Chanpon

I am overwhelmed by spam. As a result, I'm following various legislative, technical and social means to combatting unsolicited commercial email. Recently, the US Government hosted a three day event to talk about the problem. Judging by these notes, "Conference concludes spam is here to stay ... for now," the conference dealt primarily with the spam problems of the United States. But we know that Japan, for one, has had massive spam problems with keitai meiwaku mail.

From the tail end of that Star Tribune article linked above, it appears Japan and the United States are merging modern mail problems, and it's turned into an opportunity for cultural sharing:

Motohiro Tsuchiya, a communications professor with the International University of Japan, said Friday that about 80 percent of spam in Japan comes from outside the country and most of it is in English.

``We are now importing more spam from the United States,'' he joked. ``We are actually learning what American culture is through spam.''

If the spam I get in English is received worldwide, I shudder to think what kind of impression it gives!