Disney, in Its Latest Translation

Hong Kong Theme Park
Seeks to Balance Appeal
To Aficionados and Novices

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 16, 2005

HONG KONG -- Americans Eric and Barbara Roque flew more than 11,000 kilometers last weekend to visit a place they already know intimately. "Oh, it looks just like ours," said 44-year-old Mr. Roque when the green metal gates opened to the public Monday at the world's newest Walt Disney Co. amusement park here.

The couple, whose matching wedding rings feature Mickey Mouse ears, own year-round passes to the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California, just 20 minutes from their home. "Like some people go to bars to hang out, Disney is our hangout," said Mrs. Roque, a 49-year-old who works at retailer Home Depot Inc.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong teen Lee Chen skipped school Monday to make his first visit to a Disneyland with his brother Naphen, who is 17. They live just two subway stops from the new park. Lee, 14, has been on a roller coaster but for Naphen it would be a new adventure. Naphen already owns one piece of Disney merchandise: English-language learning tapes featuring Scrooge McDuck's nephews, whose names he remembers only in Chinese.

Their different experiences sum up the central challenge of Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney's first attempt to cater to consumers in the developing world through theme parks. On the one hand, it must meet expectations of Disney devotees who are loyal to Walt Disney's 50-year-old creations and can tell the difference between chipmunk characters Chip and Dale. (Chip has a dot in his nose, explains Mr. Roque.) On the other, the park must educate millions of Chinese who know little of Alice in Wonderland -- much less how to work the spinning wheel on the Mad Hatter Tea Cups ride.

A tour of the park on opening day with the Roques and the Chen brothers revealed some signs of how Disney aims to strike that balance. Entering the park, the Roques immediately started to spot similarities -- as well as subtle differences. "Look at City Hall! It looks lower," said Mr. Roque, surveying Main Street U.S.A. Like most of the other parks, Main Street features a collection of 19th-century buildings topped with the occasional American flag.

With about a third of the park's guests expected to be Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong residents, another third mostly Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese, and the rest expected to come mostly from around the region, speaking English could be a plus in the park. The Jungle River Cruise, a live-guided boat ride through African and Asian terrain, is offered in three languages. But as each language gets its own line, English-language riders Monday had less of a wait.

Onboard the cruise, the Roques delighted in the differences in Hong Kong, where the boat sails down a considerably larger river than in other parks, and encourages riders to wave and cheer at guests at the vine-covered Tarzan Treehouse.

The Chen brothers weren't quite so enthusiastic. The plastic and metal offerings in Adventureland are no match for the nearby wilds of Southeast Asia, a short plane ride from Hong Kong and filled with real jungle ruins, bamboo bridges and wildlife.

Continuing around the park from Adventureland to Fantasyland, the group hit the most classic Disney attraction of all: the Mad Hatter Tea Cups, which spins riders around inside oversize cups. Naphen wasn't familiar with the ride, and initially didn't want to wait in the 10-minute line. But once the brothers were on, and started spinning their own cups, they were hooked.

This time of year, when Hong Kong hits 32-degree Celsius humid days, wised-up residents are used to hanging out in air-conditioned malls. There's little of that kind of escape at Hong Kong Disneyland. "I don't think I dripped quite as much in Florida," said Mr. Roque, mopping his head.

Next up: the space-themed Tomorrowland, to ride the iconic indoor Space Mountain roller coaster. Hong Kong's version of the three-minute ride, based on the recently updated Space Mountain in Anaheim, has speakers built into the seats, enhancing the special effects that simulate whizzing through space. And as in Anaheim, Mrs. Roque knew to strike a pose when the camera flashed at the end of the ride. While the Roques bought prints of their photos from Disney, most riders simply snapped a picture of the photos displayed on a screen with their own cellphone cameras. The Chen brothers took their own photos.

Even though the Hong Kong version of the ride doesn't flip upside down, as does the one at Paris Disneyland, Naphen and Lee were sold. "I would come back to ride Space Mountain with my friends," said Naphen. His brother finally broke into a grin.

Space Mountain is the only high-speed attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland. "This is probably the most tame of the Disney parks in terms of rides," said Mrs. Roque. According to Disney, the company's research showed that Chinese tourists are less interested in fast rides than in taking photographs, shopping, and watching fireworks. As a result, there's no Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, or Matterhorn -- three popular attractions at other parks.

(The park does, though, have subtle Chinese influences -- a feng shui expert was brought in to help shape the design of the site's water and walkways to bring good fortune.)

So, instead of cramming the park with roller coasters, Disney pushes gentle character education. Many new attractions teach the audience the stories behind Disney movies or let visitors take their photographs with cartoon characters.

Sometimes, though, the characters get lost in translation. Marie the Cat, a minor Disney character from Disney's 1970 cartoon "The Aristocats" -- unrecognizable to many Western tourists -- turns up in shows and in person around the park to greet Chinese guests, well-known for their adoration of another cat not owned by Disney: Sanrio's Hello Kitty.

At the end of the day, the Chens left smiling but weren't in a hurry to return. "I'd come again with my friends. But next time I come, I would just do two rides: Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear," said Naphen. His brother wasn't as upbeat. "It is quite expensive," said Lee. "For ($45, or €37) you could buy...a T-shirt and eat a nice meal."

日研究發現吃宵夜易胖的原因

　　日本大學藥學部的榛葉繁紀專任講師的研究團隊發現了因身體生理時鐘而調節的蛋白質，且此蛋白質幾乎白天在體內都未生成，深夜時才開始增加，並且是造成「吃宵夜易胖」這個常識相關的一份子。

　　此蛋白質稱為「BMAL1」，它與DNA結合，並在生理時鐘正常活動調節下活動，而榛葉講師發現細胞內BMAL1的量越多，脂肪的量也會越多。主要的 原因是BMAL1會促進脂肪酸與膽固醇結合，而BMAL1較多的地方，脂肪屯積量也會增多。

　　實際利用操作遺傳基因的方式，使得老鼠身上細胞沒有BMAL1蛋白質，並調查老鼠的脂肪堆積狀況，結果得到就算是該細胞的胰島素增加、呈現營養過剩的 情況，細胞內還是沒有脂肪堆積的情形。另外，在皮膚等不會儲存脂肪的細胞也發現沒有BMAL1的存在，但若反向操作遺傳基因的方式，讓這些本來不會堆積脂 肪的細胞裡有了BMAL1，則細胞內就開始會堆積脂肪。

　　榛葉講師表示，體內BMAL1的量，一天之中在晚上10點到凌晨2點之間達到最高，甚至會達到量最少的下午3時的20倍左右，因此在其大量生成之際， 應避免吃宵夜與預防肥胖應該是確有其關聯的。
（2005/9/12）

肥胖男性小心得大腸癌

　　肥胖男性要多注意了！日本厚生勞動省研究小組發現，體格指標值（BMI）在27以上的過胖男性，比BMI值未達25的男性罹患大腸癌機率多1.4倍。 這個結果是由日本國立癌症預防中心在8日提出。

　　研究小組在全日本10個區域找出40～69歲男女約1萬人，進行長達9年的追蹤調查，研究肥胖與大腸癌之間的關係。結果發現有1000人罹患大腸癌， 而BMI值在27以上的男性，罹患大腸癌機率比BMI未滿25的男性多1.4倍，而女性則並沒有因為體重而有差異。

　　BMI值是體重(公斤)除以身高(公尺)的平方，標準值為22，超過25為肥胖。
（2005/9/9）

Dogs Are People, Too

Valerie Bennett, of Slidell, La., reunited with Lady in Atlanta.

New York Times
September 11, 2005

By JOHN LELAND

Valerie Bennett, of Slidell, La., reunited with Lady in Atlanta.

FROM the terrificpets.com discussion board came the 12-exclamation-point alarm: "OMG !! ... I just heard on the NEWS there may be 50,000 animals LEFT BEHIND!!!!!!!!!!"

As reactions to the Katrina rescue efforts have been divided along lines of class, race and political party, they have also highlighted another schism: between dog haves and dog have-nots. Animal owners around the country have responded with outpourings of sympathy, hurt and outrage: How could rescue workers have barred pets from helicopters and shelters?

"There's been a lot of talk about this at the dog run," said Carol Vinzant, who brings her shepherd mix Jolly to the dog run in Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan. "They're forcing these dog owners to abandon their dogs, which in ordinary times is a crime itself. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people died because they did the right thing and stayed with their dogs."

Jo Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the agency had already received more than $5.25 million for rescue efforts, along with shipments of food, blankets and other animal supplies.

Such animal generosity is nothing new. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, the A.S.P.C.A.'s New York branch received so many supplies that it had to stop taking donations.

Last week, as teams of rescuers combed through New Orleans on separate missions - one group taking people without animals, the other taking animals without people - many residents were still refusing to leave without their pets.

"When we all re-evaluate this event, it may make us rethink the way we do human rescue," Ms. Sullivan said.

For Elizabeth Finch, the owner of two dogs named Zorra and Hans Blix, the sight of citizens forced to choose between their pets and their safety was, like the disaster itself, indicative of broader social rifts. "Not to equate people with animals," she said, "but this fits into a bigger model of discrimination."

Planning the Impossible: New York's Evacuation

Lief Parsons


New York Times
September 11, 2005

By SAM ROBERTS

ON New Year's Eve 1999, Fred Siegel writes in "The Prince of the City," his new book about Rudolph W. Giuliani's New York, authorities feared that terrorists would seize on Y2K computer glitches to strike in Times Square. In response, the National Guard was secretly mobilized in Brooklyn "as part of an emergency plan for evacuating Manhattan." As midnight came and went, the computers hummed on, the celebration proceeded flawlessly and officials concluded, Mr. Siegel notes with a tinge of sarcasm, "Gotham was ready for a future emergency."

In fact, no plan existed that night for evacuating all of Manhattan. The guard unit at the Brooklyn Navy Yard consisted of about 100 troops and 50 trucks, and their mission, in the event of an attack, was limited to ferrying the injured out of Times Square.

Today, four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there is still no single plan to evacuate all of New York, which virtually no one believes is possible. If New York's anthem was about fleeing the city instead of its lure, its lyrics might read: "If you can make it out of here, you can make it out of anywhere."

Just imagine trying to move more than eight million New Yorkers - including the high number of people without cars - through streets that are clogged on an ordinary day and then through the tunnels and over the bridges that connect New York's islands to the mainland and to one another. "It would not be easy and it would not be pretty," said Jerome M. Hauer, the city's former emergency management director.

History offers little comfort. For example, on Nov. 25, 1783, British troops began their retreat from New York (a day still celebrated in some Irish neighborhoods as Evacuation Day). It took them a full month.

During World War II, civil defense focused on air raid shelters, but the advent of radioactive weapons in the cold war inspired proposals to evacuate people by boat (after a test-run by a flotilla of 20 ferries, barges and tugboats up the East River in 1951, officials figured 100,000 an hour could be spirited away for six hours; then the flow "would taper off for lack of equipment"). There were also plans to construct atomic-proof shelters for 1.5 million beneath city parks, in underground stations in Washington Heights and along a Second Avenue subway bored through rock, and to build two cross-town expressways to speed the escape from Manhattan.

Even so, a mayoral panel concluded in 1955 that only a million people could be moved from the worst danger zones within an hour. "Until more efficient use of transportation and more than one hour's warning can be assured," the panel said, "about three million people, or 37 percent of the city's eight million population, might be balked in any attempt to escape the target area except by walking."

In 1966, the city's civil defense director, Timothy J. Cooney, admitted the obvious: "If a nuclear bomb fell in our midst, civil defense would be an academic question."

Today, the city appears to be better prepared than ever for disasters, especially natural ones like hurricanes (a Category 5 hurricane has apparently never hit the city head on). Officials have maps of escape routes from vulnerable neighborhoods near water to 23 reception centers and public shelters, the ability to mobilize fleets of buses, and a keen sense of contingencies (like knowing when bridges would have to be closed because of high winds and when subway and car tunnels might flood).

"It's very important to have a sense of order if you have an evacuation and we are able to mass 37,000 cops in the neighborhoods that need it, where people are poor or infirm," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. Still, as the city's Household Preparedness Guide says: "Evacuation is used as a last resort."

Joseph F. Bruno, the emergency management commissioner, said the city is prepared to move from 400,000 to two million people from the path of a hurricane - a challenge made a little less daunting by advance warning, knowing which flood-prone areas to evacuate and identifying how many poor, elderly, disabled and non-English speakers live there. Since 9/11, with its hellish communications breakdowns, New York officials said they have also vastly improved their ability to communicate with the public by radio and television and, to a lesser extent, with each other.

Still, much of the planning assumes that people already know what to do (the city's preparedness guide is available online at nyc.gov/readyny and two million copies have been distributed in eight languages), or would telephone the city's information line, 311, which can handle only so many calls (about 178,000 two years ago on the day of the blackout).

"Would it be difficult to move two million people? Absolutely," Mr. Bruno said. "I hope we never have to do it."

Which means evacuating eight million would be beyond difficult. "We have plans for area evacuations, and if you take them to their logical conclusion an area could be the entire city of New York," Mr. Bruno said. "Those are doomsday type things, a nuclear attack. We're definitely not throwing our hands up. But it would be a catastrophic event that would be extremely difficult for New York City to have to deal with."

How long would it take to virtually empty the city? "I wouldn't even hazard a guess," Mr. Bruno replied.

Mr. Hauer, now a consultant in Washington, said evacuating the whole city would not be impossible, but would be fraught with nightmarish challenges, like rescuing people from hospitals and nursing homes and reversing traffic flows. "It's a matter of where do you put all those people when you get them out of Manhattan," he said.

And, in a nuclear explosion, Mr. Hauser added, there's is the danger of radioactivity. "Rescue workers might, without any idea of protection, at the end of the day choose to stay out of the plume and I can't blame them," he said. "Obviously, there'd be a lot of self-evacuation."

That's more or less what happens after work every weekday when half the borough's daytime population - nearly 1.5 million commuters - leaves Manhattan to return home. Perhaps there's some comfort in remembering that, except for the stragglers, most eventually make it.

Being a Landlord is Not Easy

FINALLY, SUCCESS : Dulce de la Cruz is now happy to be a landlord, but she initially struggled to pay bills and often had to go to court to get rent money from tenants in her Brooklyn building. (Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)

New York Times
September 11, 2005
By DENNIS HEVESI

THOUSANDS of fledgling landlords are scooping up small multiple-unit dwellings throughout the New York area - pristine two-families in the Rockaways, for instance, or vintage buildings along Manhattan side streets or in Brooklyn's brownstone enclaves - but some of them do not quite know what they are getting into.

Being a landlord means dealing with multiple challenges: choosing the right tenants, planning for a panoply of legal, financial and maintenance obligations, navigating the bureaucratic maze and understanding that for the small landlord there are no economies of scale - no discount on the low-volume fuel bill; top dollar to the tradesman called in because there is no plumber on staff; in fact, probably, no staff. So just who does take out the garbage?

But many buyers do not know about those responsibilities, at least not in the beginning. "You're talking about amateur landlords," said Vincent S. Castellano, who from 1994 to 1999 was host of "Real Estate Nightmares," a radio talk show that is no longer on the air. "These people buy the two-family so the rental will help pay the mortgage. They think it's easy because this class of housing seems familiar, but they're completely unaware of the pitfalls."

Fifteen years ago, Dulce de la Cruz was one of those novice landlords, dreaming of gathering her family into the six-unit building she bought on Lincoln Road in Flatbush for $160,000. "I have brothers and sisters and I wanted us to live together," said Ms. de la Cruz, who works as a nursing assistant. So far, with most of her tenants remaining and only her daughter moving in, Ms. de la Cruz's image of the future hasn't quite panned out.

For one thing, the previous owner wasn't quite up front about the difficulties she would face with some of the tenants - drug sales in the hallways, nonpaying tenants, code violations caused by tenants, the woman with 10 grandchildren, three other adults and a dog in one apartment. "He didn't tell me those things," she said. "He fooled me."

Keeping the building afloat was rough. "I used to work seven days a week to pay for this building," Ms. de la Cruz said. "The mortgage was $1,400, plus gas, light, insurance, taxes, water and lawyer's fees, because I had to go to court to get rent money from the tenants."

It was never easy, getting that money.

"When you ring the bell," she said, "they'd go, 'What do you want?' and slam the door."

The troublemakers have since been evicted, but not before Ms. de la Cruz learned to take photographs, with dates displayed, to show Housing Court judges that she had repaired the damage caused by some tenants.

Then, four years ago, the big turnaround came: a $330,000, low-interest construction loan arranged by Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, allowing for a complete building renovation. "I never got the money in my hand," Ms. de la Cruz said. "It goes right to the contractor that H.P.D. hired to do the work."

Now, with the work done, Ms. de la Cruz has larger debt payments, but she has been able to slowly raise rents to about $800 for four of the apartments. "And my daughter took over an apartment for $700," she said. "Believe me, this is a piece of cake today compared to what I had."

To those who have dealt over the years with small landlords, the major pitfall is obvious. "If you get a tenant from hell and it takes eight months to evict this person," said Mr. Castellano, owner of Picture Properties, a real estate brokerage firm in the Rockaways, "how are you going to carry the mortgage on your own?"

In today's bullish real estate market, with its low interest rates and aggressive mortgage marketing, it is also true that home seekers are often pushed to buy "as much house" as they can afford, under the assumption that their incomes will increase. "That's why they're vulnerable, because the first couple of years they're counting nickels to pay their bills," Mr. Castellano said.

And for first-time landlords - so often double-income couples buying a two- or three-family home - that recalcitrant renter is just one land mine. "What if one of them gets laid off or injured or pregnant, and their income goes down?" Mr. Castellano said. "Sometimes the cushion is wide enough to manage one negative impact. But two negative impacts and you're in foreclosure."

It hasn't quite come to that for Lloyd Noel and his mother, who took possession of a four-story, eight-unit building on New York Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after her divorce in 2000.

"It was something we didn't know anything about, becoming a landlord," Mr. Noel said. "My mother took the building because it was her only source of income."

Unlike the one nonpaying tenant out of 200 in a large apartment complex, the lone contentious tenant in an eight-unit building can cause considerable strain on a small landlord's income. And that is true even if, as in Helen Noel's case, the elderly woman in Apartment 2L who still pays $95 a month for a rent-controlled apartment had some justification for all those Housing Court claims.

Mr. Noel, 36, said his father had owned the building since 1976. The family did not live on the premises, but Mr. Noel now rents an apartment for $800 a month.

The other rents are $1,200, $1,100, $953, $930, $853, $763 and $95 - bringing the total rental income to $6,694 a month. But with mortgage payments of $3,300 and other monthly expenses, including $900 for gas and $500 for insurance, the Noels tiptoe along a slim profit margin, especially with that low of $95 from the woman in 2L.

"My father and her used to battle it out in court," Mr. Noel said. "Her apartment was in the worst condition in the building: holes in the floor, windows broken, doors missing. She'd show pictures that it was never repaired and she would get a decrease." After the last reduction, in 1992, Mr. Noel said: "My father felt it was a waste of time to take her to court. He refused to fix her apartment, and because he refused he left the rent alone."

Mr. Noel and his mother spent $23,000 to renovate Apartment 2L: new windows, kitchen cabinets, floor tiles, a paint job. "Knowing we had a ton of violations on that apartment, we haven't raised her rent," Mr. Noel said. Now they are waiting for the city to verify that the violations have been cleared, "and after that we can raise her rent to $750," he said.

Advocating the safety of a "belt-and-suspenders budgeting approach," Sarah Gerecke, chief executive of Neighborhood Housing Services, said that small landlords should underestimate their monthly rental income by about 10 percent, in case an apartment is unexpectedly vacated, while creating a contingency fund equal to three months of operating expenses.

The linchpin for a smooth operation is, however, good landlord-tenant relations.

Ms. Gerecke said a course given by her agency teaches landlords how to verify an applicant's credit history, income, rent-payment history and references. Or, if there are difficult tenants already in place, whether it is worth the risk to buy the building in the first place.

"It can be a successful marriage or a dysfunctional divorce," she said, pointing out that in two- and three-family home situations, where a tenant is often a relative, things can get particularly sticky. "You may need to learn to resolve conflicts in a different way," she said. "Yes, we're relatives, but this is business."

Relative or not, new tenant or old, the relationship must be based on "communication of clear expectations," Ms. Gerecke said. Among the matters that should be discussed in advance, she said, are pets, smoking, parking, garbage removal, even who changes the light bulbs and, of course, noise. "Maybe headphones should come with the lease," she said. "Is the upstairs apartment carpeted?" A videotaped walk-through with the tenant is recommended.

Sherwin Belkin, a real estate lawyer, leads new landlords through the intricacies of the process in Manhattan. "Too often, I find that first-time landlords look only at the building's location, value, structural soundness and the ability to obtain clean title," he said. "They should also thoroughly investigate who their current tenants are," particularly whether they are rent-regulated.

"The new landlord steps into the shoes of the prior owners," Mr. Belkin said, and needs to determine whether tenants are habitually delinquent in paying rent, or are litigious. At the same time, he said, "an owner who buys a rent-stabilized property becomes liable for any rent overcharges during the previous four years, even though the monies were paid to the prior landlord."

If a new landlord plans to take over all or several apartments for personal use, it is necessary to determine whether any rent-stabilized tenants are 62 or older or are disabled, "because he will be obligated to provide those people with a comparable relocation apartment," Mr. Belkin added.

And the new owner needs to know if any tenants have lived in rent-controlled apartments for more than 20 years, because they are immune from owner-occupancy proceedings. "I had a client who came to me after he purchased an Upper West Side town house with the intention of vacating several floors to create a large family residence," Mr. Belkin said. The new owner did not realize that a tenant had lived in a rent-controlled apartment for more than 20 years, right in the middle of the planned family residence. "Although we were ultimately able to vacate the unit, it was only by purchasing a small condominium apartment on the West Side where we could move the tenant," Mr. Belkin said.

Still, there are plenty of benefits to becoming a landlord, and many people enjoy it. In February, Nelly Anderson bought a house on Maple Parkway in the Mariners Harbor section of northern Staten Island "and is glad to be a landlord," according to her son Elvis Byrd, 42, who lives in the house.

Mrs. Anderson, a home attendant who is 64 and nearing retirement, is enjoying both the comfort of living with kin and the benefits of rental income.

Mr. Byrd, who pays his mother $1,000 a month in rent and brings the skills of a home-improvement worker to the equation, lives upstairs in a four-bedroom with his wife, Sheriee, and their three children. The woman who lives in the adjoining unit with her three children pays $1,300 a month. "They've been living here for four years," Mr. Byrd said. When Mrs. Anderson bought the house, she continued to rent to them.

Mrs. Anderson bought the 1907 three-family house with cedar shingles and aluminum siding for $350,000, made a down payment of $35,000 and pays $2,040 a month on the mortgage - more than covered by the rental income. "You couldn't go wrong with buying a three-family home because you have someone helping pay the mortgage," Mr. Byrd said.

Dina Calhoun is also a novice landlord and describes her experiences as "so far, so good." Six months ago, Ms. Calhoun, a clerk for Verizon Communications, paid $225,000 for a two-family on 109th Street in Jamaica, Queens, and moved into the upstairs three-bedroom.

She joined a local church, "and I met them there," Ms. Calhoun said of her tenants. The couple and their 9-year-old son moved in in May, and are paying less than the $1,500 to $1,600 a month that most three-bedrooms in the neighborhood currently rent for.

"We had a long discussion on my expectations, and they shared what they wanted," Ms. Calhoun said. "My conditions were to maintain the condition of the apartment. If they want a barbecue in the backyard, let me know in advance. I agreed to let them park in my driveway."

Her tenants have become friends. "We help each other with stuff," Ms. Calhoun said. "My son plays with their son. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and praying."

日本結婚新生活型態

台灣日本綜合研究所 傅婉禎

日本在70年代以後，由於個人主義節節高昇及核心家族化的影響，使得傳統大家族的景象不再，家族成員的關係也慢慢封閉了起來，夫妻間、家人間慢慢開始起了 摩擦，大家一個勁兒地強調結婚及養育小孩的辛苦及不安，卻忘了人與人間該如何相處。就在這種情形下，因而展開了許多種不同的結婚新生活型態。

在日本雜誌的訪問下發現，最入門級的結婚新生活型態是「部分同居」，例如在夫妻的兩人生活中，加入了妻子的女性朋友。而「部分同居」的意思是指一起吃 飯，由於妻子的女性朋友就住得很近，再加上妻子喜歡熱鬧，且結婚後的兩人世界裡夫妻能對話的內容有限，妻子的女性朋友跟丈夫同是上班族，也可以拓展話題， 妻子因為多了一個女性閨中好友在也可以天南地北聊天來解除壓力，再加上煮飯不管煮幾人份，花的工夫及費用是差不多的，所以就展開了這種「部分同居」的生活。

除了「部分同居」外也有真的跟朋友所組成的大家族，夫妻和小孩再加上各自的朋友及其男女朋友，而妻子與前夫的小孩跟其他朋友也會時常進出，完全脫離了 家庭的界限。雖然夫妻都是因為彼此喜歡才互訂終身的，但是兩人在一起久了生活步調太單一，很容易連最重要的互相喜歡的心情都變調了。受訪的妻子表示，正因 為有過離婚的經驗，所以才想出這種破除界線新婚後生活，跟著新的夥伴一起像個大家族般的生活才不會又重蹈之前婚姻失敗的覆轍。

此外，在下班過後接回小孩，回家後除了有大家族迎接著，喜歡煮菜的朋友煮好晚餐馬上就有熱騰騰的飯菜可吃，吃完飯的收拾工作也是大家一起做，比起以前 失敗的婚姻生活，妻子不管白天工作多累，回到家就註定還要一個人做一堆家事跟照顧小孩，但跟朋友組成的大家族生活就不一樣了，吃完飯後只要大家在客廳的話 就會幫忙照顧小孩，省去了請保姆的費用，雖然每個人能跟小孩玩的時間有限，但是比起只有媽媽一個人一直盯著要好，大家一起照顧小孩，對著小孩時的心情都是 很好的，對小孩來說反而是種好事，而且再也沒有比有很多人手能一同來帶小孩要來得有幫助了。大家族的成員累了的話就進自己的房間休息，要繼續工作的人也就 回到自己的桌前努力，生活變得很自由。沒事的人就會幫忙洗衣服和打掃家裡，且當自己有事不能去托兒所接小孩時，還可以請朋友代為接回。

除了這種以朋友聚集的大家族外，東京日暮里的共同住宅「KANKAN森」也提供類似的空間讓大家體會大家族的生活。外觀雖是普通的公寓，但是裡面每家 除了各有41平方公尺的房間(包含廚房、衛浴設備、廁所)，還有供28間房的所有居民全員座位的晚餐間、跟餐廳同等級的廚房、客廳、陽台、洗衣場和居民的 共同空間。居民只要一個月負責煮一次晚餐，就能吃到每週3次由其他居民提供的溫熱飯菜。也因為需要做共同空間的打掃及每週有3次一起吃晚餐的時間，所以都 能認識共同居住的人，並能培養出信賴關係，像一般租房子一樣沒看過鄰居是不可能的事。有小朋友的家庭也可以帶去共同空間跟大家一起玩，因為空間很大，居民 又互相認識，就算讓小朋友一個人在走廊上玩也覺得很安心。而小朋友因為可以跟很多不同的人接觸，也可以讓小朋友學到和每個人不同的應對方式，對小孩來說也 是種不錯的機會教育。大人們則可以在共同空間裡召開屬於大人的飲酒會，透過與不同年齡層、不同職業的人互相聊天，有傾聽的人，也有可以提供建議的人。

除了這種混合居住之外，也有人選的結婚新生活型態是分開住的，在養育小孩告一段落後，覺得夫妻兩人每日相向過日子的生活變得痛苦的人增加，這時候不是 要離婚而是可以換個方式過活。因而有人推薦從以往的婚姻生活中畢業，變成適合自己的生活型態，與其大家一同住在一起彼此厭惡而爭吵，不如保持點距離各自生 活，從無趣的生活中解放，不需太在意旁人，只要自己幸福就好了。

甚至有些人覺得靠法律保障的婚姻不可靠，於是展開了一年一次的契約婚姻，在每年的結婚紀念日簽訂之後一年是否還要在一起生活，除了增加了一些結婚的刺 激，也可以互相確認對方的心意，對於覺得結婚就是一輩子的夫妻來講，或許可以產生好的危機感也增添生活的樂趣。

無論是共同居住或是分開居住，現在的人可以說與其在乎公證結婚的一張紙，更在乎實際上所過的生活，當然，只要夫妻雙方都同意要怎麼做旁人似乎都管不 著，但在共同居住時還是要挑選生活習慣好的人，以免幫了倒忙反而造成夫妻之間更大的不愉快，您說是嗎？

Deepest Thoughts on a World Tour

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

Published: September 8, 2005

IN 1916, on a troop ship from Australia, a pair of soldiers stuffed a piece of paper in a bottle. "Two young men, soldiers on our way to the Front," they had written on it, "would like the person or persons finding this note to write to us as we are very lonely." Like so many bottle-borne missives, it was an attempt to call out to strangers in unknown places. And the attempt was not entirely in vain. According to an Australian newspaper account, the bottle and its note were found on the coast of Tasmania by a passing priest - nearly four decades later.

Jessica Brandi Lifland for The New York Times

Brian Singer of San Francisco started the 1000 Journals Project; so far one full journal has been returned.

Enlarge This Image

Contributors can use whatever they want to represent themselves in a journal, whether it's a typical "dear diary" entry or artwork or magazine clippings.

The practice of sending a message in a bottle has gone out of fashion, lost to the decline in ocean travel and rise of surer methods of communicating. But the impulse to reach out to strangers has not disappeared. It has lately resurfaced in the form of an elaborate type of Internet-based game.

Last year in Hacienda Heights, Calif., Joy Rothke decided to cast a message out into the world. She copied down a favorite Frank O'Hara poem and sent it on its way. Not in a bottle, but in a journal, which she dropped in the mail. Her package was sent to a stranger on the Isle of Man, a woman whose name she no longer remembers. That person read Ms. Rothke's message, added one of her own and sent the journal along to someone else, who read it, added to it and so on. The volunteer writers and artists had signed up to receive the journal at a Web site for the Wandering Moleskine Project, named for the brand of notebook passed around. Some also sent e-mail messages back to the site noting where the journal was.

The Wandering Moleskine Project is one of at least five such traveling journal games that have lately sprung up on the Internet. Others include the Baghdad Diaries Project, Sight Unseen Journals and projects in Italian and German. Combining the worldwide reach of the Net with old-fashioned writing, drawing, pasting, wrapping and sending by conventional mail, the traveling journals are modern, loosely organized games of message in a bottle. They offer people a chance to cast out their feelings, their wisdom and their secrets, and in so doing, to ease their loneliness and reach out to worlds beyond their own.

"There is this belief that the Internet has killed off note keeping, and it's really not true," said Ms. Rothke, a freelance writer and writing teacher who called the combination of the Net and "a notebook floating around" "the best of both worlds."

People have been playing similar Web-based games at least since 1998, with the creation of WheresGeorge.com, a dollar-bill tracking site. Participants wrote the site's address on dollar bills and hoped that recipients would log on and note their location.

Web addresses have likewise been attached to everything from rubber ducks to cigarette lighters, which are then left in public places to be found and passed along by strangers, ideally people who will log their progress on a Web site. Two of the best-known tracking games are Phototag.org, which tracks disposable cameras labeled with instructions for each finder to take a picture and pass it along, and BookCrossing.com, which follows the travels of books through a series of readers.

The journal-tracking games take the concept to another level by asking participants to contribute something personal and often creative to the object being passed along.

For many contributors, the fun lies simply in seeing how distant a path a journal can travel.

"Would those in Finland or America have imagined that this notebook would see a sunrise like this - in a campground at a folk music festival near Braidwood in outback New South Wales in Australia? - where the white cockatoos' screech adds a distinctly Australian flavor to the scattered fiddles, guitars and accordions greeting the day!" That note was left in a journal by a man named Jerry Everard in the winter of 2004. He also scanned it and sent it to the Moleskine site.

"The whole international element is kind of cool," said Linda Zacks, a 32-year-old artist from Brooklyn who participated in the 1000 Journals Project (http://www.1000journals.com/), which inspired the creation of several journal games. "It's going to travel all over the place and you don't really know where. You can make a connection with a random person. Or inspire a random person. Or be inspired by someone you might have never met." She received the journal after contacting the Web site and then passed it on to a friend.

For people who have never thought of themselves as writers, contributing even a page or two in a journal can bring unexpected satisfaction. "Seen so many beautiful scenes from beaches that extend to the horizon and lakes frozen with ice and covered in snow," wrote Ralph Sarich of Detroit in January in one of the journals from the Wandering Moleskine Project (http://www.moleskinerie.com/ and octolan.com/journey). "Yet I have never ever written these things in a book." Journal entries can be clichéd (a heart with Band-Aids and a sticker across it that reads "fragile") or profound (a man writing about his dead godfather's many travels), and tackle any subject that, as Brian Singer, the creator of the 1000 Journals Project, put it, "people are willing to write when no one is there to see you." There are rants about politics, quotes from the Kama Sutra, inspirational messages ("Stop searching, happiness is right next to you"), family photographs, maps, even CD's of favorite music. One man stuck a dollar bill into a journal to buy coffee for the next contributor.

If the participants were interested merely in sharing their ideas and drawings with others, they could do that far more easily by contributing to online journals and chat rooms. That they choose instead to pass along actual books via land, sea and air reflects a change in the way people are thinking about the Internet.

"It is a relatively new phenomenon," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a historian and futurist at the Institute for the Future, a research organization in Silicon Valley. Cyberspace used to be considered an alternate dimension, he said. Now, with the proliferation of cellphones, BlackBerrys and other wireless devices, that alternate dimension has begun to meld with everyday life. "It's a move away from talking about that information as separate from the physical world," Dr. Pang said.

Journaling has long been a favorite pastime, but the world is littered with unfinished diaries whose keepers lost steam before filling the pages. Many people prefer the traveling journals because they don't require long-term commitment, said Jennifer New, author of "Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art," published in May. "They only have it in their homes for a few days or weeks," she said.

The traveling journal concept essentially began with Mr. Singer, of San Francisco, who in the fall of 2000 left 100 blank journals in various places - cafe tables, park benches, bus seats and the like - throughout his city. After that he began sending them by mail to people he met through his Web site until 1,000 journals had been dispersed to all 50 states and about 35 countries.

A message inside each one read: "Take this journal and add something to it. Stories, photographs, drawings, opinions. Anything goes. Visit the Web site and tell everyone where you found it. If possible, scan what you added and send it to us. If the journal is full, e-mail us, and we'll arrange for its return. Contents will be shared with the world."

Mr. Singer, a self-described introvert known on the Web site only as Someguy, explained: "There is something interesting about collaborating with people you don't know. There's something romantic about this journal doing things that you couldn't do: going to Croatia, to France."

As João Tito from Portugal wrote in a Wandering Moleskine journal, "I wish I could travel with this notebook."

Mr. Singer said he was inspired in part by bathroom graffiti. Like graffiti writers adding to the existing wisdom on the bathroom wall, the journal contributors could feed off one another's work, he thought. But Mr. Singer also thinks of the traveling journals as a variation on the game Exquisite Corpse played by artists like Joan Miró and Man Ray in which each one in turn would draw an object or shape until it added up to a collaborative work of art.

Mindy Carpenter, 34, the creative director for an Italian gift and stationery company in San Francisco, said she and her husband contributed to a journal connected to the 1000 Journals Project. "So many people participated in it," Ms. Carpenter said, "from kids to professional artists to just everyday people who had something to say. There were no rules. It was a really kind of fascinating paper documentary."

Sarah Becker, 32, of Downers Grove, Ill., who has contributed to several Sight Unseen Journals (http://www.sightunseenjournals.com/), said: "I think it's just the mystery of it. You get something in the mail other than bills, something exciting to look forward to."

Just one of Mr. Singer's 1,000 journals, No. 526, has been filled and sent back to him. It had been as far away as Brazil and Ireland, Mr. Singer said, and it is currently in the hands of filmmakers who are creating a documentary about the project.

He knows the location of about 100 other journals, thanks to the filmmakers, who tracked some down, and contributors who have e-mailed him. The rest are unaccounted for. But Mr. Singer is optimistic that some will come back one day.

"It's just a matter of time," he said. "Ten years from now I may get a journal back that's been floating around. That's kind of the beauty of it. The longer it goes, the better it's going to be."

享受孤獨－日本「一人之旅」悄悄盛行

台灣日本綜合研究所
傅婉禎

日本的飯店及旅館在今年暑假時為了能多招攬一些客人，因而想盡辦法吸引一些個人戶上門，以往都會再三詢問是否只有一個人住宿的飯店及旅館，現在就算是一個 人上門消費也是大大的歡迎，除了希望提升業績外，這年頭喜歡一個人旅行或是在飯店小住一晚的人增加也是一個很大的要因。

　 　以往的個人戶通常都是以女性居多，像是全日空飯店今年暑假推出的在房間就可以享受護膚沙龍跟按摩等的住宿一晚服務，一個人的費用是從3萬9000日圓 (約台幣1萬1700元)起跳，跟單住一晚飯店的費用4萬2000日圓(約台幣1萬2600元)要划算很多，而且護膚沙龍完後也不用馬上化妝，可以好好在 房間裡休息，因此招來了7成的女性客人，未來也計畫推出以非住宿者為對象的午餐附加護膚沙龍的方案來吸引客人。

　 　聽起來好像只有女生會想去這種一個人的飯店住宿方案，但其實很多飯店及旅館也有針對男客來設計的方案，像是前面的全日空飯店也有提供相對於女性護膚沙 龍的Men’s Care方案；Hotel日航大阪也推出了針對男性的住宿方案「男人的休息時間」等，在雙人房大小的房間裡設置了按摩椅，除了可在房間享用早餐之外，晚上 也附上酒類讓男性客人能在飯店小酌一番。這個企劃從4月開始販賣至今，比預想的還多了一倍以上的客人，每個月約有5、60個人。除了在都市的飯店之外，現 在有一些隱密住家感覺的高級旅館或是平時以家族客人和團體客人居多的溫泉旅館，現在都開始接受房客一人的預約。

　 　其實根據財團法人日本交通公社2001~03年調查在國內旅行的男女，在25~69歲的各個年齡層，做「一人之旅」的男性要比女性多，像在25~29 歲做「一人之旅的男性有14%，但女性卻只有7%；30~34歲做一人之旅的男性有10%，女性相對之下也只有5%，可見男性比女性要喜歡做「一人之 旅」。而做過「一人之旅」的男性表示跟一般非一人之旅的行程比起來，他們比較不喜歡去溫泉或是遊樂園之類的地方，而會去一些風景名勝或是具有文化氣息的地 方，「一人之旅」旅遊地的排名第一名是東京、第二名是長野、第三名則是北海道。

　 　至於喜歡做「一人之旅」的理由則是可以十分輕鬆，不需要顧忌一同前往旅行的人，也不需要特別先預定好行程，沒有約束可以更為放鬆自己。更有人表示從學 生時代就很喜歡到處旅行，但是變成上班族之後要取得長期休假很難，因為一個人住就算休幾天假全待在家裡也沒辦法轉換心情，如果可以的話會在國內做個4天3 夜的國內旅行，但是由於假難請，所以現在變成一年會在東京都內的飯店住上3、4次，離開家才能徹底地從平常生活中抽出，心裡的大石也才能放下休息。除此之 外，有些壓力大到夜不成眠的人也會選擇到飯店購買「快眠room」方案，以特殊照明及具有舒眠效果的影片來讓自己能放鬆心情好好睡一覺。

　 　以「男性一人留宿」為目標市場提供服務的先驅—京王Plaza Hotel從2003年7月就開始提供「俺的時間」方案，平均每個月都有30~50房的販賣實績，而且常客還很多。京王Plaza Hotel也表示，他們剛開始有提供在酒吧可以無限暢飲雞尾酒等6個選擇項給房客選擇，但是大部分購買「俺的時間」的男性房客都會選擇在房間裡看付費電視 或是在餐廳選早餐，更多的房客是到了房間後就一步也不出，只是在房間發呆或是放空。

　 　這些上班族男性並非每個都是大老闆，也不是個個都是有錢人，在有自己的家的情況下，一個月還是想花費一個月零用錢的大半去住一晚飯店，主要還是希望能 轉換心情釋放壓力，壓力過大想大聲吶喊或是做些暴行時，只要放空地從飯店的窗戶往外看就能更為冷靜地了解自己的立場，變回單純明快的心情。

　 　『目標一人市場』的著者牛窪惠表示，比起追求一次又一次流行事物的女性，男性的興趣幅度較窄，因為不會像女性一樣特別將自己的興趣告知他人，所以也不 容易有口耳相傳的情況，但是一旦沈迷，投資下去的金額也不會輕易妥協，所以才會有一再出現的「一人住宿」常客存在，引起的旋風也不會如女性一般地張揚，而 是有如蠶食般地悄悄盛行，您感受到這股悄悄盛行的風潮了嗎？

煩惱時前男（女）友是商量的最佳對象？

台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　傅婉禎

　　「因不了解而結合，因了解而分開」這是常上演在很多男男女女之間的事，因為有了覺得下一個男人或是女人會更好的心理，而選擇跟原本的戀人結束戀情變回普通朋友，但在因緣際會下再度相遇，男婚女嫁後或交了新一任男女友後，才發現彼此是可以談心事的最佳對象，這時的狀況可就有點微妙了。

　　在日本有受訪的女性表示，在工作上正需要一些男性的意見時，覺得跟現任男友商量會破壞了彼此約會的氣氛，剛好又在工作時遇上了前男友，由於自己的想法、喜惡及長處等，前男友都十分了解，再加上前男友又是很會說話的類型，怎麼想都覺得前男友是在遇到煩惱時的最佳商量對象，而且前男友所說出的話像是有著魔咒一般，聽了他的一些分析後，自己便能帶著自信解決問題。

　　而另一位受訪的男性則表示，雖然自己結了婚，但是老婆是家庭主婦跟她講公司的事也不懂，自己有時對於開導女性部下的一些煩惱，若跟老婆說了，又擔心會被誤解。就在這個時候在同學會上，遇到學生時代的前女友，剛好前女友也是做與自己差不多的中間管理職務，不但瞭解自己的個性及做事方法，兩人也因為職務相近而有相同的困擾，因此在商量關於工作相關的事情時，前女友就變成了最佳對象。

　　此外，也有已婚的主婦表示，之所以會再跟也已婚的前男友連絡，除了是希望跟他商量一些沒辦法跟自己老公商量的婆媳不合之類的家庭問題之外，也希望確認看看前男友現在的家庭是否也有同樣的困擾，同時前男友也會說出自己現在工作的情況，因此可以跟自己的丈夫做一個比較。在發現各方面都不錯的前男友也有比現在的丈夫差的地方時，就會更覺得自己當初的選擇是沒有錯的。除此之外，跟學生時期的前男友聊天，也可以回想起兩人年輕時交往的情形，聊完內心也強烈地懷念起20歲什麼都不怕的自己，這種想緬懷過去的心理也是有的。

　　這些男女受訪者都同時呈現出目前身邊的配偶或是戀人，在自己有某些工作上或是生活上的煩惱時並無法給予適度的意見來參考，而自己也覺得他們不適合當某些問題的意見諮詢對象，再加上有些時候工作上的事並不方便跟公司的同事商量，身邊若沒有什麼能給予適當意見的親密好友的話，恐怕只剩下找前男、女友來商量的餘地。而事實上，已婚者再找以往的前男友、前女友出來商量事情的情況意外地其實並不少喔！

　　而商量歸商量，畢竟彼此曾經交往過，也會在意彼此現在的狀況，當然在見面時打扮就是輸人不輸陣，女生一方面要展現自己最真誠的一面，另一方面又要掩飾因操勞而衰老的面容，去護膚沙龍整頓整頓也是必需的，連衣服甚至內衣褲都精心選過，為的就是要讓前男友能有一點後悔當初跟自己分手的惋惜心情。而男性方面，會找前女友相談而不找其他女性親密好友，也多半是不希望自己在女性親密好友面前為了一些煩惱而看起來很遜，而前女友反正各種樣子她都看過了，就也比較會沒有顧忌。

　　但是呢！若是還沒有結婚的男女，在分手後仍會常常或是不定期聯絡的話，通常都是好聚好散型，而也往往會有一方仍對另一方抱有喜歡的心情，但如果為了現在在交往的男女朋友的事找對方商量，不管對方是不是想重新跟你交往，但常常會讓另一方感到大為吃醋或是覺得為什麼要講給我聽，心裡雖然覺得不想聽對方講現任男(女)友怎樣怎樣，但在聽到前男(女)友抱怨現任的男(女)友的事時，又會覺得自己在某此方面有贏過現任男(女)友的感覺，這種微妙的心情也是在分手後才會產生的。

　　不過，看來如果男未婚女未嫁再找以前的男(女)友來商量自己現在感情的事似乎是不妥的，而男女都已婚後找對方商量事情，除了真正商量也有互相比較的感覺，果然不管怎樣以前交往過的對象還是會令自己在意，該如何拿捏那個分寸，就得看個人的修行了。

在少子化的日本「娶老婆」ＶＳ．「入贅」

台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　傅婉禎

　　日本社會在每年只有千分之1多一點點的出生率下，逐漸步入嚴重的少子化社會，一般夫婦有一個小孩就已經堪稱是對國家有貢獻了，若是這一個小孩是女生，長大了又要嫁出去，父母除了不捨、頓時也失去了依靠，所以現在很多家裡有獨生女的家庭都希望未來的女婿可以入贅到自己家裡，「半子」也就順利成章的變成「一子」，原本會被稱為賠錢貨的女兒，因為現在能讓女婿入贅，搖身一變成了賺錢貨，不過，入贅的後續問題卻不可說是不大。

　　最理想的女婿入贅就是女婿家裡的小孩不只一個，而且女婿又不是長子，也就沒有繼承家業或是延續姓氏的責任，這樣也比較好說服男方家長願意讓兒子入贅到女生家裡來。而入贅也並不一定要與岳父、岳母同住，但通常會是住到離女方家很近的地方，因此若有生小孩的話，女方的岳父、岳母也會協助帶小孩，因岳父、岳母疼獨生女兒也會百般照料自己的生活，所以現在有許多日本男生其實並不會排斥自己入贅到女方家。

　　就算不是正式入贅到女方家，還是有許多獨生女會要求結婚後是住在女方家如同入贅一般，只是女方還是改姓成男方的姓氏，可能很多人覺得沒道理不是入贅結了婚之後女生還是住在自己家裡，反而是男生住過去女方家，但獨生女們也有他們的道理。因為自己是獨生女，所以在從小到大的教育及生活上，父母都將大筆金錢投注在培育自己身上，對於自己的父母有這樣的恩義存在，談到將來的事就不能不想到父母，而且生了小孩後，還希望能讓媽媽幫忙帶小孩，把父母放到老人院去對她們來說是絕對不可能的事。

　　除了身為獨生女，覺得父母對自己有養育之恩，自己有報答之義外，由於從小就被當作是掌上明珠捧在手心上備受呵護長大，多數的獨生女都有一些嬌縱，要處理棘手的婆媳問題，對她們來說真是難上加難。甚至有受訪的獨生女表示，結婚後，直接以半開玩笑的方式向丈夫的哥哥表示，公婆的財產繼承就全部給哥哥，丈夫會直接繼承他娘家的財產，所以公婆的照料也就完全委託給哥哥負責，他們反正也不分財產，所以她也沒必要去特別侍候公婆。雖然說這種話會惹得丈夫的哥哥不高興，但對她來說自己的雙親才是擺第一位，所以她也不覺得自己有什麼錯。

　　但只要遇到獨生女的丈夫是長男的情形，事情就會變得很難處理。一位受訪的獨生女表示，她丈夫比她小3歲，雖是長男但是丈夫的姊姊及弟弟都住在離公婆很近的地方，所以自己覺得應該不用特別去照料公婆，無所謂。再加上自己現在住的房子，5000萬日圓裡有1000萬日圓是由自己的父母支助的，所以覺得比起公婆，當然支助自己的父母更重要。結婚之後，丈夫儼然是如入贅的女婿一般。但是丈夫的內心卻還是略有怨言，覺得每每都只跟妻子回娘家，自己也會擔心父母逐漸年老，雖然父母沒特別跟他抱怨，但心裡總是會多少覺得身為長男，還這麼不顧自己的家，內心對自己的雙親不由得歉疚了起來。

　　而少子化下，也很有可能是獨生子娶了獨生女，兩邊都無法放掉撫育自己長大的雙親，男方會理所當然地覺得賺了一個媳婦進來，但是女方卻希望與自己的雙親同住並就近照顧。若是真的取得了一個平衡點順利結婚了，但之後如果同時遇到婚喪喜慶及掃墓等關係到家族的事情時，哪邊雙親的事該優先？這樣的煩惱也一定會產生，不過，又不可能同時跟雙方的雙親一起同住，獨生女遇上獨生子這樣的問題及平衡點真的是更難處理。

　　現在這樣少子化的時代，在大城市裡年紀相當的男性要比女性多，所以女性的選擇權要比男性強很多，想娶個美嬌娘回家的男性立場對上獨生女對於自己父母的恩義可是很難站得住腳，真的入贅或是如同入贅一般住進女方家，對男性不只是要不要捨棄尊嚴的程度而已，而是如果被古老的思考方式一直束縛住的話就會得不到幸福的問題。再者，少子化之下如果再因為雙親及親戚的問題，使得兩個人得不到幸福、結不成婚，理所當然出生率就會越來越少，照這個樣子下去，可能真的有一天日本這個民族會消失也說不一定啊！在民族消失跟結婚讓步兩者比較下，大家的選擇應該會變得比較簡單吧！

風靡日本的低碳水化合物減肥法破滅

台灣日本綜合研究所　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　傅婉禎

　　去年在日本引起一陣風潮的「低碳水化合物減肥法」，是由美國的ATKINS博士所帶起的風潮，以少吃碳水化合物為主，其他東西可以憑自己喜好大吃特吃都沒關係，光是這樣就能減重對很多減不了肥的人是一大福音，而其所出的「ATKINS博士的減肥革命」一書更是大賣，但是這股風潮隨著ATKINS博士所開的減重公司重整，而讓世人頓時清醒，也發現了「低碳水化合物減肥法」的恐怖之處。

　　「低碳水化合物減肥法」的主要理論其實與「低胰島素減肥法」相同。是以少吃醣類的東西，來使得體內的消化酵素減少去分解葡萄糖成身體的能量，而如果身體沒有消耗完這些能量就容易轉換成脂肪堆積，因此ATKINS博士就提倡了這項以少吃碳水化合物為主的減肥法。

　　由於基本上這個減肥法是以低醣類、高蛋白質及高脂質的飲食生活為主，所以還是需要配合多吃能分解脂質的東西、或是不足的營養素要以營養劑來補充(ATKINS博士的公司就是以銷售補充實行「低碳水化合物減肥法」所造成某些營養素不足的營養劑為主)，但因為光在日本實行此減肥法的就有2000萬人，而美國曾經實行此減肥法的人在最高峰時甚至達到全美人口的一成，所以常有人誤解此減肥法的定義為盡量不吃任何碳水化合物，殊不知這樣的誤解可能會毀了自己的健康。

　　首先是若一天所吃的碳水化合物不到50g的話，會造成胰島素不能充分分泌，這樣就會使得體內的中性脂肪變成游離脂肪酸，並大量地釋放在血液中，不過另一方面因為缺乏胰島素所以會使得脂肪無法合成。在這樣的情形下，多餘的能量就沒有地方可去，沒辦法合成的脂肪就變成了酮類(如丙酮等)，而酮類如果增加過多的話，會使得血液變成酸性，並演變為酮症的狀態，在這種情形下，人體就有可能會呈現脫水狀態並會昏睡，就算成功減重也可能會變成重度的糖尿病患者。另外，此減肥法不足的營養素還是需要以營養劑補充，如未做到補充營養劑這點，也可能會造成營養極度不均衡的情形。

　　除了執行錯誤外，就算正確去查每個食物的GI值(升糖指數)並確實執行不吃過多的碳水化合物，真如ATKINS博士的理論一樣可以變瘦，但最後會發現雖然中性脂肪減少，身體的總膽固醇量也維持不變，但是對人體不好的膽固醇-LDL卻增加，東京醫科大學第三內科的小田原雅人教授表示，LDL會提高心臟病患的危險性，雖然沒有確切證據可以說其對健康不好，但是確有此疑慮在。除此之外，由於腦的唯一動能是醣類，而且腦、中樞神經及血球等無法獲得葡萄糖以外的動能，因此如果葡萄糖不足的話，腦的活動也會變得相對遲鈍。而且要是醣類攝取不足，肝臟的就會分解肝醣去補充不足的醣類，約10小時左右肝醣也不足時，才會轉而去分解筋肉中的蛋白質，因此，如果長期處於醣類不足的情況，會對肝臟造成很大的負擔，使得肝臟疲累。而過度攝取脂質及蛋白質，也可能因此造成肥胖、高血壓、動脈硬化等疾病。

　　此外，此一減肥法還有另一個需顧慮到的就是民族性，提倡的ATKINS博士是美國人，所以理所當然此理論是以美國人做實驗所得到的，但是由於美國人主食為肉類，因此對於碳水化合物的注意也是近幾年才起來的。不過，就算是中國人及日本人等長久以來都將米飯當做主食來食用的民族，米飯也不是造成容易肥胖的原因。因為主要會造成肥胖的醣類是單醣，像是果汁、甜點及水果等，這些能快速被人體吸收讓血糖上升，也較容易變成脂肪。但米飯就不同了，米飯是包含食物纖維的複合醣類，也就是俗稱的澱粉，不會造成血糖快速上升，如果仔細嚼碎讓身體慢慢吸收，是不容易變成脂肪堆積的一種醣類。

　　再以人體的結構來說，肉食文化的歐美人因為肉類留在體內時間長的話會腐壞，所以胃腸短，因此普遍身體短腳長，而以蔬菜及穀物為主食的日本人，因為穀類及蔬菜的食物纖維多，所以需要較長的腸子慢慢消化，因此身體長而腳短。如果腸子較長的日本人吃超過身體所能負擔的肉量，就會促進腸中的腐敗，形成有害的氣體，使得體內引發癌症、過敏等病的活性酵素增加，反而造成對身體的傷害。

　　日本人的飲食習慣有一些是早期受到中國的影響，所以中國人的飲食習慣跟日本人相差不多，因此在減肥時該注意的地方也差不多，而這種「低碳水化合物減肥法」無論做對做錯，因為所吃的東西的關係對身體都有一定的影響存在，那還不如靠傳統的多運動，少吃前面所講的單醣類，這樣子才能瘦得健康，您說是不是呢？