If Asians can think, then can Americans learn geography?

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
—Donald Rumsfeld at Department of Defense news briefing Feb. 12, 2002, available at http://www.slate.com/id/2081042

Donald Rumsfeld left out a very-often unmentioned type of known here: the unknown known, the things we don't know that we know. This is a fundamental flaw in a world where we are overloaded with communication, particularly with the advent of the Internet. It is not that we are missing the fundamental facts; it is that we are not looking at the big picture and putting the pieces of the puzzle together!

Don't lose too much hope, though. We don't know how to make the pieces fit because we don't know what the solution is or what the big picture should look like, though we like to hypothesize.

Take the American surprise at the global rise of China over the past 20 years: unless you were actively questioning the way the American media categorized China as pinko commies with a complete disregard for individual freedom, you would never guess they would suddenly grow into a big player on the world stage. All the information was there, but not all of it was presented to Americans.

Now, if you were a Sinophile, you would surf the Net for all things China-related, and you would be a fool to limit yourself to American news sources (especially if you limited yourself to English language sources as well).

One way to explain the phenomenon of why many were surprised was that the news media was portraying a different picture and limited our potential for understanding and making our own conclusions, due to foreign policy and cultural biases. If you're not angry about being lied to, maybe you should be: the majority of the American news media today tends to strongly emphasize conflicts of development and corrupt government officials and synthesizing it with Asia's economic "miracle" in an attempt to show what the price of progress is in the region.

But you should also probably be a little more sympathetic towards Americans and their media instead of outraged, considering:

1) the United States is a big country with so much going on that people tend to only care about what goes on in their community, and if anything more, what their State and Federal government affairs mean to them;

2) the information is there, but that doesn't mean they'll read it or access it;

3) alternatively, they may not even have the means to access all the information, such as the non-tech-savvy and those who can't read (illiteracy is still common); and

4) how much does a West Virginia coal miner care about the new independence of East Timor, let alone why should he care when it may have no effect on his life whatsoever?

Now to totally throw that one around by reiterating the earlier statement of the unknown known: there are things we don't know that we know, and it can and will hurt us because we don't prepare for it. Biggest example: all the information for 9/11 led up to it, but it was virtually ignored because it was categorized as low-priority by the higher echelons of national security, and through that perspective, we didn't expect to be attacked, yet we knew we were going to be attacked. To hit a little harder, the Detroit automobile manufacturing industry didn't know how bad Japan's rise would affect them and destroy their industry.

Fact of the matter is, we should care about Asia. We should learn Mandarin Chinese and Japanese (and potentially Korean soon) for business and political reasons (and because your boss may just speak one of those as his or her mother tongue), plus because it gives us access to information that is not limited by our English. We know that it's important because we don't know what can happen, and though we do know that the less we know, the stupider we feel when someone tells us that the Philippines is in Asia, not Latin America.

A tribute to the best waste of time: celebrities

When people pry themselves off of their blogs and online communities, it's a bit hard to find out what's going on in the streets outside of their apartment highrise since they're disconnected from word of mouth. They are not, however, altogether hopeless, as the Internet is another privilleged resource for their daily dose of wasting time. After all, there are incentives to traverse the streets of Hong Kong and New Delhi, amidst the aroma of stinky tofu and chicken curry, amidst the hustle and bustle of crowded streets and city lights. Some of those incentives are entertainment, and what better incentive than entertainers themselves?

If love can move mountains, then sex can shake the foundations of reality and the universe. And this isn't pornography, this is sex appeal, coming from beauty. Who better else than perhaps the world's most beautiful woman, Aiswhwarya Rai? Bollywood's biggest starlet and former 1994 Miss World, has a myriad of fans worldwide, and the websites keep on coming. Aishwarya forever is no exception to this, with a site that collects all of her filmography, interviews, pictures, a message board for all her followers, and news updated daily, those who need their quick fix can head over to http://www.aishwarya-forever.com/home.html. Leave the curry in the oven; it should be ready once you come back from the video rental store with a handful of her awe-inspiring movies. Even for those who don't want to spend time navigating the site, the bar at the top has splash images to give would-be viewers a look at the stunning actress. The archive of files are always growing, with contributions from site members not just limited to news bulletins or message board posts, making it a very inviting site for one-time visitors and enticing for regulars.

Not to leave out the opposite sex (or those who just admire the masculine abstract as opposed to the feminine divine), there is Chinese-American superstar celebrity based in Hong Kong, Daniel Wu, with his own equally devout following of fans and just as many sites. Although the site has more of a teenage girl's blog, it is the most informative with news updates by a dedicated host and a growing photo archive. Let the married women turn the other way as they hide their ring-bearing fingers when Daniel Wu graces their computer screens, and do yourself a favor by preparing for it when you check him out at the most resourceful site on Daniel Wu on the Internet, at http://inlovewithdanwu.50webs.com/. Although not as inviting since it does not allow for the interaction the way Aishwarya's site does beyond its tagboard (like a comment guestbook but not a message board), as posts and updates are made by the webmaster herself(?), though some of the pictures and news posts are contributed by regular visitors, but they are not allowed to post on their own, since they rely on e-mailing the webmaster who credits their discoveries every time the sightings are posted. One gripe about the photo gallery is that it is linked to a Yahoo! photo album, which is understandable for the frugal webmaster who is dedicating the time and money to the site for your viewing pleasure.

Japan Interpreted and Reinterpreted

From the land that gave us household brandnames for appliances, televisions, stereos, and automobiles, little else is known besides the consumer image of Japan. We know it exists, and we love to make fun of them (at least in the United States) when we aren't devouring their instant ramen as a staple of the university student's diet or wishing we had a Japanese car of our own. However, beyond brands, beyond cultural bias, and beyond the image (arguably facade), the image of Japan is more than meets the eye, especially if one only looks with the eye of the consumer, regardless of whether or not the consumer loves or loathes Japan.

One of the challenges, however, in trying to find the "real" Japan in spite of the nature of Japanese culture to have a consensus on news media when providing the image Japan wants to portray, is where does one go for top news on Japanese politics and all things Japanese? Furthermore, Japan is overwhelmingly advanced in terms of Internet technology, so digging through the myriad of news feeds available is a challenge that boils down to interface preference and if the information provided is satisfactory.

An important detail to note about Japanese media culture is that stories that would generate a controversey are seldom-reported due to fears of disrupting both order and the status quo, which the media, in tandem with the government, work hard to preserve. Regardless, one does not view Japanese news with a grain of salt along the same vein of China's Xinhua news agency where there is an obvious bias, because reporting is honest, though there is a big difference between outright lying and withholding information.

Cheers: Though lacking in presentation and being a list of different news feeds, News on Japan is the most informative site there is, for the viewer who does not need news images to relate to Japan's political issues. It is updated daily from multiple news sites and listed chronologically. Although the mixing of different news sites is debatable as the quality of each varies, one gets a very diverse image of Japanese politics due to the mix of sites and simple, accessible page loaded with information. It is one of the few news indexes that proves linking to multiple sites is not a bad way of sharing information, as organization is important, as well as consistency. After all, each site-- though having different interfaces and contexts-- provides in-depth analyses, background information, and come from reputable sources. Advertisements are minimal, limited to a google ad bar on the right, but everything else is visible without being distracted by ads or other content, including the easy-to-locate foreign exchange rate box on the left sidebar. It still loses points for creativity and interface, but for those who want the straight facts, head over to http://www.newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/morenews/Politics_News/. Conveniently enough, it also has an RSS feed which gives people the headlines and direct link to the articles of interest straight from their bookmarks toolbar.

Jeers: In trying to be partial, the Japan Today news site has literally tidbits of information because it has no opinion or depth. Even the headlines seem to present more information than the actual news articles, which are so short that it seems one could receive an entire news story in a single text message for his or her mobile device. Organization is one good thing, however, as almost all of the ads are small excerpts from a larger ad on the right in a small sidebar; and there is one banner ad at the top, so everything appears micromanaged just like most things in Japan. It is the organization which makes navigating the site easy and good, but is absolutely shallow in terms of depth since its articles are sometimes no longer than three sentences in a lone paragraph, making it seem like a robot wrote the article since there is no opinion, no emotional depth, so boring that it feels like reading out of a textbook. An example of this is seen here:

TOKYO — Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan, urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his cabinet members and senior lawmakers of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday to disclose how they spend money on maintaining their offices.

His comments came after he revealed documents related to his own office expenses following a spate of money scandals, including fuzzy accounting of political funds, involving cabinet members and other key players of the LDP. Taken from http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/399563

This is a a clear example of how boring articles here are, with only two sentences, and each sentence seems to take the tone of an aloof speaker who says a few key words which make the reader think and wonder what the author refers to, with nothing to explain what money scandals or who was involved with the scandals. Events are reported dutifully, but information is scarce.

For those with a short attention span, the link to Japan Today's political news feed, free of opinions and depth, head over to

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/cat/9