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These days, presumably to make up for the shutting down of US panda-cams, the World has taken a keen interest in the reproduction problems of the Japanese people.

The last wave started with a cheap click-baiting article in the Guardian, who really, by now, should know better than publish poorly-researched articles about made-up Japanese “trends”. On par with its gratuitously sensationalising title, the article gleefully mixed miscellaneous unconnected research data with completely random anecdotal stuff. Using the thin pretense of studying Japan’s problematic demographics, to go on a fact-finding mission with a Japanese dominatrix turned sex coach: because prurient article on the wacky sexual habits of the Japanese sell so much better than boring age pyramid charts and the like.

In response to this new milestone in paid-by-the-click pseudo-journalism, a few marginally better-written articles popped up, somehow attempting to reframe the discussion into something approaching fact-based reporting. While a whole lot more just piled on, presumably in hope of getting some of that sweet sweet internet buzz. Finally, some journalists pointed out the glaringly racist undercurrent running through the whole thing (not that orientalism is a new thing), charitably overlooking gross journalistic incompetence as the key ingredient to that potent mix of offensive stupidity.

In the lesser spheres of non-retributed publishing, every Japan-related blog or forum has contributed its fair share of anecdotal comments ranging from the Reddit-topping hilariously inept armchair pop-psy take on it1Extra irony points for having started in the psychology subforum of Reddit, where people are hard at work dispelling any notion that it might be an actual science. to the ubiquitous (and no less silly) counter-argument: “These articles must be wrong, because I know lots of Japanese who are having lots of sex. (wink wink nudge nudge)“.

Some Japanese blogger came very close to summarising my exact thoughts on the subject, in a few neat statistical plots2I know: not exactly gonna sway the masses against the appeal of “Queen Ai, professional Japanese dominatrix” and Guardian in-house resident statistics expert.. But it still missed some fundamental issues I have with this joke of a news trend, so I thought I’d give it my own try:

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If there was a modern retelling of the Sisyphean myth, it should involve folding large bedsheets with two overactive cats in the house.

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They thought it defeated.

Its hideous shapeless mass: buried and gone forever. Its death the prelude to an everlasting era of warm happiness and sunny days.

But the beast was merely bidding its time and has finally returned.

Stronger than ever, steeped in the blood and hopes of the thousand brave men it has devoured whole, its bone-shivering ululating howls fill the space…

From the deepest, darkest, recesses of the Winter storage closet, the kotatsu is calling.

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Out: laptop, dress shirts, research papers…

In: BBQ, swimsuit, sunscreen…

So long Sapporo, Hello Okinawa!

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Vermont Academy

I spent most of last week in the heart of Vermont, speaking at a small highly-targeted bio conference, tangentially related to some long-forgotten PhD research of mine. The conference took place on the campus of some remote boarding school, empty of students during the Summer break.

Overall, the manageable number of attendees, circumscribed topic and complete absence of alternative for entertainment within a 30 mile radius, made for a convivial atmosphere and stimulating discussions.

Nevertheless, I spent a good deal of my time there feeling like the unfortunate hero of some weird time-travel story, living in secret fear that I might not be allowed to go home at the end of the week.

The overall Overlook Hotel meet The Prisoner vibe of the place may have helped. Jetlag may also have played a role. But mainly, it had to do with serious flashback to my own boarding school days, down to some spooky architectural similarities (not so surprising considering those were typically the type of Old World schools that a posh US “academy” would try to emulate). I had opted for the on-campus lodging option and was assigned a very typical dormitory room, complete with communal sinks and showers at the end of the hallway. Having to share the floor (though not my room) with other grown men long past their boarding school days and finding the bed made every afternoon when I’d get back to the room, only added a weird twist to the whole déjà vu experience.

I only started freaking out for real toward the second day: when, waking up from a sleep-dephased nap at 8 in the evening, I realised that, not only was the cafeteria hall the only option for food in a walkable radius, but the campus may have been the last square mile of US territory without a single vending machine on it. Missing the 6pm-to-7pm dinner service in that place meant going hungry until breakfast. If you’ve never known that feeling, you’ve probably never been to boarding school.

I carefully observed dinner times thereafter and, truth be told, had some lovely evenings sipping beers with colleagues in the school’s rec room (temporarily refurbished for use by legal-drinking adults)… But was still pretty relieved when they let me leave the grounds at the end of the week without special parental permission.

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Amidst a bunch of mediocre-to-abysmal blockbusters, the in-flight entertainment system on my Delta flight had on offer a movie I had never heard of: The Host.

Figuring that a movie about body-snatching aliens could not possibly be that bad (or rather: no matter how bad, would have to be somewhat entertaining), I ended up subjecting myself to what turned out to be 90 tedious minutes of some of the worst moviemaking I have ever seen, only made bearable by occasional bits of unintentional hilarity through sheer ineptitude. I belatedly gave up somewhere around the two-third mark.

All along, I could not quite put my finger on it, but there was something vaguely familiar in the movie’s over-simplistic linear plot, incredibly dull treatment of otherwise time-tested genre tropes, barely-defined one-dimensional characters and empty dialogs masquerading as profundity… not to mention the obvious (though badly muddled) religious undertones. Despite having never heard of that movie until then, it felt as if I may have watched it before.

And then today, while browsing Detroit airport’s equally indigent Travel Bookstore, I happened upon the book that apparently inspired that abortion of a movie. And it all made sense.

Just in case the author’s name alone may not have been enough, a big sticker above it proclaimed, in big gaudy gold letters: “By the author of the Twilight™ series“.