Depression and Stress: A direct correlation?

I recently self-diagnose myself as suffering from mild depression. My symptom, a total lack of initiative to devote myself for social activities. I remembered it wasn't like that 4 years ago when I first came to Japan. Somehow, the situation slowly degraded and I am now just a pile of slime oozing out a sorry existence doing the absolutely minimum to survive. I am thinking that stress at work has plenty to do with this condition. And folks living and working in the city has plenty of that. Why is it that we hear people say that although staying close by in highly concentrated apartments, yet hardly know their neighbors. Is it an indication that these highly dense dwellings of convenience actually crosses the boundary threshold for comfortable living. Wait a minute, I think there is two issues here that are somewhat interconnected.

1. Depression from Stress.
2. Close-up living quarters from apartments.

People suffer from depression for a variety of reasons. I know that women who are taking care of their children constantly without reprieve do sometimes develop symptoms of depression and in the critical state, feel the urge to commit suicide. You hear stories about 'salarymen', school children, etc feeling depressed. I know there must be numerous studies by shrinks to diagnose and cure these people. I also heard somewhere that you can take medication for it. Wouldn't it be nice to take a pill, and then you feel that you can give a presidential speech the next day, join in 'gotong-royong', or perhaps be the star used-car salesman. I guess, depression is a disease of the mind. Somehow, the chemicals in the brain is not in equilibrium, or the wiring is screwed-up. The best way to beat it is perhaps to get a hold of the brain and tell it who's boss.

I am staying in an apartment in a huge living area called "danchi". Here in Japan, people respect each other's privacy so much that they end-up not talking too much to each other. I know when I was in Singapore and was staying in the HDB apartments. Things wasn't that bad. Of course, you can't throw a rock party and expect your neighbors not call 991, unless ofcourse if you're staying in the university dorm. But people open their doors at least and play their favorite Hokkien songs, Malay prayers, Indian songs what have you and people don't mind too much. Here, in the danchi apartments, you shouldn't talk too loudly, let the kids run around, turn up your TV volume, do repair work etc. And if you need to, you'll have to give prior notice to the entire block. Which explains the proliferation of love hotels. The walls have ears so to speak. So, there special places for people to 「作世界」.

I guess you noticed the lack of coherence in my blog. The reason for this is, I started this topic in February only to pick up the pieces now in October. Anyway, I would like to sum up by saying that, if you have the means, go and get a proper landed house. That will ease your stress having to deal with neighbors. And if you are stressed up from work, let somebody close to you know about it, talking does help to balance your brain. I know it helped me.

Japan's Peanut Butter

I recently tried peanut butter spread after a long abstinence period. Guess, what, the Japanese version of peanut butter taste nothing like what I was used to in Malaysia. Frankly, I do not dislike it, but it's just different. The non-chunky version of it tastes like kaya in syrup. Here's a picture of the peanut butter that I am talking about. See, even the texture look's like kaya.

To be on-time or not on-time

I sent my daugther out to kindergarten this morning. Like always, we were the last

one to get there. But like clockwork, the bus arrived right on time, 9.03 am sharp on the dot. In Japan, the public transportation is always on-time. The buses, trains and airplanes arrive and depart right on-time. Coming from another country, you may think that it is almost like magic how the bus drivers, train drivers and pilot keep to their schedule. And many a time, I have come to appreciate the fact that they do.

Japanese people, I realized, pay almost obsessive attention to time. Take a look at a typical train time table schedule. Can you believe that this is a time table. The first time I looked at a train time table, I almost blanked out. It looked more like an assembly language code that machines generate that no mere mortal can understand. It still baffles me how the Japanese people use these time table. Or do they?

Anyway, back to the topic. I marvel at the value that Japanese people place on time. I tell myself that if Malaysians place the same emphasize on time as the Japanese people do, there will be higher productivity across all levels. There will no longer be 2 hour waits for wedding dinners to start, no queueing up for MyKad renewal, no more traffic jams (OK, I'm exaggerating). Think of all the increase in efficiency and productivity, not to mentioned the time saved.

On the other hand, it's not all good news to be on-time. Recently there was a tragedy involving a train caused by human misjudgement. The train driver must be thinking of the repercussions of not being in time and not too much on passenger safety when he oversped and caused the train to derail. Although this is one example that depicts the devil of being on-time. I can vouch that 99.9% of the good things that do happen when things are on-time are almost taken for granted in Japan.

I learnt that Japanese have been constantly reminded of the virtue of being on time. Parents, teachers, strangers would tell their young ones that 一刻千金(いっこくせんきん）in other words, time is money. And being on-time is being able to keep a promise. I know for one, I am lousy at being on time. The clock in my room is always running 15 minutes faster. So that I would have ample time to catch up on in case I run out of time. It's really a bad habit, I know. But having been in Japan for quite sometime already, and having appreciate the fact that everybody else is on-time, I am beginning to feel that I too should start to run like clockwork. Less, I run out of time.

Boney M sang a song about money. And so does Sam Hui and many other artistes, but I have not heard a song that tells the importance of time. When you think about it, everybody has 24 hours at the start of the day. No more and no less. And how one use their time (wisely) is entirely up to them. I know for sure, the Japanese use it wisely.