work to the attention of a wider public” (p. xx). Granting that the resulting volume is not exhaustive, the editors seek to bridge the inevitable gaps with “a general overview of the military campaigns, an accompanying chronology, and introductions to the several sections into which the chapters are grouped” (p. xxi). With that caveat behind them, coeditors Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea, and Hans J. van de Ven declare that the contributors have provided “an authoritative introduction to the military course of one of the greatest conflicts of the twentieth century” (p. xx). Their confidence is not misplaced, for The Battle of China beautifully fulfills the objectives they have laid out for it and will be gratefully utilized by readers interested in the history of the Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and modern warfare in general.

Radhabinod Pal

You won't hear about pal son. Not easily. But strangely enough, the judges who write dissenting opinions are perhaps more erudite, more brilliant, more principled than the judges who write the majority opinion. I've read several opinions in the Indian, British and american supreme courts and that's what comes across firmly. 

Justice Pal was one person like this. Brilliant man. When you get a chance son. Read his 250k word judgement. Reason, clarity and thought and logic. That's where civilisation differs from the religious law idiots who run after sharia or Hindu or Christian law. Know this son, anybody who demands religious laws is a bigot and a discriminatory illiterate arsehole. It's our duty to fight against these morons. 

But back to Pal. He fought against the idea that history is written by the victors. See? Reason. The Americans think that they were innocent but nope. There's another book out which talks about how the american soldiers created a wave of rape after landing in France. So while USA does great things, it's not totally innocent either. Life and history aren't that clear cut. 

Love

Baba. 

Radhabinod Pal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhabinod_Pal

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Justice Radha Binod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an Indianjurist. He was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East’s trials of Japanese war crimes committed during thesecond World War. Among all the judges of the tribunal, he was the only one who submitted a judgment which insisted all defendants were not guilty. TheYasukuni Shrine and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine has monuments specially dedicated to Justice Pal.

Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

This was the formative years of modern democracy. So the economic background to these years is important, as a matter of fact, the authors actually analyse the wages, prices and living standards in various countries over this period with reference to what the great old man, Adam Smith, thought. I quote the conclusion:

Our investigation of Asian and European wages and prices shows that the situation differed somewhat from Adam Smith's impressions. Money wages were in accord with his view: in China, they were certainly lower than wages in the advanced parts of western Europe in the eighteenth century and similar to those in the lagging parts of Europe. By the twentieth century, however, wages in all parts of Europe were higher than in China. Contrary to Smith, the cost of living was similar in China and in Europe in the eighteenth century.

The upshot of the wage and price comparisons is that living standards were low in China. In the eighteenth century, advanced cities like London and Amsterdam had a higher standard of living than Suzhou, Beijing, or Canton. The standard of living in the Chinese cities we have studied was on a par with the lagging parts of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Japan. By the twentieth century, enough progress had occurred in even the backward parts of Europe that their standards of living were beginning to creep above those in China. Wages seemed to have slipped in China in the eighteenth century. Still, most of the difference between Europe and China in 1913 was due to European advance rather than Chinese decline.

In spite of the above, a major surprise is our finding that unskilled labourers in major cities of China and Japan—poor as they were—had roughly the same standard of living as their counterparts in central and southern Europe for the greater part of the eighteenth century. This calls into question the fundamental tenet of the large ‘rise of the west’ literature that sees western Europe—as a whole—surpassing the rest of the world in the early modern era. Our article suggests that it was only England and the Low Countries that pulled ahead of the rest. The rest, in this context, includes not only Asia but also much of Europe.⁵²

In this regard, Adam Smith neglected regional variation and thereby over-generalized the comparison of Europe and China. But our findings also dispute the revisionists' claim that the advanced parts of China, such as the Yangzi Delta, were on a par with England on the eve of the industrial revolution, for we find real wages for unskilled labourers in the Yangzi Delta to have been no higher than those in Beijing or Canton. Clearly, our database on China could be greatly improved and we do not claim to have given the final answer to this question. Nevertheless, any newly discovered data would have to be very different from what is currently available in order to convince us that pre-industrial Chinese living standards were similar to those in the leading regions of Europe.⁵³ In this regard, Adam Smith's pessimism looks closer to the truth than the revisionists' optimism. Of course, establishing the existence of an income gap between north-western Europe and China in the early modern era only takes us halfway towards the resolution of the great divergence debate. The search for a causal explanation of the great divergence still looms large as a future research agenda.

Much to think about but let me link to one existing situation. People complain about stagnating wages/incomes in so many OECD countries. See here, here, here and here for some examples. And this too over one decade or so. But China saw wage stagnation for a very long period of time. Not only that, vast swathes of Europe was also stagnant for many many moons. So it is of interest when people claim that the West rose on the back of the industrial revolution, erm, no, only the low countries and UK rose.

crucially, the lesson to be learnt from here is to focus on productivity. USA does brilliantly on productivity, we in the UK and India are crap at it. We do not educate our folks well enough, we are not innovative enough, we do not use technology enough, and we do not encourage investment enough. Bah!

Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

This was the formative years of modern democracy. So the economic background to these years is important, as a matter of fact, the authors actually analyse the wages, prices and living standards in various countries over this period with reference to what the great old man, Adam Smith, thought. I quote the conclusion:

Our investigation of Asian and European wages and prices shows that the situation differed somewhat from Adam Smith's impressions. Money wages were in accord with his view: in China, they were certainly lower than wages in the advanced parts of western Europe in the eighteenth century and similar to those in the lagging parts of Europe. By the twentieth century, however, wages in all parts of Europe were higher than in China. Contrary to Smith, the cost of living was similar in China and in Europe in the eighteenth century.

The upshot of the wage and price comparisons is that living standards were low in China. In the eighteenth century, advanced cities like London and Amsterdam had a higher standard of living than Suzhou, Beijing, or Canton. The standard of living in the Chinese cities we have studied was on a par with the lagging parts of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Japan. By the twentieth century, enough progress had occurred in even the backward parts of Europe that their standards of living were beginning to creep above those in China. Wages seemed to have slipped in China in the eighteenth century. Still, most of the difference between Europe and China in 1913 was due to European advance rather than Chinese decline.

In spite of the above, a major surprise is our finding that unskilled labourers in major cities of China and Japan—poor as they were—had roughly the same standard of living as their counterparts in central and southern Europe for the greater part of the eighteenth century. This calls into question the fundamental tenet of the large ‘rise of the west’ literature that sees western Europe—as a whole—surpassing the rest of the world in the early modern era. Our article suggests that it was only England and the Low Countries that pulled ahead of the rest. The rest, in this context, includes not only Asia but also much of Europe.⁵²

In this regard, Adam Smith neglected regional variation and thereby over-generalized the comparison of Europe and China. But our findings also dispute the revisionists' claim that the advanced parts of China, such as the Yangzi Delta, were on a par with England on the eve of the industrial revolution, for we find real wages for unskilled labourers in the Yangzi Delta to have been no higher than those in Beijing or Canton. Clearly, our database on China could be greatly improved and we do not claim to have given the final answer to this question. Nevertheless, any newly discovered data would have to be very different from what is currently available in order to convince us that pre-industrial Chinese living standards were similar to those in the leading regions of Europe.⁵³ In this regard, Adam Smith's pessimism looks closer to the truth than the revisionists' optimism. Of course, establishing the existence of an income gap between north-western Europe and China in the early modern era only takes us halfway towards the resolution of the great divergence debate. The search for a causal explanation of the great divergence still looms large as a future research agenda.

Much to think about but let me link to one existing situation. People complain about stagnating wages/incomes in so many OECD countries. See here, here, here and here for some examples. And this too over one decade or so. But China saw wage stagnation for a very long period of time. Not only that, vast swathes of Europe was also stagnant for many many moons. So it is of interest when people claim that the West rose on the back of the industrial revolution, erm, no, only the low countries and UK rose.

crucially, the lesson to be learnt from here is to focus on productivity. USA does brilliantly on productivity, we in the UK and India are crap at it. We do not educate our folks well enough, we are not innovative enough, we do not use technology enough, and we do not encourage investment enough. Bah!

War and Famine in Late Colonial Bengal

This was a raw read. A snippet: ]

A review of Hungry Bengal: War, Famine, Riots, and the End of Empire 1939-1946, by Janam Mukherjee.

Janam Mukherjee’s dissertation is a thorough study of late colonial Bengal in the context of war, famine, and riots leading up to the eventual dissolution of empire. The central argument of the dissertation is built on the claim that famine was the “most profound factor influencing the structural, political, social, economic and communal fabric of Bengal” during this period (p. 5). The author provides a vivid illustration of the famine’s “awesome magnitude” in terms of its impact on the socio-political landscape of Bengal (p. 7). Before proceeding to the core content of the work, the author makes three important revisions to our understandings of the famine: first, he complicates the chronology of the famine, which is otherwise more commonly referred to as the Bengal Famine of 1943. Secondly, he shows that the war efforts and business interests, both centered in Calcutta, were responsible in equal measure for the devastation that ravaged rural Bengal, thus leading to the famine. And by looking beyond the actual famine victims and drawing a more explicit link between rural and urban Bengal, this work also demonstrates that the Bengal Famine was indeed “man-made.” Finally, contrary to the claim that the famine victims “died without a murmur” (Sugata Bose,Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Structure, and Politics, 1919-1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) the author argues that by broadening the chronology of the famine the active resistance of the victims becomes evident.

I have spoken before about witnessing the raw hunger and pain in Calcutta when I was a teeny weeny chappie, around the war of independence in 1971. Seeing people fighting over scraps of food in the rubbish bins with dogs and others was a horrible sight. But to see that the British actually had direct responsibility over the death of millions of Bengali’s is a big big issue.

Sad.

Here is the wiki entryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 for the Bengal Famine.

The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami

An interesting article about a Japanese writer son. And no I haven't read him but will put him on my to be read pile. But that's not the reason I'm sending this to you. It's to give you an idea of Japan. 

Most countries that I have visited are open to the world. But out of the 60 or so countries that I have visited, Japan is perhaps one of the most insular in the world. It's an extraordinarily polite society. The taxi drivers or others do not take tips. It's violently clean. Seriously totally extraordinarily clean. Everything is clean, roads, garbage bins, loos, you name it. 

And because of its insularity, the culture is strange. It's like another planet. Art, language, paintings, sex, working, hair styles, tv etc etc have evolved just enough to make you feel amazed and confused slightly. It's like going to Australia and observing its natural history. Because of its distance and remoteness from any other landmass, animals and plants in Australia have evolved differently. Same with Japan. 

Food there is exquisite in terms of fish and beef and and but avoid their curry, it's like warmed over puke. They are so stoic but are capable of extraordinary sensitivity and brutality. Their music is quite different and their plays are also amazingly different from the usual ones you might see here in London. It's like they have a very placid, very thick, very deep cover which makes them very phlegmatic but underneath its a swirling writhing mass of molten lava like emotions. For a bong whose emotions and feelings are on my face and surface without any control, it was amazing to experience Japan. 

But there is one thing which I learnt from them son, and is to love nature as they do. I'll try to explain it. You know I keep on saying that something spoke to me? For me, the best experiences in my life have been when something speaks to me without using words. A little church in Athens, the vivekananda rock, saqqara, edge of the world in Riyadh, the woods up in grimsdike in stanmore, some places in lake district, etc etc. 

The reason is that one has to quieten yourself to listen to what nature is telling you. If you go to Japan, or be with Japanese, you might learn this. Quieten yourself. Stay silent and then watch the mountains, a cloud, a little brook, a beautiful tree, a lovely sculpture, an old book. Whatever son. See inside and you will see the beauty around you. 

You may want to look at the Japanese movies we have, they are a good start. 

Love 

Baba

 

btw, here is an interesting item which lists the things that people find surprising about Japan.

1. The trains actually come on time
2. The fruit is really delicious (There’s a lot of cross breeding)
3. The bread at 7-11 is really good
4. Taxi doors open automatically
5. The high likelihood of lost items being returned to you
6. Everyone eats KFC for Christmas dinner
7. There are vending machines absolutely everywhere
8. You can buy alcohol and tobacco from those ubiquitous vending machines
9. The Washlet bidets
10. You can drink water from the tap
11. The tea isn’t sweetened
12. You can smoke in restaurants
13. There are free samples at the supermarket
14. There are tolls on the highways
15. You can find absolute masterpieces of pastry at cake shops
16. The confusing, complex layout of Tokyo
17. The buttons to summon a waiter at family-style restaurants
18. Touch-screen menus at bars and restaurants
19. There are holes in the 5 and 50 yen coins
20. People hand out free packets of tissues on the street
21. The quality and selection at 100 yen shops
22. Japanese people really like Yahoo!
23. GPS is automatically included in rental cars
24. You can leave a bag to save your seat and no one will steal it
25. A small-size drink is actually quite small
26. There are power lines all over the place
27. People politely line up to wait for the train
28. Heated toilet seats
29. The high price of movie tickets
30. There are pachinko parlors everywhere
31. The skill used in wrapping gifts and other purchases
32. The multi-story parking garages
33. The ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) system on the highways
34. There are hot springs just for your feet
35. There are women-only cars on the trains
36. The love hotels
37. Cigarettes are really cheap
38. It’s so safe you can go walking around in the middle of the night with no problem
39. Japanese squat-style toilets
40. The incredible variety of KitKat flavors
41. There are still elevator girls who operate the elevator for you
42. The packets of condiments that you can easily open with one hand
43. Capsule hotels
44. The lucky bags sold at New Years
45. The rooms at business hotels are tiny.
46. The foreign guys dating beautiful Japanese girls are often ugly

And the 25 things which will blow your mind.

What do you expect out of marriage?

Amusing study here.

I quote the abstract

This study examines whether communication and culturally embedded concepts influence cross-cultural similarities and differences in marital role conceptions. Young adults from the US, China, South Korea, Japan, India and Malaysia responded to a series of open-ended questions about marriage and marital roles. Analytic induction methods produced categories across six topics (good wife/bad wife, good husband/bad husband, good marriage/bad marriage). Results showed even greater variation in marital role conceptions than hypothesized. Only East Asians nominated a family home focus more and only Chinese and Koreans considered respectfulness and gentleness more for the good wife role than did US participants. Loving/caring nominations did not differ across the cultural groups except for greater nominations by US participants for the good marriage and good wife role conceptions, and proportions of controlling/abusive behaviors did not differ except for the Indian group's higher nominations for the bad wife role. Communication expectations for marital roles showed some cross cultural similarity, as both US and Asian participants rated communication characteristics as more important than attractiveness/ability characteristics, but only for the good wife/husband roles.

its a bit of a d’oh question, but would help raise a chuckle at the entrenchment of national stereotypes. Indian groups seem to be highly interested in the bad wife role, lol

Your country is what according to Google?

Religious Restrictions in the 25 Most Populous Countries

Bloody shameful, if you ask me. What on earth are these countries doing? Think about India, not only does it have high government restrictions but the people themselves are actively hostile to other religions. Disgusting.

For that matter, the UK correspondingly has room for improvement as well. It has to reduce the amount of government restrictions and also further educate its population on being more liberal to other religions. Not good.

Does greater education actually increase generational conflict?

This was quite an interesting if controversial paper. Its basically explained by the following chart.

 

 

As the authors state:

The flow chart illustrates the transition to a vicious cycle of population aging and a decline in public education. In the early phases of industrialization, compulsory schooling regulated child labor and promoted technological progress, thereby discouraging fertility. A major education reform was eventually triggered by the rise in the young's demand for skill acquisition. However, the increased population share of the old enlarged their political power to curtail the government budget for education. The resulting positive response of private education induced further fertility decline.

The authors review the Japanese, USA, British, French, German situations with respect to economic development, ageing, public education, child labour, poverty, etc. The basic premise is given above. I am not sure that this has been thought before but this requires much thought. Actually, what else can one do? Public education is required. Its important to educate society as the economic development happens to move from labour and agriculture intensive sector to intellectual property / knowledge sector employment. Increased automation will anyway force people to work on higher value add jobs or get demoted out of the labour market.

But running the statistics on the overall education spend on the OECD countries here, I am not sure that the level of educational spending is falling. I think this needs to be reviewed a bit more

A bank in your mobile phone

This was very interesting news. I was discussing automation with some friends elsewhere and what I said was the because of the miniscule revenue per customer in the retail area, higher automation is a must for increasing revenues by reducing cost. But more importantly, the level of customer satisfaction and quality is much more because it gives you control over your money and investment products rather be driven by the vagaries of a human being who might not be at the right level to satisfy your level of demand.

And then you see this. I quote some extracts:

"Unlike traditional banks where mobile banking is used as a secondary channel through which customers can only conduct account enquiries and basic transactions, Jibun Bank is entirely based in the mobile phone, with the Internet serving only as a secondary channel," Tohara explains. "For a Jibun Bank customer, the entire lifecycle of products and services are available on the mobile phone, right from account opening to account closure.

In addition to more standard transactions such as Yen deposits and funds transfers, customers can access more complex banking services such as foreign currency deposits, loans, credit cards, electronic money, e-shopping payments and financial planning tools. The bank also has started selling insurance products and is planning to add the new products aggressively, according to Tohara.

Can you see the level of services there? fascinating. Quite an interesting perspective. Specially for vast swathes of the world ranging from India, China to Africa, Latin America, this would work brilliant. More importantly, in the countries where people are asset rich and time poor like in the OECD countries, this can work as well.

The account opening process was an eyeopener to me.

"A virtual bank with the mobile phone as the primary channel requires the highest level of automation," he explains. "The account opening process for Jibun Bank (which is from a mobile phone) is a fully automated process from both the bank and customer points of view."

He says the only manual processes are printing the forms and dispatching account information, which are outsourced to a printing company. The files are uploaded directly from the mobile phone or sent by the customer to a printing company. Further processing is executed at the printing company, which processes the data and delivers the information in electronic format to the bank, which then automatically processes the data to execute account activation. As such, he says the technical design of the project needed to undertake a much higher level of automation than conventional banking.

More evidence that the intermediation element of the bank is changing face dramatically.

To avoid heart attacks, dont live with in-laws

Somewhat amusing but also serious. I quote:

Japanese women are generally not at high risk for heart attacks -- unless they live with in-laws, according to a new study. Married Japanese women who live with both their husbands and a set of parents -- in Japan, that almost always means the husband’s parents, according to the researchers -- were three times more likely to suffer a heart attack than those living just with their husbands.

Having children at home also was associated with an increased risk of heart attacks among Japanese women, but not by as much, the study found. When women lived with both parents and children, the risk of heart attacks doubled rather than tripled. The heart attack risk was slightly higher among women living with both spouses and children, the study found.

Is that cultural? Presumably living with family should reduce stress. Look at this quote:

Women who lived with their spouses and parents, usually in-laws, were less likely to smoke or drink heavily, but were three times more likely to have had a heart attack, the researchers found.

Puzzling, no? but given the fact that this doesnt occur across the world means that I suspect this is more cultural rather than medical.

Technorati Tags: women's rights,japan,health

Britain, as seen from Japanese eyes - brilliant

This is absolutely side splitting, very funny! I quote:

A man who allows a muddy-pawed retriever to sleep on his bed is quintessentially British. If he ties the hound to a tree in his garden, he is not. He may also get lynched.

Britons do not value business cards greatly – a prospect may scratch his ear with the card you have carefully presented to him. Discussing house prices is, in contrast, a ritual vital to winning trust.

Be warned also that British customers are more like cats than dogs. Their loyalty is highly conditional. They may prefer a supplier who is cheap to one who has attended their children’s christenings.

Sleeping during business meetings occurs in the UK, though less commonly than in Japan. In Britain the privilege of slumbering through meetings is extended only to very senior company officials. They will typically have earned it by voting for the chief executive to receive successive above-inflation pay settlements. These elders are called “non-executive directors”.

British chief executives have a lot of power. Shockingly, British middle managers sometimes even let them take decisions all on their own

Japan has excelled in such activities as carmaking, consumer electronics and Hello Kitty licensing. Britain has also done well in carmaking, thanks to Toyota. It is a world leader in many other industries, which do not however immediately come to mind.

Like some other island races, the British distrust immigrants. We limit numbers, not through entry controls, which do not exist in any practical form, but by making foreigners’ lives unpleasant after they arrive. Heathrow, QED. Economic migrants are given such stressful work as caring for the children of middle-class professionals. Many quickly migrate back where they came from.

Technorati Tags: Japan,United Kingdom,Humour