Much Ado About Love ~恋 & 愛~

Here is a blog post on love, and my take on it…

Fortunately, for those who know happen to know Chinese and/or Japanese, love becomes a whole lot less messy when you learn to distinguish between the following: 恋 & 愛.

When translated in English, both of these characters mean love, albeit there is a subtle difference. My personal take on it is illustrated in this table below

※ Please note that I am not a native Japanese or Chinese speaker, but amongst discussion with some of my Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong friends, the general consensus tends to be in agreement with the aforementioned)

Platonic love tends to be around an even mix of the two. In conversational speak, these terms tend to mix and overlap and are frequently seen as synonymous, particularly in Chinese. It is important to note if the "positive vibe" between one and another are nurtured feelings of 恋 towards someone often tend to develop into 愛 as time goes on.

For example, here is a true story in where the grey area between 恋 & 愛 cost my friend her boyfriend. 

I have a friend who had a boyfriend and she was able to separate 恋 and 愛 quite easily. For a guy, this would generally sound like the ultimate girlfriend. What he had here is something many guys dream about. A very cute girl who would let you be her boyfriend and at the same time, let you sleep around with other girls and NOT hate you for it. It was like her boyfriend could have his cake and eat it, GUILT FREE.

As with many things, this idea seemed good on paper and the rationale behind it was that her boyfriend would only be feeling 恋 towards the other girls he would be engaging in sex with whilst 愛 would only be a feeling shared exclusively only between her and him.

In reality, as things turned out, sadly she was mistaken as love (the transition from feelings of 恋 to 愛) tends to be a slippery slide. As time went on her boyfriend began having repetitive physical relations with another girl. This occurred so much so that 恋 eventually turned into something more reminiscent of 愛 which resulted in my friend's boyfriend leaving her for the new girl.

For those of you who still don’t get it, or aren’t sure what to be feeling when they see someone, here is a table with some percentages because we all love math.

On a personal note, for me my feelings towards my girlfriend must reach a percentage of at least 80% 愛 in order for me to consider her being my girlfriend. As you can see, that's just my own personal preference, and it does differ from what I preach.

As a lame semi-joke to warp this up, I will end this blog post on little tangent. Firstly, a little piece of advice is that I think it is important for sex (or at least sexual intercourse) NOT to occur early so in any relationship. Sure sex is fun and makes the two of you feel good and sure it proves that the two of you can be intimate but be warned. Having sex right from the word go doesn't leave much room for the relationship to blossom. This is because the game of love (or at least it's scorecard) can be summarized in this common analogy I've slightly modified.

First Base = Holding Hands/Kissing

Second Base = Heavy Petting

Third Base = Oral Sex
HOME Run = Sexual Intercourse

> HOUSEhold (Base) = Starting a Family

My rationale behind this suggestion for not having sex so suddenly is evident in this picture. Obviously, the only way to move up from Home Run is to move onto the Household (Base). Please note that I’m not necessarily saying wait until after marriage to have sex. As a matter a fact, I am sort of against the whole institution of marriage. What I am definitely suggesting is that if you see a person as a potential boyfriend or girlfriend that you try and avoid having sexual intercourse on/immediately after your first date. So unless that happens to be on the cards, I suggest it’s best you wait and let your relationship develop so that it will have something to blossom into, rather than letting it peak right at the start. It also gives you something to look forward to.

In my opinion, what a relationship boils down to is the ability for two to raise a family together, and hence, the term 愛 comes into the picture. If you think about it, the two extremities of the scale regarding you and the person you are dating is that you are either going to break up or live together for the rest of your lives which may possibly involve you creating a family together.

In saying that, 恋 is critically important especially in the early stages of love and fostering such a relationship. This is how the relationship between 恋 & 愛 becomes evident. In summation, one could say that it’s about getting the percentages right, and for you people out there, this is the way to figure out whether the person you have is a keeper or not.

可愛いか怖い？

これはチェクして下さい。
ＴＲＵＥ　ＧＡＬ（ギャル）ＳＴＹＬＥ？

ビックリしました。。。不自然な美人。。。気持ち悪い～（＞。＜）
めっちゃ怖いよね？

GONE FISHING

Seeing as today is White Day, I figured I'd post something about advice on how to find love. For those of you who don't know, White Day is a day which has origins stemming from Japan and is celebrated every year on March 14. It is much like a "Reverse Valentine's Day" where guys have to show their affection towards girls in various ways as the normal Valentine's Day (February 14) is for girls to show their affection to guys. If you're a guy who doesn't really like the girl who was interested in you the month prior, you can either give a present of equal value, or if you're a douche, give her a present of lower value or none at all. Conversely, if you like the girl, you should aim to return her favor at something at least two-fold the value she gave the month before. After reading this, you're probably suspicious that this is just another "Hallmark Holiday" for various companies to earn extra cash seeing as the vast amounts of revenue brought in on February 14 wasn't enough and granted, you're suspicions are probably correct.

Now, for those of you who are single, my advice is like this. Getting a partner is a lot like fishing, especially you if you put things into this kind of way.

- Think of your looks (physical attractiveness) as being the bait.

- Think of your personality (inner attractiveness) as being the hook of your fishing rod.

>> If you have good bait, chances are you can catch a fish easily, but if your hook isn’t all too good then the fish may get away.

>> On the other hand, if you have a really good hook, but have poor bait attached, this would serve you no benefit either as the fish will never really come to you in the first place.

It’s all about getting the combination right…

Furthermore, if you fish in the wrong spots, you’ll catch the wrong type of fish and if you don’t know how to fish, odds are you catch any fish at all.

THE TRAIN NUMBERS GAME

Since today is "Leap Year Day" (2/29) a day which occurs only once every for years here is a post to do with numbers.. The “The Train Numbers Game” is a game I like to play to test my brain as well as for a little bit of fun when riding on the train. Perhaps you’ve heard of it before, but surprisingly when I try and play this game with people on the train many are oblivious to such a game existing, hence my blog post. I’d just like to mention that I did not make this game up so I don’t know who to give credit to and secondly this game is basically playable anywhere where you can see a set of four numbers.

The aim of the game is to get to the number ten using the four numbers given in the carriage number.

Rules:
- Each digit must be used
- Each digit can only be used once
- You must not have any spare numbers left over
- You may only use addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication (Although if you’re good with other operations, feel free use implement them)
- If you wish to square or cube a number (etc.) you must have a two or three (etc.) respectively. The same also applies for square or cube roots. This expends the number.

Most often than not it is possible to get a ten, but there are occasions where it will be impossible to get a ten, especially if there are too many zeros.


Upon playing this game with my two Chinese friends Vivian and Lisa, they were surprised to find out the rules in which I was playing by. According to them, there is a Chinese variation of this game which they used to play back in China. It basically follows the rules except makes these two amendments.

1) In order for the game to start, each of the four digits must be different and there must be no zeros.
2) You must somehow get to the number 24 (Instead of 10)

For example in the picture below, the carriage number is 5928

The solutions for each version are as follows.

Standard Game:
9 – 8 = 1
1 X 2 = 2
2 x 5 = 10

Chinese Version:
9 – 5 = 4
8 – 2 = 6
4 X 6 = 24

For additional fun, the loser may be forced to do a dare or a punishment game etc.

Enjoy the commute~ \(^o^)/

THE FOLLIES OF FEMINISM

In this small rant of a blog post, I would briefly like to point out the follies of feminism. Please note that this is not just me taking a shot at females as I think males have to take some of the blame too. I personally think that feminism most probably grew from the fertile fields of hopeless males. Think about it, if males kept women happy, then there would be no disgruntled females trying to call for revolutionary change. Everything would be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

I think feminism itself seems to be a half-baked theory consequently being something which occasionally seems to fail at going around full-circle. I personally do not believe in complete gender equality as I don’t think we are equal, but in saying that I don’t think that the disparity between genders in certain areas should be so great either. For the record, a few things I do support relative gender equality for include, the right to dignity as a human, suffrage, and wages. I also disagree with the way women are treated in many areas of the world such as in places where a women can be punished severely just for dressing in a particular way. Sure it’s good to have a school of thought in where women are empowered but I think there are a few things feminists fail to see, or at least if they do see such things their vision must be obscured. As with most things, moderation is okay but for those feminists who take it that little bit too far, demanding that little bit too much, to me it seems such people are trying to have their cake and eat it.

For those of you who are well-versed in the ideology of feminism, it may appear that I have some misconceptions about it. Granted, if that seems to be the case, that need not weaken my arguments as the points I shall bring up below tend to be the things most people think about when the word feminism is brought up.

For example, feminists often strive for complete equality. Unfortunately, I beg to differ as males are physiologically different from females. Each gender has its perks and downfalls and as such, you can’t both have your cake and eat it. Furthermore it leads me to believe that feminists are oblivious to males who are either “Romantic Casanovas” or “Prince Charmings”. Guys like that put a lot of effort into pleasing their girl so as to make her feel like a princess. As you can see, in this instance it is the girls who are controlling the guys to an extent in one way or another. If one were to counter argue this notion by stating something alone the lines that such guys only do this because in the end all they want is sex, I would counter argue such a statement with the fact that so long as any sex between the two was consentual, then it should be noted that “it takes two to tango” and that the female was merely seduced. I’m sure that if the efforts males put into gentlemanliness, gallantry, and chivalry are to compensate for the minor disadvantages inherent with being a female. Then again, since such characteristics of males are generally dwindling nowadays so I think it’s only fair that women do something to compensate for this deficiency.

If the idea of feminism is to empower females, I find it strange that feminists either fail to see or somehow tend to overlook one of the greatest weapons they have at their disposal, that being their ability to please males with sex. Take for example the Ancient Greek play, Lysistrata in where the plot revolves around the women of Greece withholding sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers in an attempt to end The Peloponnesian War. This drought of sex led to a profound affect with males inside the story. Although women have sexual appetites too, at this current point in time most of mainstream society tends to shun overtly promiscuous women, whereas men who have many sexual conquests are often touted as heroes. Although, just imagine if something similar to what happened in Lysistrata were to happen today and all the females of the world were to stop having sex with males. It would be easy to then imagine the world suddenly plummeting into absolute chaos.

Lastly, I’d like to note something which will probably never change, whether feminists like it or not, although I think this would more have to do with the tradition of courtship as opposed to gender difference.
“A guy should always pay for the first date.”

Additionally, here is an ethos and I live by and I think this is critically important for males.
“What kind of a guy are you, if you cannot protect and provide for the girl you love?”

In essence, that’s my little rant. In short, moderate feminism is okay, but as with most things, it’s best not to let things get too out of hand as you can’t always have your cake and eat it. I also think males are also partly to blame because if we weren’t so hopeless, females would have fewer things to complain about and therefore can be kept pacified. I apologize once more should I offend anybody, but the fact of the matter is males and females are not the same therefore there should not be complete equality. Conversely, males and females are fairly similar so in saying that, males and females should be relatively similar. Additionally, there are probably a few things I forgot to mention but as I’m an expert at pleasing girls, I guess it doesn’t really bug me. In summation, to make for a better Planet Earth, girls, be ambitious and boys, up your game.