The article begins: "Monday was Sea Day in Japan, a public holiday when many people escape the summer heat by swimming, surfing and lounging at the beach. But not Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi."
Work-life balance is important. Sleep is important. But here, I'm more interested in a Prime Minister talking about ironing undergarments and accomplishing tiny sewing repairs. What is this theater of humility? Also, that holiday: Sea Day.
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She’s fulfilling a fundamental need. Bringing order to chaos.
After a hard day at the office, they’re appropriate decompressing me-time activities.
Skipping the one Sea Day though, seems like a giant miss. Unless you hate crowds like I do. Then it’s perfect.
Politics is attractive to lazy shitbags.
That is why people who work hard and get things done like Takaichi and Trump are anathema in political class circles.
Nebraska needs a Sea Day holiday.
While trying to picture the PM " ironing her underwear,' a picture of Marie Kondo folding her shirts like envelopes and then arranging them in clothes boxes by color came to mind. Okay tgen.
Why would you go to the beach on the one day when everyone goes to the beach? I think it is a good day to catch up on little things around the house. Go to the beach on another day.
Isn't there a danger of Japan tipping over if everybody goes to the beach at the same time?
A more important question than whether Prime Minister T's underwear is crisp or whether she gets enough sleep: Is she getting the job done?
Also probably a lot more work for her to go to the beach than to stay home quietly ironing her panties.
I like beaches. I don't like crowded ones, and so I might very well prefer ironing underwear. Though my preference might be something else altogether.
To each his own.
People bragging about how little they sleep is tiresome, especially when they're grown-ass people. There are times in life, situations and phases, when we all get little sleep. But most of the time it's strictly by choice; nothing to brag about (obviously, I'm not talking about insomnia, which is still nothing to brag about). Boring.
I've known, and still know, too many people who do that, like it's a virtue or something. Again, boring. And annoying.
There's no such thing as a grueling sleep schedule so that's a fail.
Finally a world leader that in at least one respect is “like Trump,” and it would actually be true. But since industrious and needing little rest are both anodyne comparisons neither will lead the article with a “just like Trump” lede. Only negative comparisons can apply.
Sea Day came from literally thousands local Shintō ceremonies dedicated to the local sea spirit -- "O great kami of the waves, grant me a bountiful catch. In return for your blessing, I give you this 1000-yen Occupation Not (for your priests, natch,) and this carton of Luckies a GI gave me for your smoking pleasure". In the late seventies when Japan came under pressure from a host of self-righteous environmentalists. (People who never got evicted from their dwellings because daddy's little boat came home without a fish once too often.) To quiet the ruckus and unify all the ceremonies into one national holiday, the Diet passed a law establishing Sea Day, a national celebration of the sanctity of the marine environment. If you're in the fishing industry, you turn out and do the obeisances. If not, you take the day off.
Some mornings I can't proofread.
Occupation Note, dammit!
A living experience.
Everybody broadcasts virtue signals regarding this or that. If you'er a leftist you do nothing else, 24-7. Sea Day is intended to broadcast 100,000,000 radiated virtue watts once a year.
I feel you, Quaestor. I swear I chose “industriousness” from Apple’s tricky-while-purporting-to-helpful “predictive” feature that, of late, has absolutely refused to predict the most common usages of multisyllabic words and forces me to peck in every letter or, it’s latest favorite trick, offers the exact spelling I want but in the 0.2 seconds it takes my finger to get to it the word changes. Drastically. Because many of the “IDK” responses are also words that can articulate conservative and traditional American ideas and, especially in context of r@ce or tr@ns issues, reflect common sense*, I am suspicious. I already lived through MS Office doing this exact thing in Word. It’s almost passive censorship.
Being prime minister of Japan is not exactly a day at the beach.
Some people love being surrounded by a vast ocean of humanity. Others don't. Why do people kvetch about what others do for fun? I would say it's malignant insecurity, the mother of irrational fear.
I like her. It's a ridiculously hard job. And she's a fighter.
Ann said, "Go to the beach on another day." Yes, that is exactly our mantra down here in the land of beaches.
I know people who find ironing relaxing. (I am not one of them.)
I've commented on this before, but arguably the most common trait of successful executives is almost indefatigable energy, often manifest in part by only needing a small amount of sleep. I've known a few successful CEOs, and spending a few days with them can be truly exhausting. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are rare enough to fit the cliché of "the exception that proves the rule."
What is probably not in the story, is that undergarment, the Prime Minister is so fond of, was a gift to her from a secret sect of Tibetan women, who voluntarily vowed silenced, it's the only way they found peace and a quarrel-less existence.
The secret sect is only found on the steep side of the Himalayas. The prime minister had exchanged letters, it's very difficult to send letters to the steep side of the Himalayas. But, somehow they managed to one day send the future PM a box of trinkets, among which included a handwoven, they don't have sowing machines in the steep side of the Himalayas, a handwoven undergarment, made of the best silk only found... you guest it, on the steep side of the Himalayas.
The PM's undergarment is amongst the PM most prized possessions.
That was a bit in the style of the Great Norm Macdonald. (No ai's were used nor abused in the production of this material.)
I'm with the PM & Trump on the sleep thing. Three or four hours is enough. Fifteen years ago, I logged a couple more.
Now, at 83, I'm not about to waste any of my "extra time" (a little World Cup lingo, there), sleeping.
Official holidays in Japan are a Big Deal. If you're planning a trip, I'd try to avoid Golden Week, altogether.
I don't iron undies, but getting the wrinkles out of a hundred or so dinner napkins also removes a lot of stress (mindless repetitive activity will do that). I don't do paper or plastic knives and forks at the table (when I visit my favorite Mexican dive, I bring my own eating gear).
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