Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson wrote:

> I was watching - or rather, the BYJW was watching - Who Wants to be a
> Millionaire at the weekend, and they had some top fortune teller on
> (obviously not good enough to have divined the answers beforehand, but
> that's another matter) who, shock horror, was actually going to give
> her prize money to charity, some one supporting kiddies' education in
> Africa!

Well, back when there was Koko ga Hen Da Yo Nihonjin on, Zomahoun Rufin,
the excitable stuttering man from Benin who somehow got himself to China
for a master's degree, then worked most of the day in a small factory in
Japan to put himself through a master's program here (losing part of one
finger in the process when he operated a machine asleep) while living in
what I believe was a cheap old one room apartment, he wrote a book in
Japanese called Zomahoun no hon, donating all proceeds to building
elementary schools in rural areas in his home country of Benin, in areas
where there were no schools and no teachers, and the alternative for
children was field labor. Finding willing teachers who could speak the
local language was a problem (eventually he had to recruit people from
teacher's college), and it was difficult to convince parents and elders
that children should be schooled instead of helping with farm work, but a
nice little concrete school could be built from scratch, for 6 million
yen. At last count (the show was canceled soon after) I believe there
were three schools, all bearing Beat Takeshi's name for popularizing
Zomahoun, his country, and his cause.

Zomahoun, for some strange reason, ONLY accepted money for his cause from
sales of his book (it went through numerous printings, but now has lost
popularity), and did not accept cash donations. He even returned cash
that people had sent him via the show. If he wanted as much money as
possible for building schools in Benin (who knows how the schools are
funded now, as the government was unwilling or unable to support them in
the first place), he should take cash from all the people who were
willing to give.

I do not recall the title of the show, but there also used to be one of
those Japanese game shows on which only celebrities appeared (why do they
do this in Japan) and prizes were donations to charities such as, IIRC,
some cause in Southeast Asia.

> Well, after she bought some Edo-era black pottery tea cup she had her
> eye on, of course, she'd give the change to a good cause, if there was
> any left.
>
> My wife pointed out she already does consultations for up to 3 million
> yen a session, so she was just playing for a couple of days' salary,
> but even with remarkably easy questions she still failed on the last
> one.

Yeah, I don't get why these Japanese celebrities, some of whom make
millions of dollars a year, are the ones playing for what amounts to
pocket money (and bitching when they don't win or make a mistake) or tiny
trinkets such as inch tall crystal figurines, instead of allowing common
people to play and win more than postcard drawings during the closing
credits.

> Over the holidays, I also watched the Woody Allen film "Small Time
> Crooks", where he and Tracey Ullman play two poor, unsophisticated
> people who gain far too much money,

KG II would tell you there is no such thing. They deserved that money
somehow.

> and fill their new penthouse flat
> with exceptionally gaudy, expensive tat in order to try to impress
> people.

Recently I've decided my "interesting car" will be a Japanese made
vintage car such as a Nissan from the early 80s or older, or maybe one of
those black and white type AE 86 Toyota Corolla turbo coupes.

http://tinyurl.com/yvqe8    Right here at home.
http://tinyurl.com/25l3h    Another reason for me to check out Tomioka
City.

> I was taken by how similar their portrayal of that situation
> was to the endless Japanese shows where we see inside rich people's
> homes and are supposed to be impressed by the price tags on the
> wall-to-wall shite they have piled up.

I love those shows. I'll never forget the guy who went from being someone
who never went to high school, to the richest guy in town. He started a
construction company and now has a five floor replica of a Japanese
castle on a hill (appointed inside with purple crushed velvet, etc., to
make it look like a hostess club or love hotel) and has a stable of
exotic cars such as a Lamborghini Countach he claimed was his car for
going out to eat ramen. Just the plain looking metal door on the gate to
the house cost 30 million yen. He had two high school aged kids who were
embarrassed. The little shits should try growing up poor to learn to
appreciate what they have.

Then there is that woman who keeps on buying enormous gems, bragging for
years that she wants to be the walking 100 oku. She has the money and
enough jewelry, so I can't imagine why she simply does not do it.

Recently I've realized that I'm doing the things I was not allowed to do
while growing up, and also what my father was not allowed to do after
getting married.

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