An observation on Japanese people

Woo - back from a long holiday in Japan (and boy oh boy, is Tokyo expensive!). I'll post some pics of my trip next week but first, I wanted to share an observation I had while I was there. Japanese people have a reputation for being very well mannered and from what I could see in Tokyo, this reputation is very well deserved.

One of my pet peeves in Hong Kong is the lack of even basic manners which you regularly see on trains. One thing which I noticed while in Tokyo was that on the platform, everybody waited until passengers had gotten off the train before they got on the train. I have NEVER seen that in HK (there have been plenty of times where people in one particular section have been willing to wait but even when that happens, you will see people in another section try and push their way onto the train past people trying to get off). Granted, we were never on the trains during rush hour (I have heard enough about Tokyo rush hour to know to avoid it) so I don't know how things will change during rush hour but still - wow!

The amazing thing is that this level of manners seems to extend to other areas of their life as well. While we stayed in Tokyo, we actually spent most of our time in the countryside surrounding Tokyo and as such, we hired a car to make things more convenient. I have spent many years complaining about the lack of manners which HK people show on the road. However, this has always been based on a comparison with Glasgow which is a bit unfair to HK in that Glasgow is a relatively small city in comparison.

Tokyo, on the other hand, is a city which gets gridlocked during rush hour and is a much fairer target for comparison purposes. Unfortunately for HK, this comparison doesn't favour HK either. While driving around in Japan, it was amazing to see that people actually had good road etiquette even while we were stuck in a traffic jam.

I'm not going to comment on any other aspect of Japanese society, but when it comes to basic manners and regard for other people, Japan seems so far ahead of HK that its embarrassing.

HK school system

The missus and I attended a talk today organised by the Kindergarten that Gerry goes to. The talk was an opportunity for parents to share their experience of the process that they went through in getting a place in a primary school for their kids and how they went about preparing their kids for the interview. In a brilliant example of effective knowledge sharing, I have to admit that I really learned a lot today.

If you know me, then you will know that in the past, I wasn't particularly fond of the school system in Hong Kong. In fact, I used to think that the person who devised the Hong Kong school system deserved to die. However, after attending today's talk, I no longer believe this.

Instead, now that I understand the requirements a bit better, I wish that he is slowly digested over a thousand years as he finds a new definition of pain and suffering.

Ronaldo

If I look up Ronaldo in a thesaurus, will I find the word classless?


In case there is any doubt, I'm talking about Christiano Ronaldo and his latest effort to leave Man Utd. To be fair, Ronaldo is a fantastic player in terms of his skill. The only problem is his propensity for gamesmanship which has always highly disappointed me.


In any event, the current issue I have with Ronaldo is his claim that he is some kind of modern slave. Granted, the comments originally came from Sepp Blatter (another plonker as far as I'm concerned but I'll save this rant for Ronaldo) but Ronaldo has come out in support of those comments.

Which is so far beyond ridiculous as to be insulting. Christiano Ronaldo is being paid a small fortune every week to play football. If he doesn't play, he still gets paid. If he does play but plays poorly, he still gets paid. If he plays and plays well, not only does he get paid but he probably also gets bonuses. This is all guaranteed by the contract he signed.

And this will remain the case for as long as he is in contract. A contract, which it is also worth pointing out, he knew all about before he signed. However, Ronaldo would now rather play somewhere else. The only problem is the slight issue of the legally binding contract that he signed (the same contract, it is worth mentioning, which also protects his rights). Quite frankly, he knew how long the contract was for when he signed it. The only way that Ronaldo can leave is if Man Utd agree to sell him.

Naturally, Man Utd don't want to sell one of the most skillful players of the current generation. Having said that, if someone offered a figure ludicrously high enough (say for example GBP2,000m), then I'm sure Man Utd would sell. Obviously, nobody will offer such a high amount. The point is that the market is about supply and demand and despite what Man Utd say, I believe that every player has his price. Man Utd have the supply (the player under contract) but nobody has met the demand price yet. And if he doesn't like it, then he is free to see out his contract and leave for any club he desires.

And so Ronaldo will have to stay at Man Utd. But he has the gall to equate his situation (ie being forced to meet his obligations under the contract he signed) with slavery. As I said, this is so ludicrous, it enters into the realms of insulting - particularly to those who are or were slaves.

Right now, I have only contempt for Ronaldo together with a fervent desire that he never gets what he wants in life.

Journalistic integrity

For some reason, I seem to be thinking a lot about journalistic integrity recently. More specifically, I think about the issue that some journalists don't seem to have any integrity at all. If I were being mean, I would add "just like politicians" - but then that would just be mean.
:)

Anyway, you can find the article that prompted today's rant here. Before, reading any further, please click that link and read the article.

If you are familiar with the video game Mass Effect, then you may be thinking whether this is a genuine article or not. I will admit that my first reaction on reading the first couple of paragraphs was that this was sarcasm in full flow. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it isn't sarcasm and is a genuine post about how this guy views video games in general and Mass Effect in particular (full disclosure dept - I am a huge BioWare fan and highly enjoyed playing Mass Effect. In fact, if you run a search on both of my blogs, you will find several references to this game).

I actually read uninformed crap from morons babbling about video games all the time. Admittedly, most of the time, its from politicians and other professionals (say for example, lawyers) who are trying to push a political agenda and don't know anything about the video game medium. In that situation, I can kind of understand why - they are looking for votes on the back of an easy scapegoat. Similarly, I can understand why so much video game legislation is initially successful before being struck down as unconstitutional in court - after all, if a politician doesn't vote for legislation on video games, then their opponents will just use that as ammo to say that this guy doesn't care about morals or children or whatever (Think of the children!!).

Another element that video gamers have to deal with is the blatant hypocrisy of politicians when they attack video games. As an example, some politicians claim that children exposed to violent media (which obviously includes games, movies etc) have a higher risk of becoming sociopaths and hence want to regulate the sale of video games. However, you rarely see these same politicians attack the movie industry in the same way. To be fair, I can understand this as the movie industry in the US is very powerful and attacking these guys head on could result in the end of your political career.

Anyway, let me get back on topic before I get sidetracked too far.

As I was saying, in the case of politicians, I can understand why they are attacking video games. However, in the case of Kevin McCullough (the author of that post), things are slightly different. Kevin seems to be semi famous - he has radio broadcasts, appears on TV as a pundit, is a published author etc (you can find his bio here - I'm assuming he wrote that as its on his own personal blog).

I don't know if he is considered a journalist. I don't know if he considers himself a journalist. However, based on my definition of a journalist being someone who reports on the news, I do consider him a journalist.

And before you ask - when I write about news and similar events on my blog, I consider myself an amateur journalist and try to be ethical about it accordingly. Where I feel I haven't done enough research and feel that I don't have sufficient facts, I try to let you know that. I hope that when you read about news items on my blog, in addition to getting my viewpoint, you also get a reasonably balanced look at what is happening. An example of this is my recent post on Sony. I told you that I'm not a fan of Sony so that you have full disclosure of my viewpoint which may bias my comments as anti-Sony. I also deliberately included phrases like "According to the author" and "seems to be based". These words were deliberated inserted to make you pause and think about whether you were getting the full story (obviously you weren't as Sony did not, and probably never will, release any statement on this). Admittedly, I don't always succeed (see my very one sided posts about the RIAA).

So, whats my point? My point is that, as a journalist, you have a certain level of responsibility when presenting news.

First off, you should not lie. This is the big one. If I find out a journalist was outright lying, I never give that journalist any future credibility ... ever.

The second big responsibility is that you should research your topic so that, at the very least, you know what you are talking about. If you don't do this, this also impacts on your future credibility (if I know you aren't going to research your topic, why should I believe what you say?). If you don't research the topic, but rely on someone elses work, then you should make this clear and let us know what you base your "facts" on. Again, to take an example from my blog, I recently posted about the RIAA suing someone for copying music from a CD onto his computer. When I first heard about this, I didn't take it at face value. Before I blogged about it, I checked online to see if it was true. I found a transcript of the actual law filing as well as an article in the Washington Post. Based on this, it seemed like the lawsuit was genuine. I posted a link to the Washington Post article so that you readers could see why I thought it was genuine (I didn't post a link to the transcript as I felt that was too boring to ask you to read!).

Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't be wrong. After all, nobody is infallible. You could be flat out wrong when presenting something - but if you honestly believed what you said and did a reasonable amount of research before presenting, then I wouldn't hold any grudges.

Now here's the thing. Based on what Kevin wrote about Mass Effect in his column, I can only think of two possible reasons. Either he is outright lying and knowingly presenting the game as something it is not or he didn't bother taking the time to do any kind of research into this game before writing his column. Both of these possibilities highlight a distinct lack of ethics.

At this point, I should also mention that Kevin isn't the only person with such views. However, I chose to post about his column because it was the latest example that I came across while also being the most extreme example of highlighting what I consider to be a lack of journalistic integrity.

How do these people get a driving licence?

The quality of drivers in Hong Kong is absolutely dreadful (although to be fair, it isn't as bad as in Mainland China). To be clear, when I talk about bad drivers, I don't mean drivers who speed all the time. Nor do I mean drivers who do maneuvers without using the indicator lights.

I am talking about honest to goodness god-awful drivers who don't deserve to have a drivers licence in the first place. I came across another example of this recently in a car park.

I was on my way into a multi-storey carpark. The road to move up (and down) a level is comprised of 2 lanes - one for going up and one for going down. The two lanes are right next to each other and go in a tight circular motion. Basically, the only way for you to tell if there is a car coming down is to check these big mirrors they have stuck on the walls. Alternatively, you can also tell there is a car coming if the other driver has switched on the main headlamps.

So I was on the way up to another level when I notice a car in one of the mirrors. Being careful, I slow down a little just to make sure there is room. Then the car itself comes into view. Right in the middle of the two lanes! I have an artists impression on the right (some idiot praised my last "artists impression" so you all have to put up with another one!).

I immediately hit the brakes and screech to a halt. Meanwhile, the other car swerves back onto its side of the road. Both of us end up next to each other giving me an opportunity to glare menacingly at the other driver (another side note, I really need to practice my menacing glare - at the moment, it doesn't intimidate anyone!).

The incredible part? The other driver has the gall to glare back at me as if its my fault!