My Impressions

“I hope for the people in the world to be at liberty and impartiality,

and eliminate persecution, discrimination, and poverty.”

Speculate                                                

          When I speculate about time and space or the origin of the universe, I couldn’t imagine a picture in my head. Have you tried to get an image of infinity? Many times, I have tried to get an image of infinity when I looked up at the night sky on beaches of isolated islands.

        I looked up at the innumerable stars in the heavens. I always thought about the view that is beyond where I’m watching now. However, it’s beyond me. I imagined the cosmos, but I couldn’t get an image of the end of cosmos, it’s just dark. It’s chaos.

        Our world doesn’t have any infinity. We can just feel only time, that is the kind of infinity. However, we can’t draw a picture of time in our head. Therefore, we can’t imagine infinity.

        I still try to get an image about the universe. It makes me feel a kind of piety. I think that universe is God and that is infinity. I want to know about infinity of cosmos and beyond.

The World is Getting Smaller

          People start to study several languages from a young age in the Netherlands; I agree it is better way to learn foreign languages. When people study foreign languages, they also study the foreign culture. Therefore, people can understand how the foreigners think about something, how they feel something, or how they react to something. The understanding of other nations makes people feel the world is getting smaller. Nowadays, people can talk on the Internet, so people easily reach foreigners. Young people especially are required to have computer skills; they need to speak English to exchange ideas. Then many people can truly feel the world is getting smaller.

Throughout histories, several countries become one, after a war. As the time passed, that languages grew by occupations and annexations. People felt two worlds became one world. Languages are to shrink the world smaller, as we more easily talk each other.

Nevertheless, when I read the article, I was concerned about people’s identities. Language is a tool for communicating with others, but it also has its own identity. After the Japanese insisted that Koreans speak Japanese during World War II, Korean-Japanese second generations lost their identities because they can’t speak Korean well. They felt the world was getting smaller in a different way.

In addition, international trading got rid of borderlines of languages. The traders had to know foreign languages or go broke. They made the world smaller, easier to get into other countries. Nowadays, many people study Chinese for business purposes. These kinds of people used to study Japanese. Time has passed.

In conclusion, common language opens up the world for people. They have a wider vision of the world. Therefore, they can easily to see the world is getting smaller than before.

In Any Situation, People Can Live in Hope with Love

        “The Story of Anne Frank” was written by Eileen Prince. This story described Anne Frank who wrote “The diary of Anne”. She was born into a wealthy Jewish family in 1929 in Germany. She wrote a diary that has been read around the world since her father published it after WWII. In 1933, when the Nazis overwhelmed Germany, the Franks moved to Amsterdam. In 1945, after the Nazis occupied Holland, they lived in a hidden annex where her father’s office had been with other families. The author described the extreme situations of the war. It caused their mental conditions to grow worse with the shortage of food, money expenses, and tight confinement. However, Anne had fallen in love and she was always cheerful. They even enjoyed special celebrations such as a birthday or the holidays. But she was finally arrested in 1944. In March 1945, she died of an illness at the concentration camp “Bergen Belsen” before she was sixteen and the war ended just couple of months after.

How cruel can human beings be! I remember another novel “Man’s Search for Meaning” was written by Viktor Emil Franklyn. This novel also described people’s mental conflict in a Concentration camp (Auschwitz). However, both novels described how people survived in extreme situations and demonstrated that “human beings cannot live on bread alone”. Human beings could kill 14,000,000 people by Gas chambers, but they have also died for others like the priest Maximilian Kolbe.

According to history, a nation, a race, or a tribe can be wiped out by ethnocentrism. However, race is not the only cause. Many different reasons­_ economical, geographical or political _have caused massacres. However, in every case people had been affected emotionally by ethnocentrism. Many people have behaved irrationally in wars. However, many other people have helped Jews, like the Christian Hollander Jo Koophuis, or a chief of a concentration camp who was protected by internees after the war for being kind to them.

In conclusion, people cannot choose their race, because people cannot choose where we are born. However, people can choose a leader, a government, and even a nation. Human beings must choose their conduct by the dictates of reason in a definitive situation, because every person can choose his own behavior. I wish to be this way.                                                                                 

War and People

A Liberal cannot be a Patriot? Only Conservatives can be Patriots? People have been divided into conservatives and democrats during the presidential vote. I wonder why people think liberal is weak, and why a tender mind is wrong. I believe people who love their country must be strong and tender.

Usually in most countries, soldiers were oppressed people. How can they make the others feel oppressed? I think war is militaristic diplomacy, it has to be tender to make good atmosphere. I think the conscription system is better than volunteer system, because people think more seriously and closely about the beginning of war. Moreover, draft collects people of many different ways of thinking. They can make different strategies and at the war, before the war, the war field and after the war. Weak people think how to avoid making war situation. I think this preventing war way is considerate and it is braver than choosing fight.

When a war was going to start, the people could not go against the decision of the outbreak of war because the war was going to become a national movement and sentiments. If someone expressed to oppose the war, he would be isolated and forced to become a traitor. Even a leader would be thought a traitor to his country by his people if he had tried to make a peace with an enemy. For example, when Yitzhak Rabin had tried to make peace with Jordan and PLO, he was assassinated by a patriot who was also Jewish. It is difficult for the leader to achieve welfare for the country or the people by the way that seems tender. Yitzhak Rabin thought of his country’s future, and he bet his life to make peace with Palestinian. I believe he was brave and thoughtful as a real patriot.

 After 9.11, the war of terror has started. Although the government has arbitrarily controlled information to Media, many facts have been exposed by some liberal Journalists. For example, the tortured Iraqi or cozy relation ship between government and big arms manufacturers or oil plant companies made contracts to suit themselves. The exposures help the people judge the government’s decision. Moreover, the people can know what has been going on in Iraq really. I think the informers were not betrayers of their country. They lit lights for the people.

In conclusion, people have to have own moral courage to make own behavior. According history, many brave people’s achievements have helped our societies. I believe some of them still are going to behave bravely and thoughtfully to make good circumstance for the people. People must be brave and sweet.   

Schweitzer of Brazil

Although nobody has known his name is Shizuo Hosoe, he was called “Schweitzer of Brazil and Doctor of Amazon” in the Japanese society of Brazil. He was born in 1901 in Gifu prefecture of Japan. Those times, most Japanese people were poor; especially country sides’ were the most poor. In his town, the people dreamed to eat white rice because they usually eat millet or barnyard. If the people could eat potatoes, they thought those were better than cereals. Shizuo had desired to help people since he was a boy. He decided to be a doctor and became one after graduating from high school; he had worked and studied hard for ten years. When he became a doctor, his professor asked him to go to Brazil and help people. Those times, many Japanese had immigrated due to poverty so government wanted to do them. There were 150,000 Japanese immigrants in Brazil. They had not any hospital or doctor. While they had been struggling to deforest and reclaim for cultivation the Amazon basin, endemic diseases had always affected them. After he went there, he built a hospital in Sao Paulo, and a sanatorium for tuberculosis in Campos. He lived out his allotted span of life in 1975 but those hospitals are still there and help many people.

I admire him. If I had ability like him, I want to live similar to him. I vaguely remember Schweitzer’s phrase “Truly happy person is a person who always looks for a way of helping other people and had found it”. Hosoe had been eager to help people since he grew up in poor circumstance, and had done it well. He had been living his dream. I truly respect him.

My thoughts on Memorial Day

            I admire the concept that Americans commemorate their Memorial Day. I’m a Japanese student attending a language school. One day, when I drove nearby Punchbowl cemetery, many American families celebrated the Memorial Day whole-heartedly. I was really impressed when I saw the tremendous people moved toward overcrowded the cemetery. Why do I have this kind of impression? They came to the cemetery early in the morning to celebrate with their families. They brought beautiful bouquets and a lot of stuff for spending time in there. They spent all day with their families and/or friends at the cemetery. They were talking, laughing, some times singing, “God bless America”, and “Proud to be an American”. The entire cemetery was full of affection and sounds of pride. I just remained as a spectator because I always feel a sort of guilty conscience when I go to some kinds of circumstance that are related to the World War. In addition, when a politician of foreign countries visit other countries, they usually visit and worship at the visited country’s national cemetery to show their respect, in a diplomatic manner. Nevertheless, I’ve never seen such a scene in Japan. As a reason, Japanese national cemetery is not approved by other countries also many Japanese people because the cemetery belongs to Yasukuni Shinto shrine. When Japanese prime minister/or his cabinets visited and worshipped, other Asian countries complained immediately. We can’t commemorate soldiers’ achievement like other countries do.

Americans have been fighting around the world for justice and antiterrorism. It is really helpful for anti-persecution. I respect America’s such mind and behavior. Therefore when I was watching the war on TV, many times I asked myself that if I were an American, would I fight as an American soldier or not? Of course, I willingly will. Nevertheless, I’d like to choose which war I will be participating. Wars have many reasons when they start. People are still fighting in many countries around the world for many reasons. Some of them are fighting for territory, some of them for religion, or peace and antiterrorism, and some of them for independence, freedom, anti-persecution, anti-discrimination, human rights, or equality. In most cases, revenge calls for revenge and repeats persecutions that bring about the vicious cycle. Why do people that have been persecuted the most persecute another? Many people know John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.” He wrote of the world as having no borders, no religions, etc. These wars always have been fought for the cause of justice. I am not a communist or an anarchist. I don’t think he was either. However, I sometimes imagine the world he has dreamed to come true whenever I watch these war stories on TV.

Japanese still can not commemorate the Japanese Memorial Day heartily.

 August 14th is the anniversary of the end of World War II. Everybody knows we have a bad history with the World War. Even though Japanese government tried to commemorate the Memorial Day throughout Japan, it always reminds many Asian countries of their bad experiences. In addition, Japanese cannot be patriots because other Asian countries would think that Japanese patriotism means radical conservative militants. There is some truth in this. We cannot change the history. Therefore, Japanese have to do many things to repair the bad impression that the other Asian countries have.

According to the Japanese newspaper, nowadays most of middle-aged Japanese think that “the World War is irrelevant to us; we have done nothing”, or “Why are we still criticized or blamed by Asian for the World War?” Japanese government has given a lot of money to Asian countries many times as a compensation- type of ODA, but Japanese government has never directly apologized for the World War wholeheartedly, and ODA have been accepted countries’ government never explain such a money was how to spent for. That is why Asian people still have bad feelings with Japanese and so the middle-aged Japanese people feel frustrated.

The relationship between young Koreans and young Japanese has been improved after the World Soccer Game. They have created new relationships and a new history with each other since the event because they have not had a bad history. One day, maybe in the remote future, I sincerely hope that all Japanese will be able to commemorate the Memorial Day guiltlessly and wholeheartedly with people of other countries like Americans.

Japanese Traditional Holiday and Paying a Visit to a Shrine

            Formerly most Japanese people visited shrines to worship and pray when they wanted to celebrate some holidays and anniversaries. For instance, when a girl reached the age 3 and 5 and a boy reached 5 and 7, they are dressed up in their finest clothes by their parents, and they visit a shrine to pray for their future. Moreover, when a student tries to take a college entrance examination, he visits a shrine to pray for passing the test.

However nowadays, especially urban people have lost these traditions. People lost praying for something, and it is not only my opinion. Most Asian countries have occasional events each season by the lunar calendar, because most Asian industries used to be agriculture. The events remind them each season’s essential work, which is plowing, fertilizing, sowing, weeding, exterminating insects, harvesting, etc. But agriculture has changed to industries now. People can’t feel each seasonal aspect by their work, the sceneries or also by food. Therefore they have lost many kinds of seasonal events.

Secondly, I’d like to mention how to visit and worship at a shrine. At first, when people visit the shrine, you notice that there is a stone washbasin in the precincts of the shrine entrance which is a large granite stone or red wooden gate called “Torii”. You have to make sure to wash your hands and mouth, and also your mind. It is preparation and a kind of purification ceremonies for worship before you enter the “Torii”. Then you can enter the shrine precincts. You will first notice that an outer shrine hanging decoration of thick sacred straw rope with a big round bell above a wooden offertory box. After you go close to them, you throw coins into the offering box, and then you ring the bell by swinging the straw rope. Next, you bow at 45 degree twice, clap your hand twice, and bow again once similarly. At the time, you close your eyes so you can make a monetary offering to god.

Japanese shrine has many gods. The main god is named “Amaterasuoominokami”, its directly translated meaning is the great lighting the heavens god; its means she is the sun. All Japanese shrines have a metal mirror and it symbolizes “Amaterasuoominokami” as a sun and also their individual gods. They are sometimes an old wood, a big odd stone, a fur of animals, a sword. This is animism. Therefore, shamans pray to 8,080,000 kinds of gods by animism and they respect and worship nature. As a result, they are often located near a mountain or usually have a huge forest to prevent from the divested developers’ hands. Nevertheless, recently less people consider the importance of shrine and their relationship to the shrine. People think of shrines as places of ceremonies or a strange religious place. I hope young Japanese people remember that old good traditions are not so strange.

The Traditional Military Arts of Japan

Today, I would like to talk to you about my country’s traditional military arts. Basically, Japanese tradition arts are named with the word “DO” that means “way” in English. For example, the tea ceremony is called “Sa Do,” the traditional flower arrangements are called “Ka Do,” and the calligraphy is called “Sho Do.” The word “way” is used to show the eternal path to reach the goal of the arts. 

To take tea ceremony “Sa Do” as an example, the manner and the behavior as the host and the guest of the ceremony are very important. The time of arrival by the guest, attire worn by the host and the guest, the posture and the speed of walking, eye contacts, greetings, and every action made by both sides are strictly observed. The waiting style, the way of entering the narrow ‘Nijiri guchi,’ the order of people entering the entrance, and the way of spending time until the tea is served are also very important.

When the tea ceremony begins, it is necessary for the host and the guest to progress with completely flawless manners. Until this day of ceremony, both sides practice the art repeatedly to achieve perfection and beauty in the manner of carrying out the process. On the very day of the ceremony, the host and the guest perform the art with their best ability FOR each other. The beauty of this tea ceremony is the ultimate time spent with such perfection in awe by both sides of the ceremony. It is very important for the guest to be able to observe the ceremony by the host with knowledge and mind through layers of practice. Because the practice consists, only of the perfection it is considered strict and unnatural. In addition, from this daily repeated practice of strict manners and stern postures by host and the guest, every action of the ceremony on this final day becomes natural and infallibly beautiful. From here comes the philosophy of “ICHOGOICHIE” means “once in a life time chance.”

The Japanese traditional arts seem very conservative and unnatural at a glance. However, through the mastered practices of the arts, the true freedom is achieved from this confined culture. Perhaps the reason for this is that the Japan is surrounded by the ocean. In addition, people have come to define their identity only within the confined space. Such a theory can be proved by another form of traditional art, “TanKa,” “HaiKu” poetry. The Japanese poetry is appreciated with freedom of expression within a very restricted number of syllables.

 Mastering the ways of any form of traditional arts is in truth, the road to nirvana. To reach the enlightenment may seem impossible for any human beings. However, by devoting oneself to achieving the perfection of the ‘way’ one can expand the soul and the mind over the eternal space of time.

Let us get into the traditional military arts of my country “Bu Do”. Why do you think that this military art of manslaughter is named with “Do,” the “way?” The Japanese military arts are born from the time of civil wars as a technique of fighting among social class people. Then when the country finally united as one in “Toyotomi” era, the tea ceremony was brought into the world by a man named “Sen RiKyu”, and the form of “Buddhism Zen” was born. The people of this period were freed from violent warfare and took changes in their minds and souls. The first” Bu Do” in Japan was “Ken Do”. “Ken Do” was brought into the world by a man named “Kamiizumi Hidetsuna”. The period was about 1570 A.D., latter part of “Muromachi” era. “Ken Do” came from the style “ShinKaGe Ryu.” The main concept of “ShinKaGe Ryu” is “MeiKyo- ShiSui”. This means clear, translucent mirror and still, calm water. Through this “Budo”, a man is reborn with clean and open mind. During the fight, the mind should be able to reflect the enemy’s thoughts and so the actions.

A student of “Kamiizumi”, “Yagyu- Muneyoshi”, then invented “YaGyu- ShinKaGe Ryu-”. He then became the teacher of “Shoguns” as a Japanese prim minister. His concept was “Munen Muso-”. This means to have tranquil minds even more so than “MeiKyo- ShiSui” does. The fighter should not have any desire or any thoughts in the mind. The mind should be clear as the wind. Through this, he would become one with the air as “Ki” and be able to expand throughout the space. In addition, the enemy would not be able to compete with such a soul. This “Ki” seems to me the similar idea to the Western philosophy (I think therefore I am) by “Rene Descartes” from a different angle. The psychology of “Munen Muso-” is also connected to the “Zen” philosophy of “ShiKi Soku Zeku, Ku-Soku Zeshiki.” The means to become one with the wind and expand the existence throughout the time and space; by existing without presence like the wind and the air and to have color without existing, one can become the space itself and exist regardless of the presence of death.

Next, I would like to talk to you about the highest form of military arts in Japan, “Aiki Do.” As the name, this military art is practiced by using and conforming to the “Ki” (breath) of the opponent. The advanced military artists often say that at the fighting, if the opponent’s rank is lower one must have his eyes closed, if the opponent’s rank is the same one should look straight in the eyes, and if the opponent’s rank is higher then one must look at the opponent’s chest. This idea is similar to not looking down when one is height above the ground. The fear reduces the ability of any activity capable of any human beings. This proves the point that when it comes to the fighting or anything else mind control is very important. This is how the small can defeat the big, how the weak can win over the strong, and how a female can fight a male. “Budo” stresses the practice of using the least amount of force to result in a greater amount of force for defense and sometimes offense. To work with the least amount of force, the “Budo” military artists have researched the pressure points and how to attack these points precisely, at the right time. The timing of breathing is very important. The word “ki” comes from the meaning breath. To attack efficiently one must know the rhythm of the opponent’s breathing. When the opponent is exhaling, he is fully capable of defending himself. However, when he is inhaling, he needs a second of physical adjustment before he can defend himself.

To attack the opponent, one must know how to dominate one’s “Ki” (energy) at an impulse into the opponent’s existence like the big bang in the universe and swallow the opponent’s “Ki” like the black hole. Such battles of the mind and knowledge are important for the fights in the military arts of Japan.    

Judo is a Japanese Traditional Sport

Judo was a Japanese national sport that most Japanese confidently believe that naturally enough most athletes to get win every game on Judo. Because, Judo was developed by JIGORO KANO in ME-JI era of Japan, Japanese athletes have knowledge and technique much than others that cause easily able to win.

  Look at the history, originally Judo was named Yawara that not sport that was combative techniques. The Yawara athletes battled in front of public that some time assemble spectator for business as a gladiator in the Roman. At the time, the technique wasn’t sophisticated, it focuses on to defeat opponents, and so many athletes became a disable or died. However, Meiji period when time was trending to civilization throughout Japan, JIGORO tried to Judo to popularize. Therefore, he formulated the system of techniques and establishes a rule and built place of “Dojo” called  “ Kodokan”. After people have called them “Kodokan Judo”, they divided them to others’.

Judo game is to fights one by one on the special mat called “TATAMI”, and they wear uniform, it’s like a Japanese traditional clothes which is called “KIMONO”, a thick  white cotton jacket and trousers, and  it tied also cotton belt  There is a big difference between sports and martial arts called “Judo”. Japanese have many kinds of “Do” as in Judo, Aikido, Kendo, Sado, Kado and etc. Those” Do” means a way of god which people study how to reach to closer god. Usually, the game practices at the Dojo that deifies Shinto altar. When people enter the Dojo, at first always they bow to altar, and at the beginning game and finish game the times. They greet to god and promise to fight fairly. They must be purified themselves by wearing white clothes to fight fairly in front of good. And the clothes also include meaning of a shroud that express they bet their life on the fight. The fights become sacred. After the Olympic Games in Japan, Judo became more popular than before. Now, Judo is an official Olympic sport. In Japan, Judo is not only about techniques. The Do means focusing on strengthening one’s mind. Practicing techniques is one way of disciplining mental power.

          Now, many foreigners have started Judo. These foreign Judo athletes build muscles and want to change the Judo uniform colors. From the Japanese point of view, at first, these athletes didn’t seem to consider the importance of “Do”. Consequently, Japanese decided that changing colors of the uniform didn’t interfere with cultivating strong mind and spirit. I agree with them but I still prefer white collar to other collars.

 If there is anyone that has taken interest in the traditional military arts of Japan through my writing, I’m very happy.