...where the tri-annual two-day concours for Noborikawa-style sanshin music has just ended.
A sanshin looks so simple. A stick, a flattened cylinder, three strings, and something to pick the strings with--that's all it takes to create a sanshin. I've seen them made from tupperware and an old board, or an empty cookie tin instead of the tupperware, and also the fabulous instuments made from rare hardwoods with coral pins to hold the strings. It's not, however, the instrument that counts. It's the heart of the person who plays it.
No one has more heart than Noborikawa Seijin.
Yesterday's celebration concert ran for five hours, many of those hours with the much-loved "Sei-gua" himself on stage performing entertainment miracles with three strings and his indomitable heart.
2010年11月1日月曜日
2010年10月24日日曜日
What's blooming in Tachikawa?
Cosmos flowers! One hill is sparkling with lemonade yellow blossoms mixed with fizzy white ones. Two more are covered with multiple shades of pink, as far as the eye can see.
Almost as plentiful as the flowers are the people enjoying a day in the park. This is Showa Kinen Koen at its best.
Almost a century ago, the land was the site of an airplane factory. Even now, a handful of one-and-two-seaters is on display in a back corner of the park. Later, it became a hotspot of Japan's war effort. Still later, the airfield was taken over by a foreign government to use for their various war efforts.
And then...
The land reverted to Japan.
What would a nation that learned a very bitter lesson--that war's main product is human misery--do with this acreage next?
Japan planted trees, grass, and shrubs, landscaped the ponds and the lake, planted thousands and thousands of cosmos flowers, and threw open the gates. Welcome, one and all, to a place that celebrates life! Banzai for karmic makeovers!
Almost as plentiful as the flowers are the people enjoying a day in the park. This is Showa Kinen Koen at its best.
Almost a century ago, the land was the site of an airplane factory. Even now, a handful of one-and-two-seaters is on display in a back corner of the park. Later, it became a hotspot of Japan's war effort. Still later, the airfield was taken over by a foreign government to use for their various war efforts.
And then...
The land reverted to Japan.
What would a nation that learned a very bitter lesson--that war's main product is human misery--do with this acreage next?
Japan planted trees, grass, and shrubs, landscaped the ponds and the lake, planted thousands and thousands of cosmos flowers, and threw open the gates. Welcome, one and all, to a place that celebrates life! Banzai for karmic makeovers!
2010年10月19日火曜日
strange news
Autumn in the season for awards. In Japan, the national holiday "Culture Day" comes on November 3, and centering on that date, various prizes in the field of culture are awarded.
Loosely defined, culture would be anything created by the heart, mind and hand of human beings as opposed to something created by nature. Politics, believe it or not, fits inside that definition. But so does morality.
One would have to question, therefore, the wisdom of awarding a "culture hero" prize to a politician discredited by his own party for his totally iffy morality.
This is about Junya Yano, who was ignominiously booted out of the Komei Party many years ago. Who is nominating him? The news report said "the government". That means the current ruling party, which is largely ruled by Ichiro Ozawa, a man on the verge of being discredited for his totally iffy morality.
Is this a joke?
Loosely defined, culture would be anything created by the heart, mind and hand of human beings as opposed to something created by nature. Politics, believe it or not, fits inside that definition. But so does morality.
One would have to question, therefore, the wisdom of awarding a "culture hero" prize to a politician discredited by his own party for his totally iffy morality.
This is about Junya Yano, who was ignominiously booted out of the Komei Party many years ago. Who is nominating him? The news report said "the government". That means the current ruling party, which is largely ruled by Ichiro Ozawa, a man on the verge of being discredited for his totally iffy morality.
Is this a joke?
2010年10月6日水曜日
The Silence of a Wind Turbine
The people in today's NY Times (Oct 5) who don't like the noise of their wind turbine apparently do not know where to shop for a good one.
The article claims they couldn't stand the noise after its first ten minutes of operation. I know one that has been operating for ten years, and you can't hear it at all. It powers a small community on an island near Okinawa, and even if you stand right next to it, all you hear is the birds chirping, voices wafting from a coffee shop nearby, and the hum of a car or two on the road that passes the turbine. You can't hear the windmill, even if you press your ear against the tower. (which I did)
Don't blame the turbine for noise; blame the manufacturer.
Quiet ones do exist.
The article claims they couldn't stand the noise after its first ten minutes of operation. I know one that has been operating for ten years, and you can't hear it at all. It powers a small community on an island near Okinawa, and even if you stand right next to it, all you hear is the birds chirping, voices wafting from a coffee shop nearby, and the hum of a car or two on the road that passes the turbine. You can't hear the windmill, even if you press your ear against the tower. (which I did)
Don't blame the turbine for noise; blame the manufacturer.
Quiet ones do exist.
2010年9月17日金曜日
A Change in the Weather
Rain, at last, and a respite from record-breaking summer temperatures!
The cooler weather coincided with a vote to choose the leader of Japan's Minshuto (Democratic Party). Since the Minshuto holds a majority in Congress, the new party leader would automatically become Japan's Prime Minister. The winner is the incumbent, Naoto Kan.
When I wrote about Japan's first-ever, postwar, rotation of the majority/minority political parties (Japan's Road to Popular Empowerment, Adams Press, 2001), the book was subtitled "The Story So Far". In that book, Mr. Kan was given a brief mention as a minority party grassroots organizer in Okayama Prefecture. Now he has become a two-term Prime Minister.
Whether he is good, bad, or indifferent as the top leader remains to be seen. What is important to notice is that a new set of characters is moving into the top positions in Japan.
The times, they are a'changing.
The cooler weather coincided with a vote to choose the leader of Japan's Minshuto (Democratic Party). Since the Minshuto holds a majority in Congress, the new party leader would automatically become Japan's Prime Minister. The winner is the incumbent, Naoto Kan.
When I wrote about Japan's first-ever, postwar, rotation of the majority/minority political parties (Japan's Road to Popular Empowerment, Adams Press, 2001), the book was subtitled "The Story So Far". In that book, Mr. Kan was given a brief mention as a minority party grassroots organizer in Okayama Prefecture. Now he has become a two-term Prime Minister.
Whether he is good, bad, or indifferent as the top leader remains to be seen. What is important to notice is that a new set of characters is moving into the top positions in Japan.
The times, they are a'changing.
2010年8月25日水曜日
Meanwhile, there is joy in Okinawa
Okinawa loves baseball, and baseball loves her back. The all-Japan high school baseball tournament ended today, and an Okinawa high school won. Congratulations, Konan High School!
2010年8月21日土曜日
A Word on Hiroshima (2)
Here in the village distinguished by the eight pine trees that gave it its name, August is a quiet month. The rice is growing, but not ready for harvest. Nothing is more beautiful than the emerald green of a mature paddy, like the one in the photo, as seen against a cerulean sky. It's hot. A typhoon is on the way--look at the clouds!
The green of the rice and the blue of the sky is the same in August of 2010 as it was in 1945. In the afternoon of August 6, 1945, Toshio S. walked the four kilometers from his house, along a road with rice paddies lining both sides, to the train station in the center of Eight Pines Village. On his back was a small rucksack with a canteen of water, some salted rice balls, and a towel to mop away the sweat that poured from his face.
It was hot. It was quiet. It was just like in the photo, only different.
There was a strange cloud hovering over the city in the far distance, and from that cloud poured black rain. Toshio S. was on his way to Hiroshima City to look for his brother, unaccounted for after leaving his house to go to work in the city center that morning, the day the world's first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima City.
Koichi, Toshio's brother, was one of the lucky ones. He died instantly, pelted by a torrent of broken concrete from what, moments before his death, was his office building. It took two days, but Toshio found Koichi,identified the body, and mourned his brother's loss with the rest of his family.
Not lucky were the men, women, and children whose skin was melted from their bodies by the force of the atomic blast. They had no voices, not even to say their own names. They had no faces, no identifying marks, to let others know who they were. They were alive, but with nothing to hold the fluids inside their bodies, they were tortured by a demonic thirst. And there were so many of them. Too many to be helped by people like Toshio, who had a tin of water he gladly gave away, water that leaked away the moment it was swallowed.
On November 12 this year, a peace conference attended by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates will open in Hiroshima. America's most recent Nobel laureate will be in Yokohama for an economic conference around that same time. He is cordially invited to make the hour flight to Hiroshima and let the world know if his country values peace and human life as much as it does economics.
The green of the rice and the blue of the sky is the same in August of 2010 as it was in 1945. In the afternoon of August 6, 1945, Toshio S. walked the four kilometers from his house, along a road with rice paddies lining both sides, to the train station in the center of Eight Pines Village. On his back was a small rucksack with a canteen of water, some salted rice balls, and a towel to mop away the sweat that poured from his face.
It was hot. It was quiet. It was just like in the photo, only different.
There was a strange cloud hovering over the city in the far distance, and from that cloud poured black rain. Toshio S. was on his way to Hiroshima City to look for his brother, unaccounted for after leaving his house to go to work in the city center that morning, the day the world's first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima City.
Koichi, Toshio's brother, was one of the lucky ones. He died instantly, pelted by a torrent of broken concrete from what, moments before his death, was his office building. It took two days, but Toshio found Koichi,identified the body, and mourned his brother's loss with the rest of his family.
Not lucky were the men, women, and children whose skin was melted from their bodies by the force of the atomic blast. They had no voices, not even to say their own names. They had no faces, no identifying marks, to let others know who they were. They were alive, but with nothing to hold the fluids inside their bodies, they were tortured by a demonic thirst. And there were so many of them. Too many to be helped by people like Toshio, who had a tin of water he gladly gave away, water that leaked away the moment it was swallowed.
On November 12 this year, a peace conference attended by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates will open in Hiroshima. America's most recent Nobel laureate will be in Yokohama for an economic conference around that same time. He is cordially invited to make the hour flight to Hiroshima and let the world know if his country values peace and human life as much as it does economics.
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