In January 2010 I visited Japan on one of my last official trips while at NSF. I posted a summary of that trip on Facebook, which popped up as a memory today. I've copied that memory here -- its at the bottom. What appears first is a non-fiction travel log from ChatGPT, in the style of Steinbeck, which I requested. Its fun, but mainly instructive to me on writing style.
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Doug: Read this note <at bottom of this post--DF> that I originally had on Facebook, and write a non-fiction travel log in the style of Steinbeck that recounts the events, my impressions, and the like. Try to shoot for a 8 minute read.
ChatGPT: Here is a nonfiction travel log, written as a continuous piece in a Steinbeck-leaning voice—observant, humane, slightly amused by human machinery and human frailty, attentive to labor, ritual, and small grace notes. I’ve kept it grounded in your facts and events, but shaped it into a narrative arc rather than a diary. It should land around an eight-minute read.
Japan, Out of Time
It is late on a Friday night, nearly a week after I returned, and my body still refuses to believe me. It accepts meals at the wrong hours, demands wakefulness in the small dark of morning, and releases sleep only when it sees fit. This is not jet lag of the dramatic sort—no vertigo, no despair—just a long unwinding, as though some careful watch spring were loosening tooth by tooth. I have been back almost a full week, but part of me is still riding a train through fields I do not know how to name.
I left for Dulles at 4:30 on a Saturday morning in January, the house still dark, the world reduced to a cone of headlights and responsibility. By the time I arrived in Osaka on Sunday afternoon—4:20 by the clock there—I had been awake for something like a full day before departure and eighteen hours in the air after. Thirty-six hours had passed, but time itself had folded oddly, like a map creased too many times. Fourteen of those hours were not hours at all but arithmetic.
Dr. Numao was waiting for me beyond customs, calm and precise, and together we crossed the skyway into the hotel where the conference would be held. He would become Numao-san, and perhaps later Masa-san, because names, like distance, shorten with acquaintance. I slept from early evening until three in the morning, the kind of sleep that drops you straight down a well. When I woke, my mind clicked on at once, alert and uneasy. I worried slides into new shapes and rehearsed anxieties that would not benefit from rehearsal.
By four o’clock, coffee was no longer a luxury but a moral necessity. The front desk apologized kindly: nothing would be open for hours. But next door, along the wide airport road, was an all-night store called Lawson’s. Japan, I would learn, is mapped not only by streets and trains but by convenience stores—Seven-Elevens, Family Mart, AM/PM, Lawson’s—each block carrying one like a shrine to preparedness.
Lawson’s was bright and immaculate, stocked with food both familiar and baffling. There were sandwiches, hot dogs, beer. There was no coffee machine. I circled the store once, then again, considering whether to ask the young clerk a question that might take ten minutes and yield confusion on both sides. Then I saw the cans.
They were hot.
In refrigerated cases—unrefrigerated cases—were rows of canned drinks labeled Latte, Coffee, Black. When I lifted one, it was warm in my hand, like something alive. I turned cans over, hunting numbers I could recognize. “kcal,” “gr.” Seven kilocalories would not kill a man; seven thousand might. I gambled. One can said simply Black and promised 0 kcal. It was coffee, honest coffee, hot in a can. I bought two, for about a dollar each, and drank one immediately, standing under fluorescent lights at four in the morning, grateful beyond proportion.
Those cans would become my companions for the week—morning and afternoon, from vending machines on sidewalks, in subway stations, even outside a Buddhist cemetery. Coffee everywhere, quietly waiting.
The talk that Monday was the opening talk. It was not a home run, but it stayed in the park. I had given better talks, but only after scripting and practicing until the words could carry themselves. This was a new talk, on environment and computing, assembled in motion. Still, it must have landed well enough, because that evening the organizers asked me to give a speech at the banquet, and to offer the opening toast.
I do not drink. I said this. They acknowledged it and changed nothing. One does not wish to embarrass one’s country, so I said yes.
The conference itself was dominated by green chemistry and materials science—worlds adjacent to mine but not my own. During a break I asked an American chemist from a great university whether he followed everything. He admitted he did not follow much of the organic chemistry. This was a gift. It reminded me that incomprehension is democratic.
I listened with particular interest through the lens of cradle-to-cradle design—the idea that reuse must be total and ongoing, not a consolation prize measured in percentages. It seemed to me that we still imagine products alone, when in truth they exist in families and networks. Reuse, too, must be social. Materials must have companions, partners in reclamation, and the complexity of that dance may be beyond unaided human bookkeeping. One could feel the shape of a problem that would need machines not merely to compute, but to attend.
At the banquet, bottles of Kirin were lined up like soldiers. I listened carefully to the early speeches, relieved by their brevity. When my turn came, I thanked people, spoke of the long horizon of scientific work and the shared obligation to the planet. While I spoke, a waiter filled glasses. When I finished, he handed me one. I lifted it, said the toast, and then stopped.
One hundred people watched me expectantly. I had forgotten the final move.
“Cheers!” my host called out, remembering what I had forgotten. Everyone smiled and drank. I returned the untouched glass to the tray and spent the rest of the evening happily unburdened.
On Tuesday night, my host drove me into Osaka proper. The car spoke to us in a woman’s voice, navigating traffic with serene authority, rerouting us through back streets to avoid congestion. It was one thing to read about intelligent vehicles and another to be addressed by one. Once, the system erred—its map disagreed with the world—but it recovered quickly, apologizing by action rather than words.
I ride a Honda too, but it speaks differently. On full throttle it shouts joy. It was built for that. Low tech has its virtues. Later, in Tokyo, I asked to see the motorcycle lots at the universities, and my hosts indulged me. The Japanese build extraordinary machines. So do we. Beauty, like engineering, is widely distributed.
The next morning in Osaka I spoke to my wife on Skype while she sat in the Arlington library, unable to speak aloud. I talked; she typed. The call stayed open as I prepared for the day and she followed politics. Later she marveled at the geometry of it—Japan, Oregon, Arlington braided together by thin light.
The university visits were rich and generous—robotics, vision, language, learning. At the labs, shoes came off, slippers on. This felt right. In one Tokyo lab, the graduate students stood as we entered, and one barked a command. A chair scraped. A disheveled student emerged from under a desk and gave a clear presentation. Some constants transcend culture.
The bullet train carried me to Tokyo through dusk and gardens—so many gardens. Small plots everywhere, tended, deliberate. Even where homes had none, gardens appeared nearby, communal or shared. Food close to living. The train staff bowed when they entered and exited the car. Bowing was everywhere—mutual, repeated, unembarrassed. I felt the urge to bow deeply too, but hesitated, afraid of imitation without understanding. Still, the body learns.
In Tokyo I walked early, down to a Buddhist cemetery beneath my hotel window. There were offerings at the graves—coffee, beer, dice, green tea. I felt, as I often do in cemeteries, a calm belonging to the human line. The dead were not gone so much as placed carefully.
On my last night I attended a New Year’s gathering at an Italian restaurant, honoring a newly inducted member of the Japan Academy. There were speeches and toasts, quietly translated. I was urged to return to Kyoto. I hope to.
Before flying home, I walked for hours around the Palace grounds. Breakfast was food on a stick and canned coffee. Clerks spoke cheerfully to me at length. I said thank you. The day was clear and unhurried.
I will miss representing NSF when I leave government service—not the travel, which is tiring, but the vantage. To speak with colleagues around the world who labor seriously at shared problems is to feel hope made practical. NSF carries respect lightly, and that respect opens doors. No one spoke of competitive advantage. They spoke of responsibility.
Time at NSF has worn me down and tuned me up. When I return fully to academia, I doubt I will ever again be agitated by small politics. The work is too large.
It is late now. The body is nearly convinced. Somewhere, a vending machine hums, holding coffee warm against the dark.
My Osaka host, Professor Numao, and his postdoc, Dr. Legaspi
A slide from my talk
My Tokyo host, Shinohara-san, of NSF Japan
Buddhist cemetery, Tokyo, about 20 floors below my hotel window
My coffee can collection
On a palace walk, the last day in Japan
My 1988 Honda Hawk 650 -- it talks too -- I've got some Shinto in me because of it
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Original Post from Facebook:
It’s late Friday night and I’m up, still out of synch with my usual rhythms after a week-long trip to Japan that ended last Saturday, almost a full week ago. It hasn’t been a hard adjustment back, as some report, just a long one.
I’d left for Dulles airport on Saturday morning, Jan 16 at 4:30 AM, and arrived in Osaka on Sunday afternoon, Jan 17 at 4:20 PM – a lot of that “36 hours” was due to the 14 hour difference in time zones, but I was also 18+ hours in the air, with a connection through San Francisco. When I arrived, Dr. Numao, probably Numao-san or maybe even Masa-san from now on, was waiting for me outside customs, and we walked across the bridge way to the hotel that was hosting the conference that I was speaking at next day. I’d been up a good 24 hours before leaving DC, getting ready, which included keeping fires at bay. I never sleep on flights and this trip was no exception, and I slept like a rock from about 6:00PM Sunday night until about 3 AM Monday (1 PM Eastern time Sunday), then got up to fiddle with slides and to worry :-).
Getting coffee was a big priority, and I got dressed and asked at the front desk – nothing in the hotel or airport for a few hours to come, but they suggested an all-night Seven-11 like store next door along a major thoroughfare, which turned out to be called “Lawsons” of all things – turns out there are Seven-11s, AM/PMs, “Family Market”, as well as Lawsons every block or so in the cities, and their street signs are about the only English you’ll see on a stroll, but Osaka airport is 40 minutes outside Osaka, on a built island, and this little Lawson’s was it. The place was bright, well lit and clean, a few familiar foods like ham and cheese sandwiches and hot dogs, beer and soda, but no coffee maker I could see. I circled the place, thought about asking the polite kid behind the counter, which would have been an interesting and probably prolonged conversation, as you can’t assume many speak English as you can in Europe, but I circled once more and in one of the refrigerated (not!) units, spotted “Latte” on a can – this was sort of promising, but I can’t take (literally) the milkshake like drinks that pass for coffee in Starbucks and the like, but it was worth looking into, and when I reached for the can, felt the heat – the can was hot (?!). There were in fact a slew of hot cans of Latte and (then) “coffee” labeled drinks too, and I checked them out in turn, looking for any comprehensible info on the backs regarding sugar content particularly – it was almost all incomprehensible to me, but here and there I’d spot “gr” and “kcal”, as in “7 kcal” – now 7000 calories in an 8 ounce can or thereabouts would kill you, so I thought “kcal” must be equivalent to a US “calorie”, or nearly so. Still, I wasn’t likely to find good ol’ black coffee in a (hot) can, that would be just too fantastic, but there it was … “black” … And on the back, “0 kcal” – fantastic, indeed !!!!
The two canned hot coffees I bought that Monday morning, for 120 Yen each (or about a buck and twenty) would be the first of many I’d buy in week-long early morning and afternoon treks in Osaka and Tokyo – vending machines with hot cans were everywhere too – every block, even outside a Buddhist cemetery -- so I could get my afternoon pick-me-up in subway stations or on the street on the way to appointments.
My talk later that Monday – the opening talk – wasn’t a homerun, but it went fine – I’ve hit homeruns before, but only when I script and practice them, becoming very comfortable with the material, its rightness, and the comfort allows a tempered enthusiasm to become the mortar that makes the delivery smooth and interesting, with confidently-uttered key points. This was something a new talk on the environment and computing, and I hadn’t had time to script and practice, but I gather it was good, in part because I was asked by the organizers to give “a speech” at the banquet that night (a speech :-O) and to give the banquet’s opening toast (a toast :-O) . I was about to balk at each, and I did mutter that I didn’t drink to the organizers (“You do not drink?” and no retraction of the request), but I wasn’t going to embarrass my country, so I said “yes” to each.
I wouldn’t have time to worry (too much) about the speech and toast, because the talks were interesting and very different from my areas – the conference, both Monday and Tuesday, was dominated by (“Green”) chemistry and materials science. During one of the breaks, I asked one of the US scientists, from one of our greatest universities, whether he followed all the talks, because the topics were highly varied, even if they were on topics that would fit into a very few academic departments. He replied that while he followed most of most of the inorganic, materials talks, he didn’t follow most of the organic chemistry talks … now, this is comforting to my ego – I’m serious.
I’ve become intrigued by the concept of cradle to cradle design ever since getting “the book” (http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm ) from Mary Lou. As important as recycling efforts are, and I buy recycled when possible, if you are concerned that our species (and other species) be around and healthy centuries and millennia from now, or simply that your kids and grandkids are comfortable (or in my case, my nephews and nieces, and a grand-neice and brand-new grand-nephew!), 35% reclaimed materials just ain’t going to cut it; in fact 95% reuse ain’t going to cut it, and this also implies that one-time reuse, … nor 10-time reuse, etc will be satisfactory. It’s got to be full, high-grade reuse of materials over and over and over -- no more of a making, buying, and tossing it out mentality. So, the materials and chemistry talks were intriguing from this perspective. In particular, when we think about materials and/or products, it seems to be usually the case that reuse is considered as property of the material or product “in isolation”, where presumably AI could be used in the design-for-reuse process to determine what materials and products could be safely reused in conjunction, with reuse processes involving other chemicals such as solvents. I can conceive of material and product ‘companion’ groups (with group members being taken perhaps from different products!) that can be processed for reclamation in conjunction with one another – the reuse of which might even contribute materials to entirely different products. Thus, rather than thinking of manufacture and reuse of single products in isolation, we conceive of a graph/feedbacks of far greater complexity, where reuse of some products feed into manufacture of others … AI or like technology would certainly be necessary to manage and design such processes.
That night, as we all assembled in the banquet room, with bottles of Kirin beer nicely arranged on each table, presumably for the toast, one of the organizers called on a representative of a conference sponsor to give a “speech” – I was glad that I’d have a chance to see what was expected in a speech before having to give one myself, even as I secretly hoped that they would forget about me. After two relatively short speeches (“OK, good – I can do this”), the organizer called on me – maybe even using Fisher-sensei, or some other Japanese honorific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics ), “from the National Science Foundation”. I mounted the stage, thanked the organizers, the attendees, acknowledged my personal honor at being asked, spoke on the nobility of our scientific pursuits on behalf of the planet, the long years ahead … it was alright :-). During my speech, Kirin was being poured and glasses distributed, and a waiter came up to me on stage when I was done, and extended the full glass of beer, which I took, and said the toast, which was somewhat repetitive (but very abbreviated relative to “the speech”). When I was done with the words, I wasn’t quite sure what to do – I don’t remember ever giving a toast before, so I lifted my glass as in “ok, go ahead and drink up”, but didn’t think to actually say that. So, for one awkward moment, 100+ people are staring at me expectantly, and I’m clueless. Thankfully my host, who remembered that I didn’t drink, said loudly “CHEERS!” and everyone smiled and drank. The waiter had been behind me, as it turned out, and he extended the tray, and I put the virgin glass of Kirin on it, and enjoyed the rest of my evening with these good people.
On Tuesday night after the conference ended, my host drove me into Osaka, where I’d spend the night, prior to meetings at Osaka University the next day. On the entire trip his Honda talked to us, a woman’s voice in Japanese, rerouting us around Osaka to avoid rush-hour traffic, with the help of a high-quality dynamic display of our car’s whereabouts on an Osaka map, and verbal reminders of when to turn – we made the entire trip from airport to the center of Osaka guided by the car. While it’s one thing to read about intelligent cars, it’s quite another to ride in one, which I’d never done. It was an impressive demonstration of intelligent technology, the intelligence informed by reports on traffic conditions broadcast from other vehicles “downstream” of us. At one point the car misdirected us – it seemed to be clearly due to a mismatch in the roadmap database the car had access to and the actual street configuration – I could see the mismatch between the displayed map and physical scene in front of us, but only after committing to the route clearly indicated by a red arrow superimposed on the map – nonetheless, the car was back on track quickly, taking us through an impressive array of back streets to avoid heavy traffic, and when we inevitably hit traffic uttering “Be careful! There is a lot of traffic!” or so it was translated for me.
My vehicle BTW is also a Honda, but it’s never talked to me in words, though on the open road with the throttle fully opened the 647 CC engine screams “this rocks!!” That engine was built for the full throttle. It talks to me in other ways too :-). And like the best motorcycles, men of all ages and little kids can’t take their eyes off it (I loved Ka:ren and Roger's son's joyful yell on seeing a motrorcycle -- “Macaque!!” -- it's amazing, but little kids love them). And, you’ll never see a motorcycle rider road raging. All said, low tech has its advantages too. Later in the trip, when we stopped at Tokyo Tech and the University of Tokyo, I detoured us to the motorcycle lots, which my host in Tokyo, Shinohara-san, graciously allowed, after checking her watch . The Japanese make some of the world’s greatest motorcycles, and yes, America does too – I secretly long for a Harley Davidson V Rod (look at it: http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/photos/2005models/2005models-Harley-Davidson-V-Rod-VRSCB.htm; OMG!), possibly the most beautiful mass-produced bike ever.
At the hotel in Osaka, I caught up with Pat the next morning on Skype (about 4AM my time, after venturing out for hot coffee). I’d set her up on Skype a few weeks before so we could talk, particularly on international trips, but hadn’t caught her the previous days. When I logged on I saw she was on Skype too, at the Arlington library, I made a video call, and though she couldn’t talk (being at the library), I talked, she texted, and we kept the call open while I prepared for my day and while she listened to the political latest. Pat marveled later at being on Skype with me in Japan while simulataneously emailing my mother the latest in Oregon. Yes, indeed.
The Osaka University visits were very interesting, as were my later visits in Tokyo – I detailed all my lab and government (notably to a close analog to NSF, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, or JSPS) visits in my report back to NSF, but I won’t reveal the top secrets here :-). My hosts were gracious, interesting and interested in what was going on in the US – there is outstanding work in robotics, computer vision and language, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and informatics and ontology going on in Japan, with applications to eldercare, other healthcare, and security, among other applications.
Two asides: At the universities, taking your shoes off and switching to slippers was the norm in the labs – you’d wear your shoes in the main halls, but remove them before stepping on the carpeted labs, and slippers were set aside for guests. I told them that my wife and I observed this custom in our home and I think it put them something at ease in making the request. On a completely different note, when we walked into one of the University of Tokyo labs, the graduate students rose, and one turned back and called out a short bark .., a chair moved jerkily from a desk in the corner, and a disheveled young man rambled out from under the desk, recovering his wits, to deliver a competent presentation of Professor Kuniyoshi’s lab research on learning in infants, and simulations of it. Despite the many cultural differences it’s comforting to know that some things are common, like graduate student lifestyles.
My host in Osaka, Professor Numao, got me to Osaka train station in plenty of time for the bullet train to Tokyo, a 2-3 hour ride through the Japanese countryside, including a wonderful view of Mount Fuji in the distance at dusk (from the train’s left side on the Osaka-to-Tokyo run), though not that I was able to well capture on film. The most striking thing to me about the neighborhoods we went through were the large number of (vegetable) gardens. Even if a home didn’t appear from my vantage point to have a home garden, it seemed to be in close proximity to what appeared to be a neighborhood garden, perhaps sectioned, perhaps communal, perhaps both – I don’t know, but the gardens were ubiquitous on the long trip from Osaka to Tokyo.
On the bullet train I was a bit surprised that the attendants, those checking tickets and selling refreshments, would bow upon entering the car and exiting it and say some greeting and farewell too. I guess that I shouldn’t have been surprised, because bowing is pervasive, and it’s the real deal. As the conference was closing up on Tuesday night, for example, the organizers bowed to the support staff, and vice versa, probably two or three times. I found myself wanting to bow more myself, not the curt nods that I’d use, but deeper bows, but I think that a feeling of not wanting to appear a pretender, or perhaps not really sure of whether it was universally appropriate, made me hesitant, but the desire to “try it on” was real, and it wouldn’t have been long before I would have been bowing with the best of them, I’m sure, pairing it easily with the appropriate Japanese honorifics.
At my Tokyo hotel, I sent my suit (by now badly rumpled, after a flight around the world, two hotel moves and many meetings) out for cleaning/pressing before dinner with the NSF Tokyo staff, who I was glad were there. Like Osaka, Tokyo was filled with gracious people and interesting experiences. I was able to walk in the early morning, and checked out a Buddhist cemetery directly below my 21st floor room at the ANA Intercontinental. Like other cemeteries I feel belongingness to the human race when I’m in one, which may strike some as strange, but its peaceful nonetheless). This Buddhist cemetery was well filled, and it was interesting to see the things, presumably the items of endearment, that people left in remembrance of those passed on, or perhaps remembrance doesn’t carry the right connotation for what is intended in the placement of these items – a can of beer, of coffee, a bottle of green tea, dice, flowers of course, etc. And there are statues of Buddha (I presume) everywhere.
On my last evening, after my visit and presentation to JSPS, they asked me to their new year’s celebration at an Italian restaurant close by, which would also serve to honor a JSPS staff who had been inducted into the Japan Academy (“of Science”), or so I remember. There were speeches and toasts, which Shinohara-san quietly translated. My table mates suggested I return to see Kyoto, and I hope too.
The next morning, before catching the afternoon non-stop to Dulles, I walked about 2-3 hours to and around the Palace grounds, which Shinohara-san had point out on our ride the National Institute of Informatics two days before. I started the morning, like all in Tokyo, with food on a stick, which I relished each morning with canned coffee. At each of the convenience stores where I’d get food on a stick and canned coffee the counter clerk would speak to me at some length in Japanese, and though I had no idea what they were saying, they said it with a chipper voice, and I’d always say Thank You. My last day was beautiful, and though I couldn’t see the royal Palace because the grounds are just too expansive and walled off with moat, the long walk restful.
There is much else I could say about Japan – while I won’t detail friend Eric’s particular love of Japan, for example, it’s quite on target. :-)
One thing that I’ll miss when I leave government service is representing NSF and by extension the US on my international trips – it’s really not the travel per se, as I’m not a fan of flying and I really don’t have time for sightseeing except as flight scheduling allows. And each time an international trip approaches, I curse having agreed to do it, because I’ll tell you, I’m working longer hours than I ever have in my life, to include pre-tenure and as a graduate student, and there is always something to do at the office. But these trips are part of the eyes-on-the-prize aspect of my job, and once I’m there and talking to my colleagues in Japan, or with the OECD or European Commission, I’m struck by the dedicated people working worldwide to address humanity’s problems and it opens my eyes to hope and possibilities, and I have a chance to think deeply. There is also no doubt that I get a kick out of being with NSF – it’s respected worldwide, and I’ll miss the goodwill that comes my way simply by being associated with such an agency. I have never heard the phrase ‘competitive advantage’ at NSF – there is no talking out of both sides of the organization’s mouth so to speak. I have heard ‘competitive’ of course, as no one wants to be at the back of the pack, but there is a groking that the planet faces huge problems that can only be reasonably addressed if nations act in concert.
An advantage of going back to academia after being at NSF is that I can’t imagine ever getting worked up again about workload and politics :-), and the truth is my time at NSF has reenergized me, even as it wears me out regularly :-).
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