Young Media Is Naughty

 

I love social media. Sometimes it causes problems. Some countries control it strictly. I can’t say it is completely good or completely bad. Some people use social media for crime, terrorism, and propaganda.

I think most new media is naughty. Outlaws tend to love new things because they hate the old ones that kicked them out. New media always develops without rules at its dawn. In a lawless world, the naughtiest people win.

I was born in 1970. There was a TV at home when I was baby, so I watched TV every day as a child. Japanese TV programs were naughty in those days. They were full of violence and dirty topics. Fishy fortune tellers and fake scholars showed up and told lies. TV was young media. It was naughty.

Today, TV has grown up. I can even recommend that children watch TV. Ironically, young Japanese people tend not to watch TV.

I believe theater is ancient media. According to my studies, it also had naughty periods. In the 18^th century, the British government tried to control theaters strictly. It closed almost all theaters in England temporarily. In Japan, in the Edo period, the Japanese government tried to control Kabuki theater strictly. The two governments’ reasons were similar. I think theatre was too naughty in both Japan and Britain.

Social media is still young. It will cause many problems in the future. But I believe it will grow up. Someday it will be one of the peaceful forms of media. Ironically, in the future, young people will not be interested in social media.

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My Boyish Wife

 

When I first met my wife, I assumed she was male. It was not my fault. Her hair was very short, and she was dressed in boyish clothes.

Generally speaking, most women have not had the experience of people mistaking them for men, but it has always happened to my wife. I heard that it started when she was a girl.

Before I met her, I loved many stories in which women pretended to be men, for example, Yentl. But I assumed they were fictional. I believed that such a thing could never happen in the real world. When I watched movies of that kind, I sometimes felt that it was strange that the people in the movies easily accepted women in masculine attire as men. Encountering my wife changed everything. I learned that it was not impossible. I am married to her, and that is our daily life now.

In fiction, they don’t describe some problems, but in daily life, we can’t ignore those problems. Sometimes, my wife is scolded in the restroom: “Excuse me, this is the women’s restroom!” My wife is a woman.

I suggested that she wear a ribbon or wig to the restroom. She refused. That went against her principles. Furthermore, her job is very busy. She does not have the time to always do that. I suggested that she go to the men’s restroom. She refused to do that too.

Even now, my wife is nervous whenever she goes to the restroom. Do you have any ideas regarding what she can do for peace in the restroom?

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Clinic for Scumbags

 

When I was in my twenties, I had an acquaintance who was a scumbag. He always said something aggressive and sarcastic to me and even harassed me. I didn’t like him. I didn’t keep in touch with him. About ten years passed.

I saw him for the first time in ten years at a big party. He was talking with a friend of mine. I thought he didn’t remember me. The friend didn’t know I knew him personally. There was no reason for me to join their conversation. I left them.

I joined another group in the party and enjoyed talking with them. A while later, the friend who had talked with the scumbag joined our group.

The first thing she said was “I met Mr. X after a long interval. He was as much a scumbag as ever!”

I didn’t say anything, but I was surprised. I had assumed the scumbag hated me because of personal reasons. He had said sarcastic things to me and even harassed me. Actually, he had been a scumbag to everyone for ten years.

If this was so, I thought it might be an amazing thing. Was he a scumbag 24/7? Was he a scumbag indiscriminately? He could be a patient who needed medical care.

I am addicted to nicotine. The first thing I think of when I wake up is “I want to smoke.” I have a friend who is an alcoholic. The first thing he thinks of when he wakes up is “I want to drink.” The first thought of the scumbag when he wakes up might be “I want to say something sarcastic to and harass someone.” Being a scumbag might be an addiction.

We have clinics for addictions to nicotine and alcohol. I suggest that we should have clinics for scumbags. Nicotine and alcohol might be harmful. Saying sarcastic things and harassing people are nuisances. I am sure it causes negative effects to the scumbag himself. If it is a treatable illness, we need clinics for them.

Once, I was a patient of a clinic for nicotine addiction. Unfortunately, their medical treatment didn’t work on me. I am still a smoker, but I know many people who quit smoking because of the clinic. It may work. It is covered by insurance in Japan.

I wish the scumbag would be cured through some kind of medical treatment. The insurance should cover that.

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Barium

We drink barium when we have medical checks.

Recently, they have been sealed up. We break a seal to open a bottle of barium. It is safe and hygienic. Sometimes it has an artificial taste. It is easy to drink.

In the 1980s, when I was a university student, a hospital served me barium with a paper cup. The cup was apparently reused. We were all wild in the 1980s.

A doctor gave me barium with a huge paper cup and said, “Drink up.”

Actually, this was a joke. In those days, barium simply had a bad taste. Most patients hesitated to drink it, but I was a reckless young man. I took the words literally. I started to drink it in great gulps.

The doctor was upset. “No, no, no! You should not really drink it up!”

Actually, we should drink barium in sips, a little at a time. We should not gulp it down.

The doctor watched the monitor and scolded me. “Look at this! Now your insides are all white. I can’t check anything!”

Dear friends, don’t excessively drink alcohol and even barium.

Picture by Masayuki Wada

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My Mother and Hymn

 

My mother has Alzheimer’s disease. An Alzheimer’s patient forgets many things, but there are exceptions. This includes crystalized memory, the things that a patient repeatedly does.

When I lived with my mother, she went to day service. It gave me a brief rest. One Christmas day, my mother came back from the day service with a helper and the care manager.

The care manager was excited and said, “Today we had a Christmas party. We played hymns on a CD. Your mother could sing all the songs on the CD!”

My mother was a Christian. Most people around her didn’t know this. My mother didn’t have siblings. Her father had passed away when she was a child. My grandmother was sickly.

My grandmother said to my mother, “If I pass away, you should enter a convent. At least they will feed you.”

My mother studied at a Christian junior high school and a Christian university. I believe she had faith in God. After she graduated from the university, she didn’t have a chance to go to church. Our town didn’t have a church. This was why people around her didn’t know she was a Christian.

She has Alzheimer’s disease. It is difficult to communicate with her now. I don’t know if she is still a Christian or not.

I think, at least, she knows a lot of hymns.

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I Lost 30 Pounds in a Month

 

 

A few years ago, I was in a hospital because of a serious illness. During the first week, I completely lost consciousness. While I was unconscious, they put a feeding tube in my nose. After I woke up, I started eating, but at first, I couldn’t eat much. I left most of my meal on my plate.

When I was discharged, I lost 30 pounds. I had been the tubby type. It was a good change.

Before that, I had experienced losing much weight by dieting, but when I went on a diet, I took time. I slowly lost weight. I worked very hard. However, this time, I don’t have any memory of when I was losing weight. I feel like I had just woken up and lost 30 pounds.

I came back to society. All of my acquaintances were surprised when they looked at me. Some people couldn’t recognize me.

We can call this the “coma diet.” It doesn’t give you a sense of achievement. Of course, it is too dangerous. I don’t recommend it to you.

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Almost Moving

 

I used to work for a computer game company in Tokyo.

Our office was located in a student’s quarters. It was nice to live in. Our office was actually in an apartment building. It was designed for a family. We put many desks in all the rooms. It was the 2000s. These kinds of companies were busy and profitable.

We started to feel that our office was too small. We decided to move to a bigger room. The new room was designed for a family, but it was located in a better place.

We needed to adjust the working schedule. Then finally, we reached moving day. We didn’t hire any moving company. All of us were young. We packed up and moved by ourselves. We rented and filled up a small truck. I saw the truck off. Some of us continued packing up our old office.

A few hours later, the truck returned to our old office with all our belongings. What happened? One of my coworkers said when they unloaded our belongings, the landlord of the new office saw them.

The landlord said, “I expected a family would use the room. I don’t want to rent the room for a company.”

There was a mistake in communication. Our moving plan ended in failure. We didn’t get the new office. We unpacked our belongings again. We resumed our jobs at our old and only office.

You think this was a miserable experience? Actually, there was a bright side. We threw away many of our belongings for the move. So we felt that our old office got bigger. “Almost moving” is the best method for general cleaning. I recommend this to you.

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Picture by Masayuki Wada