NYT : Fear of Committing ?

Elizabeth Yi and her husband, Aaron Daluiski, in their loft with Baxter, right, and Bear. They found a loft they like, even though they say it's not perfect. More Photos >

New York Times :http://www.nytimes.com/pages/realestate/index.html

By TERI KARUSH ROGERS

ON the diving board of dashed hopes and denial paces an unhappy figure: the would-be buyer who shops for years but resists taking the plunge.
Like timid bathers, some just need time to acclimate to the chilly reality of what their money can't buy. That process can take some time. Eventually, though, after long and careful looking, they do take the leap.
But others never do. They focus on flaws and high prices as a way of rationalizing an underlying inability to commit to real estate.
"There are so many levels to this situation," said Dr. Ann S. Maloney, an Upper East Side psychiatrist who recognizes the routine guises of denial. "A lot of people will say they are afraid of losing their investment. The classic is, 'We're looking for a perfect place.' The next one is, 'We're waiting for what we can afford.' "
Such thinking, if prolonged and paired with the inability to make a decision one way or the other, can signal what's known as an obsessional personality. Obsessives, Dr. Maloney explained, adeptly bury their feelings beneath an avalanche of thoughts.
"Most really high-functioning professionals are not overtly anxious because they've sublimated it into very productive lives," she said. But for some, when it comes to real estate, she added: "They overthink it. They're managing their anxiety. An obsessional is caught up with doing the right or wrong thing, meaning they're really caught up in whether it's the perfect time to buy, whether it's the right apartment or wrong apartment."
John C. Prince, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, worked with one couple for three years in their search for a three-bedroom apartment priced from $1 million to $2 million. The pair agonized over ascending prices. "They would send you articles from every sort of newspaper saying the bubble was bursting," Mr. Prince said. "They spent far too long analyzing every market issue." Once, after a half-dozen visits to an apartment, the couple was banned by the seller's broker.
"The head ruled every decision and didn't give way to the heart, so they never fell in love with anything," Mr. Prince said. "It was always too much of a cold decision to make."
A fear of unsound investments, when it gums up the gears of decision-making, can obscure unmet needs.
Sometimes, Dr. Maloney said, "it's really about a need for deprivation," connected to unmet desires in early childhood. "They will perpetuate it in their lives in whatever they do - in relationships, work, purchases, possessions," she said. "It's not about having or getting what you want, it's getting to be angry about not having it. It's about punishing the parent who didn't give it to them."
While brokers aren't usually privy to their clients' psychological skeletons, they do say that people who experience sudden financial success can have a hard time spending, much like a Depression-raised grandparent who continues to hoard tin foil.
Beverly Feingold, a vice president at Halstead Property, recalled the couple she worked with for six years, after the income of the husband, a lawyer in his 50's, skyrocketed unexpectedly. Still, Ms. Feingold said, "They could never quite afford what they thought they wanted." Her wake-up call came when she showed them exactly what they asked for: a pretty, prewar classic five on the Upper East Side in their price range.
"If this apartment were two floors higher, this would be it," the lawyer assured Ms. Feingold, who, two weeks later, located exactly that in the same building.
"I took him to see it and he found something else wrong with it, and that's when I realized he was never going to buy," she said, attributing it to "the fear of losing the position they never really expected to have."
A different group of would-be buyers worries less about holding on than about closing off options. "They're stuck in ambivalence," Dr. Maloney said, "a developmental stage that's usually mastered in adolescence. If you make this choice, you cannot make the other one."
Brokers say they typically encounter this shopper in one of two guises: the perennial bachelor and "the single woman who has never married, who is afraid to commit to an apartment, because she's afraid if she somehow commits to a studio or one-bedroom then she's never going to get married," said Julie Friedman, a senior associate broker at Bellmarc Realty.
More heartbreaking for brokers, perhaps, are the 40-something bachelors with more money to spend but who are as reluctant to promise themselves to an apartment as they are to a mate.
"I have people who've come into me at 40 years old, and, oops, they forgot to get married and have kids," said Maryellyn Duane, an Upper East Side psychologist. "And their story seems to be they can't find the right mate, but that's not reality. They've done things to prevent relationships from working out or gotten anxious when someone gets close."
Lauren Cangiano, a senior vice president at Halstead, described the never-married, 40-ish lawyer she worked with for two and a half years. While living in an Upper East Side one-bedroom rental, he looked at hundreds of neighborhood apartments for a two-bedroom, prewar dwelling. "He always felt the properties were overpriced," Ms. Cangiano said. He lobbed several lowball offers that had little chance of being accepted (a common practice among would-be buyers). "He increased his price but he still had the mentality that everything is overpriced," she said.
After two years, he worked up the courage to bid over the asking price for a 96th Street two-bedroom near Park Avenue. He lost. When last heard from, he was half-heartedly trolling the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn for a condo, though he had doubled his price range to $1.2 million, "My sense is that he will always be a day late and a dollar short," Ms. Cangiano said. "If we got him into the psychiatrist's chair, he would probably work out some issues, and we could probably find him a wife."
Some would-be buyers are more haunted by what other people think. They fear being the dupe who bought at the top or the owner of an unenviable apartment.
"People either have to have the greatest place or they wind up having nothing," said Dr. Duane, the psychologist, who labeled it narcissistic thinking. "You're either a hero or a zero."
Into this paradigm falls the rent-controlled tenant who can afford better. "We have clients in rent-controlled apartments who don't have dishwashers, and the washer and dryer are in the basement with one dangling light bulb," said Ms. Friedman of Bellmarc. "They're living in a slum but no matter what we find, they can't break with that cheap rent."
Dianna L. Lake, another Bellmarc agent, recalled the 30-ish technology salesman, earning $300,000 to $400,000 a year, who sought a two-bedroom prewar for $1 million to $1.2 million, but would consider only distinguished buildings inhabited by his peers.
"He wanted to see a particular building in the worst way, a prewar prestigious building on the West Side, and finally something came up in his price range," said Ms. Lake, whose client's height outstripped his aspirations. "He was too tall for the apartment. He couldn't fit under the bathroom doorjamb. I did show him other apartments in his price range, and I think because none of his friends lived in those buildings, he couldn't commit to them even though they seemed to be perfect."
Other perpetual shoppers may be in thrall to a childhood real estate trauma. "A lot of people in therapy say their whole life got screwed up by their parents' moving," Dr. Duane said. "They often go back to, the move was a pivotal part in ruining their lives." As a result, she said, "There's a whole category of the population who just avoid allowing themselves to be comfortable and finding the right niche for themselves."
Some brokers say couples conflict is a deal staller.
Arlyne Blitz, a vice president with the Corcoran Group, pointed to situations where a husband wants a one-bedroom apartment, envisioning a move to the suburbs after the first child arrives, while his wife wants a two-bedroom. "She is a little frightened that she'll have children and be secluded in the suburbs," Ms. Blitz said. "They may end up buying, but they may be at odds for a while before they really come to terms."
Or they may never agree. Ms. Friedman of Bellmarc said her clients have included "couples who are married but afraid to commit to a purchase, because I think in the deep recesses of their mind, they know they're going to split."
"If they commit," she said, "it's just one more issue to deal with in divorce court when they split up the property."
She described one set of clients that she and her brother, Lewis Friedman, a Bellmarc senior vice president, worked with for two years: "He loves prewar and high ceilings and she loves new condos filled with glass and sunlight and terraces. When the husband comes in and says he wants to buy the apartment and is strong and passionate about buying it, I think he knows the wife hates it. Or he walks in and denounces it as the worst architecture they've ever seen in their lifetime, and they have a huge fight, and they each e-mail me separately with their own reasons. I know they are looking for a reason not to commit because they are just going to have to detangle it."
Like other brokers who choose not to cut the apron strings, Ms. Friedman said that her relationship to the couple has tilted from business to social. "There's a difference between spending your time and wasting your time," she said. But most brokers dispatch die-hard commitment-phobes back into the concrete underbrush.
"Browsing is a term for animals in the forest who are just nibbling at buds," said Will Brownell, a broker at Bellmarc and historical writer with a Ph.D. in history, who traced the word browse to brouz, an old French word for buds and shoots. "Such creatures are a bloody nuisance, in someone's woods or someone's real estate, because they really get in the way and they really impede normal growth."
There is hope for those who recognize themselves here. Breaking the cycle "is about understanding the pattern, recognizing the familiarity," Dr. Maloney said.
"Of course, none of this is bad, as long as it doesn't keep you from getting what you want," she added. "We're all nuts. It's just a question of what particular way we're nuts and to what degree."

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince': Her Dark Materials

July 31, 2005 , New York Times Book Review

By LIESL SCHILLINGER [An arts editor at The New Yorker and a regular contributor to the Book Review.]

Featured Author: J. K. Rowling : Collected coverage of Harry Potter: book and movie reviews, an interview with the author and more.

LATE on an ink-black night in June in the Lebanese hill town of Zahle, a teenage boy sidled up to two travelers as they strolled along the bank of a river. In French-inflected English, he asked an urgent question: ''Have you seen the new Harry Potter book?'' Despite receiving a negative reply, he pressed on, ''Have you heard what happens in it?'' When the answer again was ''no,'' he sighed in vexation. He had read the five other Potter books many times, he explained - both in French and in English, which ''takes longer, but it's better, because it's her words.'' ''Her,'' even to a boy growing up in the Bekaa, meant She-Who-Must-Be-Read: J. K. Rowling, author of the cliffhanger chronicles of the young British wizard Harry Potter and his pals, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The boy's inquiry did not produce the results he'd hoped for, but it may have settled a larger question: is there a book-loving child on the planet who isn't obsessed with Harry Potter? Um (or ''er,'' as Harry would say), perhaps not. But, like other susceptible children (and grown-ups), who among them own 270 million copies of the first five books in the series, the Lebanese Potter fan had to wait until one minute past the witching hour of July 15, 2005, to satisfy his curiosity about what had befallen Harry since he battled the evil allies of Lord Voldemort (more prudently referred to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) in ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.'' What this young reader - and everyone else - will discover is that Rowling has succeeded in delivering another spellbinding fantasy set in her consummately well-imagined alternate reality.
These newest 652 pages - far darker than those that preceded them - are leavened with humor, romance and snappy dialogue, and freighted with secrets, deepening bonds, betrayals and brutal lessons, many of them coming from the sinister, Harry-hating Severus Snape, master of the dark arts. Up to now, Harry, while overcoming any number of harrowing trials, has managed to retain a trusting nature; but at 16, worsening circumstances force him to realize that even though he regards himself as ''Dumbledore's man through and through,'' he must also be his own man. Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School and the only mature wizard who poses a real threat to the foul Lord Voldemort, cannot protect Harry forever - nor can Harry be sure that he can protect himself.
Because Rowling's gift is not so much for language as for characterization and plotting, to reveal much of what happens would wreck the experience for future readers. Suffice it to say that this new volume culminates in a finish so scorchingly distressing that the reader closes the book quaking, knowing that out of these ashes, somehow, the phoenix of Rowling's fiction will rise again - but worrying about how on earth Harry will cope until it does.
To read Rowling's novels as an adult is to sink into a half-remembered state of childhood rapture, the trance produced when you gobbled up fantasies for the first time. In the series's fourth volume, ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,'' Dumbledore lets Harry stumble across the Pensieve, a collecting dish for excess memories. To extract a memory, a wizard holds a wand to his temple, draws a silvery strand of thought from his head and taps it into the basin. Any wizard who touches the swirling contents of the bowl drops into the visions it contains, reliving them as if he had been present at their inception. Dipping into the fiction that is Rowling's Pensieve, adult readers tumble into an eerie but familiar realm, containing not only Rowling's images of Harry but their own memories of books they loved when they were Harry's age and younger.
That legion of honor might include classics like Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, P. L. Travers's Mary Poppins books, Roald Dahl's ''James and the Giant Peach'' and E. Nesbit's ''Phoenix and the Carpet'' - whose young heroes ''were not particularly handsome, nor were they extra clever, nor extraordinarily good. But they were not bad sorts on the whole; in fact, they were rather like you.'' Then there are the outright fantasies, one-offs like ''The Witch Family,'' by Eleanor Estes, as well as L. Frank Baum's numerous Oz books - which, when they first began appearing in 1900, were also an international sensation. When Baum went on an Egyptian tour in 1906, he met a child who had carried ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' while traveling by camel across the desert. But never before has a children's series created a following on the order of Harry's.
The young readers whose minds are being imprinted at this moment with Harry's adventures have many contemporary rivals for their attention. There is Philip Pullman's engrossing trilogy, ''His Dark Materials,'' whose first volume predates Harry, and Jonathan Stroud's yet-to-be-concluded Bartimaeus Trilogy. On the lighter side there are the humorously dark fables of Lemony Snicket (a k a Daniel Handler). All these books are popular; but why is it Harry alone who prompts warehouses to hire security details to guard new releases? A definite answer cannot be given - you'd have to ask the collective unconscious. But perhaps part of the mysterious hold Rowling exercises over her readership comes from the fact that her fantasy world looks so much like home.
The wizard population she has invented coexists in her imagination with an England that you can chart on a map; indeed, child-friendly employees at London's King's Cross rail station posted a sign for Platform 9 ¾ (the one Harry, Ron and Hermione enter to board the Hogwarts Express) on a brick wall so Potterphiles could have their pictures taken beneath it. The Weasleys' uproarious dinner table resembles one you would find in any happy family, even if magic knives chop the potatoes. And the world of Hogwarts resembles the world of anybody's school days, with the same rivalries, insecurities, academic pressures . . . and terrors.
The first four volumes of the series, written before 2000, gave children a thrilling escape into fantasy. But the last two, written after Sept. 11, 2001, provide the opposite release: an escape from a reality that can now seem scarier than the prison of Azkaban. At the outset of ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,'' we learn that Voldemort is on the march, that his henchmen are wreaking havoc not only in the wizarding world but in England proper - snapping bridges in two, whipping up hurricanes and filling the air with a ghastly mist. The Minister of Magic visits the prime minister to warn that dark forces are spreading across the land, including the dementors, the life-sucking guardians of Azkaban. ''Didn't you tell me they're the creatures that drain hope and happiness out of people?'' the prime minister asks. ''That's right,'' is the reply. ''And they're breeding. That's what's causing all this mist.''
King's Cross station is now also linked to the suicide bombers who attacked London earlier this month. At a time when everyday life is increasingly charged with dark and deadly deeds, the temptation to believe that a good wizard is coming of age, a wizard who may vanquish the greatest evildoer, holds even more attraction. Give 'em hell, Harry! And now the wait for Volume 7 begins.

Bucking the Class System

As school pressures mount on kids in South Korea, some families are taking drastic steps -- by leaving the country.

By KAREN MAZURKEWICH Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 29, 2005

Jung Young Hee has tried everything to help her children succeed at public school in South Korea. For two years, Ms. Jung's daughter Bhan Ji Young, now 11 years old, attended hours of evening classes a week to improve her marks. After she nearly collapsed from exhaustion, Ms. Jung switched her to at-home tutorials and private lessons. But with three children, that is proving too costly. Now, Ms. Jung believes there is only one option left for her family: immigration to the U.S.
"I'm absolutely leaving because of the education system," she says.
It used to be that South Korean families immigrated to Western countries to raise their economic status. Now, parents are moving for another reason: saner schooling. From primary school to high school, many students are caught in an exhausting cycle of evening classes and additional coursework to help boost their chances of getting into the best universities. And in a society where educational qualifications -- or lack thereof -- have repercussions for decades, some parents believe that leaving the country is the only way to escape the trap.
In the past few years, the number of parents either emigrating to find better schools or sending their children to overseas boarding schools has been climbing. The number of students who left school because their families emigrated more than doubled to 10,500 in 2003 from 4,900 in 1997, according to the Ministry of Education. The exodus to boarding schools abroad also has been marked, tripling over the same period to 10,500 in 2003 from 3,300 students in 1997.
They are trying to escape a system that is geared primarily toward getting into the best university in the country, says Park Kyung Jae, director general of the International Co-operation and I.T. Bureau at the Education Ministry. "In Korea, education is the only way to upgrade social status," he adds. Although there are 361 universities and colleges in the country, each parent is desperately trying to get his or her children admitted to the top five institutes, he says, and that has created a logjam.
In just 15 years the number of students attending university has jumped to 86% from 40%. As a result, the country has won kudos from the International Monetary Fund for its "high-performing education system," and held up as a model to other nations. But while acknowledging its successes, Korean parents are quick to point out the system's flaws -- in particular, some contend that the country's schools don't reward creativity, or encourage children who think out-of-the-box.
Many educationally advanced countries have a competitive tertiary education system. But the pressure to perform in Korea is particularly acute because of the extracurricular programs for kids of all ages known as hagwons. As far back as the 1960s, Korean parents paid to send their children to these private learning institutes to ensure success at university entrance examinations. Today, more than 70% of all students have attended a hagwon to help boost their grade-point averages and prepare for the university entrance exam -- known as the College Scholastic Ability Test, or CSAT. While the range of classes and times varies, one of the largest hagwons in Seoul offers courses from math to English that stretch over five-and-a-half hours a day. Many students spend five days a week niting the books at hagwons, particularly around exam times.
The demand for private tutoring has created a parallel education track that favors wealthy families, a dilemma that has vexed the government for years. After the 1980 military coup, Gen. Chun Doo Hwan tried to abolish the hagwon system, but anxious parents fought back. In 1989, restrictions were relaxed, and college undergraduates were allowed to give private lessons at home. Then a 1991 Supreme Court ruling deeming the ban on private education unconstitutional sparked an explosion of hagwons. Today, the government estimates there are more than 21,000 organizations offering supplemental classes.
The hagwon network has created a system in which kids learn their lessons twice, once in public schools and then again in a private institute. The duplication is supposed to help students get a leg up, but the doubling of hours and homework assignments is exhausting the nation -- not only physically but fiscally. The government estimates that the average family spends 30% of its savings on hagwons and private tutorials.
Workplace Discrimination
Parents like Lee Eun Mee are aware of the pressure placed on their kids but feel powerless to change it: They are afraid that their children will be taken out of the running for the best universities if they don't send them to supplementary classes. "Not only does graduating from a good university help in securing a good job, but people treat you differently," says Ms. Lee.
Going to a good university means your opinion counts more at work -- even decades after graduation, she says. Ms. Lee went to Yonsei University -- one of the country's best -- and hasn't personally encountered prejudice, but she's seen how it affects co-workers with lower-grade education. "It isn't blatant discrimination, it's something more scary," she says. You carry your alma mater around for a lifetime.
But Ms. Lee wonders if this shot at future prosperity is worth it for her daughter, Shin Soo Yeon, who is 14. It's after 11 p.m. before Ms. Shin and her friend Song Midum shuffle out of the Jongro M hagwon -- one of the largest hagwon chains in Seoul. Since 5:30 p.m. Ms. Shin has being taking a round-robin of classes including math -- her favorite -- and English -- her least. By the time she gets home, reviews her assignments and crawls into bed it will be after 1 a.m. With her morning starting at 7 a.m., Ms. Shin is lucky to get six hours of sleep.
When the teenager does snatch a little time for herself it's to work on her personalized Web page on the popular Cyworld site, where she posts photos taken from her cellphone. Her friend Ms. Song's escape is to morph into a secret rock-star persona. She sings and dances in front of her bedroom mirror -- but only when her parents are away she says because "they don't like it." The girls have dark circles under their eyes and lack energy, but both are fatalistic.
"Sometimes I tell my parents that I'm tired, but usually I don't bother because everyone has to do it," says Ms. Shin, who has had to give up her beloved tae kwon do classes in order to boost her grades to 90% from a current average of 85%, which she believes will get her into a good high school -- and, in turn, improve her chances of getting into a good university.
"Given the option, I'd rather do tae kwon do," she says. But "honor at school" is more important than "happiness."
For her mother, Ms. Lee, it's a double burden -- not only has she spent $1,000 on hagwon fees in three months, she hates nagging her daughter about her grades. "I feel terrible about the fact that my daughter comes home so late," says Ms. Lee, her voice trembling. "She's average, but I want her to be above average in grades, that's why I send her (to the hagwon)."
Hearing the conversation, her daughter tiptoes into the living room and slips her arms around her mother's neck. With tears welling in her eyes, Ms. Lee whispers that her daughter has many special qualities, and she's worried the system is beating the "creative spark" out of her. "I'm unhappy with the system," she says. She says what upsets her is that the competitive nature of the system makes students "think that your friend's misery (at getting low grades) is your happiness. The stress on parents and kids has become a crisis."
Aside from time pressure on kids, lack of creativity is often cited by parents as a major flaw in Korea's education system. Students sit nationwide standardized tests in their final year of high school and a series of other tests are used to evaluate who goes to what university.
The problem with national standardization tests is that "everyone is focused on scoring on these exams," says Han Jun Sang, a professor of education science at Yonsei University. And the reality is that the "hagwons are more effective in getting results," he says. But there is a price to be paid. Parents are concerned that these after-school hagwons, which often run from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., leave little time for play -- not to mention the opportunity to eat a decent evening meal.
Kim Eun Young says the system is turning her carefree six-year-old daughter, Jun Hyun, into a robot. "As a mother I see how her personality is changing, and it's sad," she says. "She doesn't ask any questions anymore and just sits at her desk and watches the teacher." Her answer? Immigration. This year Ms. Kim applied to the U.S. for a work visa.
Even municipal governments are trying to help stem the tide of parents taking their children out of the country by offering more creative ways of learning. The city of Seoul has subsidized the construction of "Seoul English Village," a fictional foreign town where students between the ages of 12 and 14 can play at traveling abroad while attending a six-day English tutorial session. In addition to going through "immigration" and getting an imitation passport stamped, the children learn how to open a bank account, send a letter and even bake chocolate-chip cookies, all in English.
"There are problems suffered by families being split apart because children are sent off to school abroad," says Lee Kyong Lee, executive director of the Seoul English Village. "We came up with a better method of instruction to keep them here (in South Korea)," she adds.
Personal Attention
Not everyone thinks the system is ailing. Jin Young Choi, the manager of Jongro M, says his institutes are needed because "there are too many students and not everyone can get personalized attention in the public system."
The Jongro M hagwon started in 1997 with classes for primary-school kids, but has expanded its after-school network to 230 outlets to reach high-school and middle-school students. Mr. Jin argues that it is the parents creating the demand, and his organization is just responding to market needs. The hagwon network has exploded because "everyone wants to get their children in the same universities," he says.
Mr. Park, from the education ministry, says that the problem with the South Korean education system is that it's too successful. The huge number of applicants to universities has created an admission choke point, and "the hagwons are exploiting this," he says.
Although the government is defensive about its education system, it's now implementing a number of initiatives to try to improve the system, largely because it's concerned that private school costs are having a negative impact on the economy.
The government is sending hundreds of teachers abroad to upgrade their skills, and it's also tinkering with the new college-entrance system. Starting in 2008, more emphasis will be placed on grade-point averages over the last three years of high school and less weight given to the CSAT. (Currently, a student's CSAT unranked, raw score is sent to the university. Instead the scores will be divided into nine categories -- the top category being the first 4%. The universities won't be privy to a student's precise score, only the category under which he or she falls.) According to a press release by the government, "The ultimate aim is to strengthen the emphasis on formal high school education, and curb private tutoring aimed at raising CSAT scores."
The revamp also is aimed at giving students outside the cities a better chance of getting into good universities because they will compete by grade-point averages and not just by the final exam. Kids in wealthy urban areas tend to do better on the final exams, something that has been criticized by some people as making school even more stressful.
The government's other strategy is to bump up the quality of the second-tier universities by merging 10 universities into five new institutes. Miryang National, for example, will be integrated with Pusan National University.
But changing the grading system and adding a few English-language institutes isn't going make the problem go away, says Mr. Han of Yonsei University. "There is always going to be top students, middle students and bottom students," he says. The reality is that only 30% of students will get into the top colleges, but as "long as everyone's indoctrinated into thinking they have to go to a famous university, the hagwon system will persist," he adds.
Zoo Experience
Mr. Han believes that there are some improvements that can be implemented. The first is to reduce the size of the classrooms so students can get more face time with the teacher. "Right now the classrooms are too large, they look like zoos and kids can't learn much from them," he says. In addition, teachers should be given more flexibility in altering the curriculum to make it more interesting to students and inspiring. And thirdly, the government should create more alternative schools for children who aren't academically inclined, but have creative or even automotive skills. They will be able to opt out of the stressful academic stream, he says.
Until these changes are made, there are only two choices for parents who are unhappy with the system -- emigrate or opt out of the hagwon system.
After several months of guilt about her daughter's misery, Ms. Lee pulled her 14-year-old daughter out of the hagwon. Since then her daughter's grades have actually improved, she says.
Concerned parent Jin Seon Lee also took her daughter Cha Heone, now 11, out of the hagwon system after first grade because she didn't like the stress it put her through. Since then, Ms. Jin says other parents have called her everything from "brave" to a "bad mother who wasn't educating her children properly." Even she had misgivings when her daughter initially fell behind; now, though, her daughter is in the top 5% of her class.
Ms. Jin attributes her daughter's success to the fact that, because she isn't exhausted, she has better powers of concentration and actually likes to learn. But Ms. Jin isn't hopeful that many other parents will follow suit. "As long as the system is centered on grades, nothing will change," she says. And as long as families feel stressed, she thinks the exodus from South Korea in search of a different education will continue.
"Half my friends have already left," she says, "and the other half want to leave."

In search of Bigfoot

By Megan Lane BBC News Magazine

Even the scientists who are DNA testing hair found in a suspected Bigfoot print say they expect the results to come back as bear or bison. Why is the myth of this huge ape-like beast so powerful for many cultures?

Bigfoot n. - large, hairy, humanoid creature said to wander the wooded wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Also known as Sasquatch (Canada), the Yeti or Abominable Snowman (Asia), Mapinguari (the Amazon) and Yowie (Australia).

In the Himalayas there's an old Sherpa saying that, "There is a Yeti in the back of everyone's mind; only the blessed are not haunted by it."
Many cultures have legends about solitary man-beasts, and recorded sightings in North America and Asia date back to the early 1800s. Despite numerous sightings, photos and footprints of often questionable origin, there has never been conclusive proof that these creatures exist. No droppings, no bones, no hair and no bodies found - alive or dead.

BIGFOOT BASICS

• Earliest report by a white man was prints found by a Canadian trader in 1811
• Name dates from 1958 media reports of giant prints found in California
• Ray Wallace, who died in 2002, claimed to have faked these
• Most famous footage shot in 1967 and contested ever since

And this week, geneticists at the University of Alberta are putting the legend to the test as they scrutinise hair alleged to have come from Bigfoot. The results are due on Thursday.
The tuft was collected by residents in Teslin, Yukon, who claim to have found it in a massive footprint left behind by a 3m-tall human-like creature which tromped through their backyards earlier this month.
Wildlife geneticist Dave Coltman expects that the hair will have come from a known mammal such as a bear or bison, but says he is curious enough to test this theory. "If Sasquatch is indeed a primate, then we would expect the sample to be closer to humans or chimpanzees or gorillas. That would be kind of cool, wouldn't it?"
Man-beast or myth
Regardless of his findings, the myth of Bigfoot does not need hard facts to persist.
The creatures are real enough to those who say they have spotted them, but opinion is divided on the nature of the beast. Some say it is flesh-and-blood; others, including various Native American tribes, believe it to be a spirit being which appears to humans in times of crisis.
Ralph Gray Wolf, an Athapaskan Indian from Alaska, has told reporters that Sasquatch makes appearances to help troubled communities "get more in tune with Mother Earth", bringing a message that there is a need to change.
Nor are such creatures confined to the vast, isolated tracts of land in North America and Asia - in the UK, such legends date back centuries.
Two years ago, investigators and the media descended on Bolam Lake, near Newcastle, following a spate of sightings of a tall, shadowy figure over the previous 18 months. In their week in the wooded, lakeside park, six of the party spotted the so-called Beast of Bolam.
Richard Freeman, of the Centre for Fortean Zoology centre, says one of his colleagues was among the witnesses.
"What they saw was not Bigfoot, or Sasquatch as I prefer to call him; it was an enormous shadowy figure in the trees, more like a ghost than flesh-and-blood. In a park not far from a city centre, you're not going to get a nine-foot ape-like creature - England just doesn't have the habitat to support it."
His theory is that sightings such as this - and Scotland's Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui and the Grey King in Wales - are of a paranormal being.
"I don't mean that these are the ghosts of some creature which has died; I think it is more complex than that."
In his time as a professional monster hunter, Mr Freeman has travelled the world gathering tales of weird and wonderful creatures - and in every culture, the same types crop up time and again. He calls it the "international monster template", which is made up of dragons and other huge reptiles; large ape-like creatures, such as Sasquatch and the trolls of Medieval Europe; little people, such as fairies and goblins; giant birds; and phantom dogs and cats.
"I believe these are analogues of the creatures which inhabited the plains of Africa millions of years ago, which our ancestors would have had to deal with. We now have a fossil memory of these creatures. Under certain conditions, the human mind creates 3D images of these analogues."
Mind games
Sceptics such as Benjamin Radford, of the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, also believe that such sightings are our minds playing tricks on us. For it is actually very easy to fool ourselves into believing what we want to believe.
What often happens, he has said, is that out in the wilderness, in areas known Bigfoot or Yeti stomping grounds, someone will see something dark or hairy or fast out of the corner of their eye that startles them.
"If they're already thinking that there's a Bigfoot in the area, it's easy to make the leap between saying: 'I saw something, I don't know what it is,' to: 'I saw something and it's Bigfoot'," he has said.
As for the latest Bigfoot find, it will soon be known whether the hair is from a creature thus far unknown to science. And until then, the truth simply lies in the eye of the beholder.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/4720797.stm

NYT : Owning and Renting a Home Blog

Join a Discussion on Owning and Renting a Home

READERS' OPINIONS

Are there any derelict buildings in your neighborhood that have been renovated? Are they being resold for much higher prices? Share your stories.
What was your mortgage hunt like? Share your stories. Ask questions and share your stories about buying, owning or renting an apartment, condo or house.

NYT : Bold Bathroom Tiles

Room to Improve
By STEPHEN TREFFINGER Published: July 21, 2005

Q. I'd like to replace the tile in my bathroom with something besides the usual plain four-inch squares. What styles and patterns can you suggest?
A. It's scary how many bathroom walls look exactly the same, as if there were some law dictating their appearance. Fortunately there isn't, so feel free to shake things up. Think about playing with the shape, size or color of the tiles. Any of these will help personalize the space.
If you are feeling especially bold, take a look at a new line of tiles, above, from Ann Sacks. They were created by Angela Adams, a designer in Portland, Me., best known for her colorful handmade rugs and textiles. There is nothing business-as-usual about this collection; it provides lively color combinations, sculptural textures and unusual shapes. The tiles are expensive - from $33.50 a square foot - and in any case it may be best to use them sparingly, on one wall only, for example, or as a backsplash or border. They aren't in stores yet but you can order them after Aug. 1; for information, annsacks.com or (800) 278-8453.
Mosaic glass tiles now come in hundreds of colors and in several sizes, from small monochromatic squares to larger striated varieties that look like marble or gemstones. Because of variations in the surface, you avoid the more flat appearance of standard, uniform tiles. Bisazza, an Italian company, makes them, priced from about $9 a square foot; for information, bisazza.com or (305) 597-4099.
If you would prefer something more subtle, try going off the grid. Instead of the standard horizontal pattern, apply rectangular tiles vertically. Ono restaurant at Hotel Gansevoort, in TriBeCa, has metallic tiles turned on their ends, and it looks great. Walker Zanger makes a small, narrow metallic tile, from about $42 a square foot. For information, walkerzanger.com.
Q. I have some wicker chairs that are suffering from midseason malaise. How can I give them a fresh look?
A. Wicker is often thought of as the material from which the furniture is made, but it is actually a generic term for hard woven objects, typically made from some sort of plant fiber, rattan, willow or bamboo, for instance. Some wicker is made from a paper fiber rush, a sort of twisted kraft paper innovation from the early 20th century, and wicker can also be synthetic resin or plastic.
Whatever kind you have, you can give it a lift by adding color. Wicker is traditionally painted white, so a bright blue or emerald green would give your pieces a more modern look. The easiest way to get full coverage is to paint with a power sprayer, which is often available from a rental agency.
For pillows, fade-resistant fabrics come in all sorts of colors and patterns. Calico Corners carries Sunbrella's line. For information, calicocorners.com.
Questions about furnishings and décor may be sent by e-mail to room@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

NYT : Futuro Flashback: The Prefab From Another Planet

July 28, 2005

By PHIL PATTON

RICHARD PISANI caught his first glimpse of a Futuro house beside a lake in Illinois in the early 1980's, outlined against the setting sun. "I was just out cruising and there it was in some subdivision," Mr. Pisani said, "like a prop from a sci-fi movie."
For the next 15 years, he saw the house often, and could not get its flying-saucer form out of his mind. Finally, in 1997, he bought it, paying a tenth of the $20,000 asking price. Using a flatbed truck, he moved it to the yard behind his house in nearby Danvers, Ill., and turned it into a media room.
In the process, he joined a growing network of Futuro owners and fans who have dedicated themselves to celebrating and preserving this strange prefabricated house, which looks like it came not just from an earlier decade, but even from another planet. By 2004, in fact, he had become one of the world's foremost authorities on the fate of the Futuros, numbering perhaps as many as 100, that were built between 1968 and 1978.
The circular house, 11 feet high and 26 feet across, was designed by Matti Suuronen, a Finnish architect, in 1968. A hatch door in its lower half opened down to reveal steps, like the door of a small airplane, and led into a room outfitted with six plastic bed-chair combinations and a central fireplace slab, as well as a kitchenette and a bathroom. Photographs from the time make the house look like a place where the Teletubbies might live, with Barbarella as a frequent houseguest.
Mika Taanila, a Finnish filmmaker who helped start the Futuro revival with his 1998 documentary "Futuro: A New Stance for Tomorrow," said he became interested in the houses because they seemed to represent the mood of the late 1960's so precisely. They reflected the era's "economic boom and optimism about the future," he said in a telephone interview from Finland. "Suuronen could not have come up with the idea 15 years earlier or 10 years later."
Part of that optimism was about the potential for plastics and prefabrication to radically lower the cost of housing, in the revolutionary spirit of 1968. The Futuro, which was made of polyester plastic and fiberglass and which sold in the United States for between $12,000 and $14,000, was one of many experimental plastic houses at the time. It came in 16 pieces that could easily be moved by truck or helicopter and set up in a couple of days.
But the house has captured contemporary imaginations more for its look than for its idealistic history. It embodies a strain of modernism that can be seen either as visionary or kitschy, but that certainly stands apart from the sober elegance of much mid-century modern design. Owners of surviving Futuros typically decorate them with lava lamps, plastic chairs and 1970's television sets shaped like spacesuit helmets.
"The persistence of this sort of vision of the future is amazing," said Christopher Mount, the director of exhibitions and public programs at the Parsons School of Design, who has curated several shows on Scandinavian design. "This was a vision that included Panton furniture and '2001: A Space Odyssey,' orange plastic and silver jump suits," Mr. Mount said. "You could look at the Futuro house as a giant Panton chair."
Mr. Pisani, who sells and installs home gutters, became fascinated with Futuros, and began researching their history after he bought his own.
"It made me feel good to know that wasn't just some oddball piece of junk but part of a serious attempt at mass housing," he said.
Last year, he set up a Web site, futuro-house.net, to find and document all the surviving Futuros in the world. He estimates that there are about 60, in various states of repair and disrepair.
The list of confirmed and suspected Futuro locations on Mr. Pisani's Web site has grown as word about the site has spread. The country with the most Futuros seems to be New Zealand, with about a dozen. Several have been noted along the coasts of both Carolinas, and there are Futuros in the vastness of west Texas. One, in Pensacola, Fla., survived Hurricane Ivan "because of the aerodynamics of flying saucers," Mr. Pisani said.
Mr. Pisani's own Futuro has become something of a tourist destination. In the summer, leaves hide it from passers-by on nearby streets, but in the winter, thanks to increasing awareness of the Futuro, visitors often seek out his home at inconvenient times. "Last Christmas," he recalled, "some crazy guy came roaring up my driveway - at 2:30 in the morning."
Mr. Suuronen, who now lives in retirement outside Helsinki, built the first Futuro as a vacation house for a friend. He never planned on mass production, but the attention the house attracted led the Finnish company Polykem to market the design in 1968. Leonard Fruchter, a Philadelphia developer, bought the American licensing rights and began making them in the United States the next year.
The houses quickly attracted attention. An article in The New York Times on the day of the first moon landing announced the Futuro's arrival in America (or "on Earth," as the headline put it). Playboy magazine featured a Futuro as a bachelor pad in a photo layout.
In Europe, the Swedish air force bought several Futuros to house technicians at remote radar stations, and the Soviet government contracted to purchase several more to help meet the needs of the planned 1980 Olympics. But the oil shocks of 1973, which sent the price of plastic skyrocketing, along with changing fashions, helped put a stop to the growth of the Futuro's market. Polykem stopped making the houses in 1978.
Then, in the early 1990's, the Futuro began its comeback, when European artists started using the houses in installations. In 1998, Mika Taanila brought out his film, and four years later he and a co-author, Marko Home, published a coffee table book, "Futuro: Tomorrow's House from Yesterday" (Desura, 2002).
"I still get quite a lot of e-mail, mostly from people who would like to buy one," said Mr. Taanila. "Do I know any that are for sale? Some wonder if production might be restarted."
Mr. Suuronen, now in his early 70's, could not be reached for this article. But Marko Tandefelt, the project director and curator at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, said that the architect is a bit perplexed by the renewed fame of his creation.
Mr. Taanila says that Mr. Suuronen, whom he speaks to from time to time, is also happy. "He is very flattered and surprised because this is a totally new generation interested in his idea. But he is also puzzled what to do with all this newborn interest."

WSJ : Avocados, Gorillas and Other Favorites

THE NUMBERS GUY By CARL BIALIK
July 28, 2005

[ABOUT THIS COLUMNThe Numbers Guy examines numbers and statistics in the news, business, politics and health. Some numbers are flat-out wrong, misleading or biased. Others are valid and useful, helping us to make informed decisions. As the Numbers Guy, I will try to sort through which numbers to trust, question or discard altogether. And I'd like to hear from you at numbersguy@wsj.com. I'll post and respond to your letters. WSJ.com subscribers can sign up to receive email when new columns are published (nonsubscribers click here to sign up), and you can read more columns at WSJ.com/NumbersGuy. ]

Workers who used the Internet for non-work-related tasks cost their employers a whopping $178 billion last year in lost productivity, according to a new study sponsored by Websense Inc., a company that sells software to monitor employee Internet use.
But I'm hoping that as faithful Numbers Guy readers, you focused not on that giant dollar amount but on "sponsored by," the two dirty words of market research. I wrote about those dangerous little words in a column back in March, one of many I've written about how numbers – even good ones -- only tell part of the story. This is the 25th Numbers Guy column, and I'm marking the silver anniversary by revisiting some of my favorite topics.
First up in the Numbers Guy time machine is a set of two studies that attempt to estimate the cost companies suffer because of employees' time-wasting. These studies highlight two subjects dear to my skeptical heart: sponsored research, and efforts to put a dollar amount on lost productivity.
Websense's study, which focused on idle Web surfing, worked like this: The company, working with research firm Harris Interactive, surveyed workers with Internet access, and half said they use the Web at work for personal reasons. The survey also asked information-technology managers to estimate how much time their workers wasted on Web surfing. Their average answer: 5.9 hours. Multiply 5.9 hours by the 68 million U.S. workers with Web access, then multiply by 0.5 because only half of those surveyed admitted to engaging in Web procrastination, multiply the result by 50 work weeks in a year and then multiply by the average U.S. salary (still with me?) and you get $178 billion. The study was picked up by IDG News and Red Herring.
A large number is good for Websense, because it is trying to sell products that help companies monitor and improve worker productivity. The company made several choices that might have helped produce a larger number. One worth noting: It used IT managers' estimates of 5.9 wasted hours per week per worker, even though workers themselves had given a lower average number -- 3.4 hours -- in response to the survey. (For more detailed critiques of Websense's study, see the blog ars technica, ZDNet and Computer World.)
But the bigger problem is that these lost-productivity studies assume that eliminating nonwork activity will translate into a corresponding savings. Wages aren't that simple. Many jobs include some built-in downtime. Also, many bosses don't care how their workers spend their time as long as they successfully complete their given tasks. Furthermore, mixing work and fun online cuts both ways; as Ken Fisher wrote on the ars technica blog, "I'm still waiting to see a good study done on how many hours the average employee spends doing work-related stuff online, at home." (I also took a look at a silly estimate of lost productivity due to the Super Bowl in a February column.)
Leo Cole, vice president of marketing for San Diego-based Websense, said he felt comfortable with the $178 billion number, based on anecdotal reports from Websense customers that squared with the 5.9-hour estimate and his feeling that workers underreported their personal Web usage. Mr. Cole acknowledged that some might question the survey because of Websense's bias; nonetheless, he said, "we try to be a thought leader" in areas including time wasted online at work.
Others have come up with even bigger estimates for productivity lost due to time-wasting at work. A study jointly conducted by America Online and Salary.com, also released this month, pegged the loss to U.S. businesses at $759 billion. (Numbers Guy reader William Walker suggested I examine the study.) Its methodology was similar to Websense's, and it, too, found that workers were wasting about six hours a week that their bosses didn't know about. AOL referred questions to Salary.com, which declined to grant me an interview.
The Associated Press ran several local stories citing AOL's rankings of the states with the most and least time wasting. Missouri was ranked the biggest time-wasting state, with 2.8 hours lost each day. Missouri governor Matt Blunt's office took time out to respond to the survey in a statement, according to the AP: "Nobody can match the work ethic of Missourians. This survey, which our busiest citizens did not want to waste their time on, cannot undermine decades of experience. Missouri workers are among the most productive in the world."
* * *
In a public-service ad campaign, viewers are told a scary stat: One in five children has been sexually solicited online. But as I wrote back in January, the statistic is misleading. Among other problems, it was based on research that was five years old, it only covered children who spent time online, and it used a broad definition of sexual solicitation. Yet the stat was revived last month in a fresh set of Ad Council spots sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as reported by the New York Times. Why continue to use an outdated, misleading stat? "There isn't a more updated number available," a spokeswoman for the National Center told me. "We're hoping to have new research soon, hopefully by the end of the year."
* * *
Did Americans really consume 43.8 million pounds of Hass avocados during the Super Bowl, as the Hass avocado board, an industry group, predicted before the big game in February? I pointed out that the projection assumed all avocadoes purchased within several days of the game would be consumed during the game, which surely was an exaggeration. Nonetheless, the projection turned out to be pretty good, for what it was: A Hass spokeswoman told me that the actual number of avocadoes sold in the relevant two-and-a-half-week period before the game, as reported in direct sales from members, was 43.75 million pounds. (Of course, these are all self-reported numbers, so should be taken with a grain of salt, like any good avocado.)
After the game, I questioned the NFL's projection that Jacksonville, Fla., would enjoy $181 million in direct economic benefits from hosting the game. That number was derived from averaging economic-impact numbers for prior Super Bowls, but Jacksonville is far smaller than many of the cities studied. As it turns out, Jacksonville will probably never have a better number, because the NFL didn't commission a study this year. (The league usually studies economic impact every two or three years; the last one came in 2003 for San Diego.) Nonetheless, Cathy Chambers, spokeswoman for the city's chamber of commerce, told me that the game was a "success," citing the growth in "prospect activity" -- the number of businesses seriously considering relocating to Jacksonville -- to 77 today, from 52 before the game.
* * *
A small change in U.S. News and World Report's law-school ranking methods affected several schools, "a tale of how a tweak to methodology can have large, unintended effects," I wrote in April. Until this spring's rankings, the magazine had been asking law schools to report their incoming students' average grade-point averages and Law School Admission Test scores in the form of the median -- the number in the middle of a set of numbers, if you line them up in order. But U.S. News editors started to doubt the self-reported numbers, and so instead started collecting the 25th and 75th percentile numbers that schools report to the American Bar Association. Several law schools that had been working to optimize their median numbers, and were admitting minority students with much-lower scores in the bottom half of their classes, said they were blindsided by the move. There were concerns the change could affect future minority admissions.
The controversy may have a short lifespan. Last month, U.S. News told a law-school conference that if the ABA started to collect median scores, the magazine would "very seriously consider" returning to its old method, U.S. News' director of data research, Robert Morse, told me by email. Afterwards, the ABA said it would start asking for median scores. (An ABA spokeswoman told me the change was made because of "a feeling that additional data would be helpful for people to apply to law schools," and not because of the magazine's statement.) If U.S. News does decide to use those numbers, it could return to the old method in time for the rankings set to come out next spring.
* * *
A quick update on two criminal cases whose numbers were subjects of prior columns:• The arrest of Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller in San Jose., Calif., for the alleged sexual abuse of two boys made headlines when police revealed they found seven log books with 36,000 entries of sex acts with children. I wrote last month that it was unlikely that each entry represented a separate sex act, since that would mean about two sex acts a day for 47 years. In a recent interview, Sergeant Nick Muyo of the San Jose police department told me, "We do know that some are repeat entries. It's not 36,000 different people." He declined to say how many potential victims police suspect were abused, but he did reveal an interesting detail about where the 36,000 figure came from. It wasn't based on a direct count, but instead derived by counting the entries on some pages, and multiplying by the number of pages in the log books. (Mr. Schwartzmiller's attorney postponed entering a plea on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.) • In February, I wrote about the case of 3.6 million nickels that went missing from an armored truck, and asked whether three million of them could really fit in a four-foot-deep hole, where they were found by police. Last month in Miami, four men pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property that had traveled in interstate commerce. The truck driver and about 900,000 nickels remain at large.
* * *
Most real gorillas weigh no more than 400 pounds, but metaphorical gorillas know no bounds, I wrote in April. Since that column, more powerful people and businesses have received the label in news articles. Here's a recent sampling:• Wal-Mart is the 800-pound gorilla of supermarkets, and "the 800-pound gorilla is getting larger," Business Week Online reported. It's no surprise: Supermarkets are full of calorie-laden comestibles ideal for simian weight-gain. • Senatorial apes are the front-runners in the 2008 presidential election, the Associated Press reported last month. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are the "800-pound gorillas," Democratic consultant Jeff Link told the AP. "They're well-known, well-liked and will be heavy favorites in their respective parties." • A pension shortfall in San Diego is so big, it's the 1,600 pound gorilla, Republican mayoral candidate Steve Francis told Bloomberg. • Circulation is the 500-pound gorilla stalking America's newsrooms, Stan Tiner, executive editor of The Sun-Herald in Biloxi, Miss., told Editor & Publisher in May. It's unclear if continued circulation declines create a larger or smaller gorilla.
* * *
Two readers wrote in to say I was too quick to capitulate to my editor on the point that the word "data" is plural and must be treated as such.
You are not necessarily wrong. I'm a numbers guy, too (M.S. in statistics), and have been fighting this battle for 20 years. "Data" is often used as a collective noun, like "information." See Dictionary.com. Some people like to say that you have to treat data as plural because you can count it. So, when they rob a bank, the money are all gone?
--John C. Nelson
One would use a plural "data" when the data is not seen as a unit. That would be raw data from a measurement. ... But if you rework raw data into another product, or if you refer to a set of data as a whole, the singular is the correct usage. "The data from the weather station tells us that the average daily maximum temperature last month was 78 degrees."
--Fred Pratt
John and Fred make good points. Unfortunately, I'm bound by The Wall Street Journal's style guide, which dictates that "data" is a plural noun that always takes plural verbs and pronouns. I'll try to behave from now on.
Finally, a couple of readers pointed out that a letter I ran last week about a Monday Night Football game the night before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, erroneously said that the New York Giants played the Philadelphia Eagles. The Giants actually faced the Denver Broncos. I should have caught that, as I watched the game, too. It's further demonstration that memories of just four years ago can be faulty, whether they concern the terror attacks or a football game.
Write to me at numbersguy@wsj.com. I'll post and respond to selected letters here soon. WSJ.com subscribers can also sign up to receive an email notice when new Numbers Guy columns are published (nonsubscribers can sign up by clicking here). Read other columns at WSJ.com/NumbersGuy.

WSJ : The Secret to a Happier Retirement:Friends, Neighbors and a Fixed Annuity

July 27, 2005; Page D1

You've waited 40 years for this. Try to enjoy it.
After four decades in the work force, the oldest of the baby boomers will call it quits over the next few years. Today's question: How can these folks improve their odds of a happy retirement?
For an answer, I turned to economists who have done work in the emerging field of "happiness research" -- and came away with seven pointers.
1. Value your time. Surveys in dozens of countries have found there is a relationship between age and happiness.
Folks tend to become increasingly unhappy through their 20s and 30s, typically hitting bottom in their 40s, before rebounding from there. "Retirement should be a happier time, conditioned upon not being ill," says Dartmouth College economics professor David Blanchflower.

RETIREMENT RULES
Want a happier retirement? Here's what economists suggest:
• Make detailed retirement plans in your 50s -- in case you're suddenly laid off.

• Don't live in a neighborhood you can barely afford.

• Aim to retire at the same time as your spouse.

• If you don't have a traditional pension, buy an immediate-fixed annuity that pays lifetime income.

It isn't clear what drives this pattern. But Keith Bender, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, speculates that midlife dissatisfaction stems from a lack of control over our daily lives -- and that retirees are happier because they have more freedom.
"When you're middle-aged, you don't have much choice," he notes. "You have to work. But when you're young and when you're old, you have more time."
2. Think ahead. While retirement should be a happy period, the transition can be rough. Indeed, Prof. Bender found that those who plan their retirement are usually happier, while seniors who are pushed out of the work force by ill health or layoffs are less satisfied.
Of course, if you are compelled to retire prematurely, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. Still, you could ease some of the anguish by thinking now about how you will pay for retirement and what you might do once you leave the work force. "You can be forced into retirement at almost any time, so you need to be as ready as possible," Prof. Bender says.
3. Expect less. As you look ahead to retirement, give careful thought to what sort of lifestyle you can reasonably afford.
Researchers have found, unsurprisingly, that greater income and wealth lead to greater happiness. But the gain in satisfaction from, say, an extra $25,000 of wealth is smaller than you might imagine. One reason: Much depends on your relative wealth -- including your wealth relative to your expectations.
"What you have in the bank, according to the data, does not matter all that much," says Andrew Oswald, an economics professor at England's Warwick University. "What really matters is the gap between what is there and what you think you ought to have. Millionaires can feel relatively poor."
4. Pick your neighbors. Relative income and wealth are also important in another sense: People care deeply about how their standard of living compares to their neighbors'.
"Suppose you're planning to move to Florida," says Erzo F.P. Luttmer, an economics professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "Instead of moving to a neighborhood you can barely afford, you might go somewhere that you can comfortably afford. That way, you'll be among people who are taking the less ritzy cruises, and you will be more content."
5. Buy yourself income. Prof. Bender found that retirees who receive traditional company pensions are happier than those who have to rely solely on the savings they have amassed in 401(k) and similar retirement-savings plans. Seniors, it seems, like the sense of security that comes with guaranteed, predictable income.
What if you don't have a traditional pension? You could always buy yourself a comparable stream of income by stashing part of your nest egg in an immediate-fixed annuity that pays lifetime income.
Unless you take less income in return for some sort of guarantee, this stream of income will die when you do, so you should purchase an immediate annuity only if you are in decent health. Also, because the payments on most fixed annuities don't rise over time, you shouldn't annuitize your entire nest egg. Instead, consider investing part of your portfolio in stocks, so you have a shot at keeping up with inflation.
6. Work at retirement. Taking a part-time job might seem like a dire step taken only by retirees desperate for extra income. But, in fact, Prof. Bender found that working in retirement seems to increase satisfaction.
There is, however, an interesting wrinkle: Retirees are less satisfied if they aren't working, but their spouse is. "You want to enjoy the time together," Prof. Bender says. "It's better if you can time it so you're both retired at the same time."
7. Invest in friendship. Your retirement dream might be to travel the globe. But you may be better off having a few friends over for dinner.
"Recent research suggests that regularly seeing good friends in the local park will bring a greater boost to mental health than having a shiny German automobile parked outside your retirement home," says Warwick University's Prof. Oswald. "My candid advice to aging Americans would be to use your hard-earned cash to invest much more in friendships than in material items."

日本女人的38度臨界線

台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　傅婉禎

日本有一種說法：38歲是女人生命中的一個很微妙的時點，可能會在某一天突然感到自己老化，但是又不想被人稱為「中年」，而這個38歲的時點該如何巧妙地處理，也關係到人生的後半段。　　為什麼是38歲呢？因為到了40歲，大家就不會把妳再當做是女性來看待，而是當做歐巴桑；如果是單身想結婚的話，最好也要搶在30幾歲之前把自己嫁掉，到了39歲才在為了快達到40歲而焦慮似乎是過晚，所以38歲就成了一個很特別的時刻。而且一般女性在變成30歲時很少會有什麼感慨，但在跨入40歲的那天卻會有莫名其妙地失落感，再加上一踏入40歲就會很明顯地感到這已是人生的折返點，而突然地覺得恐怖起來。　　

雖然不少女性雜誌宣稱女性的魅力跟年齡是沒有關係的，但在40歲的大關前徘徊猶豫的女性還是很多，而30幾歲時自認還能穿敞胸露背的衣服及迷你裙等，在進入40歲後很多人就無法說服自己再了，連聯誼的時候要裝可愛或是裝年輕都會覺得自己很噁心，最後只好以女強人系的套裝決勝負。而在35歲左右還不怎麼生成的皺紋等，在不知不覺中因為長期地疲勞而生成，還會安慰自己說，只要消除疲勞就可以恢復原本的樣子，但一點都沒發現這其實已是老化的預兆。但一旦發現這是老化後，女性就會去花錢買很貴的保養品或是做一些雷射治療、甚至整型等，但到最後卻為自己先前沒好好存錢以至於無法用「錢」來持續美貌而怨恨自己。　　

日本美容研究的第一人小林照子小姐就表示，38歲對於女性而言是個很大的轉折點。從數十年前，在美容業界大家就有所謂的「女人的38度線」這個辭彙。很多女性在結婚進入家庭後，生兒育女等告一段落的時間就是38歲，突然喪失生活目標的女性常會發生身體狀況突然崩壞或對於自己的容貌變得沒有自信等的情形很多，甚至也有人用「女人時代結束」等消極的字眼來形容。

除了美容上所說的「女人的38度線」之外，醫學上似乎也有所謂的「女人的38度線」存在，會出現這種情況是因為38歲是女性荷爾蒙分泌開始減少的時期，由此開始出現很多麻煩，因此才被稱為是臨界線。持續工作的女性隨著年齡的增加，還有壓力等不好的條件也增加下，促使女性荷爾蒙分泌的腦視床下部及下垂體會因為壓力而使得分泌荷爾蒙的頻率亂掉，甚至有使得荷爾蒙分泌停止的情況。最後出現宛如更年期一般的症狀，也有一些真的停經的例子存在。如這種卵巢的功能惡化，不只會使得身體狀況不佳，還會產生煩燥不安等心理狀況。面對這種情況，被稱為讓女性更有女人味的雌激素荷爾蒙，是讓女性的肌膚保持美麗並有防止老化上不可欠缺的。只要發現90天以上沒有月經來的情形，就應該要注意到自己可能是卵巢功能已經惡化。在這種情形下，使用低劑量的藥劑或是荷爾蒙補助療法等都對控制這個情況很重要。　　

不過，除了肌膚之外，女性連頭髮也有所謂的「女人的38度線」存在。日本的大正製藥在1999年開始銷售一個男性的生髮劑「RiUP」，結果女性的詢問電話如潮水般湧入。該公司因而去調查30～50歲女性後發現，平均女性開始發現自己很會掉髮及頭髮稀疏的年齡是在38.9歲的時候，因此形成了頭髮也有「女人的38度線」，該公司也在調查後的今年四月開始販售女性用的生髮劑「RiUP Lady」，是累計賣出超過3000萬瓶的大熱賣商品，可見女性有這個問題的還真不在少數。　　

根據這所有的資訊顯示，38歲真的是女人的一個重要轉折點，除了前述的生髮劑之外，目前也有很多公司針對35～40幾歲的女性為主來開發商品，像是花王就發現因為女性荷爾蒙分泌量減少及壓力增加等，使得這些女性從肌膚的抵抗力就開始惡化，造成生理期中的悶熱及發炎等情形相當多。為了追求能更溫柔對待肌膚而開發新的衛生棉質料，讓就算是中年的女性也可以備受嬌寵，擁有更舒適愉快的生理期。　　

女性的38度線並不只是美醜的臨界 點，要輕鬆地跨過它或是停下來不再往前，要靠自己決定，當然這個決定也是決定自己人生後半段該如何渡過的一個關鍵點。再加上在眾多廠商都知道女性的這個關鍵點，勢必會推出各種幫女性渡過38歲臨界線的商品、療程或是服務，女性就放手讓大家來幫妳一同跨越又何妨呢？

主掌日本女性流行雜誌最大賣點

台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　傅婉禎

　　台灣雖然也有本土的女性流行雜誌，但很多販賣的年資很淺，再加上對於抓流行時尚抓感覺不快，所以有很多台灣女性就算看不懂日文，但只要能看圖片掌握流行感，從很早以前就是以看日本女性流行雜誌為主，但事實上女性雜誌除了要抓住當時的流行感之外，但還有一個很大的關鍵就是「模特兒」。
在日本針對20歲前半的女性所推出的雜誌，像「CanCam」、「JJ」、「ViVi」、「Ray」等大型女性流行誌每月都是同一天上架販售，但是連東京新宿的紀伊國屋書店的雜誌負責人都在意的就是，總是有一本賣剩的會比其他本少很多，那就是「CanCam」──這本雜誌一個月平均實賣約50萬1528本(2004年7月~12月)，而且一年還可以成長9萬本，但競爭對手的「JJ」才約賣32萬本左右，而且比前一年還減少了4萬本以上。
會造成這麼大的落差的最主要的關鍵就是在擔任封面的模特兒。所使用刊登在雜誌封面的並不是有名的女演員，而是在該雜誌才看得到的「專屬模特兒」，也就是說這些女性流行誌基本上是以「專屬模特兒」來決勝負，而現在獨領風騷的「CanCam」目前正是擁有最強的「專屬模特兒」群：包括16歲時被雜誌編輯在涉谷發掘的「帥氣型優OL派」山田優，目前也在電視節目及CM上大紅大紫；從高中時代開始就有很多粉絲支持的「可愛系萌派」押切萌(日文為押切もえ)；更有「可愛系エビちゃん*(註) OL派」的蛯原友里(音為ebihara．yuri)等3條主力線，之所以不只守1條主力線，主要是為了保險起見，因為讀者所引起的流行常常短又變化很快，為了不讓雜誌頓時失去讀者所想要的類型，所以要常備三條不同的模特兒線。
而流行誌模特兒能帶來多大的效果跟商機呢？來打個比方好了，日本知名的時尚名模也是名媛的梅宮安娜，如果她穿了一件本來約只能賣50件的衣服，這件衣服通常就能賣到上百件。但如果是現在正紅的エビちゃん(蛯原友里)在CanCam上穿的衣服就能賣上千件。舉個最實際的例子，在雜誌發售後當週週末，就會有很多客人擁入提供エビちゃん(蛯原友里)服飾的店裡要求買跟她穿的相同的衣服，像是之前エビちゃん(蛯原友里)在雜誌上所穿的褶裙就大賣了7000件，熱賣的單品平常頂多賣個600件就已算是很厲害了。
這並不表示日本女孩子都是一味地追求雜誌上的流行，根據服飾廠商FLANDRE的宣傳部大田貞夫先生表示，現在日本的女性是只會買自己絕對必需品的聰明消費者，而支持エビちゃん(蛯原友里)的正是這些眼光犀利的女性們。但是要吸引雜誌的讀者去買跟在雜誌上穿的一樣的衣服還是有技巧的，像是有些女性就表示，通常在雜誌上太過可愛的模特兒，常會給人假純情這樣的印象，但是エビちゃん(蛯原友里)就不容易招致這樣的反感。甚至有在大通信事業公司擔任綜合職的女性表示，看到エビちゃん(蛯原友里)的瞬間，她就發現エビちゃん(蛯原友里)是她的目標。日本擔任綜合職的女性向來是被當作男性看待，但是她表示她就是以エビちゃん(蛯原友里)當作她的穿衣指標，不走強悍路線，還是走可愛路線，而且這種可愛服飾是男生也OK、女性同事也OK、上司更是完全可以接 受的路線。
主婦雜誌「Grazia」的溫井明子總編集也表示，只要能選對具有該雜誌所欲介紹的特質的模特兒，就等於成功了一半。像該雜誌就要表現出具有流行感又兼具知性、且是生了小孩之後還讓人覺得很性感的女性，他們所找來的熊澤千繪就是只要一登上雜誌封面就能把他們所要表達的意念給傳達出去。而在日本要成為流行誌的熱賣點，單是只有容貌還不夠，要如同現實生活的偶像一般，讓讀者連模特兒的私生活都可以感覺到，所以有自己的「部落格」(日記網頁)或是寫些連載的短箋都是必要的，要變成讓人能透視生活的人物並由衷地從生活都憧憬的對象，符合這樣的條件的人眾多，要如何從中脫穎而出又是一個激烈的爭奪戰。
不過，培養專屬模特兒成為流行教祖對於雜誌其實也是兩面劍，隨著模特兒跟讀者的年齡增長，雖然是有製造出大人氣，但是隨著模特兒從這本雜誌「畢業」、伴隨著這個模特兒的中心讀者也隨之「畢業」，這也常常左右著雜誌的命運。也有些雜誌會隨著某個知名模特兒從之前比較年輕取向的雜誌「畢業」而幫她們轉換跑道重新雕塑她們的新形象，並創作出另一本新雜誌，讓這種天生模特兒教祖的人們可以持續不斷以各種年齡各種姿態展現出不同的風采給喜愛她們的讀者看，並讓讀者有一直遵循的目標，這點恐怕就不是台灣這樣每本都差不多的模特兒及出版社環境所能比擬的吧！(圖來自蛯原友里公式網站及雜誌Grazi@網站)
※註：エビちゃん是日本人對蛯原友里的暱稱，取其姓氏「蛯原」的「蛯」的讀音ebi，加上日本人暱稱女性的ちゃん而成。

不遜於男性「御宅族」的日本「腐女子」

傅婉禎 台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　之前曾介紹過聚集在日本東京秋葉原地帶，沉迷於漫畫、動畫、電玩、電器用品的日本「御宅族」(日文為：おたく，音為otaku)，不過上次所介紹的「御宅族」是以男性為主，但實際上女性的「御宅族」也是存在的，不過她們通常不被稱為「御宅族」，而是自嘲稱為「腐女子」。
「腐女子」的由來
被與正常男女戀愛不同的男性同戀所吸引著(當然性愛也是一部分)，男性同性戀中間所遇到之障礙越多越會令她們「萌」(日文原文：萌える，音為mo．e．ru，原指草木萌芽的意思，後來被「御宅族」當作是對於某種事物或是人物有砰然心動或是突然墜入情網中的感覺，也可以音同義異的雙關語「燃える」來暗示自己為該事物或人物而燃燒。)熱衷此道的女生們常常幻想自己所看到的一些美男子們其實是在交往的同性戀人，所以常自嘲自己過份妄想或是思想太腐敗，所以日後就被稱為「腐女子」。已是家庭主婦的「腐女子」稱為「主腐」、年紀稍長的「腐女子」則被稱為「貴腐人」或是「既腐人」。除了女性之外，也喜歡看男性同性愛相關作品的男生則叫做「腐男子」。
「腐女子」用語
要進入「腐女子」的世界就如同要進入「御宅族」的世界一般，要先懂得她們的用語。「腐女子」中最主要的用語就是「やおい」(音為yaoi)及「Boys Love」(簡稱BL)，「Boys Love」顧名思義就是指男同性戀，而「やおい」簡單來說就是以女性為主要讀者的男同性戀作品。目前市場上的「やおい」主要是取出市面上一般的漫畫或是小說中的人物，再行二次創作新的故事，並製作成小說或是漫畫，這種只為同好發行的書就是在上次介紹「御宅族」時也曾講過的「同人誌」，因此有時「腐女子」也會稱自己為「同人女」。而BL的話，則在市面上直接有作者從事此方面著作的小說或是漫畫在流通。
最近幾年裡，在「腐女子」間人氣很旺的就是少年漫畫「網球王子」，由於內容是講述高中男子網球校隊，故很多「腐女子」們會自行進行男同性戀的配對，像是「網球王子」主角越前龍馬與網球部長手塚國光的配對就會被寫成「手塚×龍馬」，既然做了男同性戀配對，就是指在「やおい」中不免有性愛場面，所以寫在×號前的被「腐女子」稱為「攻君」，也就是在正常男女性愛時扮演的是男生的角色，而寫在×號後的就是「受君」，就是在正常男女性愛時扮演女生的角色的人。若沒有特別寫出×號的話就一律以在前面的名字為「攻君」，在後面的名字為「受君」。
「腐女子」地下化的原因
「腐女子」們的活動聖地不同於「御宅族」們在秋葉原，而是在東京的東池袋，東池袋裡由漫畫館及動畫館2店所構成的「K-BOOKS」跟去年才正式進入這塊市場的「まんだらけ」(音為mandarake，意思為滿是漫畫)等聚集了很多專賣針對女性讀者的「同人誌」來販賣。而且另有很多「同人誌」專賣店都開在很隱密的地方，或是設計在店門口根本看不到裡面的客人，相當具私密性。此外，大部分的「腐女子」們都會自己帶小登機箱或是大包包，完全不會提著有店名的袋子，並會在出店門前好好地把自己所買的「戰果」收拾妥當，主要是這些「腐女子」們還是在意外人的眼光、看得出來很害怕讓家人或是同事等知道自己有這方面的「癖好」。
除此之外，讓「腐女子」會不如「御宅族」那樣大方地行動而採偷偷地棲息是跟「やおい」中的對象除了漫畫及動畫外，也會有偶像歌手或是演員在內。而如果是以實際存在的人物為對象的就稱為「ナマモノ」(音為namamono，即為生物，意指真實人物)，像是以著名日劇「大搜查線」中的青島和室井、傑尼斯(Johnny’s)事務所的諸多成員等為內容的作品都是很有人氣的「やおい」。為了不與現實世界的一般歌迷產生摩擦或是對立的情況，所以「腐女子」就相對地採取低調的作風，像是以傑尼斯(Johnny’s)事務所成員的「やおい」上就會標明著「J禁」、「一般禁」等，除了不希望讓實際人物及其經紀公司知道外，也希望不懂「腐女子」這塊的人不要隨便接觸以免踩到「地雷」。
令企業也注目的「腐女子」市場
前面所說的「同人誌」發行者，有可能是單單1人完成，也有可能是由2人以上共同完成，不管是1人或是多人都會稱為是1個「社團」。在日本一年會有2次在東京有明舉行盛大的「同人誌」展售會「Comic Market」，光是有名的同人誌社團一天就可以有600萬日圓的營業額，但由於「同人誌」多數是薄薄的冊子，所以扣掉印刷費僅約200萬日圓成本，其餘的皆為獲利。曾經就有在職業漫畫家身旁辛苦工作的優秀助手表示，與其在知名漫畫家旁邊領著微薄的薪水做助理，還不如去畫同人誌比較好賺。
除此之外，90年代開始出版很多的BL小說、動畫等，也造就了「腐女子」們對於動畫配音員的喜愛，從漫畫、小說、動畫一路熱到只是由配音員以聲音演出的BL CD劇也熱銷到不行，像是去年在日本舉辦了相關配音員的活動，就受到「腐女子」們有如偶像出場的歡聲雷動。從出版社到企業界無一不對「腐女子」的市場抱著野心，可以預見將來市場將會越來越廣。
「腐女子」的現實與妄想
只是自由地在作品操縱著喜好的人物，去寫出或畫出男性同性戀的「やおい」、或是與同好的「腐女子」們在參加完活動後熱烈地討論等，這些都只是純屬於「腐女子」們在妄想世界的活動而已。回到現實世界的「腐女子」們，可能很多都對同性戀不感任何興趣。BL等過於激情的內容都純屬自己的幻想而已，現實生活中，「腐女子」們有很多也是有男朋友甚至老公的，就有20幾歲的「腐女子」笑著表示：「妄想與現實的戀愛是完全不同的，沒有任何關係的。」
既然「腐女子」們都能將現實與妄想分得清楚，那我們旁邊的人也不用過於計較她們的存在、計較她們所看的東西，就把她們當作是女生版的「御宅族」又何妨呢？