To Phillipine friend,I read on-line newspaper now and relieved to know that your president will remove the martial law soon.
I also read a funny story related to your president that her phone call message to the subordinate has been cynically used among citizen for their mobile phone's answering message,"Hello Mr.so and so?!",that revealed their shady negotiation,right?We also have similar thing discussed and criticized in the Congress recently,but the exchanged email in question was found to be from unreliable resource.
Anyway feel sorry that your 20th anniversary celebrating a political new-wave was cancelled because of the martial law.

In turn for the good news that Phillipine will lift its martial law soon,there is another bad news from our closer country that Taiwan government has new movement that offended many major countries especially China.I e-talked with my friend who is worrying that larger scale battle involving many countries at odds may take place like the WWIII.

According to Japan's old saying,what happened twice can be happened again.Hope our e-communication will serve as preventing it!Does your country have any other proverb that has opposite meaning from ours as proverb sometime has?God may only knows the future.

Continued exchange email with my Phillipine friend.
Hi my wife may have given you a greeting and explained about Geisha.She is now coincidentally studying to be a English tour guide,so good chance to practice for her,as well.
Adding to what she explained,Geisha movie made last year in Hollywood was on air here in Japan,but the actress was Chinese girl,not its original Japanese one.If the film you'll see is the same one,anyway you can feel the atmosphere of what's Geisha world is.While she is serving as a Geisha for customers mostly from rich people,there is a chance that one of her customers comes to like her and buy her to make her his second wife.Geisha girls in most case doesn't have so blessed life and there exist many sad stories around them.

By the way I learned the word "Martial Law",yes from what is occurring in Manila that's much urgent and closer incident for you than landslide!The update information can be watched here in Japan on daily news that the army is plotting a kind of riot and all schools are temporarily closed and citizens including even some politicians are protesting against the martial law,right?
Please take care and wish it doesn't affect the start of your new job.

To my friend in Phillipine
>Yes, terrible disaster happend in the Island called Leyte here. That's very very far from us. It's one of the provinces here in the philipppines.There has been a terrible landslide w/c took a lot of lives.How did you hear about it? does news in japan also cover some news in the Pilippines?

Hey It always covers our front page when an incident killing numerous number of people occurred somewhere in the world.However,the name Leyte has been familiar among so many island in Philippine for another reason.That is because it had the largest scale battle between USA and Japan in the World War II period,when also the largest number of Japanese soldiers were killed as well as native people involved.So I felt much more sorry that again in the same island people were taken their lives with much agony.

The island Mindanao is also familiar because one Japanese soldier was found in the jungle there after more than 25 years has passed since the war ended.

About this time's Olympic game,we won only one medal in the figure skating as we expected.However,it was not from a potential quad jumper that I wrote you but from another dark horse.One reason must be because most people's eyes were on that quad jumper that the medalist could perform her skate without any stress.Anyway it was the first gold medal not only from Japan but also from whole Asia!

Last night I watched a TV program that featured about Japanese old medalist before WWII.THere was one female swimmer who won a gold medal in the Olympic held in Germany and she had a rival from hosted country Germany.At that period the game was done under the rule of Hitlar dictatorship,and the TV program said he had expected much that the German swimmer will sure to win the gold.Therefore,the result must have disappointed him so much while Japan was crazily excited about her victory.I didn't know that there existed such a connection between notorious historic person and our honorable old medalist.

Moving along the way,last night I and my wife had a chance to talk with German guy at the bar in Osaka.He knew well about Japanese history and we talked a bit about Kamikaze since he was a pilot of German airplane company.

It seems that I wrote this time in an idle way,but the thread penetrating through the whole topic is our previous war and the Olympic game from various aspect.

Japan finally won the Gold medal in figure skating!We're in bad shape and every expected athletes so far failed in winning medals.However,according to our previous perspective,another skater was much more expected who has a super technique of quad jump.Unfortunately she couldn't succeed in it at this highlight stage and another dark horse suddenly appeared and swept away the most glittering medal which that skater herself can't still believe.

There is a common phrase in Olympic game that "there is a devil in Olympic game",and it can be applied to this case,too.I'm sometimes worried about how a loser feels when she or he is expected sure to win a medal.

THere is one anecdote about Tokyo Olympic game when our speciality genre Judo game has given its first gold medal to the foreign wrestler,the Japanese loser was severely criticized in public and there was a awkward atmosphere hanging around the community near his parents' house.

THough it's as a matter of course that winning medals make us happy,we shouldn't stick so much to whether we win or lose.When we could overcome such unstable state of mind by our buddhism spirits and just concentrate on making one's best,victory will be brought more naturally.It can be applied to every other situations in our daily affairs.

And supporters accordingly should accept the result as calm as possible even if the result was not good.

Recently there are frequent exchange of email within the old group members that I used to belong in my university days.THat group is what we call "cheering club" which gives cheering yell in many kinds of sports events where our university students' members attend.

The topic is how to make our club's advertisement messages for newcomers more attractive,that was originally asked from a member in active.Though it's nearly 20 years has passed since we're graduated,we still have close connection with young active students and they want messages from graduated old members who already have long social experience.

This club consists of three divisions ;leader division,brass band division,cheer girl division.And especially among these,the leader division has few applicants that is like a precious species being extinct soon.Among several reasons thinkable,main reason must be that people are more conscious about acquiring certain skill so that it can be applied to future career because of tough economy and tough employment situations.Others ,who doesn't apply to it,may just seek for some other fun.


You foreigners must have few idea what's leader division is and why it's nessasary.We can find something in common with your familiar soldiers world.There is a strict rule in our cheering style and there also exists strict seniority system.Therefore,in our current society when people are seeking for new styles day by day and less motivated to do something serious,such old style is being regarded as far from being cool.

When some sports event is held however,the leader division definitely contributes for keeping audience's morale up even if our team is in bad shape,but it's also true that few people find pleasure in such an activity that doesn't seem to require any specific skill at all.

So,in this advertisement we have to think about some attractive points that freshmen find some merit in joining it.First of all,we can acquire "Presentation skill" when we face audience and take initiative in cheering with one big voice,second one is "Creativity skill" because we have to rack our brain to improve the way of cheering up etc....

Anyway we're at the midst of brainstorming through email communication,that is like we're back to the period after a long interval when we used to discuss about various matters in our club room.

We have many of such issues in our society that we have to preserve from extinction.
Let's think globally( not blogally) and act locally!

Here in our prefecture Shiga,one tragedic incident occurred recently.Two small kindergarden children were killed by their friend's mother on the way she drove them back to home.She is Chinese who married with Japanese and according to the police report,she and her child couldn't get along well with their community that caused murder.

Many people criticize that she was totally bad woman,but I would like to look at this incident differently.THere must be something to be desired from the parents association's side.If people surrounding that Chinese woman has had been a little more considerate for such a foreigner,this tragedy would have been avoided.I should say in other words,such situations are not rare in many associations even within only Japanese members.

My wife once attended the circle of practicing Yoga in the community house nearby and there she happened to be the same class with a housewife who lives at the same condo with us.However,my wife noticed that the housewife seemed intentionally ignoring her that made her decide to quit that class out of the sense of isolation.

On larger scale,I think associations between countries must be also similar.We tend to have prejudice against unfamiliar countries like Iran and North Korea etc that made us feel more threatening for them.

As foreign residents increase in Japan,we'll have more crimes from foreigners like this.
I hope such incidence doesn't deteriorate our relation with other countries.

Continued from previous posting. THere are two choices,he said,to avoid risk for my peace movement.One to establish new party for myself,and another to enter one opposition party.My stance looks nuetral that makes me reluctant to choose second choice,though I'm to their side,if anything,rather than to the ruling partie's one.However, if I were to choose the first choice,I may estabalish new party that play a role as a kind of facilitator or mediator for citizen by standing at the same eye level with them.Besides,I'll try to make every issue's critical point as clear as possible.

One example is shown in my HP about our critical issue.I should proudly declare that it's my great invention!Let's think about the situation you're at a loss to choose a opinion which is right and which is wrong.If order to solve such situation,I dared to stand between two opposite poles and draw the border line as clear as possible.This idea eliminate the trouble for people to read or listen to two opposite opinions.

http://www.geocities.jp/kusatsu009/mujyun.htm

Seeing from what I mentioned above,you may easily understand that I don't have any specific idea nor intend to involve in peace action at all.I just wanna act like a facilitator or cordinator between opposite opinions.

I've been back to my home city Tokyo these several days for business reason.Along the way,I also visited my grandfather's graveyard to pray for what I wrote in my previous posting,by pretending I'm the prime minister and his body is buried in the prestigious shrine for dead war soldiers.
My grandfather was shot to death at the battlefield in one district of China.Although his death is praised as his village's grand honer,I gave an oath to his tomb that we Japanese shall never be involved in any kind of war activities.

Regarding my peace idology,one of my friends gave me an advice that I should be on guard about my behavior since the radical ruling members in the government are already like in the atmosphere dating back to the period before WWII.STherefore in order to confirm my security,he added,I should belong to some party because such significant issue is too burdensome to carry on by oneself.Otherwise,he said, I may be arrested like military censorship in older period.IT's not an exaggeration ,he continued, but when Japanese popular sing group appealed their peace message at the final scene of Japanese prestigious singing contest,some major political person was conspiring to arrest them in order to avoid peace action from spreading.It was not came to light because someone stopped it.

About recent news from the New York Times criticized our foreign prime minister's suggestion that our emperor should visit Yasukuni Shrine,I was so disappointed and felt shameful of Japan having such a minister. Unlike neigboring Asian countries,USA doesn't have any damage for what he said.So when we take it into consideration,this criticism may explicitly indicate how he lacks in diplomatic sense even from the objective point of view.

Thinking of Japan being the representative country in the world,it's not only the shame on Japan but also shame on the whole planet.

As I wrote in my HP related to our war renouncing article of Constitution,what's fatally wrong in their Yasukuni visiting is their mind in pray for the dead soldiers.When they pray with the idea"thank you very much and very sorry for your contribution to Japan" ,it's aprroving previous war.If we regard it in the opossite way,we may pray in a different way like ..."At that time,the society was totally wrong when killing as many soldiers as possible was praised.So very sorry for your being victim of such wrong society.In compensating for it,we shall never involved in killing nor being killed activity in warfields.

Today is the St.Valentine day when women dare to confess their loving feeling to whome they've been longing for.As for me,I asked my wife to buy some clothes which may suit me from her taste.However,what I complained her is that she seemed to have any intention of asking me for today before I asked.I wished more of her spontaneous will.Anyway on the second thought,I should appreciate more about my having lovely wife.It's commonly said that as time goes by,couples become less sensitive about their partners exsistence.So I bear it in mind that we should never fail to be considerate for each other in our various daily situations in order to keep good relation forever.Accumulation of everyday's just small concerns keep us from damaging the relation.

The Olympic game has finally began though Japanese athletes' don't seem to have any good start.Coinsided with it,last Friday I went skiing first time of this season with my co-workers in the office.It was snowing all day long and cold weather chilled my body to the bone,but I really enjoyed it.After skiing,we visited a hot spa to ease our chilled and tired bodies.The first moment when I soak my body to the hot tab is one of the happiest moments appreciating the bless of I'm alive. I wonder if the Olympic venue has such place for the athletes.

By the way,about the buddism ritual I told in my previous posting,it ended with peaceful atmosphere attended by the religion members I belong.Everyday I also started to offer them meals on the tiny plates when I or my wife cook dinner at home as well as the prayer of every morning and nighttime.

I realized doing this very worthwhile feeling as if we're now living with my grandparents and ancestors together, having more secured sense that my ancestors may protect us from our facing possible dangers some day.

However,the local leader of my religion also gave us some warnings.For instance,when we failed to offer them meal for a long time,we'll start to suffer pain in the stomack.To prove what he said is right that they also have the sense of hunger,he also suggested us one experiment. According to his story, the meal once offered on the altar loses its taste when we try to eat it,because the ancestors will extract the essence from it.So following his suggestion,I and my wife actually tried to taste it,but the result was....we could find no difference of its taste, that made us more suspicious about his first story.

Anyway,one of the reasons why I decided to pray for them in the altar is from my spontanious will ,starting to feel more considerate for my ancestors without any expectation of return nor benefits.Since I 've got used to living together with my wife after two years marrige sharing household chores as well,I became more capable of doing something more like caring a baby.However,as we have so far no luck of having baby,I'm very much willing to look after them like nursing a baby.

I would also like to know whether other religions in other countries has same belief or not.Do you also offer milk bottle to the altar or offer something else like an naked woman's photo to please male ancestors?^o^

How many readers could notice that my previous posting's final phrase "Here's a milk tube to you,baby." was intended to mimic an old movie Casablanca's famous phrase "Here's looking at you,kid"?

Recently I watched this film for the first time and very impressed by a cool performance of the starring actor and the fabulously beautiful actress who's already gone.Besides,what pleased me more was that I could feel the atmosphere and situations of the World War II from the foreign country's viewpoint.To my surpirse,unlike Japanese film related to that previous war,this old movie's stylish taste has not been faded even when we watch it right this time;music,stylish bar,casino game look as cool as they are now.

Anyway,there is no denying the fact that so many soldiers and citizens regardless of countries were involoved and killed in that war.We learned a lot from it,but nevertheless we still keep on our battles somewhere in the world.

In Japan we're now in another historic turningpoint whether to revise our "Peace Constitution" that kept us from being involoved in any killing and being killed activities in warfields.I'm now vertially an activist (not from physical reason but from mental reason for you readers) to protect our constitution,especially its article9 renouncing war.Please look at my website. You can see that it's not our domestic issue but also has worldwide and historic importance. http://www.geocities.jp/kusatsu009/indexeng.html

If every other nations follow our peace Constitution,Any kind of war will be terminated from our planet.

Here's looking at you,our precious planet the earth!

The winter Olympic game will start from tommorow.Conincided with tonight's Eve excitement,my house also has a kind of ceremony of welcoming my ancestors's soul from the heaven by placing the buddism altar in a corner of the room and recite sutras.This style follows the rule of the religion I belong here whose name is the "Mahikari" literally translated as "true light".Its style looks basically after that of common buddism,but one peculiar point is .....besides small plates serving food and drink for the ancesters in the altar,a tiny bottle for a baby was also put by the recommendation of my religion's local leader!Please guss why such a tiny milk bottle is nessesary to offer on the altar.They suspect that one of my older ancestors might have been dead just after it's born and its soul must want milk like a baby!At first I thought it's rediculous off course,however,on the second thought I try to be more flexible and generous like I'm always so in various situations.Every item of food plates are smaller size suitable to offer on the altar,so when I first saw this tiny milk bottle that was specially made by this religion center,I couldn't help smiling a little bit and my heart was transported to the time when one of my ancesters unfortunately had suffered early death,though it's only the possibility.

Moving right along anyway,I'm looking forward to welcoming my ancestors's soul as well as my beloved grandfather's and grandmother's soul at this lovely timing of the Olympic Eve!

Unfortunately,this year falls upon the worst luck year for me according to the astorogy from famous Japanese fortuneteller.So I shouldn't spare money for it that only costs 500yen to eliminate the possibility of my facing risks.

Here's a milk to you,baby!

Hi,I'm Japanese 43 years old who want to let you know things around Japan from grass root standpoint.Please feel free to contact me.

Our update pleasant news is that the royal family announced that they'll have a new member in the upcoming autumn season from the wife of the prince's younger brother.Our Diet was just discussing whether we should alter our rule regarding the royal succession by letting a female candidate allow to throne the emperor.However,receiving this surprising news,the Diet got hesitated whether they should watch for a while and pospone the bill.

As for our private life,we still are expecting to have a new family member with no sign so far.Thus we would like to take advantage of this wonderful news.In this royal family's case,they last year attended the ceremony of releasing storks(Japanese has a belief that a stork carries a baby to a couple!) raised by human hand's care, that may have brought benefit to them.We may follow this case by visiting the zoo and pray for a stork in a cage?!