On October 25th, Japanese National Police Agency Police officially wheeled out that bicycle riders should basically pass through roadside not the sidewalk.
This announcement hit bicycle rider heavily. They also regarded bicycle as dangerous tools to pedestrian.
But they have put bicycle related issue aside for more than 40 years. Roads in Japan have been improved for mainly car usage. Reconstruction for the bicycle road depends on how much local official take this serious matter.
These days bicycle riders are increasing due to bad economy and healthy boom. After March 11th earthquake, bicycle commuter has drastically swelled. Along with this, bicycle related accident also surge. According to the report from the traffic safety association, there is around 30,000,000 yen lawcase in the past few years. A female high school students hit a elder woman by her bicycle on her way to school and the woman has suffered partial paralysis. She filed a lawsuit against high school girl and won the case.
We need look for a compromise so that our societies can harmonize with bicycles.
TPP has become as boiling as historic landing of Commodore Matthew Perry in Yokosuka, Kanagaw Pref. Japanese citizens are paying attention to TPP, which is an abbreviation of Trans-Pacific Partnership. At first, the media and the government publicized that we absolutely would lag behind other countries especially in agricultural industry if we missed joining this trade aggreement.They focused on farm industry so much that most of the Japanese thought that we should open our countries to other nations in the Pacific region. I am the one of the supporters of TPP.
But, in fact, we realized that our government and the Foreign Affairs Department restricted some information related to TPP because it is a diplomatic issue. Many Japanese don't know that there are a variety of articles that we must agree on in TPP not only on agriculture. There are 24 articles tackled in TPP ranging from medical services down to financial. It covers a lot of industries. If we approve of the TPP, it is possible that our lifestyle will change completely. For example, TPP will abate the quality of medical services in Japan. TPP regards medical services profit oriented-activities, therefore profit seeker hospitals reduce the medical services that they can't gain enough profit. Consequently, TPP will abate the quality of medical service in Japan. Now I'm taking back my previous stand. Now, I'm totally opposed to TPP.
Before Prime Minister Noda join the discussion table, we need to know what it's all about TPP and assess the impact of aftermath precisely.
People around the world are paying close attention to the future of the Arab region. After the democratic uprising in Egypt has overturned President Mubarak's dynasty, Libyan people's anger took away the tyrannical Colonel Gaddafi's life. The residents in other Sub-Saharan countries are fighting against Ancient Regime.
Some political scientists called this series of civil wars 'Arab spring'. They were triggered by many aspects. One of these, I think, was the social strata. While the rich protect their vested interest, the poors people stayed poor; the more the population increases, the less chance people can find employment. Food prices are soaring, on the other hand, their salarys remain the same.
Second thing was the advancement of information technology. As people start to share current information through Facebook, twitter, and skype. They were updated of tremendous information on the deed of their dictator to the citizens. These digital tools can abet citizens to spread nationwide democratic movement. Internet viewers in the world realized that convinients tools sometimes can be lethal weapon.
After tyrants have gone now, Libian and Egyptian indulge themselves in thier victory transiently. But the goal to be domocratic society may be long way because there's no order in their social system. If same type of dictatorship get the privilage, same thing can happen to Egypt and Libia. So neighboring countries should support their economy and the restructuring of the country.
After Steve Jobs passed away, people increasingly have defied him a legendary innovater in the world.
I keep on having ingenious creativity he gave us and to be loyal to inovative Apple products.
Steve Jobs admired Japanese Buddism. His intuitive and sensitive mind was partly affected by Japanese religion.
spirit of Zen
which will be launched.
Otogawa Koobun
monk of SOTO ZEN Buddhism
Califolnia
He enlightened their Buddism in Califolnia.
serve Jobs's wedding ceremony.
Jobs learned from him that
He was appointed as the religious director of Next corp in 1986.
In 2002, misfortune attacked him, he died from drawing to rescue her daughter in a lake during his religious promotional visit in Swizland.
2011年10月9日日曜日
After we went to our accomodation, we exchanged the experience that we had at each site. One of my colleague who joined chat with victims presented how he felt during his volunteer activity.
At first he had a confidence to comtunicate with affected people just before he got community center. He thought that he could ease their anxiety and cheer them up by sympathazing their miserable situation. Unexpectedly, he was asked not to mention the disaster related issue just before he met them, he was very embarassed at the caution. When they met at the community center,
they had not known each other. He said that it was his additional surprise. While they were talking, they tended to go back to catastrophic memory, so he spent their energy in keeping his emotion normal while they were chatting. I realized that the volnteer center played an impmrtant role in this community.
As we have cleaned the site we were assigned, Our third day task was We
We were able to do our task so smoothly because we familiarized with using rakes and shovels.We collected many debris in a short term. We worked about two hours in the morning, then we went back to the center to eat lunch.
After our meal, we had the opportunity to witness miniconcert at the volunteer center. Participants were asked to go back to the hall and we sat down in front of young female duo. The players were two female university students, Chihiro-chan and Aya-chan. Chihiro-chan was from Nagano and Aya-chan from Nagoya. So far they have joined volunteer activities at Shichigahama more than five times. They are engaged in administration of center’s Web site. I was amazed at their diligent dedication. They joined volunteer activities together several times and they figured out later that the two of them share the same interest in music. One could play the guitar and the other Ocarina. They rehearsed several times and then they decided to make their debut at Shichigahama.
First song was ‘Kitano kuni kara’. In English it meant that from the North country. Those who joined their recital was mesmerized by their mellow song. I was especially moved to tears by their song "Soramo toberuhazu (They Wish They Could Fly)
After the applause rippled through the room, I was enlightened by their heartwarming hospitality. I think that today's youngsters were generally misundersood. They were considered to be shy and mentally weak, but they have a good mentality to help the affected people. Regardless of their intelligence, I think it is essential for us to support someone without expecting anything in return. I decided that I will mold my children to become a kind and considerate adults.
Their cheerful voice contributed to our positive disposition in performing our afternoon task. We felt that we could extend our help more for the victims, but we didn't have enough time. We went back to our hometown that evening. On my way home, while I was updating my blog through my smartphone in the bus, I additionally decided that I would start playing the Ocarina to deepen my volunteer activities. Besides that, I realized that we need to help the affected people, I'm sure the melodious Ocarina tones can uplift and brighten the depressed. And I could help the people in Tohoku by bringing melodies to their lives.
Finally, I bought an Ocarina!! I'll be updating how much I will be able to play the Ocarina soon. I will post the contents mixed with global issue and Ocarina later. Please check it up!!
On the third day of our volunteer activity, while we were waiting for the volunteer center to open, we had a chance to talk with a volunteer staff. We discussed the current issues surrounding volunteer centers. According to his opinion, local volunteer centers and their activities are gradually fading away because sometimes malfunction happened among residents, local offials, and volunteer centers.
Most of the local residents do not know the existance of volunteer center itself . Even though they have already known the center, they are afraid that they would pay hefty bills like scam, so they avoid contacting the volunteer center. Especially elderlies, most of them do not use computers, so it's hard for them to access to the information about volunteer centers.
The owners, who requested us to correct the debris of their houses through the volunteer center, did not know volunteer center at first. They have evacuated to Shiogama city and they lived with their relatives just after the tsunami struck. When they came back to their ruined house, they realized that neighboring broken houses have been uncluttered. They saw volunteers gathering debris and cleaning out remnants of the houses at that time. Then, they visited local official to know how they could contact the volunteer center. Finally they were able to submit their request. If the affected people have known the volunteer centers well, they could have had their houses cleaned earlier. I think the information mismatch is very serious in the damaged Tohoku area.
Aside from information gap, the activity that volunteer can do depends on the local officials' openness. If there are influential constructors in the city, the local official tried not to collaborate with volunteer center. If volunteer can repair buildings or bridges, the constructors decrease their profits. So local official prioritize interests of the private sectors. The areas that infamous politician like a dectator dominates are recovering slower than the cities filled with volunteers. Local officials and government tend to prioritize them to local elderlies and help them in expanding thier playing field.
Although it was the end of September, the scorching heat of the sun bit our skin. I was sure that my skin would be tanned. On top of this severe condition, we gradually became bored from routine volunteer works. We were assigned to do the same task at the same place on the second day.
Our mission was to sweep and gather the massive debris. I was wondering why the local govenment officials did not use bulldozer so that they could get rid of everything so smoothly. Even how hard we dug up the ground, small pieces of glasses and nails appeared endlessly.
When we felt tired from unchanged condition, the house owners surprisingly visited us while we were cleaning the ruined house. They gave us a lot of thanks and plenty of refreshment as gifts. The owners were in their sixties and they were not living with their children when the tsunami hit them. As we felt our activity could directly help the affected people, their visit highly motivated us so much that we could finish removing all scraps as quick as flash.
On the way to the volunteer center, I've heard from one of the volunteer staff at Shichigahama the reason why we thoroughly extracted glasses and nails from the ground. They and local offical have already understood that Bulldozer could easily scrap and clean the ground, but after they brought to the final repository site, workers at the site were accidentaly injured their body by the broken glasses and nails, consequently their works got inefficient and dangerous. It possibly cost them more to be safe and efficient, so the local offical requested volunteers to get rid of the dangerous debris as much as they can. I found that our task really helped people in Tohoku.
This announcement hit bicycle rider heavily. They also regarded bicycle as dangerous tools to pedestrian. 
