Mister_Donut

Just FYI, Sheth is a former high-ranking Starcraft 2 player

To me there is no better essay about the Peace Corps experience than the one written by Paul Theroux in 1986. You can read it in it's entirety here but the part that's stuck with me ever since my father sent it to me when I was having a hard time during my first six months at site is this.

When I think about those years, I don't think much about the Peace Corps, though Malawi is always on my mind. That is surely a tribute to the Peace Corps. I do not believe that Africa is a very different place for having played host to the Peace Corps - in fact, Africa is in a much worse state than it was 20 years ago. But America is quite a different place for having had so many returned Peace Corps volunteers, and when they began joining the State Department and working in the embassies, these institutions were the better for it and had a better-informed and less truculent tone.

Indeed, and many people don't realize that especially for things like immigration issues or sometimes taxes, your Congressman can grease the wheels and get the feds to make exceptions that can really help out if you have some kind of extenuating circumstance or have just generally been given a raw deal.

It also highlights the injustice of denying Washington, DC representation. Yeah, we have a delegate or whatever but nobody really listens to her.

I'm astounded that nobody has mentioned Hikaru no go yet.

I'm sure you're aware of this chart from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare that gives actual numbers to back up your second point.

It also shows that despite long-simmering tensions between Japan and China and Japan and South Korea, inter-marriage is actually quite common. That's not to say that there aren't significant cultural barriers and prejudices, but that clearly doesn't get in the way of those two countries being the most common ones for inter-marriage in Japan.

I am curious how many of the South Korean - Japanese marriages involve 在日韓国 人, though.