No Need to Rush to Buy a Property

(Image: いらすとや)

A few days ago, I informed my landlord of my consent to renew my two-year apartment rental contract which will come to full term at the end of July. Given the ongoing inflation affecting almost every aspect of our lives, I was more or less prepared for a price hike, so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise when my landlord proposed an increase of SGD 400 per month—in fact, I was expecting an increase of around SGD 1,000, so I was actually relieved that it wasn’t that much. In the end, I managed to knock it down to a SGD 300 increase, and agreed to continue the contract.

I first came from Tokyo to Singapore to live and work in 2002 at the age of 28. Ever since my arrival here, I have rented the same apartment and never moved, so I’ve had the same landlord for close to 24 years. We have maintained a cordial relationship throughout, based on mutual trust—something we value greatly, and it will take a lot for me to leave for another place.

My place is a studio apartment that comes with a living room and kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom, occupying an area of around 50 square meters (approximately 540 square feet). It’s nothing fancy, but one thing I really like about it is its convenient location—situated just 170 meters or a two-minute walk from the nearest subway station, right in the middle of a busy commercial area of Singapore.

When the weather is nice and I’m feeling strong enough, I go to my workplace on foot instead of by bus, spending around 25 minutes each way, giving me a good amount of exercise. While walking, I make a point of reciting the French sentences that I’ve learned in recent days.

Real estate has been a fascinating subject for me for quite a few years, and I have read extensively on this topic. The more I read, the more convinced I become that there is really no need for me to rush to buy a property, especially given that I’m not interested in making money from property investment.

If I were to buy an apartment, that would be purely for hedging purposes, against potential increases in rent in my retirement. Once I buy a place, I would most likely stay there for the rest of my life, so I’ll make sure to choose a convenient location in close proximity to clinics, shopping malls, and subway stations.

Since I will be retired, at least I won’t be bound by considerations for being close to my workplace. Luckily, Singapore’s subway system is still expanding, so more choices will become available for me as I wait and observe the property market. Given my age, I won’t be able to take out that big of a mortgage, but that’s alright with me—I’d much rather pay with cash than overleveraging myself with a sizable bank loan.

Incidentally, purely out of curiosity, I have been closely following Tokyo’s property market. In recent years, real estate prices there have gone through the roof, where a new 70-square-meter apartment in Downtown Tokyo costs more than 30 times the average annual household income. That’s too exorbitant, in my opinion—those vertiginous heights can only be explained by a property bubble, which is bound to burst within a few years.

If for nothing else, we cannot ignore the demographic trend of Japan’s aging and declining population, which will eventually catch up with Tokyo’s seemingly invincible property market. As things stand now, Tokyo is full of high-rise condominiums. Some real estate experts and demographers are already warning that those high-rises will become progressively more difficult to maintain due to wear and tear and with residents either moving out or dying of old age, leaving the remaining residents with a bigger financial burden to keep their building standing. Rational thoughts tell me to be prudent about buying a property in Tokyo, despite my adoration for that magnificent city.

Since I’ve decided to continue my apartment contract in Singapore for two more years, the least I should do is focus on growing my liquid assets as much as I can, through working in my current job for steady paychecks and deploying my cash in the stock market, while continuing to acquire new skills to stay relevant in this AI-dominated era. There is no telling what the future holds for me, but I will keep striving to improve my prospects for the coming decades.

How Badly Do You Want to Improve Your English?

Last night, I finished reading the novel Mina’s Matchbox written by the Japanese author Yoko Ogawa. I briefly touched upon this novel in my previous journal entry, in which I mentioned that I had found it to be a heartwarming story in the first few chapters. I don’t want to present any spoilers here, but suffice it to say that it stayed a beautiful story to the very end, and I loved every character in the book increasingly as the story progressed, including the two animals who played rather significant roles. In the end, I liked Mina’s Matchbox better than Hotel Iris, a novel by the same author that dealt with a much gloomier subject.

Incidentally, I didn’t know about Yoko Ogawa up until a few months ago, when I first heard her name mentioned in a YouTube video introducing popular Japanese novelists to Western viewers. Although I am originally from Japan, I am not very familiar with Japanese literature, so it was nice to hear this introduction to a few outstanding authors who are globally popular. When it comes to modern Japanese fiction, Haruki Murakami may come to mind for most people, but in fact there is a robust literary scene in the Land of the Rising Sun, with numerous excellent authors yet to be discovered by international readers.

As mentioned previously, I read Mina’s Matchbox in its English translation and not the original, because I wanted to learn English words and phrases while I enjoyed the story. The English version is 280 pages long, and I read it in its entirety while making sure to mark and look up every word and phrase I was unfamiliar with. It took me 8 days to complete the task—in total, I looked up 208 items in the dictionary, averaging out at 0.74 items per page. This may sound like an excruciating grind to most English learners, but I found the entire process rather enjoyable, as I felt excited at the prospect of my vocabulary expanding rapidly.

I may not be the most efficient or talented learner of foreign languages, but one thing I’ve got going for me is my fixation with acquiring an extensive vocabulary, not only for English, but also for Japanese, my mother tongue. Whenever I open a book to read, I always make sure to have my smartphone dictionary close at hand, so that every time I come across an unfamiliar word or phrase I can look it up immediately. Instead of frustrating me, this repeated act of consulting the dictionary brings me instant gratification at each occurrence—not unlike the sensation of fitting a piece of the jigsaw puzzle into place. This whole process makes me love reading even more as I devour one book after another.

Recently, in addition to books, I practiced the same method while watching the English-dubbed version of the latest Japanese Netflix series Straight to Hell. This 9-episode series is a part-fiction, part-biographical story centered on the life of Kazuko Hosoki, arguably the most famous fortune-teller to have emerged from Japan. 

Hosoki used to make regular TV appearances reading fortunes of guests to her show using her unique astrology-based fortune-telling method. More often than not, she uttered unkind or even violent remarks straight to the face of her guest, causing distress and consternation to concerned parties and viewers alike. Yet her show, while controversial, proved to be a big hit, boasting high ratings and earning her millions of dollars.

I could have watched this series in Japanese, but I watched it in English, again for language-learning purposes. Netflix’s dubbing is of very good quality, and I was able to get into the story and enjoy it without feeling any strangeness whatsoever. This time, I listened to the dialogue attentively for any English expression I didn’t comprehend, and interrupted the viewing at each occurrence to look it up in the dictionary before continuing the video. Much against my expectations, these interruptions didn’t take away too much from my enjoyment of the story, so I intend to keep practicing this method for the time being.

If you are not a language-learning enthusiast, this method of consulting each unknown item in the dictionary may strike you as rather odd or even masochistic, and I fully comprehend that position. I guess it all comes down to how badly you want to improve your proficiency in a foreign language. There will probably come a time when I finally stop employing this extreme method, but for now I will let nature run its course and keep practicing whatever method suits me the best.

Learning a Language is Hard Work!

Mina's Matchbox

Friday was a public holiday in Singapore for Labor Day, so I didn’t have to work. I stayed up late the previous night and indulged myself by watching one video after another on YouTube. I can’t remember all the genres of videos I watched, but the ones I distinctly remember are somewhat morbid and cruel, like a video of a bull frog swallowing numerous cockroaches at amazing speed, or that of dozens of rats being trapped one after another in a hole, where they were squeezed together and unable to get out.

I also watched a video of a Japanese woman who keeps a crow in her house as a pet. While she was explaining how to take care of a crow in a human residence, her pet crow named Happy was right beside her—it fluttered its wings vigorously and hopped around restlessly, croaking from time to time to get her attention. It was a bizarre video, to say the least, but both the owner and Happy looked happy, literally, so I see absolutely no reason to criticize her for keeping an unusual pet.

I didn’t start out wanting to watch strange videos, but once I clicked on the attention-grabbing thumbnail of a random video, other videos of a similar nature kept being pushed to my screen by the YouTube algorithm. I ended up watching them non-stop until around 5 a.m., when I finally succumbed to my sleepiness and went to bed. Having wasted hours watching videos of so little intellectual value, I felt a bit guilty, but it was fun all the same.

The next day, I got out of bed at around 11 a.m. Determined not to repeat the same mistake of watching silly videos ad infinitum, I poured myself a cup of strong coffee and picked up a book to read. This time, I chose a novel titled Mina’s Matchbox, written by the female Japanese novelist Yoko Ogawa.

The story revolves around the life of a 12-year-old girl called Tomoko who, due to her mother’s job circumstances, temporarily moves around 100 miles to the east to live with her cousin Mina’s family. The novel is about 280 pages long, out of which I have read around 120 pages so far. It reads like a heart-warming story up to this point, with every character in the book nice and kind to Tomoko. However, it’s still relatively early in the story, so I have no idea what the future holds for her.

Incidentally, I am reading the English translation of the novel, as I want to study a few English words and phrases while I enjoy the story. Stephen Snyder’s skillful translation flows very smoothly, and I find the text pleasant to read.

As is always the case with English books, I come across several words I’m unfamiliar with, and look them up one by one in the dictionary on my smartphone. Looking up words while reading a book may sound like a grind to some people, but I find the experience rather enjoyable as I get to acquire new knowledge and deepen my understanding of this beautiful language.

As an example, from this novel I’ve learned words like platypus—a mammal native to Australia with a bill shaped like that of a duck—and rhinoceros beetle, an insect particularly popular among Japanese schoolboys. I know the Japanese words for these creatures, but up until now I didn’t know their English equivalents as they rarely come up in my conversations with native speakers, if at all.

It is words like these that remind me of the importance of active, deliberate learning of words in a foreign language, instead of passively waiting for them to be acquired through natural exposure. You can live for years, if not decades, in an English-speaking country without coming across terms like rhombus and parallelogram, but that doesn’t mean they are unknown to native speakers—quite the opposite, as these concepts are imparted to schoolchildren through compulsory education.

I wish I could claim that I have acquired most of my English proficiency through natural means—otherwise known as comprehensible input—such as having conversations with native speakers and entertaining myself with native content like comic books, television series and movies. It would certainly sound cooler than memorizing words with flashcards and doing countless grammar exercises.

However, the reality is that language acquisition for adult learners can only be effectively achieved through conscious and deliberate efforts. While reading books and watching shows and movies in a foreign language can be a great deal of fun, learning a language to a very high level of proficiency is not always fun and games. How fluent I can become in English ultimately depends on how much hard work I am willing to put in. I hope to stay mindful of this fact while I enjoy reading novels like Mina’s Matchbox.

Sounds Too Dystopian? It's the Reality in Japan!

A few weeks ago, I read a nonfiction book titled People Who Can No Longer Read (本を読めなくなった人たち), authored by Toyoshi Inada. It documents how reading has become much less common among Japanese people in recent years and discusses the reasons behind its decline, as well as the effects it’s had on people’s vocabulary and how they acquire knowledge and information necessary to survive in this era. I read it with great interest and found it extremely thought-provoking.

According to the latest statistics, more than 60 percent of the Japanese population aged 16 and above read fewer than one book per month. Moreover, a vast majority do not read magazines or newspapers and rely solely on free Internet sources such as YouTube and X for news and information.

Inada argues that the advent of the smartphone in the late aughts and the attendant ascendance of social media has led to a gradual change in the way people acquire knowledge and information. Nowadays, it’s no longer common for young people to visit websites affiliated with traditional news media such as newspapers or television stations to get the latest news; instead, they find out what’s going on in the world through Line News and X’s Trending section—two of Japan’s most popular social media outlets. 

Young people rarely have newspaper subscriptions and, rather than proactively searching for specific news topics, they passively consume whatever headlines appear on their phones as determined by the algorithm of their preferred social media. Although many of these pop-up headlines come with a web link to the relevant article, most of them can’t even be bothered to click to read it, leaving them only superficially aware of what’s happening around the world—and they repeat the same process day after day.

As a result of consuming only bite-sized pieces of text on their smartphones, most young and middle-aged people have lost their ability or patience to understand lengthy articles in Japanese, causing them to stay away from books in favor of videos and podcasts. These days, if they want to get a good understanding of a certain subject, they won’t pick up a book to read; instead, they will find relevant YouTube videos and watch them at double speed.

Moreover, not reading books has led to a substantial diminution of their vocabulary, leaving them incapable of understanding words that are only slightly advanced or profound. When you come across in a book too many words you don’t know, you will no doubt be frustrated and eventually give up reading it altogether, creating a vicious circle in which people will gradually lose their only effective means to access knowledge and wisdom.

Inada also argues that one of the reasons Japanese people read less than before is that Japan has become considerably poorer compared to its economic heyday in the mid 1990s, when its GDP per capita was roughly on a par with that of the U.S. Fast-forward to 2026, the Americans are two and a half times as rich as the Japanese. People used to be able to buy books without worrying about their price tags, but it’s no longer the case now—books have become luxury items that can only be afforded by rich people.

The phenomena described in this book might sound too dystopian to some people, but I am convinced that they are indeed taking place in Japan. During my recent visit to my hometown, I was dismayed to find that one of my favorite neighborhood bookstores had substantially shrunk in size due to poor business. I also noticed that whenever I got on a commuter train or sat down at a Starbucks for coffee, more often than not I was the only person reading a book—most of the others were either looking at their smartphones or tapping away on their laptops.

All this makes me sad, but at the same time I feel fortunate to be still fond of reading in this age of smartphones and artificial intelligence, and be able to afford most books. This is a privilege I should never take for granted. There is nothing much I can do to reverse this deplorable trend in Japan, but the least I can do is help Japan’s struggling publishing industry and bookstores by purchasing books and enjoying them to my heart’s content whenever I travel there.

Should I Go for Original or Translation?

Yesterday evening, I went to the Lido Theatre in the Orchard area to watch the latest Hong Kong movie Night King (夜王) starring Dayo Wong and Sammi Cheng. I was expecting to watch the original Cantonese version but it turned out to be the dubbed version in Mandarin. At first, I was a bit disappointed, but as I watched on I found myself enjoying the film, so it was worth my while after all. 

It is often said that movies are best enjoyed in the original sound rather than dubbed. I myself subscribed to that idea for a long time, not only for films, but also for books. For this reason, I was reluctant to buy translated books if the original was written in a language I understood—either Japanese, English, Chinese, or French. 

However, my view gradually began to change around 2008, when I encountered in a Singaporean bookstore a comic book titled Le Journal de mon père, the French translated version of the late Japanese manga artist Jiro Taniguchi’s masterpiece Chichi no Koyomi (父の暦). I bought it to study French, but as I progressed through the pages I became so engrossed in the story that I no longer cared what language it was in. 

As I found out later, Japanese manga is quite popular in France, and numerous comic books have been translated into French. Jiro Taniguchi—whose drawing style was heavily influenced by French bande dessinée—is particularly well known among Francophone readers. There is a robust demand for Japanese-French translation, and the market mechanism based on competition all but assures the quality of the final product.

When I first read Le Journal de mon père, I was impressed by the smoothness and fluidity of its French translation. Inevitably, some of the original nuances in Japanese might have been lost, but the result was not necessarily inferior to the original version.

I believe that, as long as the translator is skillful enough, the content will not be watered down, although it will take on a slightly different flavor when presented in another language. Whether this new flavor is likable or not is all subjective—it’s up to each reader’s taste and preference. In some instances, translated versions might even be clearer and easier to digest, having gone through an extra layer of processing and refinement in the head of the translator.

Since I’m no longer obsessed with enjoying books, movies, or shows in their original versions, sometimes I opt for translated versions as the fancy takes me.

For example, over the years I’ve read the English and French translations of a few novels by Haruki Murakami, and the French and Chinese translations of Jiro Taniguchi’s comic books, savoring the distinct flavor of each of these languages. As for nonfiction books—including those originally written in English—I prefer to read most of them in Japanese for a better level of comprehension and a faster reading speed.

In addition, I occasionally watch Japanese movies and shows dubbed into English, for learning new words and expressions and enjoying the sound of this language, while still managing to catch up on the subtleties of the dialogue and understand the societal and cultural background behind the story line. Netflix has numerous Japanese productions that are dubbed into English, and I find their dubbing quality to be quite decent.

Returning to the topic of Hong Kong movies like the one I watched yesterday, it used to be that they were all dubbed into Mandarin when shown here in Singapore, due to the government’s linguistic policy promoting the use of Mandarin over dialects, such as Cantonese and Hokkien. 

However, in recent years, the government has loosened this policy, resulting in some films being shown in Cantonese. I wouldn’t mind watching them in either language, since I like both Mandarin and Cantonese. That said, I’d prefer it if there were more options going forward, rather than having just one version forced onto the general public.

I’m looking forward to catching another Hong Kong movie soon—I’ll check the movie listings more carefully next time to make sure it’s shown in the language of my choice.

A Fun-Filled Day Free of Tasks

Yesterday was a Saturday, and I had a relaxing day doing things I truly enjoy. Normally, on weekends, I run a few errands, such as getting a haircut, shopping for groceries, or having a part-time helper clean my apartment. However, yesterday I had the whole day free of tasks, which really felt like heaven.

Having gone to bed rather late the previous night, I didn’t wake up until around 9 in the morning. I spent some time watching YouTube videos while trying to get fully awake. I came across a video of the American singer-songwriter Charlie Puth’s rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, performed at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles last Sunday. Being fond of the melody of the American national anthem, I pressed play out of curiosity, not knowing what to expect as I hadn’t even heard of a Charlie Puth before.

Within a few seconds I was blown away by his performance. Before singing the actual lyrics, he hummed for a fleeting moment as he tinkled a few notes on his electric keyboard to set the tone for the song. It had a gospel feel to it, somewhat reminiscent of the organ intro to Whitney Houston’s Jesus Loves Me. Those few bars were immediately refreshing, resulting in me getting goose bumps all over.

The rest of the song was equally enchanting. Charlie Puth’s mostly soothing yet at times powerful and explosive voice blended seamlessly with his mellow organ music, along with the voices of a gospel choir and a cameo appearance by legendary saxophonist Kenny G, made for a perfect mix of delightful audio sensations for viewers.

Aside from this outstanding music, what made the performance visually striking was the flyover of US Air Force fighter jets that was choreographed to occur at the exact moment the song ended. It was something miraculous to behold, leaving an indelible impression.

I read on the Internet afterward that Charlie Puth sang the Star-Spangled Banner partly as a tribute to late Whitney Houston’s Super Bowl performance in 1991, largely considered the best rendition ever of the US national anthem by a professional singer. I’ve watched that performance countless times and fully agree that her voice is truly unparalleled and impeccable—it will likely remain unbeaten for decades to come—though this time Charlie did a fantastic job that will go down in history in its own right.

In addition to Whitney and Charlie, singer and guitarist Chris Stapleton also delivered a truly memorable performance at the Super Bowl a few years ago, as I discovered in a related YouTube video. I can’t seem to get tired of watching and comparing various versions of this historical song by different artists, and will surely continue checking out new ones as they get posted on social media.

After having fun watching YouTube, I went to a cafe in my neighborhood for a change of scene, where I did some reading over a cup of delicious latte. I started reading a gay-themed comic series by Japanese manga artist Gengoroh Tagame titled Our Colorful Days.

I am reading the French version, bought during my previous trip to Paris. Inside, there are numerous words and phrases I don’t know, mainly in colloquial language. I mark them with a highlighter so I can look them up later. Although I currently learn French vocabulary mainly from my Larousse French-Japanese dictionary, comic books can serve as a great supplement for my study, especially as it relates to learning informal spoken language.

I ended the day by watching the latest Japanese movie titled This is I on Netflix, based on the autobiography by the transgender comedian Ai Haruna. It was a part-drama, part-musical film, interspersed with famous Japanese pop tunes from the 80s and 90s. Having grown up listening to those songs, the movie brought back some old memories from the past, filling me with nostalgia.

This is I is a heart-warming story revolved around the lives and struggles of Ai and Koji Wada, the doctor who performed her gender-affirming surgery, showcasing exquisite acting by 18-year-old Haruki Mochizuki in his movie debut. As most of the story takes place in Osaka, the dialogue is mainly in the Kansai dialect of Japanese, adding a distinct flavor to the drama. I’m glad I watched it with the original Japanese audio in that sense.

What a fun-filled day yesterday turned out to be! It enabled me to fully recharge my batteries in preparation for the upcoming work week. My profession and study surely give me a sense of purpose, but it needs to be balanced with relaxation and entertainment for me to have a well-rounded life. I hope to stay mentally active for the coming decades by continuing to draw new inspirations from books, cinema, and the arts of all kinds.

No Secret Other than Studying, Exposure, and Practice!

Image: いらすとや

I am currently reading a book which deals with the topic of how tiny nations like Denmark, Luxembourg, and Singapore have become successful and affluent over the past few decades by deploying strategic macroeconomic policies, developing industries best suited to today’s global economic needs, and cultivating a population that continues to retrain and reinvent itself. 

Japan used to be highly prosperous and was the envy of many in the world economy, but its advantages have waned significantly during the past 30 years or so. Nowadays, it’s placed behind dozens of nations in global rankings of competitiveness. It’s reminiscent of the trajectory taken by Argentina, which used to be one of the wealthiest nations at the beginning of the 20th century, but has since declined into mediocrity due to bad politics and severe mismanagement of its economy.

Since I don’t know much about economic theories, I can only approach this issue from the perspective of language learning. One of the common denominators allowing the aforementioned tiny economies to thrive and prosper is a workforce that’s well versed in the English language.

I don’t believe there is anything inherently superior about English in relation to other major languages such as French and Chinese, but since it has effectively attained the status of the sole lingua franca of international commerce, proficiency in the English language has become a must in terms of being on top of the latest trends in the world economy and thereby staying competitive.

In terms of outstanding English proficiency, Nordic countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden come to mind, along with the Benelux countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Curious about their advanced levels in English, I asked ChatGPT about what makes people of these nations so fluent in English, and it came back with some very informative answers.

According to ChatGPT, people in these countries have more ample opportunity to consume native English content—such as TV series, movies, and novels—compared to people in countries like France, Spain, and Italy. In the former, Hollywood films are normally released in original audio with subtitles, whereas in the latter, they tend to be dubbed into the local tongue in cinemas. Constant exposure to native content allows viewers to develop familiarity with vocabulary and sentence patterns of English, leading them to consume even more content.

In another comparison, schools in the Netherlands tend to start teaching English as a subject at a younger age than in Japan, and their class hours are consistently more numerous from elementary school all the way to university level. Without even considering the linguistic proximity of the Dutch language to English, the sheer amount of English education they receive affords Dutch students an overwhelming advantage over their Japanese peers.

Much closer to home, Singapore offers schoolchildren an immersive environment in which they learn English and effectively grow up as its native speakers despite coming from households that speak Chinese, Malay or Tamil. In Singapore’s education system, English is the medium of instruction in all subjects except for the Mother Tongue Language class administered according to each student’s ethnic background.

In my opinion, most ordinary Singaporeans speak English in a form that deviates from what’s considered standard in British or American English, committing tiny grammar errors here and there, but that doesn’t prevent them from being effective communicators in English, allowing them to convey their ideas clearly to their interlocutors from around the world. This, combined with their knowledge of their respective mother tongues, put them at a great advantage in international commerce.

The success in developing fluency in English—or any other language—ultimately comes down to the amount of exposure, studying, and practice. Ignoring this rule and hoping to become fluent by some miracle is simply a pipe dream that will never come to fruition. I need to remind myself of this fact whenever I feel lost in my language-learning journey.