Paul Cipywnyk's Blog

Getting Into Hot Water

In response to a series of negative posts regarding on-demand water heaters on a mailing list:

While we have a gas-fired tank hot-water heater in our townhouse, I'm a bit surprised at the number of negative anecdotes regarding on-demand heaters.

As mentioned, they have been in widespread use for decades in Asia and Europe. I had several apartments in Japan with on-demand heaters and never experienced running short of hot water, or being subjected to spurts of cold water. And no matter what the outside temperature, it never seemed to take more than 10-20 seconds to get a steady flow of piping hot water -- certainly not any longer than it takes now for us to get hot water in the upstairs shower from the tank heater in the basement.

My wife's parents' place is in northern Japan, and it gets bloody cold up there for 4+ months each year, yet the suitcase-sized on-demand water heater in their house has never exhibited any such negative behaviour in 20 or more years of use.

If I may be so bold, I'd also venture that Japanese are among the greatest lovers of hot water in the world, and most have a tolerance, nay, an affinity, for soaking in water so hot that simply dipping a foot in it makes me want to scream :-).

Many Japanese shower/baths have faucets with a colour-gradated blue-red dial, accompanied by degree C markings. The top end of the red zone abuts a safety interlock button, which one can depress to be able to turn the faucet even further.

I wonder if some of this can be chalked up to a lack of experience in NA? I admit that when our hot-water heater died several years ago, we replaced it with another tank heater, but that was mostly due to the limited availability and greater initial expense of on-demand heaters here, combined with seemingly little knowledge or experience with them in local stores and among local plumbers.

Salmon Return to Japanese River

From the The Yomiuri Shimbun

This article is about salmon returning to the Chikumagawa river as flows improved after East Japan Railway Co. was directed to stop taking illegal amounts of water from the river to power trains in Tokyo.

Wow, amazing how one's life can change. When I rode the Yamanote Line in Tokyo on a daily or weekly basis for well over ten years from 1985 - 1999 I had no idea that some of the power was coming from a dam that was impacting salmon. Mind you I knew next to nothing about salmon, and nothing about streamkeeping back then.

Quick Musings on Japan Election Results

Someone asked me for my take on the results of the recent national election in Japan in which the opposition DPJ was victorious over the long-standing rule of the LDP. I haven't lived in Japan for some ten years and had not been following the election very closely, but here goes:

While in a sense the results are dramatic, I wonder how much change there will really be.

Many of the head honchos of the victorious DPJ are former LDP members who jumped ship over the years, hoping to get a shot at leadership. Many of the elite in both parties come from long political and even former aristocratic lineages.

Plus with the Japanese penchant for consensus and compromise, it's really hard to implement radical change. You also have the entrenched bureaucracy run by another fiercely traditional oligarchy from a very small coterie of elite universities and old boy's networks, and they're not going to be easy to move either.

Perhaps the DPJ victory is psychologically dramatic, but whether or not the party will be able to accomplish much is questionable. From what little I've read of their platform, it sounds like they plan to continue the long tradition of economic stimulus that hasn't worked much for the last couple of decades. While the LDP is viewed as being toward the right, and the DPJ moderately toward the left, I think in essence they're both of the "let's spend our way out of trouble" bent, and at this point that's like pushing on a string.

Some of the issues the J govt faces are intractable -- the rapidly aging population, massive underfunding of the government pension system, etc. I don't think there's much wiggle room for any party.

I think one of the main things that's kept Japan afloat is the massive cumulative personal savings squirreled away, for most part, in low-interest Japan Post accounts. Cheap money for the govt!

On our last trip to Japan about two years ago I was blown away by all the massive commercial/office tower developments recently completed or underway all over Tokyo. You'd never think the economy had been in a terrible slowdown for decades, or that the population had actually begun to shrink! I wonder who the heck is going to occupy all that space. Is it all really economically justifiable, or is much of it stimulus and cheap money gone mad? I suppose much of this Class 1 office space is being taken by firms upgrading from older buildings, but still.... I have this uneasy vision of huge, empty towers dominating a Tokyo with a shrinking population like some dystopic manga movie.... The lights are burning, but is anyone home?

But then again perhaps those towers have all been filled in the two years since our last visit and are happily humming away with life. I haven't read any Tokyo real-estate articles in ages.

Lovely Ukrainian Interpretation of Japanese Songs

My aunt Roma clued me in to these beautiful renderings of Japanese songs by Nataliya Gudziy, a Ukrainian singer, bandura player, and Chernobyl survivor. My Japanese wife was impressed with Nataliya's pronunciation and beautiful voice. I'd love to see Nataliya in a duet with Angela Aki!

Ringing In the New Year at Tozenji

Japanese traditionally go to a temple on New Year's Eve for a short service and then to ring in the New Year on the temple bell. For the last several years Yumi and I have been going to Tozenji Temple in Coquitlam. It's a beautiful facility, and the head priest always brings the service to a close with a funny, yet moving, sermon.

Preparing to start the bell ringing.

Looking into the temple from outside after the service.

Aomori Pets

It was great to hang out with the pets at Yumi's home. Mukkun the dog, who is pushing 15 years, revived remarkably and was raring to go for walks, while Cat C -- yes, the other two are called A and B -- was a cuddly furball.

Aomori Autumn Colours

The mountains near Yumi's hometown in the Japan's northern Aomori Prefecture are gorgeous in the autumn. Most of these shots come from the famous Oirase area.

Yumi's mom taking photo of Yumi and her dad.

Nagasaki Sara Udon and Champon

After the morning spent retracing the horrors of atomic weapons, we headed back to the Dejima area, and had lunch by the waterfront at Dejima Wharf. Two of Nagasaki's famous dishes are Nagasaki Sara Udon, or crisp noodles covered with a seafood and vegetable sauce, and Nagasaki champon, a succulent noodle soup.

Nagasaki Sara Udon

Yumi tackling a bowl of champon.

Throughout our stay in Nagasaki we saw many of these impressive raptors soaring overhead.

Nagasaki Nuclear Bomb Memorial

Our first morning in Nagasaki we headed out to pay our respects at the atomic bomb memorial and peace park. With the sun shining brightly on the beautiful harbor city surrounded by mountains, it was hard to believe that 60 years ago much of it had been instantly rendered a radioactive wasteland with tens of thousands of dead and dying.

The peace museum was powerfully moving, with haunting images and artifacts. It also does not overlook Japan's imperial expansion and aggression.

Preserved ruins of the Urakami Cathedral. The cathedral, then the largest in East Asia, stood near the epicenter of the blast. It is ironic that Nagasaki was likely the most "Western" city in Japan at the time, and had the highest proportion of Christians in Japan.

I had never quite understood the symbolism of the Nagasaki peace monument until I read the plaque with the following words:

Words of the Sculptor

After experiencing that nightmarish war,
that blood-curdling carnage,
that unendurable horor,
Who could walk away without praying for peace?
This statue was created as a signpost in the
cause of global harmony.
Standing ten meters tall,
it conveys the profundity of knowledge and
the beauty of health and virility.
The right hand points to the atomic bomb,
the left hand points to peace,
and the face prays deeply for the victims of war.
Transcending the barriers of race
and evoking the qualities of both Buddha and God,
it is a symbol of the greatest determination
ever known in the history of Nagasaki
and of the highest hope of all mankind.

Seibo Kitamura
Spring 1955

Nyokodo. It's tiny, yet so moving...

From the plaque:

Nyokodo (As Thyself Hermitage) is the sickroom and study used by Dr. Takashi Nagai, honorary citizen of Nagasaki City. Born in Shimane Prefecture, Dr. Nagai graduated from Nagasaki Medical College and majored in radiology. He was exposed to excessive doses of radiation while treating large numbers of tuberculosis patients with poor equipment. As a result he developed chronic myeloid leukemia and was given three years to live. Two months later he was injured in the atomic bombing and lost his wife, but he continued his selfless efforts for the rescue of the atomic bomb victims, finally falling bedridden. However, spurred on by his sense of scientific mission and also his Catholic faith, Dr. Nagai wrote more than ten books from his sickbed here. He named the building after the Christian maxim "Love others as you love thyself" and live here with his two children, appealing to the world about the foolishness of war and the importance of peace until his death on May 1, 1951 at the age of 43. Nyokodo continues to this day to serve as a symbol of Dr. Nagai's spirit of peace and brotherly love.

Kurashiki Charms With Canals, Crafts

We left Himeji around noon and took a side trip to Kurashiki on our way to Nagasaki. Kurashiki has preserved an area of town with charming canals, old warehouses, and lots of arts and crafts.

The curry shop where we had lunch.

Himeji Castle

OK, here we go with about a dozen views of Himeji Castle.

137 Views of Himeji Castle?!

Yes, I took 137 pictures of Himeji Castle, and I'm having a tough time winnowing them down to, say, a dozen to post here. If we'd had more time, the shutter would likely have dropped a few more hundred times....

The castle is one of few in Japan to survive in original condition following the destruction at the end of the shogunate in the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century, and the bombings of WWII. While there are quite a few reconstructed castles around Japan, none compare to the sheer immensity and beauty of Himeji.

When I first experienced the castle 22 years ago, I was packing a Nikon F2 and Fujichrome slide film, so as I recall, I limited myself to a 36-exposure roll or two. This time I was packing several SD cards the size of the first joint of my thumb (but much thinner) in the 1 - 4 GB range that could hold anywhere from several hundred to over a thousand shots each at the highest 8MP setting on my Canon S5 IS digital camera....

That said, I think I'll return to editing photos later, and will leave this here as a teaser :-). G'night...

Himeji Hotel Breakfast Hard to Beat

Yumi did an excellent job of booking hotels in Japan on the Web, and one prize for its amazing breakfast buffet was in Himeji. The Hyogo Floral Inn Himeji was a nondescript business hotel, but for 10,000 yen (about C$83) who cares, particularly since the all-you-can eat breakfast included in the price was eye-opening in its variety.

Think Japanese breakfast: broiled salmon, pearl-like rice, salty miso soup, crisp nori (seaweed), assorted pickled vegetables, fruit...

Think Western breakfast: crunchy bacon, juicy sausages, scrambled eggs, assorted calorific pastries...

It had it all. Needless to say, I doubled up on Japanese and Western, with a few extra portions of the delectable miso soup to wash it all down. Groan...

Meeting Old Friend in Kobe

Our first stop on our way down to Nagasaki was at Shin-Kobe where we were to meet an old friend for dinner and drinks.

I'd met Michael in Tokyo 22 years ago, and over the years we'd witnessed each others' marriages to our wonderful Japanese wives, we'd established a business together, and had been staunch hiking partners exploring many trails in Japan. Michael and his wife Tomoko moved to the US a year before Yumi and I moved to Canada in 1999, and we'd only seen each other once in North America some seven years ago.

Fortuitously, Michael happened to be doing some consulting in the Kobe area, and when we discovered we'd be in Japan at the same time, we had to meet.

We had such a great time chewing the fat, drinking beer and eating scrumptious izakaya tidbits, that I plumb forgot to take a picture of our reunion :-(.

Oh, well, it was a wonderful few hours before he had to head back to his apartment, and Yumi and I jumped on a bullet train to get to our hotel in Himeji.

Bullet Train Trip Begins

After seeing a client for lunch in Tokyo on Tuesday, Yumi and I headed off on our travels. With Japan Rail Passes in hand, Yumi organized a series of bullet train tickets that would take us all they way to Nagasaki on the southern island of Kyushu with stops at Kobe and Himeji on the way down, Fukuoka and Hiroshima on the way back north to Tokyo, then all the way to Aomori at the northern tip of the main island of Honshu and back to Tokyo. The JR agent at Kanda Station in Tokyo where we made our seat reservations was amazed at all the stops we were making. The JR Pass is a great deal -- we likely did over 200,000 yen worth of traveling each on passes that cost less than a quarter of that amount.

The shinkansen bullet trains are magnificent beasts that run like clockwork.

Cleaners line up to ensure the bullet train is spick and span before passengers board.

Tokyo Morning, Kichijoji Ramble, Akihabara Changes

We were up by 6:00 on Monday morning, and decided to head out to our old stomping grounds in the Kichijoji area in western Tokyo. We planned to walk around Inokashira Park on the south side of Kichijoji station until the stores opened at 10:00.

Walking on side streets on the way to Ochanomizu station we got a glimpse of the Nikolai Cathedral among office towers.

A holdout householder -- the land must be worth millions...

A Chuo Line train pulls into Ochanomizu station.

Inokashira Park with shrine, aeration fountain.

A detail of the shrine.

The small park surrounded by the urban jungle had an amazing variety of wildlife.

Yumi with binoculars in hand, pointing out another species of duck.

After a couple of hours in the park, we headed back into the shopping arcades and streets of funky Kichijoji.

The main shopping arcade.

A shop selling traditional crackers.

A kimono store selling the real stuff, not tourist junk.

Personalizing cell phones is a big business.

Blowfish swim in a restaurant's aquarium.

As lunch approached I began thinking more about food, so I headed over to the Seiyu department store, knowing the basement food floor featured an amazing variety of prepared items.

A lineup of packaged meals.

A mouth-watering variety of onigiri rice balls.

More great stuff! I love Japanese supermarkets!

This display of tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlets) reminded me of a tonkatsu restaurant nearby, so I headed out to find Yumi.

Yumi was shopping at Yuzawaya, a huge crafts store at the east end of the station, and I was to meet her there at 11:30. When I arrived, I found a large Halloween display -- I don't recall the event being such a big deal in Japan five or more years ago! Japanese retailers are experts at appropriating any sort of holiday from any culture to flog more goods :-).

Hmmm. This costume looks like it's more suited to, ahem, tricks rather than treats!

We were momentarily distracted by this sushi mountain plastic display...

But ended up at our favourite tonkatsu place in the LonLon mall. Yum!

In the evening we walked over to Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics wonderland. When we arrived, I was completely disoriented -- the area has undergone huge development, and it took me 15 minutes of wandering around to gain my bearings. I was seeking a new memory card for my digital camera and the prices in the major stores were out of sight. I knew I could do better if I could find some of the teeny shops I'd frequented years ago. I finally tracked a few down, and sure enough, the prices were less than half of the major electronics retailers.

A manga character billboard.

Yumi checking out canned noodles -- a recent phenomenon that we'd heard about but not experienced first hand.

We ended the long day back on the Kanda shopping street, where we closed out the evening with beer and munchies at an izakaya pub.

Off to Japan

I'm off to Japan today, and am not bothering to take a notebook computer with me, so this blog will be in hibernation for a couple of weeks. When I get back I'll start filling it in with photos and commentary starting from the beginning of the trip.

It's been nearly four years since Yumi and I were last in Japan. Since we moved to Canada some eight years ago, we've returned to visit family, friends and clients every one to two years; however, a series of events including my two-year MA in Professional Communication program at Royal Roads University conspired to make for a long gap.

I'm really looking forward to the trip. In addition to visiting Yumi's folks in Aomori Prefecture, we've got meetings set up with several clients in Tokyo (these short meetings and lunches are important in maintaining contacts and keeping the work flowing), and lunches and dinners scheduled with several friends.

We're also taking a week to ourselves to take a swing down all the way to Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu with several stops at key tourist points along the way. Neither of us has visited Kyushu and we're looking forward to it.

I'll start posting entries and plenty of photos starting around Oct. 29. See you later!

NHK Kohaku Music Show Surprises

My wife and I always watch Japanese national television NHK's (English site here) year-end Kohaku men vs. women singing extravaganza. I believe this year was the 57th running, and some of the singers haven't missed a show -- just kidding :-). It's a tradition, and while the music ranges from insipid to (rarely) inspired, it's a way to catch up on the Japanese music scene, see who is in and who is out, and rate the songs while giggling, and occasionally, sniffling at the odd tear-jerker.

Kohaku has also become a lifeline to the "good old days" when we lived in Tokyo, and often watched the show live while visiting Yumi's parents in cold, snowy, northern Japan.

The younger pop stars are usually not very good, to be charitable -- most of them are mass-produced by mainstream Japanese music companies, and it shows. It's gotten to the point that I almost prefer the traditional, overblown, sappy enka singers, mainly because some of them have real pipes.

NHK, staid as it is, has gradually increased the amount of flesh allowed -- perhaps ratings have been declining. Skirts have been getting shorter, blouses more plunging, bras more pneumatic, and one song this year blew the audience away with apparently topless female dancers. A few songs later, an announcer came on to apologize after a rash of telephone complaints, explaining that they were not really naked, they were wearing costumes that made them look naked. OK, whatever, the result was the same :-).

Anyway, there was a real gem in the show this time around -- Angela Aki (also see Wikipedia). I'd never heard of her, but she blew us away with her flawless, pitch-perfect singing, her capable piano playing, and, as if it matters, her Nana Mouskouri looks. I've already ordered a CD, and have been checking out videos of her on YouTube.

I really have to get back to monitoring music more closely!

Review - The Honorable Visitors

Review - The Honorable Visitors: The plot to assassinate Charlie Chaplin and other Tokyo welcomes...

by Donald Richie

"To visit Japan... even now, in the age of jumbo jets and package tours, a faint air of the exotic clings to the project. You are going to a land somehow strange, somehow other. This quality of the different, the unfamiliar, can be an attraction, something to be enjoyed, or it can be a discomfort, something to be complained about. It depends on you."

Richie puts his delightful insights and delectable prose to good use in this charming collection of stories about the visits of famous Westerners to Japan following the opening of its closed borders in the later part of the 19th century.

Ranging from Ulysses S. Grant to Rudyard Kipling to William Faulkner, we get a cross section of the cross, the enamoured and the factually observant.

A gem of a short collection, it should be mandatory reading for all prospective and practicing travel writers or cultural critics.

Review - The Ronin

Review - The Ronin: A Novel Based on a Zen Myth

by William Dale Jennings

This is a mind-bending tale. Violent and ribald, it is a pithy take on pride and human weakness. The language is taut, the perceptions of humain frailties are uncomfortable, the Zen mystique and way of the sword are thought provoking.

Not a novel for the timid, or those who cannot stomach a blunt, down-to-earth look at life, once hooked, you'll want to read it again.

Review - Zen in the Art of Archery

Review - Zen in the Art of Archery
by Eugen Herrigel

This whimsical tale of a European learning Zen through the practice of Japanese archery for six years between the great wars is a profoundly satisfying little read.

Just over 100 pages long, it chronicles the author's attempts to lose his "willful will" and become one with the art. A wonderful introduction by T. Suzuki ably sets the stage, and the reader is carried along with Herrigel's frustrations and gradual progress.

Cheerful Laughter Amidst Tragedy of New Denver

Continuing our trip homeward, we left Nakusp around noon on June 8 and headed for New Denver. We wanted to visit the Nikkei Memorial Internment Centre there.

The few buildings are the only existing remnants of all the internment camps that held some 22,000 Japanese-Canadians during WWII -- a shameful stain on Canada's history, as over 70% of the internees were Canadian citizens. They were uprooted from B.C., and then after the war ended they were not allowed to return home, but had to move east of the Rocky Mountains.

As we walked into the site, we could hear a happy male voice laughing and chattering away. We entered the reception area, and the man behind the voice looked familiar. My wife Yumi exclaimed, "I've seen you on TV!"

It was "Nobby" Hayashi, former bat boy for the famed pre-war Japanese-Canadian Asahi baseball team, and we'd seen him in a documentary video that was produced when the team was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame recently. Better late than never....

We toured the centre, and as we moved from building to building, my anger and sadness grew at what had transpired in a so-called democracy, and at the blatant racism. It was shocking to hear cheerful women's voices calling to each other in Japanese as we walked around the site, and to turn a corner to see beaming, beautiful, elderly faces in a place that to me seemed to hold such sadness.

I had many questions for Mr. Hayashi. He said there were only about 20 Japanese left in New Denver, all that remained of a handful of tubercular and family-less internees who were allowed to stay on in the town when the other 2,000 or so internees were forced to move east when the camp closed.

They must all be in their 70s to 90s.

I didn't ask what will happen when they're all gone.

I sat in the beautiful gardens created for the centre among the ghost-filled buildings, and pondered people's inhumanity toward other human beings.

Yumi entering the building in which we found Nobby Hayashi manning the counter.

Japanese City Councillors Visit Byrne Creek

Byrne Creek Streamkeepers hosted a group of seven city councillors from Okayama City in Japan this morning. They were in Vancouver and Burnaby on an unofficial visit and wanted to meet a volunteer group working on environmental issues.

It was interesting to see a group of men in suits with nearly no English-language abilities loosen up and have a great morning with a bunch of T-shirt clad streamkeepers. We are fortunate to count two Japanese volunteers in our group, Maho Hayashi, and my wife Yumi, who helped AK Travel Canada Ltd. owner Masaaki Kawabata interpret throughout the morning.

Our visitors quickly shed their ties as we explored the creek, and initial awkwardness on both sides blossomed into animated exchanges of questions and answers about storm drains vs sanitary sewer systems, flap gates and tides, city contributions and volunteer work, and even some mutual "testing" of playground equipment and a seesaw in Ron McLean park.

We presented our guests with our own brochure, a City of Burnaby storm drains brochure, and a Japanese-language streamkeeping synopsis and history of Byrne Creek prepared by Yumi and Maho.

Louise Towell and Joan Carne, streamkeepers and founders of the Stream of Dreams Murals Society, gave each councillor a small dreamfish. We were also pleasantly surprised when they all bought Byrne Creek Streamkeeper T-shirts!

This was the second time that Byrne Creek Streamkeepers have hosted a group from Japan through Masaaki's auspices, and we'd like to thank him.

Silly Error Appears in Maclean's Japan Story

Why do western newspapers and magazines continue to publish cutesy stories about Japan without checking facts?

In the April 26, 2004, Maclean's, Steve Burgess writes: "Such unusual touches and jarring cultural snapshots have caused westerners to put Japan under a microscope for years." OK, one would assume that he would then have a passing acquaintance with his subject.

However, he later states: "Japanese writing features three different sets of characters. One of them is reserved exclusively for spelling out things that are not Japanese, such as the signs of foreign-owned restaurants." Not true.

If you look at the main photograph accompanying the article, it shows several Japanese companies displaying their names in katakana, the script that is supposedly reserved only for foreign words, or even in English characters, for huge outdoor advertisements.

I have beside me a Japanese-language catalog from electronics retailer Yodobashi Camera from my last trip to Japan a few months ago. The Yodobashi Camera logo is in katakana. Inside the catalog names of leading Japanese companies including Sony, Nikon, Canon, etc., are rendered in katakana, or simply in English characters.

Better take another look into that microscope!

Is Sony Ripping Off Canadians?

Why is Sony charging substantially more in Canada than in the U.S. for the same products?

I saw a new Sony camcorder in a flyer today, the Digital 8 DCR-TRV460. Our old Sony Hi8 camcorder died nearly a year ago, and I'm interested in getting a Digital 8 model that can play back our old Hi8 tapes. The TRV460 can do that.

However, at Sony Canada, it's listed at C$699.99. At Sony U.S., it's listed at US$399.99. When I do the conversion, that's about C$530. Why is it nearly C$170 cheaper in the U.S.? That's outrageous.

I previously wrote about how much cheaper cameras and electronics are in Japan than in Canada, and I'm shocked to find such a huge disparity exists between Canada and the U.S.

Consumers ought to complain -- and loudly!

SkyTrain Shops? It's About Time

The lower mainland's TransLink system has issued a request for proposals for retailing opportunities at SkyTrain stations. The idea is to generate revenue for the transit system while improving safety in and around SkyTrain stations by creating thriving retail communities.

I say it's about time.

Having coffee shops, convenience stores, dry cleaners, barbershops etc. at SkyTrain stations would greatly improve community life and safety. I lived in Tokyo for about 14 years, where train and subway stations are bustling hubs of activity.

I've never understood why that model has not been followed in the lower mainland. However, I would go further and implement more lessons we could learn from transit systems in Japan.

1) SkyTrain stations need gates. That would eliminate the flagrant abuse of the system as a drug trafficking and petty theft freeway. It would also recoup lost revenues.

2) Perhaps we don't have the population density for this proposal, but another feature of most train and subway stations in Japan is a "koban" police box that is manned 24/7 by officers who know their community. They take reports of lost and stolen items, do neighborhood bicycle patrols, respond to local incidents, and generally keep an eye on things.

Food for thought.

The Language of Visible Minorities

My Japanese (born, raised, and still citizen) wife and I have noticed that visible minorities in Canada often get tagged with an un-hyphenated label, no matter how many generations they've been here.

"My broker is Chinese." "My real estate agent is Filipino." "My hairdresser is East Indian."

I grew up being taught to be proud to be "Ukrainian-Canadian" and though I haven't identified myself much with that community for years, I find this strange.

Why don't visible minorities at least get the hyphen? "My dentist is Chinese-Canadian." Nope, it's: "My dentist is Chinese," even if his great-grandfather helped push the railroad through the Rockies over a hundred years ago, well before my Ukrainian ancestors arrived in Canada.

My wife and I have never said, "Our real estate agent is English." It's never crossed our minds to say, "We dealt with an Irish woman at the bank when we got our mortgage."

So what gives? I thought we were multicultural and colour-blind.

I've got a lot more thinking to do about this, and so do many other people I've encountered....

Canadians Ripped Off

I think Canadian consumers are being ripped off, particularly when it comes to high-tech products.

Let's take an example:

A Canon Powershot Digital Elph S400 goes for around C$650 at major Canadian retailers and webshops. Try London Drugs.

In Japan you can buy one for as little as C$460. Check out Kakaku, a Japanese comparative shopping site. If you can't read Japanese, take my word for it :-).

Does it really cost C$200 per unit to ship 'em over here? I doubt it.