I found an article in Itai News [in Japanese] that I spent the past week translating, just for fun.  It’s a bit of fluff that lists Japanese women’s list of the worst “unmanly qualities” they hate about Japanese men.

1.   He has no opinion, is just carried along by others.
2.   He always has someone to blame.
3.   He can never be decisive at the moment of truth.
4.   He’s always giving up (never puts in the work).
5.   He’s always relying on his parents somehow.
6.   He keeps quiet on the train even when he’s bunched up against some weirdo.
7.   Though he’s timid around other people, he only acts firm in front of me.
8.   He flip-flops around with what foods he likes and dislikes.
9.   He splits the cost of meals (with me) exactly, even in increments of ¥10.
10. He asks for favors.
11. He always whines about his work.
12. His nails are too long.
13. He does nothing but complain.
14. He checks his appearance in front of the mirror too much.
15. He uses toiletries (products) too much.
16. His body is frail and weak.

Want to know what Japanese men are like?  Imagine someone who embodies at least 10 out of 16 things in this list, and you have the typical Japanese guy.

I’m not going to go line-by-line, but I’ll give a few examples of what I observed based on advertisements, sitcoms, and train behavior.

Appearance expectations seem to be roughly equivalent when it comes to the business standard in Japan.  Men are expected to have flawless complexions and healthy flowing black hair just like the women, except that women are allowed to talk about it and possess big conspicuous boxes of products and makeup; men doing the same are “un-manly”.  (Source: TOYAMA Masao, Black Diamond in Monavie)

Train Behavior: I have never witnessed, not one single time in my 2 months there where I spent a good 2 hours on trains almost every single day including a few Tokyo rush hours, a single Japanese man or woman ever speaking up against “some weirdo”.   As if you can tell the “weirdos” apart from your typical late-40s salariman reading tentacle-porn anime ANYWAY.  NEXT!!!

Dependence on Parents: Something like 60% of Japanese men between the ages of 18 and 34 still live with their parents; about 80% of Japanese women in that age range fit that description.  Double-standard much?   (Source: Wikipedia article on “Parasite single” phenomenon in Japan)

Culture: Japanese men are not supposed to be decisive, or speak up, or have an opinion.  Guys who start having opinions rapidly find they don’t have a job.  (Source: anecdotal evidence, stories collected from pubs.)

Given all of this mental mindscrewing inflicted by Japanese culture on its own inhabitants, it’s no wonder they have problems with people jumping onto the tracks.  And it’s both telling and amusing that when these events get reported, they say things like “man jumps in front of train, inconveniences 90,000 commuters”.

The question on my mind is this:  do these suicidals pre-meditate their jumps so as to leave this world committing one final, massively heinous social crime in Japanese culture — Causing Inconvenience?  If so, that’s hilarious.

I feel an Alan Watts marathon coming on.

Technorati Tags: alan watts, fluff, japan, japanese, monavie, subways, tokyo

Let me state for the record that my normal, everyday diet is predominantly raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fish, and eggs.  I normally feel “pretty good”, but have had some niggling problems in the past 2 years, including knee pain going up/down stairs or doing squats, and a right-side-only lower back pain.

While in Hungary, my knee pain went totally away and the creakiness in both knees went down. And my lower back stopped hurting in the morning; I’ve never been able to get rid of this before, regardless of bed, sleeping position, or exercise.

What’s more, the dentist was surprised how quickly I was healing. I’m “supposed to” still be suffering a bit of swelling and pain at my tooth extraction and implant sites, especially having to be in an airplane for 12 hours while recovering, but I pretty much feel normal and fine, with a great deal of energy.

It’s freaky, really — I had a half-centimeter-wide drill carving out a part of my upper jaw, and then I got a titanium screw stuck into there. It’s only been 10 days since the implant and 6 days since the extraction. Shouldn’t I be experiencing a modicum of discomfort?

I really have to attribute these improvements almost entirely to consuming about 2-3 ounces of Monavie 3 or more times a day. Not that much… but made a huge difference considering it was impossible to eat fresh fruit or veggies there (the closest I came was eating fermented shredded carrots and cabbage).

I’m not an idiot, I know there are other possible explanations for these things… but I think the simplest explanation is the most reasonable. Inflammation causes pain, and antioxidants reduce inflammation; dramatic doses of antioxidants seem to reduce inflammation dramatically. I didn’t change any other habits in Hungary, and I did very different things on different days, e.g. Tuesday 3 hours of stressful dentistry, Wednesday hunched over my computer doing email and whatnot, Thursday 4 hours of getting drilled into my jaw, Friday spent all day wandering around castles and caves… you get the idea.

I’ve been a distributor since 2006 and haven’t done anything with it. But now I have a story… now I can honestly do it. I’m a believer in the product and have just ordered myself 2 more cases just for my own consumption.

I know so many people with chronic pain, or people who are chronically injuring themselves, and it’s just too hard for most of them to change their diets to a version that is anti-inflammatory. It hurts me to see people keep suffering needlessly — it’s why I got into raw food, and still believe in raw food and try to encourage people to try it. But now, it’s going to be the reason why I share Monavie and recommend it as the best way to change a pro-inflammatory diet to an anti-inflammatory one.

Honestly, I’m tired of being a health food advocate, telling people they can’t have this or that food, they should be doing more of the other thing, etc. It’s much more fun to say, “hey! Check out this awesome juice! You don’t have to change your life, just drink the damn juice!”

Plus, the fact that it’s network marketing means you get rewarded for sharing. It doesn’t take much effort to end up getting your case of juice per month sent to you for free, once you get other people drinking it too. Free is definitely good. Any commissions beyond that, as far as I’m concerned, are just gravy. I’m in it for the juice.

So… who’s with me?

Technorati Tags: experience, mlm, monavie, product