citizen journalism

In the last days I have been researching about South Korea.
Here a very interesting online newspaper written in majority by citizens

Farmers vs merchants

I do not know if one can claim that inductive reasoning is the best method but here a small example to understand China and Japan feelings towards foreigners.
Next month I am going to Beijing for to job interview. Therefore I have to get a japanese re-entry permit and a chinese touristic visa.

First step would be to go to the office: the chinese embassy is 500m away fro mthe office in a very central area of tokyo ( Roppongi), the tokyo immigration bureau is in a blade runner like building on an artificial dock in the middle of no man’s land. From the closest metro station is 15min by bus.

Second step is to understand what is needed to do the visa: in the chinese embassy I found an officer with perfect english, in the japanese immigration office ( i went there 4-5 times already) I never found somebody who could speak something close to english but they are always very kind.

Both offices have all is needed to have a visa in the building ( photo machine, stamps, photocopy….) which is something usually missing in italian offices where in order to get photo+photocopy+stamp one has to travel through the whole neighborhood.

As a conclusion: would it be correct to say that in their deep soul chinese are more merchants and japanese farmers?

In praise of abstraction: Tokyo District Diagram

There an indescribable beauty in diagrams. Especially during this sur-modernité.
Tokyo is truly multi centered. Districts fight with each other trying to attract people to come and consume in their area. This a quick diagram I have been working on with my work collegues. Comments are welcome.