4 January 2008 (26 Tevet 5768)
One of the many things for which I have to be grateful to my parents is that they instilled in my mind a love of books. Although I was born in a very small city in Japan, I was fortunate enough to be born in those times when even in small cities one could still find bookstores that were not less good than the biggest bookstores in the capital of the state of the people of the book both in quantity and in quality. I cannot always be so tolerant of people who treat books as purely physical objects. Every time I find a book in a university or public library that is vandalized with scribbles by thoughtless readers, I feel as if I precipitated a heart attack.
Israel is said to be among the countries that publish the largest number of books per capita. But I am sure that one of the first things that a bibliophile who comes to Japan to Israel notices is not only the fact that in Israel there are no serious bookstores in the Japanese (and Russian) sense of the word but also the fact that few people read books in means of public transportation in Israel unlike in Japan. If I am allowed to generalize, there are nevertheless two exceptions to this observation: immigrants who read books in Russian and haredim who read classical Jewish sources. It may not be a coincident that I feel close to these two minority groups in Israel.
When I commute to my workplace, Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat Gan, I see to it that I have something to read on my way both there and back home, but every once in a while I finish reading much earlier than I calculated or worse still forget to bring anything to read on the way. Theoretically, I can meditate, but not while I am on the move as I cannot concentrate on meditation because of annoying cell phone conversations. Although I have already made a rather thorough "anthropological" investigation of typical commuters in Israel, I still cannot help wondering what all those people who neither read books nor bother others with their noisy cell phone conversations kill the time. Most of them do not seem to be meditating, either, so I am really worried that many people in this country may be suffering from "brain death" and have become pure physical beings that live only according to their basic instincts.
11 January 2008 (4 Shvat 5768)
[no update due to a technical problem]
18 January 2008 (11 Shvat 5768)
Although I cannot justify the annoying behavior of so many drivers in Israel to honk incessantly and impatiently, I can understand them in a sense. This is probably one of the few ways for them to work out their frustrations in their daily life by venting them on other drivers, who in turn do the same. It is not difficult to become frustrated in this country, not only because of its political situation but because of the low level of public and commercial service we receive interpersonally. Those who work in the service industry are supposed to serve us customers in exchange for the money we pay and make us feel flattered and satisfied, but instead many of them irritate and often even infuriate us by mistreating us here (and probably in a number of other countries). Here are a few ideas of mine about how to improve the quality of the service industry in Israel. They have only to make a small change in the way they think about themselves and their jobs so that their customers may feel a big improvement in their service. I am sure that this is possible as I know that many of them are nice people in private, especially once they are with their family and friends.
The root of the low level of the service industry in Israel as I see it is that many people working there give precedence to their own convenience over that of their customers. For example, every time I see them leave for coffee or even for eating while people are waiting for their service, I am dumbfounded first and then little by little I feel my blood pressure rise. Of course, they also have their own physical needs, but they can at least show some consideration for us, for example by apologizing to us, instead of giving us an impression as if we owe them and are serving them and not vice versa. Unless they are self-centered children with no self-discipline, it must not be very difficult for them to understand how such behaviors of theirs affect their customers and to start treating us as they would like us to treat them if they were in our place.
Another root of the problem, which is probably related to the above, is that many people working in the service industry here simply do not know what service is all about. This may be because they have never experienced great service themselves, so have no role model, and/or feel that they are simply engaged in what they are doing unwillingly, so can neither be proud of it nor think of anything but how to end quit the job. Although I believe that the first kind of people should be educated by their employers and the second kind of people should not work in the service industry unless they have their own stores, we customers can also "help" them, either by not returning to them or even by refusing their service in the middle, while complimenting and supporting a still small (but hopefully increasing) number of those who understand service and respect their customers.
25 January 2008 (18 Shvat 5768)
Now that the strike by the senior faculty association, which paralyzed the universities in Israel for as long as three months, finally came to an end, and the new academic year has officially started, I can finalize the schedule of my next planned visit to the Land of the Rising Yen. It has been difficult for a person like me who likes to plan things in advance to be forced to remain totally uncertain about the near future and reschedule this trip twice. Actually, I was supposed to start spending my intersemestral vacation there this week, but I seem to benefit from the change I was forced to make.
As I (and probably the majority of what few people who take the trouble of continuing to read this weekly kvetching) already know, I seem to be unable to stop criticizing the society where I live. Of course, this is not because I hate it but because I care about it. So not living in Japan and visiting there as a kind of tourist, I have more reasons to enjoy my short stay than to suffer from it. As for this trip, I have three specific reasons to look forward to it.
According to the regular academic calendar I can visit Japan only in one of the two worst seasons there, i.e., February or August. But this time, I can be there in April, which is one of the two best seasons there. This timing also excites me because the last time I was at my parents' place in April was when I was still a high school student, i.e., about 28 years ago! The older I become, the more keenly I feel that whether I like it or not, my perception of the nature and the four seasons was formed where I spent the first 18 years of my life.
The second excitement is to be able to celebrate the Passover Seder at Ohel Shelomo Synagogue in Kobe, which I consider as a kind of my spiritual alma mater. Like many people who spent a number of Sabbaths there, there was special warmth there, which I have never experienced in any synagogue in Jerusalem. Those who joined the minyan there ate three Sabbath meals together, and some of them even slept together at the rabbi's house in the same building. We also shmoozed a lot, often over bottles of beer or glasses of whisky, after the meals. The coming Seder there will be like a home coming day for me.
The third and the greatest source of excitement is that I will finally be able to realize my dream of revisiting two places with which I simply fell in love when I visited there for the first time with an ex-girlfriend of mine in March 2002: Beppu and Yufuin, two of the most famous hot spring ("onsen") resorts in Japan. You may be considered old if you do what you have already experienced instead of trying something new, but my experience there has totally changed my idea about hot springs, at least in Japan, and has made me sorry for all the opportunities I must have missed to enjoy them. In my planned short stay there I would like to visit those hot springs that still haunt me from time to time.