Cool aerial photographs

Photographer Jason Hawkes posts a selection of aerial photographs he's taken over the years. Very mellowness-inducing!





—Mellow Monk

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Where the tea plant originated

Here's another excerpt from Green Gold:

No one knows for certain exactly where or when the tea plant, Camelia sinensis, originated, or even when or by whom it was first domesticated. What is known is that the tree evolved somewhere in the jungles of the eastern Himalayas, where in an amazingly rapid evolutionary development, the great varieties in temperature and micro-climate caused by the mountains rising from tropical lowlands, combined with the heaviest rainfall in the world as the monsoon clouds hit the outlying Himalayas, made it the most varied and rich region for plants in the world.

It seems likely that parts of the tea tree were first chewed by monkeys and other mammals indigenous to this region. Homo sapiens spread into the area between sixty and a hundred thousands years ago, and, perhaps taking their cue from the monkeys, early tribesmen began chewing tea and found it to be stimulating and relaxing to mind and body. It helped when carrying out arduous tasks, such as tramping through jungles and up mountainsides; indeed, people still chew tea leaves for this purpose: in Turkistan, for example, as Serena Hardy writes in The Tea Book, they chew used tea leaves, which "helps to allay fatigue on a journey when food is scarce."

See a previous post about this book here.

—Mellow Monk

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A Japanese bandit queen

Recently I came across this page about women pirates who were less well known than their male counterparts.

The page reminded me of a passage from the extraordinary book
Confessions of a Yakuza. In the mid-1920s, the protagonist, a Japanese yakuza, was drafted and sent to Manchuria, China—which Japan had invaded after its victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. On page 122 of the book, he mentions a female bandit there named "Okiku of Manchuria."

The place [Manchuria] was crawling with warlords, bandits, and so on, who did more or less what they liked—I mean, there wasn't any proper government, so it was every man for himself, and a lot of people who couldn't make a living in Japan drifted over there hoping to get rich. A fair number of them became bandits, apparently. There was a woman called "Okiku of Manchuria," for instance—she was one of the best known—who was supposed to be a force to reckon with there, with at least five thousand followers of her own.

A Google search in English turned up zip, but a search in Japanese turned up a reference in a review [in Japanese] of a book titled Sonbun no Onna ("The Women of Sun Yat-sen "; written by Masaaki Nishiki and published in 2005 by Bungei Shunju). (The book's title is taken from a section of the book dealing with two Japanese women with whom Sun Yat-sen was romantically involved while he lived in Japan; Okiku herself has nothing to do with the Chinese revolutionary.)

The brief summary of the chapter of the book dedicated to Okiku of Manchuria says only that she was "sold from Amakusa (in Kumamoto, Japan) to Korea, became a bandit in Manchuria, and eventually drifted to Siberia."

Sounds like a fascinating story. Being intrigued by obscure figures in history, I may just have to get this book.

—Mellow Monk

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Green tea and lung cancer

A study conducted at the University of Washington suggests that green tea may help prevent lung cancer, although the researchers conclude that "[f]uture studies are needed to determine how green tea affects the genes associated with cell cycle regulation and apoptosis during the mouse lung carcinogenesis process."

—Mellow Monk

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The myth of sleep disorders

According to this article, even though disturbed sleep is one of the most common complaints that doctors receive, and even though the use of sleep medications has increased by 60 percent in the last 5 years alone, those perceived sleep problems are based on a false assumption—that it's normal to get 7 or 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night:

After an average of three to five hours of solid sleep, the subjects [in a landmark sleep study] would awaken and spend an hour or two of peaceful wakefulness before a second three- to five-hour sleep period. Such bimodal sleep has been observed in many other animals and also in humans who live in pre-industrial societies lacking artificial light.

—Mellow Monk

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An action hero belt for grown men

A Japanese toy manufacturer has released a reproduction of a belt worn by the hero in the 1970s TV show Kamen Rider ("Masked Rider"). The belt is being marketed to middle-aged men who watched the show as kids.

What's the difference between the kids' version and the adult version, you ask?

Why, the waist size, of course!





—Mellow Monk

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Vitamin B-12 for seasonal allergies

From Men's Journal:

New research suggests that taking vitamin B-12 could make seasonal allergies a thing of the past. Possible side effects include unstoppable immune function, sharper mental focus, and boundless energy.

—Mellow Monk

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Keys to happiness

This article on the keys to happiness—and why we don't use them—is a comprehensive summary of a lot of straightforward philosophies that we've probably all heard before, but then again, sometimes a refresher course is a good thing.

For instance:

Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

"Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to [Gregg] Easterbrook [author of The Progress Paradox : How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse]. "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."

—Mellow Monk

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The chainsaw-wielding senior at the magazine rack

Police in Japan recently arrested a 70-year-old man after he threatened convenience-store clerks with a chainsaw.

The man had been browsing magazines for 3 hours when the manager finally asked him to either buy something or leave. He chose the latter, but then showed up soon after with a running chainsaw. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Apparently, the man was a fixture at the convenient store, coming in to browse magazines in marathon sessions on a daily basis.

Anyone who's been to Japan has surely seen the throngs of non-buying browsers at bookstores and magazine racks. I've always wondered why the booksellers are so patient with them, allowing them to browse to their heart's content instead of chasing them away.

Now I know why.

—Mellow Monk

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Tea to dethrone coffee?

From the New Jersey Express-Times:

Tea is set to dethrone coffee as America's beverage of choice. For health, for taste, for enjoyment, tea is catching on.

—Mellow Monk

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Making an adhesive bandage stay on longer

This video clip from a Japanese TV show demonstrates how to make an ordinary adhesive bandage (Band Aid) stay on longer, especially when applied to a finger.

The audio is in Japanese, but the step-by-step visuals are fairly self-explanatory. The reason that this trick is effective is that the adhesive strips form a tighter seal around the finger, keeping out the water that would ordinarily seep in and weaken the adhesive.

—Mellow Monk

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Depression switch?

Doctors have developed a new surgical procedure to treat severe, treatment-resistant depression by targeting a specific area of the brain that has been linked to the disease:

The operation borrowed a procedure called deep brain stimulation, or D.B.S., which is used to treat Parkinson's. It involves planting electrodes in a region near the center of the brain called Area 25 and sending in a steady stream of low voltage from a pacemaker in the chest.

—Mellow Monk

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Beat insomnia naturally

Speaking of insomnia, here are a few more commonsense tips for beating it naturally.





—Mellow Monk

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Space slideshow

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a Flash slideshow titled "Year in Images: 2005." Pretty cool.

My only gripe: There's no pause button. After the slideshow, you're taken to a gallery of the same images.

—Mellow Monk

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Beat insomnia with only slight changes in your lifestyle

Here is an article about experimenting with various lifestyle changes to overcome insomnia without relying on drugs.

The first example in the article is about a woman who, at the suggestion of a friend, cut out coffee in the afternoon. As soon as she did, she started sleeping like a baby.

As a way to reduce your caffeine intake, switching to green tea is a healthy alternative to going cold turkey. Not only does green tea have only about one-third to one-quarter the caffeine of coffee, but the antioxidants in green tea slow the body's uptake of caffeine. This assures a more constant level of caffeine in the bloodstream, avoiding the jolt-and-crash changes associated with coffee.

—Mellow Monk

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Thou shalt drink green tea to lose weight

Commandment Number 2 in diet guru Charles Stuart Platkin's "five-pound panic" diet is:

Thou shalt drink green tea every day. It sounds crazy but it's true: Green tea helps burn fat. Two recent studies showed a 4 percent increase in metabolism in subjects who consumed green tea (rich in catechins, a type of antioxidant) at each meal versus a placebo. This may seem insignificant, but a woman who requires 1,800 calories a day could burn an extra 500 calories per week just by making this small change. That's an average of seven lost pounds per year!

—Mellow Monk

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Movie of D.C. cherry blossom festival

The Washington Post has a movie of the 2006 Cherry Blossom Festival, including an exhibition bout by members of the American Sumo Association.

(Warning: Before the 2-minute movie starts, you have to sit through a 30-second non-skippable commercial.)

—Mellow Monk

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Amazing rainbow pics

Check out these rainbow pictures. Pretty cool!





—Mellow Monk

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The role of trade in the global spread of tea

Here's another excerpt from Green Gold: The Empire of Tea. Here, the author writes about how foreign trade flows explain the great imbalance in the adoption of tea drinking in the 17th and 18th centuries between the British, who took to tea like a fish takes to water, and the Germans, Italians, and other Western Europeans who ended up incorporating coffee into their culture instead.

Why was tea largely restricted to the British at first? ... Why did tea not take off in France or Germany? One might surmise that the peculiar set of conditions that encouraged it in England—the abhorrence of drinking water, the rising price of beer because of the malt taxes, the trade system based on tea—led to a different outcome. If we add to this the relative affluence of the British middling sorts, who could afford to experiment with the new drink, the fact that the British were already used to hot drinks such as heated ale, possets, toddies and punches, and the enormous push given to tea by the East India Company, who had a monopoly of the import, we can see some of the reasons for its success. As is often the case in history, starting from almost imperceptible differences, the gap grew greater. So the French drank coffee as their luxury, as did the Germans. The fact that the Dutch and the British had interests in the Far East, where tea grew, while the French, Germans, Italians and Portuguese, in so far as they had trade connections, mainly focused on Africa, parts of India and South America, is clearly very important. [pgs 72-73]

—Mellow Monk

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The stress of air travel

Here's an excerpt I liked from Jim Lewis's "Notes from the Land of Nod," published in issue 88 of Granta:

Flight attendants will insist that they are merely ensuring public safety and the smooth performance of whatever corporation they work for. Still, they may have more power over you, more legal right to limit your movement, than anyone else you'll ever encounter. You'd have roomier quarters and a better range of entertainment in a small-town jail cell on a Sunday night. An airplane is an almost perfect device for torture; and so you arrive at your destination, not just tired but insane.

—Mellow Monk

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Online guided meditation

Speaking of meditation, Beliefnet.com has a 10-minute guided meditation session that you can do online, with an accompanying slideshow.

—Mellow Monk

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Smithsonian photo contest winners

The winning entries in Smithsonian magazine's 3rd annual photography contest are viewable online.

One of the categories is travel.





—Mellow Monk

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Excerpt from "Meditations with Tea"

Another book on tea I've been reading is Diana Rosen's Meditations With Tea: Paths to Inner Peace, which, true to the title, is literally about using tea as the centerpiece of a relaxing, mellowness-inducing meditation experience.

In the introduction, the author describes her very first experience with meditation—nothing structured or guided by a teacher, just quiet relaxation taken to the next level:

In the beginning, on the advice and counsel of a friend, I began to sit quietly each day and "not think."

The first day I lasted about a minute.

The rattle-rattle in my head of deafening. The next day, I lasted a minute again. I could not let go of the fear that if I was still and let myself be at rest there would be nothing there. Or, there would be things I did not want to know or be reminded about. The fear was so intense, I abandoned the practice for weeks until my friend said, "Just try again." Imagine light or dark, he advised; invite good feelings, love, God, whatever you want, to pour into your being and go to that place of stillness that can quiet the mind completely.

The next morning, I sat upright on my chair, relaxed my arms, breathed in and out with a few deep breaths, and invited dark velvet to drape over me. I continued my measured breathing. I thought of the dark velvet under me, over me .... I do not know how long I was in that state when a thought interrupted, saying, "I feel so relaxed, like in a dream." I opened my eyes and noticed that I had been meditating for twenty minutes. Eureka! What was really exciting was how great and energized I felt, and the feeling lasted throughout the day. I believed that I had made a new beginning, a new start." [pgs. xiv-xv]

It's interesting that sometimes the first thing to be overcome in achieving this deep relaxation is the fear of being alone with our thoughts.

I'll be posting more excerpts from this very intriguing book. Stay tuned!





—Mellow Monk

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Fido, take your human for a walk

Previously I've posted about the positive health effects of pets. (In that case, findings showed that hospital visits by dogs improved the survival chances of heart attack victims.)

Now a Candadian study shows another benefit of having a four-legged friend: They help us get more exercise. (And you thought you were taking the dog for a walk.)

—Mellow Monk

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Japanese toilets a hit in U.S.

Japan's toilet manufacturer Toto has built a factory in Mexico to keep up with growing demand in the U.S. for its high-end (no pun intended) toilets with built-in bidet features.

—Mellow Monk

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The Three Stooges didn't patent it

I took this photo of a display in the front window of a hobby shop at San Francisco Japantown.





The caption reads: "Dateline WWII: The allies foil another axis offensive."

—Mellow Monk

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American celebs in Japanese TV commercials

They thought you'd never see these commercials here in America, but the Internet is making it possible.

Japander.com (a play on the words "Japan" and "pander," as in to hawk) is a veritable database of past commercials that American celebrities have done in Japan.

However, new "entries" in this database are likely to be scarcer than before: As mentioned in a previous post, American celebrities aren't as sought after by Japan advertisers as they were in the '80s or '90s.

—Mellow Monk

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10 worst foods

Running/jogging magazine Time to Run has a list of the 10 worst foods you can eat. Topping the list is of course ... Oh, why spoil the surprise.

—Mellow Monk

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Have your ears dewaxed while you wait

A new niche in the Japan's service industry is arising: the ear-dewaxing salon. It's a place where you pay about $4 for a 10-minute ear-cleaning session. You can even view the inside of your own ear via the tiny camera mounted to the technician's high-tech ear pick.

The founder of these salons is obviously a very shrewd businessperson:

The concept behind the new establishments is to give people the pleasant feeling some had as children when they would rest their heads on their mothers' laps and have their ears cleaned.

Here is a brief Wikipedia entry on ear-picking in Japan.

—Mellow Monk

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Family owned and operated

What gives?

According to this article, a tea import company called Dragon Pearl Tea Company is billing itself as “the only American tea company buying directly from the farm.”

Obviously, they've never heard of Mellow Monk.

Not only does Mellow Monk buy directly from the farm—we may well be the only American tea company buying directly from tea farms that are family owned and operated. (The "family operated" part is important, because strictly speaking, a family-owned tea plantation that uses a lot of poorly paid, poorly treated laborers could still call itself a "family-owned tea farm.")

You can read about Mellow Monk's growers here.

—Mellow Monk

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The global spread of tea

Here's an interesting quote from Alan and Iris Macfarlane's Green Gold: The Empire of Tea:

No one on earth drank tea a few thousand years ago. A few small tribal groups in the jungles of south-east Asia chewed the leaves of the plant, but that was the nearest anyone came to tea drinking. Two thousand years ago it was drunk in a handful of religious communities. By a thousand years ago it was drunk by millions of Chinese. Five hundred years ago over half of the world’s population was drinking tea as their main alternative to water. [pgs. 31-32]

The authors (a mother-and-son team) point out that tea's spread was due to its meeting all of the requirements for an alternative to water, which was made dangerous by waterborne pathogens as humans began forming city-based civilizations:

True tea, made from the Camellia sinensis plant ... can be produced cheaply. The plant which yields it is very productive, giving new leaf every six weeks or so. It grows over quite a range of climatic zones, from central China to East Africa. Just a few leaves are needed to make a good pot of tea and they can be re-used. Dry tea is very light and stores well. It is easily prepared for drinking, but its preparation is sufficiently elaborate to encourage the human love of play and ceremony. It is extremely safe to drink and indeed many believe it has special health benefits. It is attractive because it makes the drinker feel stimulated and relaxed, optimistic and focused. It is mild enough to be drunk throughout the day without any harmful side effects. [pg. 39]

These same reasons explain green tea's growing (or, depending on where you are, continued) popularity today—for green tea is simply Camellia sinensis leaves in their least-processed form.

—Mellow Monk

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Ten tiny Tokyo photos

Have you seen the