Three things meme

ironymaiden gave me three things that I may not know or care about, but it turns out that I do:

Cyberpunk

Go back through my clothing tag and you'll see that I love cyberpunk aesthetics. I love asymmetrical clothing, layering, lots of pockets, draping, black, hoods/face-concealing scarves, the works. I love neon, I love rain, I speak Japanese so I love signs with kanji on them, and it's thanks to all that that I can say:

Cyberpunk is just Asian cities.

Cyberpunk is the opposite of transhumanism--it's about how technology is insufficient to save us from the fundamental flaws of being human. The modern world is a cyberpunk dystopia, with universal surveillance, corporate control over most aspects of daily life, the global economy run for the benefit of about a hundred people, looming environmental collapse, and extreme wealth stratification, without even the benefits of being able to cut off your arm and put a gun there. So people focus on the aesthetic aspects of cyberpunk, rooted in a retro-future 80s of neon and chrome.

But that's just East Asia. I lived in rural Japan, but I've spent plenty of time in Tōkyō. Rain-slick neon streets, signs with Chinese characters on them, thousands of people all wearing the same dark suits with the occasional iconoclast wearing stand-out fashion, staying up until 4 a.m. on a street filled with buildings each of which is filled with bars, skyscrapers to the horizon in all directions mixed with remnants of ancient traditions trying to hang on...that's Tōkyō. To a lesser extent, it's Kyōto, it's Ōsaka, it's Singapore, and though I've never been, pictures I've seen of Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Seoul, and so on all fit the same theme. Take a look at Liam Wong's portfolio for an example of photos of Tōkyō turned into a cyberpunk wonderland with just a little color tweaking, but also check the cyberpunk tag on Tumblr. A lot of cyberpunk aesthetic Tumblrs just post photos of Tōkyō or Hong Kong at night and call it a day. And that isn't even getting into how a lot of Western cyberpunk media is just Asian cities mostly devoid of Asian people. Who are all those signs in kanji for, anyway?

Still, the aesthetics fascination provided lists like this one and let me develop an actual sense of style, so I can't complain too much.

Salmon

Is the best fish and I eat it every day.

Okay, not every day, but pretty close. One thing about living in rural Japan is that you have to adjust to food availability if you don't want to spend a fortune, and since I couldn't get my pre-Japan breakfast of hummus, melba toast, Greek yogurt, grape juice, and hard cheese in Japan--literally none of that was available in Chiyoda--I flailed around for a while before I adopted a Japanese breakfast of miso soup and rice. Originally I put kōyadōfu in the miso soup, but I can't get that in America (edit: I can, it's just extremely expensive), so I switched to salmon because fish is a traditional part of Japanese breakfast. Originally I ate it pan-fried, but I started salting it, letting it cure for a couple days, and then cooking it (called 塩鮭 shiozake, "salted salmon") and I wouldn't go back. It's delicious.

Salmon isn't my favorite sushi, though. That's fatty tuna.

Umbrellas

I've needed an umbrella a lot lately because thanks to climate change, Chicago's weather is getting wetter. Last summer it rained a lot, this May broke the record for wettest May ever, and after winter lasted straight through until mid-May, June is a cool, wet spring. Just this week it's already rained three days, it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and it's probably going to rain again on Sunday. I basically reflexively grab my umbrella as I walk out the door. Fortunately I'm used to this, since Japan had a rainy season in late June/early July, but I didn't expect it to come to Chicago.

My favorite Japanese word related to umbrellas is 傘傾げ kasakashige, referring to the practice of tilting one's umbrella away from other pedestrians when passing them in the street or stopping to chat with them to avoid dripping water on them. It's not in modern dictionaries because it's centuries old and I've even read questions by Japanese people asking other Japanese people what it means and the answerers having no idea, but it's such a great word.

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I'd be happy to give anyone else who wants them three things.