Baseball legend Ted Williams was one in a million, widely considered the most “gifted” hitter of his time. “I remember watching one of his home runs from the bleachers of Shibe Park,” John Updike wrote in The New Yorker in 1960. “It went over the first baseman’s head and rose meticulously along a straight line and was still rising when it cleared the fence. The trajectory seemed qualitatively different from anything anyone else might hit.”

In the public imagination, Williams was almost a god among men, a “superhuman” endowed with a collection of innate physical gifts, including spectacular eye-hand coordination, exquisite muscular grace, and uncanny instincts. “Ted just had that natural ability,” said Hall of Fame second baseman Bobby Doerr. “He was so far ahead of everybody in that era.” Among other traits, Williams was said to have laser-like eyesight, which enabled him to read the spin of a ball as it left the pitcher’s fingers and to gauge exactly where it would pass over the plate. “Ted Williams sees more of the ball than any man alive,” Ty Cobb once remarked.

But all that innate miracle-man stuff—it was all “a lot of bull,” said Williams. He insisted his great achievements were simply the sum of what he had put into the game. “Nothing except practice, practice, practice will bring out that ability,” he explained. “The reason I saw things was that I was so intense … It was [super] discipline, not super eyesight.”

Is that possible? Could a perfectly ordinary man actually train himself to be a dazzling phenomenon? We all recognize the virtues of practice and hard work, but truly, could any amount of effort transform the clunky motions of a whiffer or a chucker into the majestic swing of Tiger Woods or the gravity-defying leap of Michael Jordan? Could an ordinary brain ever expand enough to conjure the far-flung curiosities and visions of Einstein or Matisse? Is true greatness obtainable from everyday means and everyday genes?

Conventional wisdom says no, that some people are simply born with certain gifts while others are not; that talent and high intelligence are somewhat scarce gems, scattered throughout the human gene pool; that the best we can do is to locate and polish these gems—and accept the limitations built into the rest of us.

But someone forgot to tell Ted Williams that talent will out. As a boy, he wasn’t interested in watching his natural abilities unfurl passively like a flower in the sunshine. He simply wanted—needed—to be the best hitter baseball had ever seen, and he pursued that goal with appropriate ferocity. “His whole life was hitting the ball,” recalled a boyhood friend. “He always had that bat in his hand … And when he made up his mind to do something, he was going to do it or know the reason why.”

At San Diego’s old North Park field, two blocks from his modest childhood home, friends recall Williams hitting baseballs every waking hour of every day, year after year after year. They describe him slugging balls until their outer shells literally wore off, swinging even splintered bats for hours upon hours with blisters on his fingers and blood dripping down his wrists. A working-class kid with no extra pocket change, he used his own lunch money to hire schoolmates to shag balls so that he could keep swinging. From age six or seven, he would swing the bat at North Park field all day and night, swing until the city turned off the lights; then he’d walk home and swing a roll of newspaper in front of a mirror until he fell asleep. The next day, he’d do it all over again. Friends say he attended school only to play on the team. When baseball season ended and the other kids moved on to basketball and football, Williams stuck with baseball. When other boys started dating girls, Williams just kept hitting balls in North Park field. In order to strengthen his sight, he would walk down the street with one eye covered, and then the other. He even avoided movie theaters because he’d heard it was bad for the eyes. “I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from being the hitter I hoped to be,” Williams later recalled. “Looking back … it was pretty near storybook devotion.”

In other words, he worked for it, fiercely, single-mindedly, far beyond the norm. “He had one thought in mind and he always followed it,” said his high school coach Wos Caldwell.

Greatness was not a thing to Ted Williams; it was a process.

This didn’t stop after he got drafted into professional baseball. In Williams’s first season with the minor league San Diego Padres, coach Frank Shellenback noticed that his new recruit was always the first to show up for practice in the morning and the last to leave at night. And something more curious: after each game, Williams would ask the coach for the used game balls.

“What do you do with all these baseballs?” Shellenback finally asked Williams one day. “Sell them to kids in the neighborhood?”

“No sir,” replied Williams. “I use them for a little extra hitting practice after supper.”

Knowing the rigors of a full practice day, Shellenback found the answer hard to swallow. Out of a mix of suspicion and curiosity, he later recalled, “I piled into my car after supper [one night] and rode around to Williams’s neighborhood. There was a playground near his home, and sure enough, I saw The Kid himself driving those two battered baseballs all over the field. Ted was standing close to a rock which served as [home] plate. One kid was pitching to him. A half dozen others were shagging his drives. The stitching was already falling apart on the baseballs I had [just] given him.”

Even among the pros, Williams’s intensity stood so far outside the norm that it was often uncomfortable to witness up close. “He discussed the science of hitting ad nauseam with teammates and opposing players,” write biographers Jim Prime and Bill Nowlin. “He sought out the great hitters of the game—Hornsby, Cobb, and others—and grilled them about their techniques.”

He studied pitchers with the same rigor. “[After a while], pitchers figure out [batters’] weaknesses,” said Cedric Durst, who played on the Padres with Williams. “Williams wasn’t like that … Instead of them figuring Ted out, he figured them out. The first time Ted saw [Tony] Freitas pitch, we were sitting side by side on the bench and Ted said, ‘This guy won’t give me a fast ball I can hit. He’ll waste the fast ball and try to make me hit the curve. He’ll get behind on the count, then throw me the curve.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”

Process. After a decade of relentless effort on North Park field, and four impressive years in the minors, Williams came into the major leagues in 1939 as an explosive hitter and just kept getting better and better and better. In 1941, his third season with the Boston Red Sox, he became the only major league player in his era—and the last in the twentieth century—to bat over .400 for a full season.

The next year, 1942, Ted Williams enlisted in the navy as an aviator. Tests revealed his vision to be excellent, but well within ordinary human range.

Excerpted from the book The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk

It’s good.

Let me tell you why .

Title/Author/Info
「前倒し」仕事術! ムリなく始められる、3つの習慣 中井 紀之 (著) Do It Badly And Ahead Of Time! Three Easy-To-Start Habits That Will Make You Awesome Possum Noriyuki NAKAI Language: Japanese Veracity: Non-fiction Furigana: No Genre: Business book
Pros	Cons
Simple ideas but expressed in an insightful way that feels really fresh Clear writing Has this really cool, textured cover Touches on concepts like timeboxing and Parkinson’s Law, but without naming them Perfect antidote to the perfectionism masquerading as professionalism/maturity that seems to be eating away at so many people nowadays NAKAI is kind. You know how some business authors are mean because they think it’s cool? Yeah, he’s not like that. The first two-thirds of the book is pure gold. The final third isn’t as good, but that’s fine because all the lameness is sequestered over there, leaving the vast majority of the book pristine. Doesn’t beat you over the head with its titular “habits”, quite unlike certain plodding, quasi-theological business books that shall remain nameless. OK that was mean. But seriously…that book should have been a pamphlet. Freakin’ a. Judicious use of images and highlighting — in keeping with the illustrious traditions of the modern Japanese business book.	Assumes that you work at a company The ideas are so simple that it’s tempting to ignore the book The final third of the book is a bit too focussed on specific tools — Gmail, iPhone, iPod touch — with usage suggestions that are (1) not at all fresh, and (2) only tangentially related to the core ideas of the book, which are fresh. It all just seems unnecessarily trendy to me. In fact, I feel like it actually just lowers the timelessness and universality of the book. It adds pages, but not value. In other words, it’s filler. Fortunately, it all comes at the end, where it can’t mar the rest of the book. I imagine that this travesty was probably an idea of the publisher’s rather than the author’s. 2010 has been a banner year for Japanese business books centered around how artifacts like the iPhone and cloud services like Gmail and DropBox will cure cancer, increase nighttime stamina and make you more productive than an ant on speed. All us geeks know in our hearts of hearts that while tools like the iPhone are great fun to play around with, they rarely actually help (of course there are major exceptions, like SRS — a smartphone is worth it for the mobile SRS capability alone). In many crucial ways, these toys are yet to match the speed, reliability and resilience of good old BallPointPen and A4Paper. IMHO, it comes down to this: the key to being awesome possum is almost always lies in mindset rather than tools. A new PDA will not make it all better. Being mindful of Parkinson’s Law, on the other hand, will. A good tool with the wrong mindset is just a waste of plastic and minor precious metals.
Comments
The great lie of the productivity world is that some new artifact — some kind of device or planner — will come along and make it all better. I believed this lie for the greater part of my youth. But I think that I had a good reason for believing it: the alternative was well-meaning adults who tell you to “just suck it up”. **** you. If that worked so well, I’d be doing it, wouldn’t I? Here’s the thing: the key to being awesome, the key to so-called productivity, is not the tools, but an understanding of human behavior — yours. Once we understand human behavior, we can, as we say in Japanese “give life” to the tools. In other words, tools are helpful and useful only in proportion to the user’s ability to use them and not be used by them. So, SRS in the wrong hands creates burnout, a Franklin Planner in the wrong hands is just expensive leather binding and refills (actually, a Franklin Planner in the right hands is just expensive leather binding and refills, but…yeah), a PDA in the wrong hands is just an overpriced mini-touchscreen. A person who knows about the Pareto Principle, Parkinson’s Law, Temporal Motivation Theory, Operant Conditioning — even if she doesn’t know these concepts by name — this is a person who’s ready for tools. But…here is the irony — as your understanding of human behavior goes up, your need to amass tools goes down. Tools definitely can and do help. I’m a happy user of many of them. But they really only help at all when and because they magnify the existing mindset of the user. Give a scatterbrained, overworked perfectionist an iPhone, and what you create is a scatterbrained, overworked perfectionist…with an iPhone. Reminds me of the famous Mojo Jojo quote: “I was once a vengeful mad genius bent on destroying the world. But now I’m a vengeful mad genius bent on destroying the world…with super powers!” ~ Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls, commenting immediately after his acquisition of super powers Um…I forgot what I was actually talking about. Oh yeah, this book. Yeah, it’s really cool. The first two thirds give you the mental tools to use the physical tools introduced in the final third. The concrete suggestions in the final third of the book aren’t as bad as I made them out to be earlier in this review; it’s just, I guess…I’m tired of iPhone-and-Gmail books. I mean…dayom. Way to skirt the core issues. OK, in keeping with the growing tradition of these book reviews (lots of tradition to keep today), let me pull out a couple of pearls of wisdom I picked up from this bad boy: 準備するから遅くなる： You run late because you prepare. Stop preparing and just start doing something. 「大きな一歩」にこだわるから、スタート出来ない。「小さな一歩」なら、頑張らなくても踏み出せる：You run late because you try to take big steps. If you take small steps, if you just inch your way there, you won’t even have to try. 時間にルーズな相手からの電話を待ってはいけない：Don’t wait for phone calls from people who don’t keep time. 文章は、出出しの1行を考えるのに時間が掛かる。2行目から始めれば、直ぐに書ければ：It takes a long time to learn write that first line. Don’t even bother. Just start writing from the second line! This is genius writing advice. 記念日にこだわるから遅くなる。「今日」を記念日にす[る]：Waiting for special days makes you late. Make today the special day. タイムリミットは、早ければ早いほどいい：The lower the time limit, the better. The less time you have, the better. 「期日の無い仕事」が、「いそがしい」「仕事が終わらない」の元凶：Work that has no deadline is the source of that overworked, overbusy feeling. Parkinson’s Law. Right here, baby. Work expanding infinitely to fill infinite available time. This is why people who have all the time in the world never get anything done. 「迷ったら捨てる」を鉄則に：If in doubt, throw it out. That it from me. Sorry for this sucky, pedestrian review. The book itself is really cool, though, so…

Today’s book: 1-Minute Email-Fu. A book that will quite literally turn you into the shogun of Harlem. Or at least of Japanese business email.

Anyway, 問答無用！No more preliminary jibber-jabber! Let’s get right to it!

Title/Author/Info	Pros	Cons
考えすぎて書けない人のための1分間メール術 考えすぎて書けない人のための1分間メール術 [単行本]神垣あゆみ (著) 1-Minute Email-Fu | Quick, Concise, Chronically Awesome Japanese Business Email Examples For People Who Think Too Much KAMIGAKI Ayumi	This book is so good that Hiroshi (fake name), one of my good Japanese friends (who went to Waseda — the Princeton of Japan — and happens to be a bureaucrat) stole it from me and took it to his office to use at work! I had to keep bugging this kid for days on end just to get it grudgingly returned so I could write this review. No, really, stole. He borrowed it without my permission. We regularly share books with each other. But this one he simply nabbed. Examples are situation-based, easy to look up. Very clear writing and formatting. Contains examples that you simply can’t find online. Frankly, all the online Japanese business email guides I have seen so far are crap. Too wordy, too complex, too presumptuous (I don’t make factory goods!): they simply don’t cover the right situations in the right way. Kamigaki also has another email book out called メールは1分で返しなさい. I haven’t actually seen it yet, but if this bad boy is anything to go by, then it’s probably full of awesome. Written by a Japanese person for Japanese people. So you know she keeps it real. This is actual contemporary Japanese: not the anachronistic, overpolite Japanese that prissy, opinionated, undersexed schoolmarms insist on trying to force foreigners to use. People who’ve taken a Japanese class know exactly what I’m talking about.	No digital version. I mean, come on — this is email! Electronic mail. An electronic version just makes good sense. Especially since Kamigaki encourages readers to use her examples as is. I’d love to SRS the pants off her…book. This is kind of like how computer science/ engineering students in college are often lugging around these super heavy textbooks when they should be the very ones pioneering electronic books. Come on…computer scientists (1) carrying books that are (2) even heavier than the humanities students? That’s not a typo. Computer science textbooks usually weigh more than a humanities student.
Comments
There isn’t actually much to say about this book other than it’s a great email reference. Examples are arranged thematically. See that picture of the sample page? Almost the entire book is structured this way — full example email on one page, discussion of key phrases on the other. Let me, I guess, share, by way of illustrative example, how this book has helped me. Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot of translation work since that’s something easy and fun you can do from home or anywhere else — perfect for both hermit and nomad. Sometimes I would need to turn down project offers (and I did start getting a lot </blowingownhorn>), especially when I was scaling down to concentrate on other things. Now, the thing about turning down work is that anyone can be all “I’m busy!”. But to communicate the idea that “you have honored me with your request and with the time it took you to contact me, I can’t work on this project right now but maybe another time”, and to do so with neither arrogance nor ambiguity nor excess humility nor verbosity? That, friends, is the big email question, as it were: how do you say “no” nicely and firmly? I mean, I’m probably overthinking all of this; I’m almost certainly overthinking it…but…anyway, that example up there (the sample page) from this book showed me how to do that. How to turn things down in such a way that both sides both feel good and get the message — clarity, concision, good feelings. Hiroshi liked it; I liked it; you’ll like it, too. Random aside: a lot of Japanese etiquette originates from a time when life was slower and speed was considered rude; in fact, in traditional letter-writing, one would apologize for writing letters that were too short — particularly thank-you letters. Now, of course, speed is considered essential, but so is politeness. You need to be polite quickly. There’s no time to say the stuff that comes after “こんにちは”. This, I think, is a big part of what causes many Japanese people and people who simply run Japanese software — like you and I — to think too much when writing email; they’re trying to balance all these things. 1-Minute Email-Fu will help you learn to write concise, effective, clear, polite, dignified Japanese business emails. It’ll save you time and brain cycles. I’m very proud of myself for having found it . It’s that simple.

Let the opinionating begin…

As is the custom here at AJATT, let me be the very first to tell you precisely and in no uncertain words:

Why You Don’t Need The QRG Video And Why You Shouldn’t Buy It

• No special effects
• No hot chicks
• No hot guys
• No hot anything, really
• My Mum says I’m handsome, but does that really count?
• No 3D animation
• No popcorn
• In the background, you can still see the tape marks from when I used to try to prevent my cats opening doors (those clever motherlovers…)
• No batteries included
• I hadn’t shaved
• My posture was bad
• It’s a monologue
• There’s virtually no Japanese in it.
• Which is pretty funny for a site called “All Japanese All The Time”.
• Wanna know what’s even more funny?
• 日本語を全く解さない癖に一々「アイツのホームページはさぁ、やっぱ日本語足りないんだよね」とかホザいてる馬鹿野郎が
• That’s what’s freaking funny.
• 百年早いぞｺﾉﾔﾛｰ
• There’s lots of mumbling and rambling. To quote Tolkien verbatim: things were mumbled that shouldn’t have been mumbled.
• At one point in the video, I inexplicably feel the need to tell you that I read a lot of books — intellectual small man syndrome, hmmm?
• I have a weird, hard-to-place, mid-Atlanticy accent thing going on that is neither here nor there, and thus, ultimately, hard for everyone to understand.
• I then take this accent and mumble in it.
• It’s full of unfunny jokes.
• That I then laugh at.
• Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.
• You could just read the AJATT site.
• You could just read the QRG ebook.
• “They” (air quotes) don’t want you to have it.
• A good number of fellow AJATTeers have put up free AJATT walkthroughs on YouTube. For free. For free, meng.
• It comes with free membership in the AJATT cult wait…baby steps…baby steps…

So Who Would Want To Buy The QRG Video?

• People who bought, enjoyed and benefited from the QRG ebook
• People who have enjoyed and benefited from previous AJATT videos
• People who have read, enjoyed and benefited from AJATT articles
• People looking for a lazy, “hands-free” but action-oriented overview of the AJATT “method”
• People who prefer verbal explanations.
• People who prefer watching a video to reading large amounts of text
• People who want to get right to the AJATT “action” without wading through large amounts of interesting but “less action-oriented” individual.

The AJATT site, this site, has grown into a compendium of brilliantly insightful articles written by an incredibly handsome man. This is a good thing. The one weakness is that, well, it’s all very large, and can tend to leave you wondering “OK, but what do I DO?”.

The QRG series has been designed to fulfill the specific need to “get straight to the action”, without sacrificing the more universal and context-independent appeal of many of the articles you typically find here on the site.

Some things are best read, some things are best heard, some things are best said and heard. The QRG video, in combination with the QRG ebook, covers all these bases for you. One of the coolest parts of the video, I think, is the oral walkthrough of the entire AJATT “philosophy” (AKA “mental tools”) section.

Over and above that is the “greater than the some of its parts” effect, that inexplicable magic you get in a video that text can never quite replicate. This video is a lot like sitting with me, in my “Fortress of Solitude”, having a conversation. If that’s something you would enjoy, then I think you might enjoy this video as well.

What’s In The Package?

• A video file — digital download.
• WMV format.
• File size: Approx. 425MB
• Running time: 81 minutes
• All the points in the QRG are covered with sparkling wit and verve.

For best results, I recommend you:

• Get the QRG ebook as well, if you don’t already have it. This video is designed to be used in combination with the QRG ebook, and assumes that you already own it.
• Be learning Japanese. This video, like the current QRG ebook, is quite specifically focussed in that direction.

Own It Now!

Your copy is waiting for you. But “they” may try to take it away! So panic. Buy now. Treat yourself. You deserve this. Do something for yourself for a change! Et cetera .

• QRG Video Only: $25.95
• QRG Video + QRG Ebook + My First Sentence Pack Bundle: $35.95 (save over 37%).

No Likey? No Problem!

As with all its predecessor products, the QRG video comes with a 100%, no-questions-asked refund guarantee. If you are in anyway unhappy with the product, just shoot me an email at qrg at ajatt dot com, and I will be happy to give you a full refund on your purchase.
Even if I try to ask questions, you can be all “nuh-uh…no questions!”

All this consulting and FAQing and emailing and commenting have taught me a thing or two. A lot of people have a lot of questions, particularly fine, detailed, low-level questions.

My personal preference up until now has been to write at a more abstract level, both in order to stay more universal and also in order to not bog people down with minutiae. Moreover, I hate being told what to do, and a lot of AJATT comes down to “just go out there by yourself and play”.

However, those action-level techniques do have a place and do have value. And, as you might expect, I’ve definitely accumulated my fair share of these over time.

One other thing that I’ve observed is that some people (at least claim to ) read through all the articles indexed over at the Table of Contents, but still come out confused as to what to do: “OK, so where do I start?” And, to be fair, I would probably be in the exact same position as them. There is enough information now on this site to fill hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand, pages of a normal book. There’s a lot to go through.

So, in my boundless magnanimity, in my universal love for humanity, in my mother-like kindness, I have taken it upon myself to use these fingers and this computer, to create magic, to create…a QRG.

QRG: an action-oriented, technique-focussed Quick Reference Guide to AJATT in the form of an ebook. How do you do the hirigana and the sentances and kanjis? How do you do the emersion? [sic]. How do you do use monolingual dictionaries? How do you sentence-pick? It’s AJATT condensed into a single package for AJATTeers at virtually every stage of the process, from beginners, to phase-transitioners to high-flyers looking for new games and challenges.

The guide itself is basically written up and ready to go, but before releasing it, I would love to part-take of your wisdom, your advice, your experiences, your requests, your suggestions. What do you need to know? What do you wish someone had told you? What would/do you as a user-reader want out of a guide like this?

Comments are wide open. Let your voice be heard, and cetera!

As you know, I often project the image of a raving anti-Semite. But actually I hate people who are intolerant of other ethnicities. And the Basques.

The Basques.

Why is there a “q”? Why do they get the “special” language? Why is there Basque Freemason writing on the back of the American $5 bill?

Made you look!…Haha…too much Internet for you!

I’d like to Basque in the glory of this topic the whole day, but we have a book review to do, so let’s get started. The book is The Way of Brain Success: 猶太人の頭の中. The author is one Andrew J. Sutter. The Japanese translation is by his wife, 中村起子/NAKAMURA Kiko.

猶太人の頭の中

• Title: ユダヤ人の頭のなか / ユダヤジンノアタマノナカ
• Format: Non-fiction, Paperback
• Author: Andrew J. Sutter
• Furigana: Negatory.
• Genre: Personal development.
• Veracity: Non-Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: Essentially, none.
• YesAsia

Structurally, this book is quite interesting…it was written in English by the author (who’s Jewish, so…we have a good chance that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to “Jewish stuff”), but always with the intention of publication in Japanese; AFAIK, there is no English version bar Sutter’s original manuscript. TWOBS was intended from the start to be a Japanese book, and the translation was so good that it led one Japanese customer on Amazon.JP to comment that “it’s like it’s not even a translation”…if he knew the path to its publication, he would understand why he felt that way. So, in terms of style and audience, this is a purely Japanese book.

While the government of Japan refused to partake in the anti-Semitism that was terribly en vogue in let’s just say certain parts of Europe in the 1940s (and, well, frankly…even today on certain European island nations beginning with B and ending in ritain — at least at my high school), Protocols of the Elders of Zion-style judaeophobic books do exist here, unfortunately. Before everyone goes freaking out, there are also more level-headed books, like 加瀬 英明/KASE Hideaki’s ユダヤの力/YUDAYA NO CHIKARA. But the crappy books needed to be answered and Sutter was just the chap to do it.

But first, let’s get into:

Why Khatzumoto was even interested in a topic as ripe for grief, libel, slander, misunderstanding, simple crudeness, scapegoatery, scapesheepery and appalling violence, as Jewish science, I mean, success?

For the answer to that question, you need look no further than my undergraduate experiences.

Experience number one. It was a computer science class in the computer science building with the best computer science professor in the world (Iowa, represent!). Outside, summer. Inside, dark. Room, dimly lit. Whiteboard, white but hard to see. Professor, really interesting as always. And he, that man, my sensei, said something that is probably common knowledge for everyone else, but hit me like lightning. He said that the source of the worldly success enjoyed by the Jews of Europe in the past 250 or so years, lies in the fact that the Jewish men of Europe could all do something that almost all the gentiles could not: read. Indeed, another name for the Jews is “the people of the book”. Also, “the people of the Nobel prize”.

Experience number two. When I was a kid, I used to read and watch TV simultaneously. Often, I’d be reading two or sometimes even three books and watching the ‘levision. It felt entirely natural to me but a lot of people got on my case about it (Them: “Pick one!”, Me: “No!”). Then, in 2004 I’m at a college friend’s family house and her dad is in the kitchen with magazine on the table a novel in hand and a documentary on the telly and it was like everything was warm and fuzzy because finally someone understood me and it turns out he’s Jewish which tangentially connects it to this post.

Indeed, these college experiences helped set the stage for my literacy “revelation”, which I very verbosely shared with you here. I got interested in how the Jews as a people — with exceptions, of course — had risen, literally from the ghetto, to success in so many fields. How they dealt with every ridiculous obstacle that was placed in their way. Can’t own land? Learn a trade. Trade guilds won’t let you in? Deal with money. No access to reliable customers? Provide consumer financial services for high-risk clients. WASP law firms won’t let you in or make you partner? Make your own and win crappy cases until the whole legal world knows you’re the best. Your country kicks you out because they say your science is different? Go and be Einstein somewhere else. Columbia University won’t allow you to attend because they have a “Jewish quota” (WTF?). Go to MIT and become Richard Feynman anyway (smooth move, Columbia).

I bet the same idiots who whine about affirmative action now (can of worms! can of worms!) would have whined about “Jews winning all the university places” back when the Ivy League was busy rejecting Richard Feynman and anyone else who looked too smart and had a German-sounding name. Mediocre members of a majority ethnic group loooooove flapping lip about how some minority is ruining it for them; it happens in the US with ethnic minorities; it happens in Kenya with Desis; it happens in Malaysia with ethnic Chinese (my Malay friends are going to beat me up over this). Funnily enough, though, the smart kids of all ethnicities never whine: when you’re the best, you’re the freaking best.

As Sutter explains, culture is everything (not genetics: Sutter says the evidence just isn’t there). The Jews built a religious culture founded on literacy and encouraging of learning: learning itself was considered worship. Sutter describes a traditional ceremony in which children were given honey as a reward in conjunction with some activity involving reading or memorizing parts of a certain religious text; the aim of the ceremony was literally to teach them that learning is sweet (reminds me of how I used to eat Jelly Bellies after each Chinese SRS rep); in terms of behaviorism, this is so many types of right it’s not even funny. So, when the Haskalah came and restrictions on secular activity were loosened, it was a matter of shifting the focus of that prodigious intellectual activity from the finer details of religious jurisprudence to whatever presented itself in the world outside. Not to mention the fact that the ever-present danger of being “asked to leave” led the Jews as a group to seek a portable, long-lasting, borderless asset — more valuable than land, cattle or bling and quite impossible to steal: knowledge.

Sutter and Kase both recount various interesting fables passed down in the Jewish community, illustrating the value of brain over brawn in even the direst of situations. There’s one about a Jew who is brought to a magistrate in some European country in medieval times, accused of murdering a gentile’s child. The magistrate is a raving anti-Semite, but is also a gentleman, and so likes to give the appearance of fairness; he announces to the Jewish guy: “Look here, Greenbaum; I’m a fair man. Since there were no eyewitnesses and DNA forensic evidence tests haven’t been invented yet, let that God of yours decide your fate. In this hat are two pieces of paper, one says ‘guilty’ and the other ‘not guilty’. You pick. The paper shall be your fate”. Greenbaum knows that the magistrate reads too many shady conspiracy parchments, and is a thoroughgoing Jew-hater, and realizes that both pieces of paper say “guilty”; but there’s no way he could slander the town magistrate and live. Seemingly resigned to his fate, he mutters a prayer, reaches into the hat…pulls out a piece of paper…and eats it. Everyone goes into shock; his family is all screaming: “What are you Jewing?! Jew CRAYzay!”. And then he tells the magistrate: “the paper I didn’t pick is still there; you can check against it”. Greenbaum lives. Intellectual muscle saves the day. The end.

Another Jewish fable for children (this time from Kase) tells of a ship, again in dayes of olde. On it were two merchants and a scholar. The two merchants sell i-Parchments, designer clothes, bling and all manner of other luxury merchandise. They’ve been on the ship a few days, and the topic of conversation comes to the scholar and what he sells. The scholar tells the merchants he sells the most valuable merchandise in all the world, better than bling, designer clothes and i-Parchments. The other merchants are curious but puzzled. Bored, they ask around the ship, looking for the scholar’s merchandise. Eventually they realize that the scholar has no merchandise, and they’re like: “that Greenbaum kid is an egit”. Days later a storm hits, the ship sinks and almost everyone dies. The merchants and the scholar float ashore, stranded in a strange new land. With no insurance and all their merchandise gone, the merchants become beggars. The scholar goes into town and becomes a consultant for the king, makes a lot of gold and eventually uses his wealth to help his former fellow passengers back on their feet. Once again, the day is saved thanks to intellectual muscle.

Contrast this attitude to knowledge and its acquisition, with how many other cultures treat geeks and geekery. Think how most gaijin act towards Japanese-learning fellow gaijin. They call them names (“geeks”, “weebos”). They tell them to “stop pretending to read”. Tell them “they can do that at home”. They tell them to “stop acting Japanese”. Jock culture and sports heroes are lionized — and perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that necessarily, it’s just that too many people forget that most sportspeople are in fact interchangeable pawns (always one injury away from being thrown away like so many used Kleenex) in a wider game played and run by the aforementioned geeks. Everybody wanting to be a gladiator when it would be safer and easier and far more profitable to be a stable owner instead…

Fortunately for me, my mother listened to TONS of Barbara Streisand when I was a child. What does that have to do with anything? Nothing whatsoever. But she was always going on and on and on about the value of knowledge this and Barbara Streisand that and no one can take knowledge away from you and are you even listening and put down the Game Boy and this is my favorite Barbara song.

My Japanese journey (and, even the Chinese one) had its fair share of opposition, but the early microculture of my nuclear family, the fact that our home was reader-friendly — this set a good example. Growing up it all seemed quite normal. But as an adult, I have met a few people who treat me like a freak who “reads all the time”; interestingly enough, their social station somewhat reflects this attitude to “booklurnin!”. It’s not like I’m an intellecual juggernaut (I want to be )…and it’s not like economics is everything — knowledge is valuable in and of itself. But, let’s be coldly realistic for a second: most manual labor is as unremunerative as it is taxing; while it is very valuable to society, quite frankly it is not valued by society at all. At all. On the other hand, intellectual labor is almost the total opposite — thinking up ways to do less (“laziness”, of a sort) wins extra credit. At least it seems like that to me.

Currently, all intellectual life depends on literacy. Not, I think, because straight text is a superior medium (quite the opposite), but because it’s been around longer, boasts the highest quality and quantity of content, and has been chosen as the primary medium of intellectual discourse in the society we live in (of course, oral-centric intellectual cultures have existed — Celtic civilization and Ancient Greece are good examples). Today, a good-sized bookstore or library (link to pictures of 誠品/Chengpin, a really nice bookstore in Taipei…I spent a whole night reading at their 24-hour branch …) simply has more and better information in it than the most premo premium cable. Thus, to cut yourself off from literacy is to cut yourself off from text is to cut yourself off from the bulk of intellectual activity and from the highest-quality information in the world. As a foreigner in a bibliocentric country like Japan, this means you are restricted to one of three roles: (1) sheltered expat, (2) cultural ambassador, (3) exploited manual labor. There is no middle ground.

The moral of the story is: don’t be a schlemiel; learn to read and keep reading — it’s fun and there’s a future in it. And get this book for the full story, because anything I say must be tainted and watered down quite a bit. Anyway, the massive worldwide Basque blogging conspiracy won’t let me make this post any longer, so…goodbye for now.

Rather than recommend books in one large post, I’d like to try just focussing on one book at a time. There’s enough say about each book that this approach makes sense.

怨み屋本舗

• Title: 怨み屋本舗 / URAMIYA HONPO
• Format: Manga (Serialized), Paperback
• Author: 栗原 正尚/ KURIHARA Showshow
• Furigana: Unfortunately, none whatsoever.
• Genre: Somewhat beyond classification; in Japanese the work around which the story centers is called 復讐代行業 — “Revenge By Proxy“, if you will.
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: it’s a manga, champ
• Notes: Multi-volume series, 20 volumes total (AFAIK, the series is over now).
• YesAsia: Manga | TV Drama

This is one of the least well-known and most underrated manga of all time, especially considering that it runs a solid twenty volumes. It’s somewhat like the Ben Stiller of manga — it’s good and it’s been good for a long time, it even gets distributed through mainstream channels, but somehow it’s never at the top of public consciousness.

The artist’s drawings are amateurish in the bad sense of the word — LOOK AT THOSE LEGS!! WHAT THE LONG HAPPENED TO THOSE LEGS!? AND WHY DOES SHE HAVE MAN HANDS?! In a way, it’s kind of inspiring that one could suck so hard at drawing and still be a real mangaka/漫画家. However, his stories are da bomb: Kuri can write. I am, quite literally, addicted to this series. It’s weird because structurally, every story is quite simple: revenge is taken at the request of a client. So, you kind of know the general destination. However, the journey there is one heck of a ride. Spinning twist after twist after turn after twist, Kurihara never does what you expect him to; every story leaves you thinking “NO…WAY!”. The violence, the coldness and the plausibility of the stories are just…as Dave Chappelle might phrase it: “too real for you, Billy”.

This may sound a bit weird but I actually find this series quite…educational. There’s plenty of casual discussion of civil and criminal law, and even the structure of the police force. The book doesn’t set out to educate, it’s just that you’ll pick up a thing or two as you read on. Also, the violence is actually indirectly critical of violence; no one ever comes out and says it explicity, but the ultimate implication is that hate only breeds more hate and that we should all just be nice to each other. You may need quite a high level of Japanese to fully enjoy it all, but, like I’ve said before, focus more on your interests than your “level”.

Another strong point is the fact that while there is an overarching plot, each individual story more or less stands alone; where American TV and comics have traditionally tended to have a shortage of sequentiality, Japanese comics (I think) have slightly too much of it; once in a while, it’s nice to have a manga that you can jump into from anywhere.

Finally, there is also an equally engrossing live-action TV drama adaptation composed of twelve 30-minute episodes plus two movie-length specials (AFAIK, the specials are not included in the main DVD box set: the first special is available here, the second won’t be out on DVD until Marchish but can be reserved). The TV show follows the manga quite faithfully — but of course with some necessary omission, as well as some very skilfull compression and mixing of separate stories from the manga into the feature-length specials.

One more thing — there is a spinoff/sequel manga series now in serialization: 怨み屋本舗 巣来間風介/ URAMIYA HONPO SUKURAMA FUUSUKE. I haven’t read it yet…

The Big Question

OK, enough introductizing…the question at hand is this: “Why Do People Who Have All the Time in the World Get Nothing Done?” Why is it that you had a whole week to do catch up on your classwork over Thanksgiving Break, but not only did you not finish it, you didn’t even start it?! You didn’t even crack open the book! WHY? All you did was sit on your butt, eat dead, rotting bird and watch every episode of Robot Chicken released to date. And when you ran out of that, you reached for Gilmore Girls. Wow, this post is going to sound sooooo dated in 15 years.

Do we need management? Do we need bosses? Do we need stress or at least eustress to get anything done? Do we need the threat of pain and suffering to get our butts in gear? Do we need something to fear? Is an idle mind Dick Cheney’s workshop? I say yes and no.

If we had been left alone as kids, this would not be an issue. Young kids who have not yet undergone that much processing, and unschooled kids seem to do fine getting stuff done.

OK, but forget about kids. Stupid kids thinking they’re our future. I’m the future, you vertically challenged motherlovers! Let’s bring it back to us. So, why do people who have all the time in the world never get anything done? Why…do people who have all the time in the world never get anything done? WHY do people who have all the time in the world get absolutely nothing done? Chris Rock’s stand-up style is affecting my writing.

Lottery Winner/Windfall Syndrome

I don’t freaking know why. But I have a wacky Khatzumoto hypothesis about it. I call it lottery winner syndrome hype o’thesis.

We all know those stories of lottery winners who, like, were totally poor, and then they won the lottery and overnight became decamillionaires, but then overnight became po’ again. The New Age PD people will spin you a tale about the “Law of Attraction” and how they weren’t a “vibrational match” for the money.

Mmmmyeah. This is what is known in linguistics as “bollocks”. It’s a special kind of bollocks, though, because it’s actually correct at many levels, but it’s bollocks because it’s the same as saying “the Sky Deity is urinating” instead of “it’s raining”, or “Remote Desktop hates me” instead of “I forgot to open port 3389″, or…yeah…or that.

What I mean is, we can accurately describe and predict the same phenomena (effect of attitude and knowledge on life experience) without going all southern California about it and trying to sell people a seminar. Did I mention I hate personal development seminars? Yeah, but that’s just my two cents. PD books are cool, though.

Dang, dude, far too many asides. Where were we? Oh yeah — lottery winner syndrome. Yeah, it totally happens, man. Totally. In fact, it happens so often I want to give it a new, more general name: the “windfall syndrome hypothesis“, whereby:

People who have been in a state of impoverishment with respect to a given resource, are very likely to completely misuse and exhaust the resource if and when they abruptly come to have it in plentiful supply.

Corollary: People who gradually acquire more of the resource tend not to do so.

I and two Japanese friends of mine who live nearby have left the so-called “normal” company life that most adults currently live. We work from home. We set our own hours. We are basically free to do whatever we want whenever we want. In the common parlance, “we have a lot of free time on our hands”. We are timewealthy. We timerich, be-arch.

But, for a while there, we weren’t nearly as productive as we want to be. In fact, we had become less productive when free than when we were company serfs (and everything but company work was a side project that had to be done on the commuter train). Dude, there are only three podcasts up right now. I haven’t produced a Dick and Jane comic since my Sony days. KhatzuMemo went a year almost untouched. Fortunately, that’s changing now, due to reasons and discoveries I’ma going to a-discuss-a a-here.

OK, so the windfall hypothesis so far is saying what happens and when it happens but not why. Like so many things, it does come down to psychology, to philosophy, to state of mind, baby (I’m doing the touching-my-temples-with-both-index-fingers thing, and I’m saying “mind” in a near-whisper). State of miiiind, maaan.

Innumeracy

Why? Because of a subtle subspecies of a disease called innumeracy (a great book, by the way). Innumeracy can affect even people who otherwise like numbers and math of the matics. Innumeracy is the reason people will drive across town to Kroger to save 50 cents on roasted peanuts, but will not blink at a $50,000 difference in house price because their being semi-conned into focussing on the low/no-down-payment and the monthly cost of the mortgage (another great book). As if the $50,000 somehow matters less because it’s being siphoned off over time (plus interest, son!).

The innumeracy at work in the windfall syndrome can actually be expressed verbally — without numbers — it is already in the title of this post:

“Why Do People Who Have All the Time in the World Get Nothing Done?”

Can you see it? I’ll point it out for you: “all the time in the world“. This is the innmueracy of large numbers — innumeracy of infinites. Governments use it all the time, wangling a billion dollars here and there. Regular, schooled-and-therefore-innumerate taxpaying folk are so bamboozled that they swallow all these budget tricks.

So, in short the problem is: we (tend to) have a very poor understanding of the concept of infinity: we fallaciously conflate it with any sufficiently large-seeming number. Just like those rags-to-riches-to-rags lottery winners who think that the money is infinite — it could never run out — only to discover that, yes, one hundred million dollars can, in fact, be exhausted.

It’s not just the fault of the lottery winners. The people around them play a role, too. Get considerably richer than your friends and watch their behavior change. You don’t even have to wait for it to be six figures…just start making about twice as much money as your friends and watch them act differently; watch them act as if your money is inexhaustible.

Like Cuba Gooding, Jr. once said on Oprah, when you become a millionaire, and an old friend/acquaintance asks you for $10,000 and you say no, and they say that you suck and wealth has changed you…it’s not you that has changed; it’s them: they never would have asked you for that kind of cash before, but suddenly they act as if you’re a never-ending fountain of no-strings-attached grant money. In fact, they more or less believe you are. (Similar things happen where people who have less steal from people who have more, thinking “it’s so little; they won’t notice”).

Timewealth and Timepoverty

OK, let’s bring it back to time. People  who have a lot of free time certainly have a lot more than most. Many salarymen (サラリーマン) in Japan have, on a good weekday, maybe two hours of discretionary time — if that. In contrast, someone not living the reeman (リーマン/salaryman) lifestyle — even a housewife — arguably has 24 hours a day free, right? Which means they have, say, 12 times as much time as a reeman (リーマン). Right?

Wrong. As with money, there is “time tax” in a sense. First of all, we all need to sleep maybe, I dunno, 6 to 10 hours a day to stay healthy and sane. Some people more, some less. So, strike off 8 hours for sleep. That leaves 16 hours. SIXTEEN FREE HOURS! That’s still 8 times more than our fictional reeman (リーマン), right?

Wrong. Personal maintenance — eating, showering, getting ready, let’s give it two hours. Which leaves 14 hours, right?

Wrong. Let’s say exercise and travel combined take 2 hours, leaving 12 hours. And then let’s just say “various” other tasks involving care and maintenance of things other than one’s person — housework, childcare, petcare, and play-breaks (since (1) virtually no one can work on something without breaks indefinitely, (2) many people have these kinds of maintenance responsibilities). That leaves 8 hours for some real work.

Eight hours is still a good amount of time. But you know what? It certainly isn’t infinite. My figures are all kind of fudged and estimated and made-up; it’s probably hard to be truly general since except maybe Japanese housewives, people are going to have very unique life patterns. Maybe with some timehacks people can squeeze out an extra two hours, bringing us back to 10.

So, this person with “all the time in the world” is really only 4 to 5 times timericher than a reeman (リーマン). In the US, where I’d hazard a guess that regular-a$$ employees have 4 hours a day of truly discretionary time, this means that the timerich are only maybe twice as rich as “regular” folk.

Unlike money, time can’t be created; it can only be “reallocated”. And there’s a hard limit — the day is only 24 hours long for any of us. Add in all that natural overhead (“tax”), and a timerich person just isn’t that rich.

Now, the problem is that not only do many of the timerich think they’re far richer than they actually are, so do the timepoor cling-ons. You know, those people who ask you to do something because “come on, maaan, it’s not like you don’t have the time”. “Why don’t you respond to every email that ever comes into your inbox, be-arch? Come on, man — YOU HAVE THE TIME”. “Back up my files for me! Come on, maaan! You have a terabyte!”. “Buy me a house, Bill Gates — come on, man — YOU HAVE THE MONEY” (actually, he doesn’t: a lot of that net worth is stock and there are rules preventing him from selling it…plus, if he were to sell it, it could be taken reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally badly).

So, the timerich are not only bombarded by infinite requests for their “infinite” time, they also put infinite demands upon themselves. (And, like I said, a timerich person is anyone who has considerably more discretionary time than the so-called norm; many people experience sudden temporary timewealth in forms like Thanksgiving Break and summer holidays, even public holidays). Not because they are stupid but because they are in fact following a code of ethics. By this simple, invisible code, it would be wrong for an infinitely wealthy person to be stingy. It would be wrong for a person who has infinite time to not do infinitely good work: one’s fundamental sense of morality would not allow it.

According to David Allen of Getting Things Done, this is why people who already have too much to do often keep taking on more stuff — without some kind of management system to tell them otherwise, they may feel busy and burnt-out, but they have no way of telling for certain that they have far too much going on and they need to start saying no outright — so they keep taking on more projects, often until they fall apart from the strain of it all (i.e. go physically/mentally bankrupt, like unto a lottery winner). Those projects can be as simple as taking on too many books to read. Only when you have something like a single, (visibly jam-packed) “to read” box do you realize that, in fact, you have too much to read and this pamphlet’s just gonna have to go suck it. Without a visible spillage, they may just think that their glass is heavy but that they should keep pouring in more water.

I, my friends, and everyone who’s ever put off coursework for the weekend or Thanksgiving Break “when I’ll have a whole week to catch up” (as if all 168 hours could be spent lump sum, en masse, nonstop on the work you hadn’t been doing all semester), all thought we had infinite time. So we tried to do infinite work. And we didn’t just end up only doing “a leetle bit of work” — we did virtually no work. No manga produced, no website put up, no KhatzuMemo updates. Because we were paralyzed. We’d spend days and weeks just THINKING CRAP UP, because we (subconsciously) felt we had to because, after all, we had the time. And, yeah, if you had an infinitely long life, then 70 years spent just playing with ideas for your Great American Novel would be no problem. But you know what? Not only do you not have an infinite life, you have pretty durn short days.

So, yeah…this is why short, winnable games work…they bring us back into finite reality. This is why giving a kid a dollar and teaching her not to spend all of it will help her if she ever suddenly has a kajillion of them. In short “a lot” of anything, really isn’t that much.

The 80-20 Principle

Remember when I hinted at “discoveries I’ma going to a-discuss-a a-here.”? My big “discovery” was the 80-20 Principle. In fact, I’m reading a whole book about it. It is fascinating stuff, man. And liberating. These kind of ideas used to upset me, kind of like how certain people (hippies) always lament at the rich growing richer — it’s called feedback, motherlover; wouldn’t it suck if getting more of something made you lose it? The idea that the vast majority of effects stem from a minuscule minority of causes can seem unjust…but think about it — the next time you make a to-do list at your computer, know that for every 10 items about 2 will actually be really worth it. Rather than stress out about all 10, focus on those 2, and then, if there’s still time, try to fit in some of the other 8. It’s like that object lesson about trying to fit pebbles and rocks into a jar. If you put in the pebbles, there’ll be no room for the rocks. Put in the rocks, and let the pebbles fit around them.

I used to try to get everything done. I was the perfectionist. And it was killing me; I was getting symptoms of all those middle-class neuroses (what “pretty white kids with problems” collectively refer to as “issues”) — panic attacks, OCD-like behavior, watching Gilmore Girls. OK, it never quite got that bad, but you see what I mean.

Many days, I would avoid doing anything, just so I could evade the self-imposed duty to be perfect, complete and infinite. But thanks to all these books, I have a whole box of tools to help me work with that. Eat That Frog and Getting Things Done taught me how to slice up my work so small that even complex, dirty duties (who likes filing their taxes?) could be as emotionally neutral as the proverbial flipping of burgers.

This was a major step forward, but by itself it was not enough. The Now Habit taught me to let go of being perfect and just get on with it. And the 80-20 Principle taught me to look for and zero in on the very least — the one or two widget-making/burger-flipping tasks — I could do to achieve the very most. I feel good. I knew that I would, now.

Example from Real Life:

Yesterday I had a list of changes to make on AJATT. And I started making the changes, then I thought  up yet more ideas and I started working on them. In about two minutes I was literally working on ten things at once (those books, as good as they are, don’t won’t can’t change your behavior for you, rather, they lead you to observe it and show you what to do, then you change it). I was trying to be at all points in space and time at once, kind of like in Star Trek: Voyager (buy the Japanese version, motherlover!) when Tom Paris went to warp 10; I was flying at warp 10 with no inertial dampers, shields down, broken deflector…I was going to get crushed by the enormity of my own thoughts.

Then I stopped. First, I wrote down what I wanted to do. Writing it down is something many of the PD peepz recommend — it helps you judge things in their true context, against everything else that needs to be done (when it’s just in your head, everything can seem important). As David Allen has hinted, the purpose of a list of tasks is not necessarily to do all of them, indeed a lot of it is a matter of choosing tasks to not do.

Anyway, I wrote down all the tasks. Then I numbered them in order of “easiest to do and greatest long-term benefit”; I like easy. I noticed one of the tasks wasn’t a task at all, but a nebulous, amorphous, undefined, unwinnable project: “update/streamline Table of Contents”. I deleted it and went with “add recent (= October/November) articles to Table of Contents”. Oh yeah — like the pebbles fitting in around the rocks, I also picked up some of the lower-numbered tasks “on the way”, quite unintentionally. Which, funnily enough, led to an overall update/streamlining of the Table of Contents.

Which all seems very petty, but…if you’d been there, you’d have felt the realness.

Like the SRS once taught me about memory, 90-95% right is good enough. The remaining 5-10% is almost never worth going for (pretend for a moment that the long tail doesn’t exist; I don’t know how to fit it in) — too much work, too much pain, too little gain.

In Closing

So do you need a boss? Only if you don’t know this stuff. That’s what bosses and editors and producers do for employees/writers/artists — they make these task-splitting, get-’er-done, 80-20 decisions. This work is valuable, but most of it wouldn’t be necessary if more people were (allowed and placed in a position to learn) to do this for themselves.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m actually right or not about any of this but…it seems to explain what I’m seeing. What’s your experience? Share!

When I was in college, I used to try to save money by borrowing books from the library, or reading about books online. Looking back, this was not an entirely flawed strategy. Plenty of books need not be bought; they can be picked for information once and never looked back at again. But some books are so important, so valuable and so ripe for re-reading that they do need to be bought. And owned. And held. And loved. And read (<– do you like how this is an afterthought?) And highlighted the heck out of. This is one such book. It’s that good and it’s that important.

A lot of books in the self-improvement/personal development field are full of crap or otherwise not worth your time. This is not that kind of book. This book owns. And if you read it, mark it, re-read it some weeks later, and while reading really start to apply the lessons it contains, I am sure you will find more success in both your language acquisition projects and in life generally.

The book is The Now Habit / 戦略的グズ克服術―ナウ・ハビット / 拖拖拉拉不是好朋友 by Neil Fiore . I’m going to sound super-mean here, but with notable exceptions (like AJATT readers!), far too many military people I have come across have been…intellectually slow jerks prone to violence. Please, do not threaten to send cruise missiles over to my house, you’re not smart enough; I’m just telling you my experience with military meatheads; I thought it was just an Army problem but even my beloved Air Force seems to be rushing to meet its quota of schmucks — ten solid years of brainwashing from Stargate SG-1 cannot erase this fact. And then there’s that annoying fact that kind of gets left out of polite conversation…the fact of military organizations basically existing to perform and/or enable the (a) burning, (b) stabbing, or (c) torture of human beings, all — we are told — for the safety of certain abstract nouns. Plus there are cool badges. And fortunately the human beings getting a-b-ced are typically brown people so it’s all good pass the salt.

Badges, motherbadger…That just sounds like a female badger.

Why do I get caught up in flamewars that are never going to happen? Oh yeah — this Neil Fiore guy is ex-military. And why that matters is because you just don’t get books this perceptive, gentle and useful from actual human beings, let alone military personnel.

…I feel like something deeply dehumanizing was just said…

Anyway, think about it — AJATT is useful and perceptive, but it certainly isn’t gentle with all its misogyny and antisemitism and constant scatalogical references. Pooh. Most personal development books written by women are gentle, but useless in terms of application and too muddled to contain any real perception. Most PD books by men, meanwhile, just suck all around. So, this Now book is a little miracle: this book has the minerals.

How does it work? First, Fiore firmly locates the causes of procrastination. Yeah, the P-word: the AIDS, cancer and pins-and-needles of people trying to get things done. For most of us, the root cause comes down to unworkably high standards gradually inculcated during childhood, often by well-meaning parents who themselves suck at self-management. Anyone who’s experienced or observed many self-consciously “high-achieving” families knows what I’m talking about: the parents who, when their kid gets ten A’s and one A-minus, rather than congratulating the kid, instead ask: “Why did you get an A-? This is unacceptable. What the flock, kid?!”. This can turn the kid into a failure-phobic perfectionist.  The kid  then (unconsciously) uses procrastination as a defense mechanism — starting work late because then at least “lack of time” can excuse what would otherwise have to have been a perfect project by her internalized standards.

My family always wanted the best for me, I grew up comfortably and well-off…but…(*cue  violin*) my childhood was a lot like this; nothing was ever good enough; no matter how well I did, the question always remained: “But Khatzumoto, why didn’t you X?”. This is the part of the movie where Robin Williams tells me it wasn’t my fault and I cry . Haha, it wasn’t that bad; I’m just super glad to be able to realize it and change it now. The point is: (1) Standards that are too high make it impossible to get any work done outside of an emergency, so one of the major reasons otherwise smart people procrastinate is to force an emergency — and therefore a lowering of standards. (2) Fear of failure is not the same as desire for success; the latter will get you places, the former will get you…on medication.

But if Fiore stopped there he’d just be like every other psychologist — someone paid large sums of money to blame everything on our parents. Fiore goes beyond that and details his simple-looking treatment for the disease. He teaches you to make sensible standards, make fun the center of your life (getting rid of the lockdown/martyr syndrome through what he calls “unscheduling” — a schedule that focusses on requiring yourself to play), and ask yourself constructive questions (when can I start? where can I start? what can I do right now?), all part of a full complement of techniques based on behavioral psychology i.e. Burrhus Frederic Skinner. That’s right, kids — the very same techniques that “The Man” uses to manipulate you, can be used for good, so you can manipulate yourself.

Fiore’s techniques are actually rooted in his experience getting a Ph.D in psychology after his time in the military; in this sense, they are actually better than most of the The Man’s tricks because not everything The Man does constitutes effective management, in fact a lot of people’s problems getting things done come from internalizing bad management tools (in a word, coercion). As a Ph.D student, Fiore noticed kids around him with no lives, apparently spending all their time on their dissertations, always stressed out, for years at a time, but not getting jack done. He basically resolved to use the psychology knowledge he was acquiring on himself (what a concept!) to get his Ph.D done in a really short time while actually having a life.

Which is all well and good but I know that doesn’t get across how cool this book is. It’s a book that sounds dry in description but is superb in effect. When Fiore is explaining the situation, it’s as if he knows you personally; that’s how perfectly he has understood the problem at hand. This man knows what’s up and he knows how to deal with it. So, please, don’t just take my word for it. Really, don’t. My explanation of it sucks. You need to read the real thing in its full, original context. Primary source, baby. Read or listen to the book. And when you’re done, read it again. In fact, if you can, get the audio book rather than the straight text. Why? Because (1) You’re much more likely to repeat it, and (2)  It leaves your hands free so you can get implementing right as you listen — after all, the theory in this book is tight, but it’s meaningless unless you start applying it, and if you’re going to apply, the best time is right there and then. Right now. Go on. You’ll thank me later. This is easily one of the best works in its field, as well as the least-promoted.

I thought there was no Japanese version, but it turns out that a Janslation (Japanese translation) of this book finally came out only a few months ago (April 2008). I was so struck by its quality and relevance to the very thing at hand in AJATT — a long, self-directed project — that I felt it deserved a plug here and even a titillating photo of me. Think of it as an extension of the Mental Tools category. Before finding out about the existence of the Janslation, I would listen to the English audiobook while reading something in Japanese, just to keep the old immersion up. Hey, I come correct.

Anyway, that’s all from the manly desk of Khatzumoto.

Tell your Mum hi.

[P.S. I hadn't realized it while writing this, but Victoria the Cunning Linguist actually mentioned this book way back in the day. Thanks, Victoria!].

Don’t you just hate how so many magazines these days date themselves like three years in the future? I remember when I lived in the UK in the late 1990s, PC World magazine would put out its January 2015 issue in like 1997.

Exaggeration is humorous.

So I’m going to buck the trend, darnit! This is information collected in the past, so it’s going to be back-dated and there’s nothing you can do to stop me except voice your opinion in comments. OK, here we go.

銀魂/Gintama

• Format: Manga (Serialized), Paperback
• Author: 空知 英秋/ SORACHI Hideaki
• Furigana: YES!
• Genre: Period Action Comedy Sci-Fi
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: it’s a manga, champ
• Notes: Multi-volume series, publication ongoing, a classic in the making
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: The Tokugawa Era. Twenty years have passed since the shogunate opened diplomatic contacts with extraterrestrials and passed the edict abolishing swords and, by extension, the samurai. But one samurai still holds out against the Roman invaders…Aaah, forget it! You just have to read it. Describing the set-up of Gintama in the hope of shedding light on its coolness is kind of like explaining Super Mario Bros. as “Italian plumbers jumping on mushrooms” or Cowboy Bebop as “space bounty hunters with jazz music”; it doesn’t quite do it justice. Anyway, both the manga and the anime own; it really is funny stuff. Loaded with characters you’ll wish existed for real, biting wit and parodic references to virtually every other manga, anime, drama or variety show ever produced in Japan, plenty of which you’ll know (Trick, Shonen Jump itself, and cetera!). Great jokes, great writing, great way to learn Japanese…Gintama will have you in stitches. While you’re at it, get the anime as well, for listening practice. Well, actually, just for plain enjoyment, but, you know — two organic clay pigeons, one free-range stone. ‘Tama is still in serialization (25+ volumes and counting), but unlike Dragon “We Own Your” Ball Z or One “Is the Number of Lifetimes You’ll Spend Buying This” Piece “…Of”, they’re actually worth getting.
• [Alternative Link]

日本の論点2008/The Issues for Japan, 2008

• Format: Annual Essay/Paper Collection, Paperback
• Editor: Various Artists
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, Economics, Science, Technology
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: pictures of every author, plus tables and diagrams on some but by no means all articles
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: I hate the news. Haaaate the news. Vapid, inaccurate, biased sensationalism prepared by people who don’t know what they’re talking about but are acting as if they do. I stopped watching the news and reading newspapers a long time ago. But I still want to know what’s going on in the world. As soon as I saw this handsome paperback tome (it’s nearly 1000 pages long) at the train station, I knew I had to have it. Filled with essays (papers?) written by experts in their respective fields, often having wildly differing opinions on the same issue (minus simplistic Crossfire-style posturing for the sake of posturing). People who actually know what they’re talking about, debate, discuss and dissect in commercial-, spin- and (relatively speaking) brainwashing-free black and white text. No one pretending to be impartial, no one pretending to simply be giving an account of the facts; it’s got all the issues that are in daily newspapers — increasing pet ownership, relations with BRICs, the aging population — without the fluff and facade. This collection also boasts a number of papers by people who wrote the book on subject X, be it immigration or “parasite singles”.
• Sidenote: The author bios and references to other works are perfect for follow-up. From the perspective of a learner, I’d say you’d do just as well getting a previous year’s issue if the price is right.
• [Alternative Link]

中央公論/Chuuou Kouron

• Format: Monthly Magazine, Paperback
• Author: Various Artists
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, Economics, Science, Technology
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: some, but not that many
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Another favorite of mine. Think of it as a monthly version of 日本の論点 (which is an annual collection). As you might expect from a more frequently published work, it’s slightly more prone to knee-jerky, alarmist, fadish discussion than 論点, but overall, still a worthy read. You might consider getting this one from your library if you can. Failing that, from a learner’s perspective, it may be worth buying a couple of issues if only because it’s much more portable than the 800+ pager that is 論点.

なんで時間がないんだ？―やりたいことができる時間捻出法/ Why Don’t I Have Any Time? How To Make The Time To Do What You Want

• Format: Single Book, Paperback
• Author: 菅野結希/KANNO Yuuki
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Personal Development, Personal Organization
• Veracity: Non-fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: some funny little scribbly manga, but not that many
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: One of my favorite PD books; I’ve read and re-read this one many times, and it’s been on heavy rotation in my manbag for weeks at a time. Kanno firmly locates the source of a good portion of time poverty in simple untidiness. And seeks to kindly, gently and humorously (you’ll love her style, and the way she suddenly breaks into new parapgraphs to emphasize something — a tool I copied, by the way) lead you to a saner, tidier lifestyle, without the OCD/type A/guilt-based/Victorian appeals to morality (“cleanliness is next to godliness, you ****ing wogs!”) that are typically associated with getting things in order. She makes you want to be neat, and makes you want to read her book and makes it feel good; no one’s scolding you. One of the most powerful and deceptively-simple-in-a-”didn’t everyone learn this as children?”-way pieces of advice she gives is this: “出したら、仕舞う” — if you take it out, put it back. It sounds almost stupid when you think about it…but how many adults do you know that have yet to master this? That mother of yours…
• [Alternative Link]

どこへいくの?ともだちにあいに!/何処へ行くの？友達に会いに！/Where Are You Going? To See My Friend

• Format: Picture Story Book (Ehon), Hardcover
• Author: いわむら かずお/IWAMURA Kazuo, エリック・カール/Eric CARLE
• Furigana: All hiragana, but no kanji
• Genre: Children’s Books
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Yes
• Illustrations: Tons, it’s a picture book!
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Wow. Writing these is tiring. Yeah, so, this is a straight up 絵本（えほん）– a (children’s) picture book. Um…yeah. It looks like it’s not actually a mere translation, but, in fact, a bilingual joint collabo venture between Iwamura and Carle. Sweet. I read this book back in the day; the repetition was really cool and firmly planted some really useful structures (“grammar”) in my mind. It’s so simple, in fact, that I never found it necessary to look at the English; everything is clear from context. The lack of kanji kind of sucks hard for RTKers like you and me — and it’s what kept me and 絵本 from seriously dating, but oh well…You know, to tell you the truth, I really want to write something like this, except with kanji. Dick and Jane was an attempt at that, but…I feel like it got too complicated. Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about someone else’s book. Anyway, it’s a good book. Buy or borrow it.
• [Alternative Link]

マンガ金正日入門/A Manga Introduction to Kim Jong-Il

• Format: Manga (2-volume series; this is only the first book), Paperback
• Author: 李 友情 (著)/Ri Yuujou, 李 英和/Ri Eiwa (Translation)
• Furigana: None
• Genre: Politics, History, Biography
• Veracity: Non-Fiction…かなぁ
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: it’s a manga, champ
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Mmm…due to the nature of the subject matter and information sources involved, you can never be sure that this kind of thing is entirely true. Early in the book, they attempt to insinuate that Kim Jong-Il/金正日 killed his little brother when they were like 6 years old…And they keep drawing Kim Il-Sung/金正成 with like this massive, hideous goitre action going on. Hmmm…mmmmm…I mean, at least try to fake some grounding in reality, son! This is the sort of thing that is later revealed to have been reverse propaganda — kind of like the borderline-fraudulent exaggeration of Soviet military capability by let’s just say people who hang out in five-sided buildings. Either way, it’s an enjoyable read, and potentially a fascinating history lesson. Sounds like a lot of drama went down on that Korean peninsula. Yeeah! Asia! トヨタ！寿司！
• [Alternative Link]

サムライチャンプルー/Samurai Champloo [Vol. 1][Vol. 2]

• Format: Manga (2-book series), Paperback
• Author: ゴツボ マサル/Gotsubo Masaru
• Furigana: Yes! Yes!
• Genre: Hip-Hop Samurai Action
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: Um…manga?
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: You already know that Samurai Champloo is one of the best anime ever. Now, enjoy the manga! There were only two volumes produced, but they have much of the anachronistic humor and sweeping, breathless action of the original. チェケラチョー (check it out, y’all!)

クレヨンしんちゃんヌパン4世＆エンジェル編/Crayon Shinchan: Nupin the 4th’s Angels Edition

• Format: Manga, Paperback
• Author: 臼井義人/USUI Yoshito
• Furigana: Yes
• Genre: Humor
• Veracity: Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: Um…manga?
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Crayon Shinchan is a living legend. Naughty humor for the peoples. And it’s especially good for kanjiphiles — imagine an irreverent, full-kanji, furiganaed children’s book — since we tend to skew ourselves toward reading abstract material if only because (1) that’s what much of the adult world is about and (2) kanji gives us that power. But words like うんこ and おしっこ are just as much a part of Japanese as 大胸筋矯正サポーター. So, Crayon Shinchan is like Shrek, in that it’s ostensibly “for children”, but the humor is really operating at two levels; it’s the kind of thing parents purport to purchase for their progeny but actually end up reading on their own. The regular Crayon is great to begin with, and this owns even more: it’s a special edition (one of several? are there more? I don’t know?) in which our titular hero keeps his toddler age and personality, but is taken out of his usual family context and put into spoof fantasy worlds loosely based on cultural icons like Lupin the Third, Charlie’s Angels and Jackie Chan movies. In one episode, “drunken fist kung fu” turns into “somniferous fist kung fu”, whereby “Shin Chan” becomes more powerful the sleepier he gets…yeah, there are tons of puns, and you’ll enjoy them all. And another thing! The humor is all basically self-contained, such that knowledge of the regular Crayon Shinchan is not a prerequisite. You’ll be laughing out loud in public, causing yourself both joy and embarrassment.
• [Alternative Link]

【携帯版】思考は現実化する/Think and Grow Rich

• Format: Single Book, Paperback
• Author: ナポレオン＝ヒル（著）、田中孝顯（訳）| Napoleon HILL (author), TANAKA Takaaki (translator)
• Furigana: No
• Genre: Pre-New Age/Hippy, Good, Old-Fashioned Personal Development
• Veracity: Non-Fiction
• Color: Black and white
• Illustrations: None
• Khatzumoto’s Komments: Yeah, this book needs no introduction, really. It’s one of the “classics” of the PD genre. Unlike classics in other fields, though, people actually read this one…of their own free will. Translator Tanaka had a bad habit of splitting this thing up into multiple volumes (print and grow rich?), and adding, I kid you not, MORE FOOTNOTES THAN ACTUAL BOOK…a single tome becomes a freaking trilogy but I’m not bitter. Friggin’…Anyway, so I’m mostly putting this thing up because it combines everything in one nice paperback as Nature intended! And I had a hardish time finding it. So here. I give. To you. Thank me later.
• Sidenote: There is also a diagram-based (Japanese) version of TAGR that’s longer on pictures but kind of shallow and short on content; the most interesting thing about it is that it has this sort of “pedigree” of PD speakers/authors, showing who was whose direct sensei/disciple. Also, Hill didn’t actually write it; it’s more of a Cliff’s Notes prepared by the Asia Pacific HQ of the Hill Foundation. So, yeah…The version you most likely want is the main one previously discussed.
• [Alternative Link]

OK, that’s it! Feel free to share your own recommendations, or requests for the kinds of books you(d like evaluated for next time. I figure a lot of people are wanting 敬語 and programming books, and I haven’t put those up here yet, so that might be the focus of the next edition of KBL (hey! sounds like “kibble”!). OK, see you next time!

A lot of people have asked me for book recommendations. And I struggle with this. On the one hand, I hate being told what to do, and I don’t want to tell people what to do — the whole of AJATT can be summed up in one phrase: “if it’s in Japanese, then it’s good”; that’s the only “condition” or “rule” if you will. Also, my books reflect my tastes, I mean, this is the difference between a typical class environment and doing stuff alone — you don’t have to read that lowest-common-denominator crap about “hey, what’s your major?”, and “Hello, I’m Tanaka Tarou from the ABC company”.

Speaking of interests, I hardly read any novels. Generally speaking, novels and me are not friends. I skip to the last page and try to get myself an executive summary before my next board meeting, nome same? Hehe…mmmm.

Having said all that, there are a ton of Japanese books out there, and when you’re just starting out, it can be a challenge to tell what books are worth getting. Especially if you’re buying exclusively online, and don’t have a chance to, skim, scan and sample the books in question.

So I’ve come up with a compromise: every month I’m going to just リストアップ (list up) the books I’m currently reading, or books I have previously read and really liked, and think you might enjoy. And give you a line or two about why I liked them. Sometimes I might even put up books I hated, but that were interesting.

By the way, I was inspired to do this by the Yamaneko Honyaku Club, which, while now apparently inactive, gave me some super useful book recommendations when I was walking up the Japanese hillock of literacy. Check it out.

Levels

I hate levels. For one thing, they’re all just made up anyway. And who the phork’s business is it what you read? If you’re 7 years old and you want to read War and Peace , then read War and Peace (note to all 7-year-olds: this book is about as entertaining as a 1000-page album of other people’s baby pictures in dim light; you’re not falling asleep because you’re stupid, it’s just that this book is indeed boring; remember, if you’re not sad that the book is ending (I’m running out of pages!), then it’s not a fun book for you). You, too, can enjoy any Japanese reading material at basically any time in your Japanese process.

Besides, that, no matter how “simple” a book in terms of level, if it’s boring, then game over. And no matter how supposedly “complex” a book, if you’re enjoying it, then you = teh winn0r. Remember, always give priority to your interests over your level. Something you’re interested in means you’re going to have domain knowledge. A science manga may be hard to read…unless you’re a scientist. As Nick Hornby hinted, it really isn’t that intellectually taxing for a physicist [someone who has extensive domain knowledge in physics] to read a physics book.

Nevertheless, I mean, it is, I guess, a fact that one goes through phases in one’s language development. So…so…(do you like how I write this as it comes?) here are some…some…(you like it?) arbitrary levels I pulled out of my…my…mind, with some reference to my current Cantonese experience. The numbers are nothing but a rough guide, and they may be completely wrong, and truth be told, I don’t know if I’m actually going to use them or not in the end, but here they are just for kicks anyway.

• Egg [0 - 500 sentences/fun listening hours] — pure n00bology, learning the very basics
• Caterpillar [500 - 1500 sentences/fun listening hours] — know all the basics
• Chrysalis [1500 - 5000 sentences/fun listening hours] — that magical intermediate phase, that strange stage where you understand maybe 75-80% of randomly picked authentic material, which is really good, but at the same time not yet enough to actually comprehend something new and raw in its entirety, since this still implies ignorance of every fourth or fifth word.
• Butterfly (you’ flyin’, baby!) [5000+ sentences/fun listening hours] — at this stage, you’re pretty comfortable with lots of stuff, you know far more than you don’t, and the words you are acquiring are of increasing rarity (low frequency).
• Daoist Butterfly — you’re no longer sure whether you’re a Japanese person who dreamed she was gaijin, or a gaijin who dreamed she was Japanese. This is native-level fluency. 本でも書け、ゴルァ！

Instruction manuals for the PlayStation series.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll find the manuals for the original PlayStation. These come with full furigana. The same goes for PocketStation and PS one. And of course they have sweet diagrams and stuff, too. Enjoy!

Edit: While we’re at it, here are the Wii manuals. These come with furigana and in color!

And you know what? I tell them Doraemon because that just seems like the right answer, the 正解. I mean, it’s what you’re supposed to say to people; it’s famous, a “classic” even, and therefore, you know, l33t.

But, dude, Doraemon is boring. Bawring (bee tee dub, this spelling only holds water if you have the same accent as me…HA!). OK, “boring” is a little harsh. It’s just…not interesting to read? More effective for insomnia than sleeping pills? I read a bit once and it was cool in the sense that it was Japanese and I was reading it, but not in and of itself. I dunno. Maybe I am being harsh. Like, I enjoyed how it had everyday action verbs, that was nice and educational, but it didn’t make me want to part with my precious fiat currency for the privilege of casting my eyes on it.

Anyhoo, I didn’t come here to make libelous comments about Doraemon, which sucks by the way, along with Sazae-san; Japanese people know this but they’re just pretending to like it because if you don’t, your Japaneseness gets called into question. Kind of like how I used to pretend to like all classical music and War and Peace, because that’s what “smart people” seemed to like. But I digress. I came here to tell you something that I’ve already essentially said before, but which other people seemed to think was worth saying again. Other than the obvious, early-stage super-beginner material (stuff like All About Particles); there is no other stuff you “should” read. To quote my neighbor and gaijin-in-arms, Tkyosam:

“Don’t read according to your level, read according to your interest.”

I can hear the rebuttal: “but Khatzumoto, what if I’m interested in it but it’s too hard?” Well, if it feels that hard, then it’s not that interesting. By definition, then, even a “hard” book, if it matches your interest, will not seem hard at all. For example, I’ve read lots of science and engineering-type books in English, so Japanese books of that kind are easy and fun for me. I remember one time my Japanese-Korean friend (I’ve mentioned her before in comments, but, she was (is?) the cruelest corrector ever – I don’t think I have ever been slammed down more times in public by anyone else; and I am grateful for every time she did it – every time she talked super-fast and told me that if I didn’t understand then I’d better get on that; every time she said I sucked) said: “wow, a Japanese physics textbook? You must be smart.” But I told her “No, it’s not like they’re going to be presenting a new physics or anything. And the format is the same – explanation here, diagram there, a bit of equation action to make it all kosher – i’s so simpo! There’s no intelligence at work here, just habit.”

So, don’t worry about what your “level” is. Just worry about what you’re interested in and get into that. Anime or TV show you’ve seen before and liked? Get the manga. Like tennis? Get a tennis manga. Like cooking? Get a cooking manga. Like Stargate SG-1? Get…OK, there’s no manga for that one. And this goes beyond manga. What this article, indeed this site is about is this: whatever it is that moved you to want to learn a language in the first place, DO IT! That’s how you’ll learn…And we’re done. I think.

Oh, one other thing: I wasn’t sure whether or not this post was worth putting up. I feel right now that this site has reached a level of completion in terms of what (I think) you need to know is all up here and all that’s left is to go and do. Then again…that may just be a lack of imagination on my part? Unlike Dragon “291 Endless Episodes” Ball Z, or One “46 volumes and counting” Piece, it’s not like it directly costs people money if this blog gets a little long, but at the same time, it seems like conciseness is a good thing. Either way, let me know what you’d like to read about, and also whether or not this post was useful to you. Tank ye kindly.

Every so often in the history of humankind, a book comes along that will forever change us. Or not, I don’t know. But really, every few weeks or so, I find a book that is just so perfect that it’s as if it was written just for me to read it (you: “yeah, no kidding”). It seems like the author sat down and thought: “and it shall come to pass that one named Khatzumoto shall walk through the doors of a bookstore, and when he doth gaze upon this tome it shall be fitting for him to purchase it. So it shall be written, so it shall be done”. Anyway, this book I found owns, and not only that but it also has a sequel. The book is:

英語は絶対、勉強するな！：学校行かない・お金掛けない・だけどペラペラ
Absolutely DO NOT Study English: Get fluent without spending tons of money or going to English school

and its sequel:


英語は絶対、勉強するな！２：不安が消える・疑問が打っ飛ぶ・マジでペラペラ
Absolutely DO NOT Study English 2: Clear your doubts and worries and get seriously fluent.

It’s significant that this book should be coming out of Korea (the Southern flavor), whose scores as a nation on, I believe it is the TOEIC test (some random, stupid English test) are at the very bottom of the world: only Japan’s are worse. In today’s Korea, English schools are raking in tons of cash; parents are freaking out about their kids “needing” to know English; the government is in constant panic mode about how and where and when to get more English taught in public schools; businessmen “need” to know English; university professors of English have terrible English; people who can speak well are mistaken for being intelligent. In other words, Korea and Japan are in the exact same position. Now that I think about it, the Japanese/Chinese situation outside of the kanjisphere is the same: most people outside of East Asia are convinced that they cannot be literate in Chinese and Japanese, let alone speak them; their typical rationalizations fall into one of the following extremes: it’s either the “we’re not as smart as East Asians” camp, or the “East Asians are stupid and our writing system is better because the Greeks molested boys and used an alphabet too and there’s nothing wrong with liking boys” camp.

Along comes 鄭讚容 (CHON Chan Yon) to the rescue. Kicking butt and taking names, he very frankly lays out that the English situation in Korea right now is abysmal but that it need not be so. He then proceeds to give his own recommendations based on a method he developed for himself. In terms of philosophy (you CAN do it) and overall method (focus on understanding real English and imitating native speakers, not the crap that passes for English you find in textbooks) it’s very similar to AntiMoon which — along with that scene in The Thirteenth Warrior — is the source of many of the ideas you find on this site. Chon’s book and AntiMoon were written with English in mind, but they clearly have advice that essentially applies to all languages.

Anyway, the best thing is to go and read both books. Here’s a gem that struck me, from page 225 of the second book:

「第一ステップでは、とりあえず英語を「無意味な音声」と考え・・・」
[On learning to understand normal, fast spoken English] When you start out, just accept it as sound without meaning…

Chon wants us to get used to the sounds of the language. As you listen, you’ll naturally start to make sense of it. Like a fog clearing, the sounds will start to get clearer and clearer; you’ll pick out more and more. Chon calls these “little miracles”. He also suggests you imitate these sounds, just as sounds, regardless of whether you understand them or not; get your mouth making the sounds of the language.

These words on page 27 of book 1 amused and inspired Momoko:

「親が赤ちゃんに『さあ、これから言葉を学びましょ』と言って、単語や文法を教え、これが主語、それは動詞で、あれは副詞なんて言うのを見た事が有る？」・・・どんな親も『可愛い子ねえ、お中すいたでしょ。おマンマ食べようね』『あらあら、おしっこしたのね、お締めがびしょ濡れよ』などと、赤ちゃんが理解しようがしまいが、とにかく愛情と一緒にたくさんの言葉を色々と浴びせ掛けるよね。そうやって親の言葉を始め、テレビの音、家の外から聞こえて来る声など、色々な音や言葉が赤ちゃんの小さな耳に休み無く吸収されて行く訳だ。」
Do you ever see parents take their baby and go: “right, Timmy, settle down and sit tight, it’s time for you to learn LANGUAGE!”, and break it up into vocabulary and grammar and explain how this is a subject, this here’s a verb and that there is an adverb — I mean you just don’t see that…All parents go “You’re such a cutey! You’re hungry, aren’t you? Time for foody-woody, isn’t it?”, “Ooo! You went pee-pee; your diaper’s aaaall soaking wet!” — whether the baby understands or not, they shower her with love and words. Day in day out the baby’s little ears are constantly absorbing this endless stream of words and sounds — whether it’s the words of his parents or the voices of people outside or whatever.

Another place where Chon really lays it out for me is here on page 28, again of book 1:

「無条件に何でもたくさん聞けばいい」
Unconditionally, constantly listen [to your target language].

Chon further advocates the use of English-English dictionaries. What else…oh — he has a cool name for his method: “英絶方式”, the Absolute English Method, or as I like to call it: “All English All The Time” .

Anyway, so…yeah, they’re good books, the Japanese is of course A-OK; translated by someone I presume to be Japanese-Korean. Chon is, like me, not an expert linguist, just a guy who learned how to do something and is sharing it with the world. He takes flac from people with established ideas, but he speaks the truth: don’t kill the language and “study” it — instead, live it, become it. Highly recommended.

The OS is dead! Long live the OS! I’m writing this from my freshly installed copy of Windows XP Traditional Chinese Edition. Let jubilation run freely (does that even make sense?). First impressions…sometimes, I feel like running with my tail between my legs back to my Japanese OS. I’ve been in a Japanese-only PC environment since February 2005, so about two and a half years. In that time, I’ve gotten really used to it, to the point that using an English OS is always a bit of context switch ["編集・・・コピー...Paste...what the English?? Oh, wait, I know English, too..."]. I’ve even gotten to the stage where I can kind of skim Japanese (not yet as quickly as English, but getting there). But now, in Chinese, going back to having to read error messages and program notifications word-by-painstaking-word-to-make-sure-I-get-what-the-heck-is-going-on-
oh-wait-I-don’t-quite-get-this-let-me-go-back-to-the-beginning-and-read-more-slowly-
so-how-do-I-get-the network-up-again? got me a little frustrated. But I’m fine; I’m calm now.

How To Read Books That Are Too Hard For You

So, up until now, I’ve always had a Japanese book with me in my manbag/over-the-shoulder European carry-all. The problem was that this isn’t very good Chinese practice. So, I started carrying a Chinese book. But the ones I wanted to read, while I understood them almost fully because they contain material I’ve previously been exposed to in other languages (they’re almost all books from movies and/or translations of other books), contained too many readings that I didn’t know — I know what the character means, but not the reading. This was discouraging, because I felt that I wasn’t growing: I had tried writing them down in a notebook for later reference, but that failed miserably because I hate going back through old notebooks; I tried looking them up one a time as I hit them, but this is really slow going when you’re on a train, and often required me to have 3 arms). For a while there, I even stopped carrying Chinese books around, since there seemed no point taking them; they were “too hard”. Anyway, by accident, I found a solution for myself.

It’s pretty simple: when I hit a character whose reading I don’t know, I stick one of these tiny sticky labels on it. Then, when I get home, I can go through and collect sentences containing those characters. The cool thing is, I don’t have to feel guilty about not instantly looking up a word when I’m on the road: I know I’ll get to it eventually because I’ve marked it up. Also, it’s much better than pen in that it’s cleaner, it’s quicker, and you don’t have to deface your book (so it’s OK to do on library books — assuming you get removable stickers that come off without taking a healthy chunk of book with them). Plus there’s that great sense of achievement from removing the stickie: it’s like taking off a training wheel or something. The sticky labels are about the size of 1-2 characters — just right to cover a word — and perhaps best of all, you get to see the word in the exact context where you first found it. Finally, it also makes me realize that I actually do know a lot of readings, relatively speaking: in the book I’m reading right now, I usually miss about 1-2 per paragraph, so in that sense it’s encouraging, it gives something of visual-numeric perspective of my current state of knowledge — when I stumble upon an unknown word or reading, I often feel dumb for not knowing it [and busting out a dictionary each time I stumble made it seem like reading takes forever; it made things painful], but seeing that on any given page there are only so many of these sticky labels, it makes me realize that things aren’t so bad at all — in fact, things are pretty good.

Skiving

Funny story — I slack off Chinese to watch Japanese shows sometimes. Japanese has gone from noble endeavour to guilty pleasure. When no-one’s looking, I watch Trick.

Then I stumbled upon something that’s perfect for me in the most unlikely of places. 中国語に夢中 (“Engrossed in Chinese”) is a beginner book for Japanese learners of Chinese made up of simple dialogues and accompanying cartoons. It ended up in our home because Khatzumoto is learning Chinese right now (laddering up from Japanese). I, on the other hand, am using it in the opposite way that its authors intended: as a way to learn Japanese! My Chinese is intermediate level, so I can use the Chinese part to check my understanding of the Japanese. It’s a fun alternative to English translations.

Oddly, I find it to be an ideal tool for learning Japanese conversation. First of all, since it’s a book for beginners of Chinese, the Japanese translations reflect the simplicity of the Chinese dialogues. In addition, because of some accident in format, there are two Japanese translations of the same Chinese dialogue—one that’s more colloquial (in the cartoon version) and one that’s more polite (in the text-only version). I guess cartoons (where the visual humor has more of an impact) lend themselves more to slang while pure text tends to be more formal.

This coincidence is fabulous for me! For each piece of dialogue, I have two examples of how to say the same thing. Score! Because of the comic format, I also get a more gradual introduction to humor in Japanese. I mean, sometimes the humor is a bit flat (as textbook material can often be) or I still don’t get it, but it’s definitely good training for recognizing and judging comedy in another language. In addition, there are short articles on aspects of Chinese culture at the end of each dialogue. The writing here is more formal and uses longer sentences and more advanced vocabulary than the dialogue, so it could help me prepare to read Japanese books after I finish the dialogue. And when I’ve mastered Japanese (*sigh* hopefully that day isn’t too far away) I can go back and use this book to beef up my Chinese.

Yes, that’s right. Japanese materials for learning other languages can be just as valuable for learning Japanese itself. The programs on NHK (Japan’s public television station) to help viewers learn English, French, and Chinese are a perfect example of this. Often the presenters spend more time discussing (in Japanese) the grammar points or the meaning of sentences than they do speaking the target language! If you live in Japan, you can browse the language magazine section of your local bookstore and find magazines devoted to various languages (English is the most common). Inside you’ll find dialogues, celebrity interviews, newspaper articles, stories, and even recipes of varying levels of difficulty that are often accompanied by Japanese translations. NHK also publishes excellent, short (and cheap!) serialized books (a new one for each month) for learning other languages.

I don’t expect that this particular book will be of value to anyone else—it reflects my own current needs and my interest in China. But I hope the principle at least can carry over. Acquiring one language doesn’t mean you have to ignore other interests, areas of knowledge or countries that seem to be unrelated. Finally, on a more general level, never be afraid to try something new and unorthodox when other things aren’t working. As long as it has Japanese in it and it appeals to you, you’re going to learn something.

First of all: WTF? I can’t think of a more important reason to learn Japanese than to read manga. Secondly, what the intellectual snobs fail to realize is that it actually takes a steaming BUTTload lot of intelligence (whatever that means… ), background knowledge and kanji competency to be able to make one’s way through a Japanese comic. It’s fun (for me, at least), don’t get me wrong, but it took the largest single self-directed mental effort of my life thus far to get to the point where I could just enjoy a manga, and Japanese kids are no different — you actually have to be pretty freaking smart and literate to read a comic book.

So, not only is reading for pleasure the only reading that’s really worth your time, but it’s also a serious(ly fun) and worthy intellectual exercise. I wish the “if it’s not boring then it’s not good for you” camp could see this, but I really don’t care if they ever do, as long as I can keep getting my Keroro Gunsou on in peace…

By the way, my favorite gem of Hornby advice comes when he suggests that we change books just like we change the channel — when the TV channel is boring, no one suggests you keep ploughing through it because it’s “good for you”. Similarly, if the book is boring you, close it and open a better one. Or, skip the boring part and go to the fun section. Life is too short and there is too much information out there for for you to be attempting to process all of it — you must be selective, and the best selection criterion is what you like. I know, heresy, right? But it’s true: Hornby is right.

You probably know by now what I think about textbooks and studying grammar. Textbooks are the devil’s spawn; studying grammar is a confusing waste of time in terms of actually teaching you how to use the language. Grammar is a “why”, not a “how”. If you want to study about a language, whys are fine, but if you want to use a language, you need hows.

OK, enough speechifying. So why am I recommending a book to you that has “grammar” in the title. Well, first of all, you do still need to understand how to make a grammatically/syntactically correct sentence. That’s where this book comes in. A better title would have been “Logically Progressing Example Sentences on Steroids”, since that’s exactly what this book is. There is no more explanation of rules than is necessary to get the job done. In less than 200 pages (197), it packs just under 2000 sentences. It starts simple and grows gradually. You get to see a pattern repeated many times, allowing you to grasp it fully before going on to the next pattern.

I personally didn’t use this book, but I have read through it, and really wish I had had it back in the day. Momoko, however, did use it. In fact, she’s entered every single example sentence in the book into her SRS, and has since moved on to another book. I asked her what she thought about it, and this is a summary of what she said:

Pros

• Simple, gradual progress.
• No boring explanations. This book cuts to the chase. Good, clear explanations of exceptions.
• Tons of example sentences.
• Lots of repetition of concepts.
• Kanji throughout, so that you are reading real Japanese, but with furigana on all the kanji. This book recognizes that you are a beginner, and helps you along, but without handicapping you (no romaji here!)
• Can remain a useful reference after you’ve finished studying it. The table of contents is very detailed.

Cons

• Not confusing, but it can get dull. The book is essentially limited to college student situations, which may not be relevant to some people. Momoko recommends skipping the boring or redundant parts, there’s no use hurting yourself.
• Vocabulary limited (again, to college situations); you’re not going to learn a lot of words from this book. Although, arguably, the narrow vocabulary may help one focus on the grammar patterns and concepts.
• Only has a few illustrations, these are all small and in black and white.

Like almost any book, this one isn’t without flaws. But overall, it makes a great starter, something that can comfortably give you a solid grammatical foundation and set you on the path to learning more vocabulary.

Why Textbooks Suck

• They’re boring.
• I don’t know about you, but if I really couldn’t care less about John “Watashi wa” Smith’s adventures in Tokyo with Mr. Tanaka. You know, there are Japanese foods other than sushi, and things to watch other than kabuki plays and places to go other than Mt. Fuji. For crying out loud.
• Boring isn’t just bad because it’s boring. It’s bad because it hinders your effectiveness. If you really want to learn Japanese well then you have to enjoy it, and to do that, it would help if your materials were enjoyable.
• They’re old
• Full of action set in like the 1970s and 80s, when Japan and Japanese were hot and cool to business people were into it. The outdatedness can be really, really annoying though.
• They fail to be topical. What about video games? The Internet/Internet slang? And just slang in general that’s bubbled up from high schools into the mainstream? Not to mention children’s words that, as we all know in English, may not be “official”, but have there place. None of this is covered.
• They use romaji
• A lot of textbooks assume anyone who isn’t East Asian is genetically doomed to be illiterate or semi-literate in Japanese. So they take a laissez faire or even just a laissez approach to the writing system. It’s effing insulting. And if they do cover a kanji, they may half-heartedly show you a few dozen, but nothing so that you could actually be literate, and never in a coherent, logical order.
• They cop out
• Textbooks will bait you with their “this is the One True Way To Learn Japanese” blurb, and then, when they’re found lacking, they’ll pull the old “it’s beyond the scope of the textbook” switch or say that things outside the textbook are “irrelevant” or “fringe”. As the past several decades of technology have shown, today’s irrelevant fringe could be tomorrow’s mainstream.
• They’re overbearing and overanalytical
• Like a mother who won’t let her kids see reality, some textbooks so over-simplify things that it’s not even real Japanese any more. It’s Japanese, but it’s so wooden and awkward that it might as well not be. Japanese is real and alive and interesting and quirky. People mumble and hem and haw and are lazy about fully pronouncing things; they shorten stuff like crazy. You just don’t see that reality in a textbook, and, from my experience in learning other languages the textbook way, to wait until you “go to the country” to get the real, raw, gritty stuff is to wait too long. You’ll be so shocked by the reality that you might never recover.
• Some textbooks so overanalyze grammar that it can scare you out of actually speaking Japanese. Japanese is a very, very simple language, especially when it comes to grammar. So is Chinese. That’s why a lot of Chinese and Japanese people often speak such bad-sounding English, to use a vicious ethnic stereotype: “I give you good noodle, 3 dollar only, special price”, actually makes sense in Japanese. Why is that? Because Japanese doesn’t change verbs for gender or person (I/you/he/they), and does a bare minimum of changing (inflection) for tense (past/present/future). Japanese is such a simple language that a lot of very smart professors get bored, so they write incredibly complex texts about Japanese grammar just to keep themselves occupied. Result? Fun for them, living hell…I mean, heck…for you.
• Not only that, but as I’ve mentioned before, a solid knowledge of grammar is about as useful as an extra buttock, which is to say it can often be more damaging than useful. When the shiitake (here’s to you, Guy Kawasaki) hits the fan, you need to be able to speak actual Japanese, not tell me whether or not する is a Godan(五段) base 2 verb. I don’t even know what that noss means, which is the point exactly: analysis makes for nice topping, but crappy cake. Ultimately, I think your foundation must be real Japanese and not an analysis of Japanese. Better to know sentences than to just have random ideas from verb tables.
• Did I mention boring?
• Goofy, mindless exercises. I’m sorry but filling in blanks simply does NOT cut it. Filling out forms (taxes, immigration, banking)? Yes. Blanks? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
• Some have mistakes
• This is pretty rare, but some textbooks do have typos. All your hard work and then someone goes and makes a mistake on you? For shame. It’s not like I don’t have typos, but then I’m not forcing you to buy/pay me. I’m begging you.
• They’re expensive
• A typical textbook is going to set you back a princely sum. And for what? Badly presented information that you could get elsewhere in a cheaper and more appealing format. That money is best spent on something good — movies, manga, anime, or even some of the books I’ve recommended on this site (I do get a kickback if you buy them, but they are good books, I give you my word) . You could even save that money and try to center as much of your learning as possible, at least in the early stages, around free Internet resources.

This isn’t meant to be a tirade against textbook writers. It probably is one, but it shouldn’t be. It takes a lot of time and effort to write a textbook; I’m not out there busting a gut trying to do it, and the publishers are probably improving. But methinks that textbooks’ improvement shouldn’t have to come at your expense. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself to some teaching methodology just because that methodology is in vogue or is “required” (i.e. regardless of its effectiveness). This is your time at stake. You need effective ways to learn Japanese starting right now before the boredom and confusion kill you. Every day and every moment is a day and moment you can and should be learning Japanese in ways that are enjoyable and effective. Now, this is a shameless plug of myself, but I would like to think that a lot of those ways are explained right here, on this website.

What You Can Do About It (The Rampant Suckage of Textbooks)

• Not use textbooks
• Not a bad option at all. But it could be scary for someone who, like me, likes that “anchoring” feeling you get from a nice, heavy hardcover textbook written by someone with big academic credentials. For such a person, then a limited use of textbooks could be OK, provided you:
• Use textbooks efficiently
• As Chris Mahon pointed out to me, there is good to be found out there. Let me be the second to admit that even textbooks have good in them. They present well-edited information in nice little topic-centered chunks. Like nuclear energy, you can use a textbook for good. Indeed, the problem with textbooks isn’t really that they suck, it’s that they ask you to devote yourselves to them; classes are centered around them and they are treated as the “final arbiter”, the ultimate authority on Japanese; they are supposedly infallible. And this is just wrong. Japanese is growing and changing, while that textbook gets more obsolete with every passing day. So I guess that the core problem isn’t the textbooks, but the way a lot of people treat textbooks, with this almost religious reverence of which they are undeserving; no single book out there right now is the be-all and end-all of learning Japanese; but there quite a few excellent individual books out there (none of them, to my knowledge, are textbooks) for and about learning Japanese. So anyway, a textbook can be used for good, and here is how:

How to Use Textbooks Efficiently

• Skip the vocabulary lists; a list of words out of context (outside of a sentence) is nearly useless to you. Go straight for the dialogues and example sentences. Copy those into your SRS. If you work efficiently, you can mine a typical textbook in its entirety, over like 3 – 4 hours of actual working time, perhaps more, perhaps less.
• A textbook could cost a lot, and using this method, you might only use it once — to mine for sentences. That being the case, rather than buy it, you might consider borrowing it from a local library, or, there is always the buy-and-sell approach.

In closing, while it seems that basically all textbooks are sorely wanting, not all textbooks are guilty of all the crimes we’ve mentioned. Some, like Yookoso!, are pretty decent. Not perfect, but good. If you use them effectively by extracting the example sentences, then they can serve you well.