This Is The Music Using Our Ability

Bobby McFerrin, who is one of the best-known vocal performer, conducts a wonderful impromptu performance below.



Some people who are singing in the video sound like little off-key at first, but they gradually adjust their key. Eventually, they create a beautiful harmony between them and Bobby.

Wonderful!!

Honne & Tatemae Everywhere

"Honne and Tatemae" is a famous word to describe Japanese culture. Honne is what people are truly feeling or really want to do. It is usually used for behavior and opinions. On the other hand, Tatemae refers to socially expected behavior and opinions, regardless of what the people actually think about and want to do. For instance, suppose you are invited to a neighbor's house, and the host says "Would you like to something to drink?" If you are Japanese, you probably say "yes," even though you are not thirsty (If you were like me, you would finish the drink and even say "it's delicious," regardless of whether it's really good or "not good..." ). This "yes" is known as Tatemae.

The reason the Japanese start using this custom is to avoid conflicts. In Japan, it is important to keep harmony among people, and harmony is assumed as a value.

Zits published November 4, 2011

Well, Honne and Tatemae looks like, however, not only for the Japanese, but also for everybody in the world. Zits shows a very well example of Honne and Tatemae. In the above comic strip, Jeremy (who is sixteen years old, a high school student, and wants to become a musician) tells his mother to thank-you for buying a new down jacket in the first and second scene. However, in the last scene, he is thinking "...said the giant purple hand grenade." It seems that his thought may be "Honne," while his thank-you and comment to his mother may be "Tatemae".

If you avoid conflicts, saying Tatemae might be good. If not, say Honne!

A more sophisticated explanation regarding this topic is available at the following link: http://www.kirainet.com/english/honne-and-tatemae/.

Interesting Toy

The tool looks like very interesting. I'd like to play it. Some of the function seem difficult for children to use, but it also means that adults enjoy playing it. The last function is especially my favorite.

Virtuoso means...

According to my favorite dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a virtuoso is defined as "someone who is a very skilful performer, especially in music". The reason I saw the word in the dictionary was that I checked a word, vis-a-vis, though.

I'm no complaint about the definition of a virtuoso, but I'm very curious about why the editor (s/he is her fan?) chose the illustration:

"violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae"

I think she is a great talented violinist. However, I do not have an image for her as a virtuoso. One of her performances is below.

What I believe as a virtuoso is Itzhak Perlman. Actually, when checking out the word on the Wikipedia, Perlman is one of the examples. The point I want to make is that my connotation from the term, virtuoso, is a  performer like Perlman. But, if the word reminds other people of like Mae, what's going on is, I think, that a virtuoso may imply like her performance. Although this is a mere example of using a word differently among generations, I feel a big difference between Perlman and Mae. Just in my opinion, Perlman is more an appropriate instance! Please check out a virtuoso in your dictionary!

Bystander Effect

The Street by Baltus

Here is a famous painting by Baltus who is French, 1908-2001 (it is available to see at MoMA in NY). Although at first glance it looks like just a beautiful painting, there is something wrong to happen in the painting. On the left side, the man is doing sexual aggression to the girl wearing a red cloth, but none of the people seem to notice it (or I guess they pretend not to).

This is a good example for the bystander effect (the large number of people witnessing the tragedies militated against anyone's helping). The reason that it occurs is that the people assume as the reasonableness and appropriateness of not helping by the other people do not help. In the above case, if we do not know what the man is doing, we may assume that is appropriate or even may not notice the weirdness.

The New Japanese President

The above graph shows GDP growth rate of UK (red line), JPN (green line), and US (purple line as a bench mark for global economy) between 1961 and 2010. In addition, red and green arrows indicate the succession of both Britain's and Japan's prime minister, respectively.

As you can see, the Japanese prime ministers change more frequently than those of UK. According to research on the managerial succession, there are two things regarding top management's changes. One is that poor performance in a firm is more likely to lead a leader to change than good performance. The other is that the more often a manager and CEO in a firm change, the poorer the firm's performance is.

As long as I can see the above graph, I think those facts may apply to this case (though I have not conducted a statistical test to the relationship between the turnover and GDP growth). If the relationship is true, what I expect the new Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda,  is to be in office as long as possible.

Even as one of the Japanese, I cannot remember the name of the prime minister anymore.

More Smile in Our Life

The more I smile, the less I need to eat chocolates (especially Bon Bons), according to the below talk. As a result, I would be more healthy. It's nice!! Yeah, more smile in my life!!