Friday, March 19, 2010

type A

Type A can be so many things.
A workaholic, obsessive compulsive, first class achiever who never gives up no matter how difficult the odds.

Then again it can refer to a blood type. For western counterparts horoscopes are a fun and not to be taken too seriously "guess" on how our day will go... Taken a bit more seriously in Asia, blood type is used for many matchmaking services and even human resource departments. Famous actors even publish their blood types in their biographies and there have been a number of movies and manga about the subject.

A breakthrough in the early 1900s, the ABO blood group system was widely credited by Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner. In Japanese culture, blood types diverge from scientific fact to fad, separating "traits" into groups similar to astrology and Chinese astrology.

All of this seems ridiculous of course, after all, most of the world's population are type O+ or type A+. For some reason we all like to categorize ourselves or think that our date of birth plays a predestined role in our lives. I tossed that theory out the window years ago, especially when I met two people born on the exact same day and year as me. Two peas in a pod? Hardly. Upbringing, opportunity and environment played major factors in determining our paths in life.

What are you?