April 2000

Are You My Tribe?
I am off to the Nikkei 2000 Conference in San Francisco CA.
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(26 April 2000)
Writing With Radio: This American Life's: Ira Glass
Tonight I attended the last talk in this season's Portland Arts & Lectures series, by Ira Glass, the host of National Public Radio's popular program This American Life. The earlier speakers in the series were authors; Glass told the audience how he writes with radio, crafting soundclips and music into a show that irresistably draws you in. The lecture started in a darkened theatre, just like listening to the radio! Then the lights came up, and he more or less followed this transcript: Ira Glass On Making Radio.
At the reception afterward, I told him how true TAL's "Who's Canadian?" show (RealAudio clip) is. He said he and his staff were so moved by the current Molson "'I am Canadian' Rant" TV ad that they all want to be Canadian! He was very familiar with Canada's public broadcasting network and its programs. He signed my card:
"Thanks for liking our show. The CBC kicks our butt, as you know."
-- Ira Glass
- The Savvy Traveler: Ira Glass on Travel (RealAudio clip)
  IG speculates on making This Japanese Life
- Rewind: Ira Glass Hosts Car Talk (RealAudio clip)
  What if IG sat in for Click and Clack?
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(24 April 2000)
La Ciudad (The City) (USA 1998; Dir: David Riker)
Four stories of Latino immigrants to New York City:
- Bricks - Day labourers are taken to the remote ruins of a warehouse, where they asked to collect bricks for less money than they were promised. Letters from the old country remind them what they are working for. When an accident happens, they are powerless to do anything to help their fallen comrade -- they don't even know where they are.
- Home - A new arrival chances upon a wedding reception, where he meets a woman who happens to be from his village in Mexico. He spends the night at her place, happy to have found a bit of home in his new country. The next morning he goes out to buy food for breakfast, but then cannot find his way back to her apartment in the maze of highrise buildings.
- The Pupeteer - A father supports himself and his young daughter by staging puppet shows. She is school age, but cannot get an education because the schools require that students have an address -- and they live in a car by the river. He puts his hopes in "Money Tree" lottery tickets.
- Seamstress - A seamstress in a shirtmaking sweatshop gets news of her daughter's illness in the old country. She needs money for medicine, but the pay is delayed. This story shows how each wave of immigrants exploits the next -- White, Asian; Asian, Latino.
Each story is introduced by portaits taken in a photographer's studio. The film was shot in dramatic black-and-white, well-suited to its almost unrelentingly despairing tone. Director Riker got some negative reviews from critics who pointed at what they viewed as exploitation of the immigrants. However, the early part of the filmmaking process was a drama workshop for those immigrants. These are their stories, told by themselves.
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(22 April 2000)
Game On! NHL Playoffs
I finally found a sports bar in Portland where I can watch hockey games. They even proudly advertise the fact! The Cheerful Tortoise is located right next to one of the local colleges, Portland State University, but is not your typical college pub. True, students fill the place on Cheap Beer Night (Thursdays). The side entertainment is watching the undergrads attempt to get in (the legal drinking age is 21 in Oregon). Otherwise, the clientele is refreshingly varied. Friendly, efficient service and decent food.
1939 SW Sixth Avenue, Portland OR 97201 (503) 224-3377
The Edmonton Oilers bowed out of the hunt for Lord Stanley's Mug tonight with a 3-2 first round, Game 5 loss to the defending champion Dallas Stars. The Oil simply didn't have the payroll budget to have enough good players to compensate for injuries to some key personnel. The rest of the playoffs will be played on ice that isn't as nice as the 'Chuck's Skyreach Centre.
- In the heat of the playoffs, ice not so nice in some arenas
  Bad ice and a potential Portland solution
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(21 April 2000)
A New View
I got my new glasses today. I broke one of the lenses of my old pair late last month. It has been a bit of an ordeal trying to get the lens replaced here in the United States. It was made of high-index glass, which is thin and light, but also therefore easily breakable. The opticians here refused to make me a replacement lens (for fear of lawsuits should it break?). I called the Canadian opticians who made my old glasses eight years ago in Toronto. They said they still had my optical correction prescription on file and could make the lens. (Anything goes, up in the Great White North.) But when the replacement lens arrived, it was too small for my frames. Apparently their database did not include "frames size" (a data capture issue). So, I had to go shopping for a new pair of spectacles, with lenses made of a recently available shatterproof high-index plastic. Of all the styles available, it was interesting that the frames that felt the most "right" to me were ones by Paul Smith, "Made in Japan" for a designer who clearly has the Japanese market in mind, judging by his website.
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(19 April 2000)
It's a FACCT
Doing my medical informatics Master's degree at OHSU here in Portland OR is proving to be a very good decision. Last term, I got to go on the January Junket to Japan, and my course in Project Management brought me into contact with two major medical internet players with offices in Portland: WebMD and MedicaLogic. This Spring Term, I have the opportunity to work with the Portland-based Foundation for Accountability (FACCT), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping Americans become informed, empowered consumers of health care so they can make better decisions about their health care. How good is your doctor/health plan/HMO? FACCT creates online tools that help people understand and use information about health care quality, develops consumer-focused quality measures, supports public education about health care quality, supports efforts to gather and provide quality information. It is all part of the Quality Movement that is happening in health care, as usual many years after it has been done in other industries.
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(19 April 2000)
Portland Hanami
Today is so gloomy and overcast, it is hard to remember that the weather in Portland can be as salubrious as one weekend last month, when the cherry blossoms were mankai (Japanese for "full bloom") here. This is my second year in Oregon, but having grown up with drab Alberta springs, I am still in sensory awe of the floral happenings of the season here. I have posted some images on my new Portland Hanami page.
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(18 April 2000)
Japanese != Nikkei-jin*
I read in an e-mail today that NHK-TV from Japan will be coming to report on the Nikkei 2000 Conference. The question in the back of the mind of every Nikkei-jin (person of Japanese heritage) must be, "Are they coming to learn about us or laugh at us?" Some view Nikkei-jin and their culture simply as a low-quality, "lossy" copy of the Japanese original. Nikkei culture is related but different, necessarily transformed by the environment outside Japan, and not without its own merits. Some of these points come up in the Japanese and Nikkei-jin and Japanese or American? discussion threads in the Ties Talks Message Archive.
* "!=" means "not the same as" in computer language
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(13 April 2000)
Environmental Insight: Honda's New Electric Car
I took my car in for an oil change this morning, and saw a strange-looking car in the dealer's parking lot. Making small talk inside the shop as I got my complimentary coffee, I found out it is the Honda Insight, the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle to be sold in the United States. The Insight is powered by a 1.0 litre, 3-cylinder conventional gasoline engine, which is assisted by an electic motor when extra power is needed. Combined with aerodynamic design and lightweight materials, this results in an environmentally friendly fuel efficiency of 70 miles per gallon. There's no need for a power cord -- the batteries are recharged during braking, by capturing the energy from forward momentum.
- Car Talk's Hot Topics: Electric Cars
  Scientific progress or an excuse for higher taxes?
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(13 April 2000)
42 Up (Great Britain 1998; Dir: Michael Apted)
This is the latest in a series of documentaries that started back in 1963 with 7 Up. The premise was to prove or disprove the saying, "Give me the child until he is 7, and I will show you the man," by reporting at 7 year intervals on the lives of 14 people of varying social backgrounds, beginning when they were school children. This was the first Up for me, but scenes from the previous installments intercut with the new footage made it easy to follow each person's story. All are still alive, but many have lost parents. After 35 years, the happiest people are those who are married and have children. This includes Bruce, a teacher who until now had lived an almost monastic life. Though his new wife is older, they are hopeful that children are in their future. Maybe we will find out in 49 Up.
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(09 April 2000)
Eugene Taiko
Since opening about two years ago, the Beaverton OR Uwajimaya Asian food store has done very well, hardly needing special gimmicks to draw in customers. Still, to celebrate the arrival of spring they hosted an afternoon concert by a taiko (Japanese drum) group from Eugene OR, a city a few hours' drive south of Portland.
The players in Eugene Taiko are mostly married couples in their 50s and 60s. They incorporated references to their hometowns in their songs: the silver fox (Minnesota) in a piece about three foxes who drum together, and hula dancing and a conch horn (Hawai'i). Maybe it was the effect of their morning drive, but I found their energy level lacking. Some looked like they were at a grill, flipping burgers. Still, this group shows that taiko can be done by people of all ages.
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(08 April 2000)
Skate Into the Sunset
This year my recreational hockey at the Valley Ice Arena threatened to go as long as the professional National Hockey League season, but it ended tonight as Team Red went down to 5-2 second-round playoff loss to a combined Team Yellow/White squad.

Team Red 1999-2000
Valley Ice Arena Adult B Hockey League
Portland OR USA
As you can see, this team wasn't as culturally diverse as the Cows on Vacation, but we did have the team captain's girlfriend patrolling the left wing.
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(06 April 2000)
Suriya Thai Cuisine
- big portions, but heavy-handed flavoring. Japanese waiter!
1231 SW Washington, Portland OR 97205 (503) 228-5775
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(03 April 2000)
Retro Gaming
There is a place in downtown Portland where you can step back in time to the early days of video games in the 1980s. Ground Kontrol is a self-termed retrocade that features old classics like Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong, and Centipede. I tried my hand at my old favorite Burgertime, and got about same score I used to get between classes in university -- my skills hadn't diminished (or maybe they were never too good to begin with)! Most of these games were made by the Japanese company Nintendo, and include small elements of Japanese culture, from the background music to the names: "Pac-man" comes from the Japanese expression "pakupaku", mimesis for the gobbling eating style of that little yellow dot.
610 SW 12th Avenue, Portland 97205 (503) 796-9364
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(03 April 2000)
Let the Eyes Have It?
My eyes are crucial to how I make a living, so I cringed perhaps more than the average hockey fan when Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Bryan Berard suffered a horrific eye injury when hit by the hockey stick of Ottawa Senators winger (and ex- Portland Winter Hawk) Marian Hossa in a March 11 NHL game.
Today's topic in OHSU's Saturday morning Healthy Talk series was eye surgery. Ophthalmologists (eye specialists) from OHSU's Casey Vision Correction Center discussed procedures to correct myopia and hyperopia (near- and farsightedness) such as Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) and Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK). Though I could tell the surgeons were making a conscious effort to use language understandable to non-medical people, they frequently slipped into "medicalese" (see "Deciphering Medspeak" by the Medical Library Association). A better use of diagrams might have made their presentations more understandable.
One doctor showed slides of plastic surgery for the eye. Some was functional, like the removal of droopy eyelid tissue to make peripheral vision possible for safe driving. He also showed the results of cosmetic procedures, including one man who wanted to convert his Asian eyes to a more "Western" look, a topic that is discussed on the Eye Surgery page of the Ties Talk Message Archive.
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(02 April 2000)
Sweet 'n' Loud
The Original Portland Ice Creamery The place for children's birthday parties. Banging on a big drum announces the arrival of the birthday cake. You can smell sugar in the air.
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(01 April 2000)

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