Yesterday I went to my first orchestra concert in Japan. It was held at Mie University in a very nice hall. I went because one guy I know from church was playing cello in it. I was surprised because he started playing cello less than a year ago, but he played a piece that seemed very hard.

It was a great concert that reminded me of why pre-20th century music is so good. As I was listening, a Mariah Carey song popped into my head, and it seemed disgustingly poppish, void of meaning. Classical music usually has conflict and a message. Most messages in modern music I can think of are messages of the meaninglessness that comes with deconstructionism (by the way, deconstructionism was a dead end. We learned some things, but now let's get back to constructionism), or some kind of goofy foundationless happiness. Those are the only two modern messages I can think of (obviously, "baby, baby, baby, hey baby, I love you baby baby, baby" doesn't count as a message).

But I think I was way too focused as I listened. Perhaps to the point of becoming tense. Concerts are too long to be listened to with that kind of intensity. I had the same kind of feeling as I would get if I ate a big bag of hard candy: A little is nice, but I think this is an overdose. There was a constant stream of non-repetative (thank goodness) music coming from up to 60 instruments at once. I should have dozed off like many other people there. hehe.

Dinner with 2 Mormons

Ryan and I had dinner with 2 young mormons the other day. We didn't talk theology at all, just daily life, living in Japan, difference in schedules, plans after Japan, etc.
I was surprised at how much the headquarters controlled their lives. Basically for 2 years, they do nothing but walk around the city, talking to people. No internet, no caffeine, no phone calls to home (except twice a year on Mother's Day and Christmas), no email, one letter per week, no potentially dangerous sports, no music except church music, 9:00 curfew. Every six weeks (maybe it was 12) they will get a call telling them whether they will move to a new city or stay in the same city. So this basically precludes relationships from forming.
Two things should be said about mormons:
1) They are usually nice people, people you'd want as a neighbor, generally sincere in their belief.
2) They have terrible beliefs:

-Where the Book of Mormon disagrees with the Bible, the Bible is in error because of various translation problems, although Joseph Smith had no problem plagiarizing thousands of verses directly from the 17th century King James Version, and claiming they were from documents over 1500 years old.

-Until recently, the past 'presidents' of the mormon church taught that Blacks could not be saved. After all, they were too sinful, and were cursed with black skin. Thank God they retracted this teaching (even though the 'presidents' are said to be infallibly authoritative).

-The god of our planet used to be a man on another planet, and he was so virtuous in that life, that it was granted to him to populate Earth and become its god. And now all perfectly virtuous mormon men on this planet will become the god of another planet, which they will populate with their many wives.

And how many people are currently suckered into this crap? Would you believe 12 million? I want to talk theology next time we meet the mormons for dinner.

Being in America for a little was good. Actually, I could have used another week.
But being back in Japan is good.

Now I must press on in my Japanese studies to avert isolation. (and come to think of it, I need to avert isolation to improve my Japanese).

And in other news, I think I am going to start writing more. Not just jotting stuff down (like I am now), but actually writing what I think, revising, editing. If nothing else, it will be a good way for me to organize my thoughts, juxtapose my beliefs, and make sure they cohere with one another. Having already written them down, I should have an easier time explaining my position and reasoning when the time comes.