[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Haha. Japan was a very different place when I visited. I remember seeing a vending machine that had the slogan on it "Nice day, nice smoking." Coming from a country that puts pictures of lung cancer victims and diseased tissues on cigarette packages it was weird.

Japan is the strangest culture I have ever experienced. I've been all over the world, in places few have ever seen, in cultures that still practiced animal sacrifices, ate bat brains, and sold their children, but I've never experienced one as weird as Japan. A vending machine that had the slogan on it "Nice day, nice smoking," might seem a bit odd, just as big signs you see outside Thai restaurants that say 'Clean Food,' but vending machines that sell dirty schoolgirl underwear (signed by the wearer...) street-corner vending machines that sell beer and whiskey, company workers who will only take 3 of their approved 5 days off because they feel they have to 'help' support their company, supermarket employees who turn and bow to the market when they are exiting the floor going into the stockroom, a special day of the year for disposing of sewing needles, the list goes on and on...

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

The best piece in all the dune books.

Hurbert said he based the idea for the Bene-Gesserit mental powers on the 'Silva Method of Mental Development.' As a Silva graduate and ex-lecturer, while he did 'expand' quite a bit, you'd be amazed at the similarities...

Is there something you haven't tried!?

Eggnog. There is just something about the name that.. that... I don't know?
But all kidding aside, the only thing I haven't tried is being black. I remember reading the book 'Black Like Me' when it came out. A non-fiction account of the writer's experience with medically darkening his skin, then moving to some Southern states to experience life from the Negro point of view in the early 60's. I always wondered what that would be like... until I came to Japan 25 years ago and began life as a looked-down-upon minority. People would move away from a Westerner on a train in those days.. which was actually sort of nice 'cuz I got to sit down more. Sometimes small children would come over to touch the hair on my arms in amazement. But often being completely ignored by sales staff in stores, not permitted into public baths (signs outside saying "No Foreigners Permitted,") gave me enough of an idea so I lost my desire to do the medical treatments. Fortunately, things changed in Japan for Westerners faster than they did for the Negro in America, and today I see very little of it remaining, although some stranger will want to touch my beard at least once a month...

Thanks to the lessons I learned in that Silva Method series, I've been able to go just about everywhere, and do just about every thing that ever came into my mind. You could say that the 'Bene-Gesserit' training gave me the tools to grow from un-educated biker trash in a rural New England town into a world-traveling university professor/turned photo-journalist experiencing everything life has to offer. I was fortunate. I still am.


Stitchawl