Spring 2020 Anime List

1. Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai?: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen
2. Kami no Tou
3. Gleipnir
4.  Yesterday wo Utatte
5. Kakushigoto 
6. Fruits Basket 2nd Season
7. Tsugu Tsugumomo
8. Houkago Teibou Nisshi
9. Ore no Yubi de Midarero.: Heitengo Futarikiri no Salon de...
10. Wan Sheng Jie
11. Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai!: Chapel no Kane wa [X] wo Shukufuku Suru
12. 
    

Where Should I Go?

I planned to go back to Indonesia for one full month this March, many thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, I couldn't take any risk of getting infected. I guess I will spend my life in Japan for another 6 months and make it 2.5 years without return. Hell yea.

This year the spring arrived quicker than ever. Guess what, it was still mid-March and the sakura flowers had started blooming. That's one good news, the second is I got positive feedback from the company I'm interested in. We did a simple interview and he offered me a part-time position beforehand so that I could get used to the task and at the same time to know how I perform before I step for an interview for a full-time position. Fair enough.

I don't really know the rules or any programs at this campus I'm in. The only thing I know until that day was just I come here, take classes and make sure I pass, do my research, and eventually write some papers, journals, and thesis for sure. However, on that fateful day, the lab secretary called me to talk in person just to inform that I am a rank-1 student (maybe in the faculty). I forget the details already, but that means that it would be easier for me in case I do job hunting in Japan. Good news aside, I just want to live far from crowds and work at flexible hours and permitted to do remote work. As I always concern about my financial health, I'd like to save 100k-200k yen per month. I don't really care about the total amount of salary because the tax, insurance, and fix living-cost will strip the number away before you could even touch it.

Early hanami. Well, I went out in the middle of the fucking corona lockdown. The government suggests the people to stay inside and avoid physical contact with people. For introverts, this is not a problem, but even for me who has been staying in the campus area the whole winter, it is time to get some sun! So I decided to go to Tsurumi-ryokuchi park on 20 March. As expected, nothing much to see because technically the spring hasn't arrived. Only some trees have bloomed, but the tulips were not one of them.

I went to the park and met with a group of people. Basically, they are friends of my Indonesian friend who came and studied Japanese in Kobe and recently she got a full-time position in Kidzania. I met with one Japanese girl who is going to start working as an elementary school teacher starting next April. Her English is good and she is very friendly too. The other interesting people I met were 2 Mongolian boys who look like Korean and pursue their master degree at Kobe Unversity, one of them will study psychology and his friend will study animal science. One American-German guy, he is the friendliest among all, one Italian girl, and one French guy who brought an American-Indonesian girl. I will talk about her in a moment. Finally, there was a Belarus guy who came with his Japanese wife and 2 kids.

This American-Indonesian girl was born and raised in Japan until the first year of high school. If I don't misunderstand the story, her biological father left and her mom remarried with a Japanese man. She was sent to Indonesia for 5 years to study in pesantren (kinda Islamic based school?) because of her bad behavior in the past according to her story and she just recently came back to Japan. Funny thing is that she got this French guy in the bar.

The deadline for the last paper I can submit is changed to a later date, May 8th. I think I can thank the virus for this since I can have a little more time to write the manuscript and extend my research a little bit before submitting it to the proceeding. Yay.

March 24th was the last day I saw my M2 friends. I hate farewells so I didn't come to any party. I don't like it. It seems to me as if it is better to forget them rather than remember and hope that they will be there the next time you come to the lab. It kinda hurts somehow. But people come and go, and somewhat I oughta get over this bad habit of mine.

Some Other Thoughts of Covid-19

Well, these thoughts came to me when I played Plague.inc. The goal of the game is to eradicate the humans on planet earth, I lost to several times as I tried new kind of disease (virus, fungus, etc.). When you lose the game, usually there are 2 things that happen; There are some people left, or the vaccine has finished and mass-produced. As always, disclaimer first. I'm not trying to capture any country as the mastermind or claiming this virus as a bioweapon (even though I know some media to picture it that way). That being said, I don't know the truth! I can only see what is happening and honestly everything I wrote is based on my own thoughts. Please don't be offended and trust me, I'm trying my best to be neutral here.

Enough of the game and let's go back to reality (or at least what I've seen until now). So the outbreak was started in China, Wuhan city to be specific. Anything suspicious? No, not yet. How fast they did the lockdown and how fast they built the hospital? Nothing so suspicious about it (yet). Alright. No problem. I remember I saw the news that the virus actually identified by a Chinese doctor and suddenly 'silenced'. I don't know the truth about what was happened, but if that's true then, something is fishy.

China is a huge country. almost as huge as several European countries combined. But I have a big question here, how come the virus is not spreading inland that much? What about the other cities? China is highly populated, isn't it? I've never been there, to be honest, but Wuhan looks just like Osaka and Kyoto. There are also some things that come to mind as some events prior to this incident, the WW3 issue, the US-China trade war and the HongKong riot just happened recently.

Now that the city has been locked down and so does the labor-intensive factories. Are they going to face a crisis soon? No news about that so far, while the other countries especially those who are close to China are afraid of the infection, Europe and the US can rest easy. Learning from the game, the virus can easily spread within land borders, planes, and ships. The virus can also spread using rodents, livestock, blood, insects, and avians. But this one seems to spread by cough and sneeze despite the news that said the virus came from a bat soup.

Let's be honest here, we all know that almost everything made in China, even the simplest thing. That means China has the power to control the world economy. Let's say they finally said "Ok, we will only make goods for ourselves. The rest of the world can go fuck themselves.", Then I can see that the prices of everything would be multiple times higher then it currently is since countries like Japan, US, EU, has clear and strong labor-law which covers working hours, health insurance, minimum wage, etc.

So logically, the virus should spread like an earthquake. It started at the epicenter and go affecting the surrounding area. But I see some weird patterns here. Cities that are close to it are somehow spared from the outbreak, but the virus itself somehow made its way out of China. To this point, I should've thought about Russia and N.Korea who are not in a quite good relationship with the US. Let's say in the case of Russia, the city center is located closer to Europe rather than Asia and in the case of N.Korea, I heard the infected people are executed almost immediately. I'm not saying that Japan is also spared since I believe there are many hidden cases to prevent massive panic regarding human psychology. But I'm going to talk about that at the end of this post.

How this virus benefits the world? Wait a minute. What's so beneficial about this? Ha! Don't you realize that air pollution mostly produced by vehicle emissions? Now that everyone is told to stay home and work remotely, there are fewer gas-vehicles operated. The good thing is that this virus (hopefully) make the people realize that some of them don't even need to be at the office working from 9-6 (maybe even more). On the other side, individual electricity bills will rise significantly. How about China in particular? Well, since the virus started in China, and it seems like they already get hold of it, the economy has started to run as usual. This benefits them in some way. First, they show themself as a capable country when the rest of the world is in chaos. This would lead to more and more countries look for China for help and it will lead to trust. Once they trust China and feel indebted to China, then China can easily control that. Second, the early bird catches the worm. As the economy slowed down, the market prices crash, The wealthy people can easily buy that at the rock-bottom price making them the major-owner. That's how the rich are getting richer. The same scheme could also be played by the US by making it as if China is trying to conquer the world and the US can play the victim of maybe the hero? Whatever, I don't want to blindly accuse anyone. It is a bad thing. Peace.

As the closure of this pointless, baseless, idiotic post, I'll just want to explain something that has been bugging me in the past few days. In Japan, we know that people tend to overwork and strictly following the law. This has a lot of positive sides, but it also has a bad effect. One of those is the lack of survival instinct. The people seem to truly depend on the orders given by the government, and if the government says nothing, they will also do nothing despite the situation. I will take an example from my campus. The campus did some changes regarding the credits, adding some programs, and change some mandatory subjects. it caused a lot of trouble because somehow people are used to the old system and the new system is not well communicated. Reflecting on that example, in an emergency situation or if there is a sudden change happening in the system, Japan cannot adapt quickly and will cause a lot of confusion. Therefore, the government (maybe) tried their best to control the possibility of massive chaos by you know what they did (or didn't).

Covid-19 and Japan in My Perspective

Recently some shopping centers in Japan closes at 8pm in order to prevent corona and my friends have been complaining about how the Japanese government prevents the virus outbreak. By the time this article is written, the Japanese government has announced the re-opening of the schools in April, the postpone of the Tokyo Olympic, and Tokyo lockdown until April. The statistic of infection cases and the number of death in Japan is relatively low. Meaning that Japan is relatively save at the moment, but I beg to differ. However, I should put my disclaimer here that I have nothing against them and this post is based only on my own thoughts without any official sources.

Firstly, one of the largest income sources in Japan is their nature and culture (including the big cities) which attracts tourists from all around the world. From my own baseless observation, the tourists who come to a country mainly come from its neighbors. For example in Japan, mostly the tourists are Chinese, HongKong, Korean, Philipinnes, Vietnamese, Thai, and Taiwanese. Secondly, those tourists arrived in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. From there they will go splurging their money in the cities and maybe countrysides depending on their itinerary. Having a country lockdown means that less tourism all around the world. Lockdown not only happens in Japan, but also the other countries such as Italy, and Saudi Arabia, where the Muslims around the world come to Mecca.

Secondly, most of the workers in Japan moved to big cities as the number of available jobs in those areas is higher. I think it is obvious in any country that the business and IT offices are located in the city center. Thirdly, the tourists are seasonal. Have you ever been to some places that are only good during autumn and spring? Those places are located mostly in the countrysides. In winter and summer, there is nothing to be seen, meaning that the locals have to survive with what they earned during tourist seasons. That's maybe one of the reasons why young people left the countryside for big cities; more job opportunities especially for university graduates. This makes people who live in those cities have to live in a very small apartment and close to each other (do you know how thin the Japanese apartment wall is?). Have you seen how crowded the train station during rush hour in Tokyo and Osaka? That is the best place to spread the virus.

I've heard from my friends that there are job offer cancellation cases since the Covid-19 outbreak. Meaning that some people or students who are going to graduate got their job offer canceled and graduated without a job. Maybe this is not a good thing only in Japan but not the case with any other countries. But let's take a look from the other perspective, why the company decided to cancel the job offer, it rarely happens and this is the first time I heard about this.

If I am the business owner, having a newcomer means I have to spend a little more to earn even more. If a cancellation happened, it could mean several things. One, the company itself is going down, in this case, they have to trim down the expenses in order to save the company. This takes form in closing the door for the new employees to laying off some of their current employees. It is a common thing. Two, at a larger scale, the Japanese economy is somewhat not as good as it might seem. The stagnation of the economy leads the 2% increase of consumption tax which was applied since October 2019. The government did this in order to stimulate the economy. Well, now let's think this way; You are an ordinary citizen living and working in Japan with an 8% tax applied in everything you buy. A 2% increase might not seem too much, but two scenarios might happen in my mind. In the first scenario, you will buy a lot (clothes, books, everything that can be stored for a long time) in the last months before the tax hike [this stimulates the economy for a while of course]. After the tax hike, your spending will just go back to normal. In the second scenario, which is most likely to happen for people who earn just enough to live, is they will not buy as much as they would before the tax hike. Therefore in the long term, these people will live even more frugally. In this second scenario, the plan to stimulate the economy fails.

The next thing is regarding the effect of the Covid-19. This new virus spreads quickly and the incubation time takes up to two weeks before showing any serious symptoms. In addition, this virus is airborne and able to stick to your outwears for several days. This is why it is recommended to clean your body (especially hands) and wash your outfit every time you visited any public areas. So what's the matter about this and Japan? We can say that Japan is a relatively clean country with religiously law-abiding citizens. But let's look at the current situation here. Some offices and schools are closed to prevent the spread. You all also know how hard the Japanese work, some even died because of long working hours. Okay, let's make it a topic for another time. Now, if you have a family with children, this is the best chance to have some great family time, isn't it? Moreover, this is near the hanami season. The places which used to be packed with people to see the cherry blossom will be less crowded due to less visitor from overseas. Perfect family time. The bad thing? It happens nationwide! + virus. Ah, don't forget pollen allergies a.k.a kafunsho.

We know that the virus will easily infect people with a weak immune system. This means the children and elderly people are especially vulnerable. How many children can stay at home for a long time? I'm an introvert, yet I have to admit that when I was a kid, I can't stay inside for a long time. So definitely, going out is necessary. Especially for the elders, speaking from my experience with both my grandmas, they will get bored easily only staying inside the whole month. The chance of getting infected is high. Plus the Japanese have this weird habit, that is they only take bath once, which happens usually in the night time after coming home from work. I'm not saying that cleaning our body will reduce the chance to get infected because you can see in Indonesia where the people mainly take the bath twice a day even has a higher number of infection. So, the best way to get infected is to go outside where the crowd is.

Combining the current situation with the delayed Tokyo 2020, the economy this year looks grim. Even if Japan opens its door for the visitors, the countries all around the world won't let their people go outside their home, let alone to Japan. As we all know the effort that has been done by the government and other institutions in preparing this event. The long-expected revenue, which in fact, delayed makes the economy slowed down even worse. If in fact, the Japanese government is not being transparent in releasing the number of Covid-19 cases due to any reason holds true, then I could expect the inevitable truth will come to the surface by the end of next month. I've heard some cases where the patient with the corona-like symptoms are told to just take rest at home. Again, I don't know if this is true or not, but I am hoping that Japan will do nationwide tests like South Korea.

I will close this speculation of mine with a darker note. The Japanese economy is suffering because of the lack of people in the productive age PLUS the number of elders is significantly higher. This results in the ever-increasing cost to support these people. If the number of elderly people falls, I think it will somehow make the situation a little better for the government. The money used to support the 60+ people can then be used to support children and thus stimulating the people to have kids. Things take time because it is not that easy to persuade people to have children, especially in big cities. You know how expensive the rent is. Do you know what I think, if because of this virus outbreak, Japanese companies start to allow the employees to work from home, it would be great because if that applies, I think many people will move back to the countryside and work from their parent's home or they can rent a cheaper place and save a lot to spend on other kinds of stuff. For people like me who really hate crowds and love the solitude of the hills, it is perfect.