Does COVIT-19 change our culture?

 

 We are in the midst of the Obon holidays in Japan. 

Obon is a series of Buddhist memorial services for family ancestors which generally takes place on August 14 and on 15. To put it more precisely, when the event takes place depends on the sect you belong to or the local area you live in. My family belongs to the Soto sect and the services of Obon actually start earlier in August.

Every year, this is the time when many Japanese visit family graves in temples together along with family members who usually live apart such as children with families of their own. It’s a big family reunion.

However, this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, things are quite different.

In order to avoid close contact, our temple has decided to minimize Obon memorial services. They have also limited the number of visitors from one family. The other day, at the beginning of the Obon, two people from one family were allowed to attend the service with a mask on in accordance with the service time schedule. The temple main hall used to be full of families coming in and out the whole day, exchanging greetings with one another—but not this year. There was no opportunity for us to talk with the principle monk and his family in person, and no tea service to relax with after the prayers either. We just gave a simple bow in greeting and farewell from a distance.

On August 15th, the last day of the Obon, the memorial service for our ancestors won't be an exception. This time, four members from one family will be allowed to participate in the memorial service in the main hall.
Surprisingly enough, many other temples have also suspended the Obon memorial services in their halls and have decided to provide memorial services via the Zoom meeting instead. We had never expected that IT technology would prevail in our traditional practices at temples and at home.

I know the temples took a drastic measure to prevent us from infection. Yet, it's sad that we are forced to change our tradition. No one can tell what Obon will look like next year.

No matter what, it’s time for us to remember our ancestors, including our parents who left us not so long ago, and to pray to them for protection at our family altar.

 

A concern following the lifitng of the state of emergency

This is the familiar view of the station building I saw this morning.
It was good to see nothing had changed. That being said, I feel that something has changed inside of me. I'm looking at the scenery with different eyes. I saw people wearing masks, few cars pulling in to the station, and few people waiting on the Shinkansen platform.

The state of emergency was lifted on Monday. Schools, businesses and many other social activities are gradually starting again with new social norms, such as washing your hands, wearing masks, and maintaining physical distance with others. Social life now definitely seems different from the one we cherished.

I hope we can manage this new stage in our lives without any serious cases rebounding.

The girl's death

Let me express how I feel in relation to the recent news of this girl's death.
I feel the same way most mothers do. It is terrible and a nightmare. I hope that the presence of neglect in our society won’t cripple the future of our children.

Whenever the story is aired, it makes me so depressed and angry toward the schools, education boards and police of two prefectures, Okinawa and Chiba, for their mishandling of her case and lack of coordination. The girl could have been saved and would be alive now if the teachers and officials had made more solid attempts at protecting the abused girl.

Gosh, whenever I recall the news, I want to scream at the guy from the education board for carelessly handing over the girl's questionnaire, full of her cries for help, to her sick father. She would still be alive if the education board hadn’t have handed over the questionnaire to her abusive father, who demanded the man show it.

After all, this only enraged her father and escalated his abuse of her.
She was found dead in the bathroom of her house. It makes me so depressed that no one could save her. These days, the occurence of domestic violence is spoken about in our society. Though abuse takes place behind closed doors, it is our duty to protect abused children on a more proactive and social level.

An Upcoming Exhibition

You may have noticed that many English language versions of official website in Japan do not give readers much information. You may find that English pages hardly get updated. It's a shame.
So I am going to tell you about an interesting exhibition at a railway museum in Nagoya.

It's coming soon. It's a special exhibition on the history of shinkansen electrics and track inspection trains, aka "Doctor Yellow", at SCMAGLEV and Railway Park in Nagoya. "Doctor Yellow" is the nickname for an inspection train for bulletin train tracks. Since it does not carry passengers and doesn't run on a regular schedule, it always draws the attention of many railway fans, both young and old. The result is the superstition that it is good luck for people who catch a sight of it in operation.

The special exhibition "History of Doctor Yellow" will be from March 15 to September 25. Open 10:00 to 17:30. Closed on Tuesday. For more general information about the museum, check their English site. http://museum.jr-central.co.jp/en/

Nagoya Castle Main Palace is coming to life again

Main palace once was a large complex of one-storey wooden buildings with more than 30 rooms of different sizes and functions. Unfortunately they were all burnt down by air-raid in 1945.

The city decided to rebuild the National Treasure  for the 400th anniversary of the founding Nagoya City and started the construction in 2010.

It is good that the old documents, charts and photos were survived the destruction or fire during the war, this made the restoration work easier following the original palace of 17th century.

Take a look at those huge beams, pillars, and rafters.  Japanese cypress “Hinoki” is used for making these parts.

They are durable and lasts for hundreds of years.  One can see beautiful natural wooden patterns. Japanese cypress has good aroma and one can smell it from the lumbers.  As Japanese people love simplicity in nature, we don't paint the lumber to keep its natural color.

Aside from Japanese cypress,  cedar, pine, mulberry, and zelkova are also used in the different sections of the buildings.
Good qualities of those timbers are from several areas such as Gifu Prefecture, Nagono, Wakayama and some in Shikoku region. 

Please observe the beautiful roofs covered with  thinly cut woods called singles.

They are made of Japanese cedar which is quite resistant to rain.
Carpenters lay thin singles precisely in an overlapping pattern starting from bottom to roof top.

Do you know how do they seal singles? They use bamboo nails. They are durable and free from rusting.

The carpenter put some tiny bamboo nails into his mouth.  When he use it,  he takes out one by one from his mouth.  Then he presses a bamboo nail hard against a single then quickly hit it by a hammer. Amazing skill.

Usually there are about twenty to forty carpenters including several young women carpenters working daily in this location.
Aside from carpenters, other craftsmen such as stone workers, plasterers, roof tilers, lacquer workers are working inside and outside the buildings.
Most of them are from Tokai area.  The city is planning to hire them for long term maintenance.

This huge reconstruction project is very significant for craftsmen to study and hand down the Japanese traditional art of carpentry to the next generation.


One section of the palace will be open to the public this May.  The whole restoration will be completed in 2018.
Anyone will be able to see this on-going construction  from the special walkway for the visitors. You can't miss this rare chance.

More about on Nagoya Castle Main Palace Restoration is here

Steam Locomotive runs in the city

This morning I saw several helicopters hovering over the sky above the station area.
"What's going on?"  Noisy sound really bothered me. Then I noticed that today and tomorrow the city runs a steam locomotive C56-160 for the first time in 27 years as an trial event.
Nagoya City Mayor, Kawamura is aiming the operation of locomotive  in the city will bring about some good effects on the economy.  During the demonstration run for two days, they make some research  on  surrounding areas in terms of noises, shakes, smoke and soot.  If the results clear the regulation, we may add a new attraction spot in Nagoya.
 
 A C56-160 will run tomorrow three times. It's a 20-minute-ride to a terminal.  A total number of 1,200 seats for two days were booked by lot in advance.
Here some more information on schedule.(Japanese only)

You may be also interested in this article, too.

pictures from TV news program：

By the way,  you may see some reflections in a picture.  
This is not a Psychic photograph , I'm afraid　:<

My childhood hero is gone

  

My childhood great hero is gone.

The former sumo grand champion Taiho passed away at the age of 72.

  While Japanese enjoy its longevity, I am afraid that his death has come a bit earlier.

It is no doubt that he is one of the greatest grand champions in the sumo history.

He  won the trophy 32 times in his career from 1956 to 1971.

This record has not yet been broken by now.

When I was a kid,  he was already on the top as a grand sumo champion.

He was strong, quiet, reserved and what's more handsome.

Oh I really liked him. He was strong and always had a good fight with his opponent.

Every match I watched on TV, it was too thrilling for a kid.

I recall I often watched him grappling with his opponent wrestler 

while I was hiding at the back of my father's shoulder 

or  covering my eyes halfway with my hands. 

I just couldn't keep an eye on an exciting match

while people roared loudly at two wrestlers' every move.

When I heard the TV announcer shout 

that Taiho threw his opponent down to the ground,

I felt released and happy.

People said he was a genius but he claimed that he was not.

He spoke that he always kept making a tremendous effort. 

"It was not easy." he said.   His favorite word was "patience." 

He also made a great contribution for the social welfare 

especially after overcoming a stroke.

He is a real Hero.  We will miss him.

(image is from web news)

What a nice way to celebrate the Coming of Age Day

Today we celebrated the national holiday, Coming-of-Age Day, on the second Monday of January. 

It seemed that the whole country was freezing today due to the powerful low pressure, which brought a huge snowfall throughout the country. Cars and trains in Tokyo were crippled, too.

1.22 millions of young adults of 20 years old were all blessed with this freezing weather. Many headed for each public celebration venue such as a city hall and a school gym. Girls were so excited because they wore a traditional kimono with long sleeves, an outstanding symbol of a unmarried young woman. Boys were happy with a traditional outfit or a brand new business suit. 

From today they have a right to vote, to drink  and to smoke not to mention they are required to follow the law to be a good citizen.

Well what are these young generation dreaming their future?

One research stated that 97% of them answered that they have an anticipation for the future. The present society is suffering from the poor economy. They know it's not a world of a life long employment anymore as like their parents were guaranteed. They are conscious about in which way the society is heading for.  Especially all after the mega disaster of 3.11.  

So they are not keen to success or ambition.  According to the research, 56 % of them are interested in getting a job which others show gratitude to them: a service industry for nursing elderly, a care taker for elderly and an environmental conservation business.

No matter what the reality is,  the young generation is trying to make their future, too.  On their own ways.

(all the images are from the web news)

Peace Declaration from Hiroshima

Hiroshima marked the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing yesterday on August 6th.

Thousands of people from home and abroad gathered at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in the morning. The ceremony was on air on TV/radio. When a clock hit  8:15 sharp , an exact time the first atomic bomb in man's history was dropped onto the city  67 years ago,  the whole nation including people in the park as well as in front of TV sets stopped  to take  a moment of silence.

 (all images from a TV program)

In the ceremony, the mayor of Hiroshima annually gives his address for the worldwide peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons. We call it "Peace Declaration " and it is delivered to the whole world.  It gives us an opportunity to stop for a while to turn our thoughts to Hiroshima.  
We're going to have another memorial ceremony in Nagasaki on August 9th, the second a-bombed city. Finally on August 15th, we have the anniversary of the end of the war.  No more Hiroshima.  No more Nagasaki. 
For every Japanese, August is definitely time to think of everlasting peace on earth.

Here you will read "Peace Declaration" by the mayor of Hiroshima.  
You can get the language you want at the bottom of the page to read this. 
Also you will read the web news article here.

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?

Do you remember "Travel Volunteer"?  
Last year it was just six months after 3.11 Tohoku disaster when Katy Morrison  and Jamie Lafferty started traveling across Japan from north to south for 100 days. 

While traveling, they posted great articles and amazing pictures every day in their blog so as to say Japan is as beautiful as ever and this report helped a lot to support the recovery of tourism to Japan.

Today their blog  was released as a digital book titled "Smiles of Japan"  and it is just free.

Why don't you get this now and read it. No matter whether you are from Japan or from abroad you'll be fascinated with their experiences.

The book is available from URL below:

http://travelvolunteer.net/book01/pageview/pageview.html

Just let me add one thing. 

 It was such a rewarding experience for me that I accompanied them when they visited Aichi Prefecture in Oct. last year.

Travel Volunteer Project

I was going to talk about them before they visited Aichi but I didn't make it. In fact I wrote halfway and saved it. So let me start from the very beginning.

Travel Volunteer Project! What is all about? What is Travel Volunteers then? Well, I need to start the explanation from the March 11th disaster by a huge earthquake and tsunami and damaged nuclear plants. This news of huge tragedy was so quickly reported all over the world and people in the world were just shocked to see how the nature could be fatal to man and his world. In fact every TV news kept sending the awful scenes how the tsunami attacked the towns and cities in Tohoku and eventually it swallowed up 20 thousand people and still many missing even now.
Due to the world TV news, many people in the world just believed the tsunami swept away all over our land and in fact some overseas TV and newspapers reported as if it were the end of Japan. This brought a confusion among world travelers that Japan was not a safe country to visit anymore. Many trips were canceled one after another even in the area far away from the devastated regions. During the spring which was the high season for sight seeing in Japan, the numbers of the visitors from abroad were dropped sharply. English speaking guides whom I know were shocked to know every request for guiding were all canceled.
The tour industry faced the fatal damage although of all the land, west part of Japan was nothing affected and nothing happened and remained just the same as it was as usual.
In order to prove it and bring many foreign visitors back to Japan, one travel company called Magellan Resorts in the city of Kanazawa launched "Travel Volunteer Project." Please check their project website to know more about it here.

It was in July that I have known of this project and right on the spot, I applied for a volunteer supporter to guide the elected travel volunteer when he/she visited Aichi.
There were 1897 applicants for Travel volunteer from 85 countries and eventually the couple of Katy and Jamie, a photographer and a writer from England won this tremendous opportunity to visit all of 47 prefectures in Japan while updating their blogs and photos outwards telling many parts of Japan aren't changed and the many parts of our country are as beautiful and safe as they are always.

So their journey started on Sept.15. Yes it's almost 2 months have passed since then. Time flies. Now how many prefectures they have visited by now? Here is a map.



Yes, while I stayed away from blogging, Katy and Jamie came to Aichi and I had such a great opportunity to accompany them on Oct. 25.
I'll talk about it next.
At the same time please follow their great blog with fascinating stories and beautiful photos. You'll love it.

(continued)

In spite of the holidays

Well, I have to update my life all after the typhoon.
In Japan we are now in the midst of three-day holidays and it's Sunday today. I brought my laptop in the kitchen enjoying my afternoon being alone in the house, which is once in a while welcoming moment. My husband is still in India, my daughter is visiting Korea and my son is out for business today.

It's indeed a beautiful, quiet and peaceful autumn day. All of a sudden, however, my thought goes to those people in eastern Japan who faced with such a huge loss. In that area the autumn surely arrives much sooner than my place. By now the nature over there must be changing in colors. It must be beautiful and breathtaking. This is the reality. The autumn beauty and the disaster are all due to the same Mother Nature. Soon it will bring snow in that region, which makes more difficult for them to promote all those recovery processes. I'm sure in some places, they have to leave them halfway.


Six months have passed since the March huge earthquake and tsunami. It is said the recovery and reproduction are generally going on as scheduled. From my point of view, however, it's very slow and not organized at all and looks like it is a long way to go. Every thing seems to be so slow. How come 10,000 people still live in the evacuation spots surrounded by piles of boxes without privacy. About 83,000 people including those from the area of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plants live far away from their home towns. The central government is too slow making vital decisions for reconstruction. As a result, in many places people as well as volunteers are still struggling with mountains of wrecked houses, debris and contaminated mud all over.

The fall in that area is very short and the winter will stay long in eastern Japan.
We have to appeal to more people away from the devastated area to do something helpful so that they can make a new start.

(Please read more about this picture here)

Typhoon Roke is appoaching

(images from the web)

My work today was canceled.

Due to the approaching typhoon, we had a heavy rainfall yesterday and much sooner than we expected two main rivers running across the city were observed to be in a danger of overflowing.

In fact at the upper streams, the water flowed over to the nearby residential areas and fields. The city claimed an evacuation advisory to almost half of a city population. I don't know how many people had actually left for the evacuation facilities, though.

The main roads downtown were covered with heavy rainfall in a short period of time and some of the underground shopping arcades and the subway stations were flooded. The transportation systems were paralyzed in the midst of the evening rush hours. My son was stuck in a traffic jam on a bridge when he drove back into downtown Nagoya.

My area was safe except the fact the typhoon is getting much closer no later than this noon. The rain and the wind are getting worse as the typhoon is approaching. No evacuation instruction is claimed here at this moment but only an evacuation advisory for people at a certain area of the city.

My husband called me from India to check if I am all right. He convinced me that our place is basically safe from flooding. I glue to the TV anyway. It's raining hard and the wind is threatening. Our little pond in the garden will be flooded soon or later. Gee, it is so relieving my son is off today. We’ll stay safe.

One month since then

One month has just passed by. Nothing has been improved so dramatically. We still have aftershocks over and over. People in Tohoku area are facing lots of realities to confront. Now getting free from the fear of death , they started their lives from " being nothing." Some went back and forth between their wrecked and muddy houses and the evacuation places to clean up their properties. Some just abandoned their hometown to another cities to let their children begin their school lives as they used to. I heard many families had made a hard decision to live in separate for various reasons. Boy, there are lots they have to face with.

Then, it is so encouraging to see dozens of volunteers and organizations are stepping into these areas to help them out to rebuild the land along with the Self Defense Force parties and other public support organizations from abroad.

However, there are many other people who don't move out to the safer places. They just stay each home that was damaged partly and try to find the way to clear their houses. Yet most of their conditions like those areas being away from the officially appointed evacuation spots, the daily necessities are not delivered enough. Even electricity, water and gas are not all back in full at places where piles of debris and rubble still sit, not to mention some mountainous and remote areas. The condition is not always satisfactory sanitary wise. It looks like hard to draw an exact map as for where to go distributing goods due to lack of detailed information.

One support organization called "HOPE International Development Agency" was asking people to make hygiene kits to hand out to people in heavily distracted Tohoku area. They claimed specifically 9 items to be set in a plastic bag. I read a flyer and when I finished reading it, I knew what to do next. I had checked the items at home and ran to the shop to get the rest in short supply.

When I got the donation drive of this agency at the Hilton Nagoya the day before the due date, there were several staffs working on the donated goods and sorting them out. I was surprised to see it was outside a hotel doorway. It was a bit windy. When they saw me approaching, they soon recognized my large paper bag full of kits. I was so glad they smiled at me. I hope our support will bring people over there lots of smile on their faces as well.

One month has passed but it will be a long long way to go for a recovery. I only pray for all those who are struggling and fighting against an on-going hardship -----for desperate residents, each member sent into devastated areas from organized bodies and of course for people working in the crippled nuclear stations.

(from Peace Boat website)

Thinking of what I can do

I know how significantly the Internet has been playing its role throughout the country right after the quake, the tsunami, and the nuclear crisis. It was so amazing how fast people in and out of the nation started to exchange information and concerns about the disaster. They even organized the volunteer groups by way of their blogs, Twitters, Facebooks and many other SNS.

There are lots and lots of volunteers working for those people in seriously damaged areas. I totally would like to send them a great gratitude for their efforts and resolutions.

There is not much I can do now but I'll keep thinking of what I can do today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. I'll keep thinking of it. For the moment, I think I'll be updating by way of the Internet how volunteers and people in the disastrous areas are fighting against the cruel situations for their recovery to get a basic daily life.

At the same time let us keep sending messages to people in the world that other areas, the western part of Japan such as Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka including Nagoya are safe and sound. We're here to make our own lives to be any kinds of help to those in Tohoku. Even many non-Japanese businesspersons are coming back to work from abroad to Tokyo after some hectic situations. Ready to make our domestic economy active again.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in my city and this frontline is going up northward day by day up until it reaches to Hokkaido, the north of Japan. Cherry blossoms are very special to us in our minds and thoughts. It surely brings lots of HOPE to people in Tohoku very soon.

Read also a related story about the picture above from here.

Two shots of the day

Yesterday my husband took me to the dealer's garage to show me his new car which had just landed all the way from PGO across the ocean. It will take some more time to go through an automobile inspection.
He gave himself a big belated birthday gift for himself.　He decided to renew his car. What a big buy! But I know he had been planning it for these past years and I believe it was perfectly considered. Man's shopping sometimes costs a lot at one time. On the contrary, I'd rather enjoy shopping throughout a year including eating out. So as he was content with his new car, we stopped at his favorite Japanese restaurant to have this grilled eel with heavy sweet soy sauce for lunch. Perfect Sunday! Now I have a good reason to get a new spring dress next time. Don't you think so?

My goodness! It's still snowing!

Well, when I woke up this morning, the snowfall was just moderate enough to enjoy the beautiful scenery. However I must say now, "No more thank you." The transportation is getting paralyzed. Trains delayed, cars trapped, people slipping. I don't feel like driving on such a awful day. So here I am sitting at my laptop making the slide show. What a good way to spend the Sunday afternoon.

Too bad, however, there are many senior high students who have been taking the entrance exams across the nation since this morning despite this bad weather.
Some students could not arrive at the exams venues on time due to the paralyzed transportation system so many exam organizations made it possible to give them a full time right after they sit at the desks. That's the way it should be. Yet,I know how much stressing for the students to concentrate on the exams all after the fuss.

It's the season of the entrance exams in Japan for these three months. Two-day unified college entrance examinations, known as the National Center Test, started at 706 venues across the nation yesterday. Today is the last day. It's the beginning of the exams season. With today's results, students are to go on to the next exams at each university which they apply for.

I don't know why but the snowy weather often falls on around the date of the National Center Test. I remember it did snow on the day when my daughter went to take this exams almost six years ago.
No more hardship on them. Hope they will finish the exams making their best.
Their own "spring" will be arriving soon.

Japanese Daddy long legs "Tiger Mask"

　　

It started at the end of the year when every Japanese household is busy getting ready for having the very first day of the New Year.
Ten school backpacks were found in front of the entrance of a children's welfare facility on Christmas in Gunma Prefecture by the name of "Tiger Mask," a great Japanese cartoon(manga)
hero that every one knows for more than 30 years. After the director of the welfare house consulted with the police, they have decided to accept the knapsacks.
Ever since this news, there are more and more anonymous "Tiger Mask" being inspired by the first one, send the brand new "randoseru" to children's welfare houses across the country.

Well, I was not the great fan of this "manga" when I was a kid yet I know some basic information on "Tiger Mask" since he is the great hero of the day. He himself came from the foster home and after he became a famous professional wrestler, he kept sending his money to his foster home as the anonymous sender till he died by accident.
This news means so much to us especially when today's economy is not so healthy that there is less good news in our society.

Sending a knapsack to a child has a special meaning among any Japanese adults. A knapsack, a school bag or a backpack, whatever you may call it in English, we name it "ra-n-do-se-ru," which originally came from "a ransel" in Dutch.
A compulsory education starts in Japan when children reach the age of seven in spring. It's a happy event for any parents and grandparents to celebrate their child/grandchild's beginning of the school life and getting a first randoseru for their child is such a welcoming and rewarding gift that they proudly make.

Every day we get the news that some more "Tiger Mask" appear by way of sending not only "randoseru" but also some other gifts such as books, toys and what's more, tons of rice and vegetables!!! One of "Tiger Mask" left the message "Children are the gifts from the heaven. So we've got to take care of any children with all our might."
Well, we're so thankful to every "Tiger Mask" but then, how the government understands this, I wonder. It's not the only charity to children but also the big caution to the government for their good policy to the citizens.

As of today, 96 anonymous "Tiger Mask" left 171 "randoseru" and other items in all the 47 prefectures in the nation.

(all the imges from the web news and the backpack online shop)

Volunteers also worked hard

COP10, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity, Nagoya, Aichi was closed on early Saturday reaching to the agreement through the long and tough meetings in a row by the representatives from the 192 countries and the European Union.

Unlike the World Expos which is held every four year, the Conference is not open to the public. Yet during the Conference, there were more than 10,000 people coming in and out from home and abroad. They are delegates, representatives from governments levels, NPO, scientists, researchers, native people and not to mention the press.


During the 17 days, there are more than 1,200 volunteers also were completing their missions at the huge conference venue or at the important spots of the every transportation systems such as the airport, subway/train stations in and around the city to help participants.

Besides them, many volunteers who speak the foreign languages were stationed at each of 200 exhibition booths adjacent to the main conference venue. I was appointed at the booth which the city of Nagoya produced the exhibition on the history of biodiversity in Nagoya and we provided the short guided tour in the huge tent during the period.
It was really fun when I have many visitors and explained our panels in English. Visitors were mostly Japanese citizens or the conference participants from abroad who walked in in between the sessions. We both enjoy exchanging our ideas on what we can do for the preservation of the rich natural environment.

Click here. You can have a glance at what the COP10 were all alike.Photos are just beautiful.

Different world of hobbies

a helicopter!

This is the world of Gundam, they say.

Whewwwww--------------

"Gundam" is a popular hero from a TV animated series.
It was first televised almost 30 years ago
and has been one of the greatest heroes among children since then.

Take a look what is going on.
It's only Japanese but you can get some hints from the images.

http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20100724_real_grade_gundam_project_first/

by the way, for me Astro Boy is still my childhood hero!

Who is your favorite hero?

(photo by my son)