August 19, 2004
I would like to write up some memo about my trip to Japan before I forget. The primary purpose was to renew my student visa for another two years, which was another story. At first I wanted to do it in Toronto where Sameshima san said it took him only two days to get his visa renewed. Then I procrastinated the job of making an appointment at the embassy so by the time I fully decided to travel, their schedule was completely full during the time I was planning to visit Toronto. Thus I changed my plan and traveled to Japan, which significantly slowed the progress of my research.... My justification was that I wouldn't get to travel too much and hence whenever I can, I should. My parents are getting old and I would not want to miss out the opportunities to see them when I can. My father had broken his ankle in a terrible way when he fell from a bike trying to take a short cut to the parking space at Kokubunji station. He thinks he is young and thus can handle everything, but the reality is that he is 62 years old and getting slower. He can't ride a bike like a 20 year old any longer even though he likes to do it that way! Anyway, I wanted to see how my parents were doing during this trip. That's one reason. The other big reason is that I really wanted to practice kendo with Yano sensei.
Yano sensei was still a busy man but I could practice with him multiple times on multiple occasions. I had had a strong longing for practicing with Yano sensei. I will explain why. Last year he told me that there are a number of "famous" or "celebrated" kenshis who write and appear on magazines or preside to be board members of All Japan Kendo Federation. He had told me not to be blinded by their ranks, positions or accomplishments. You never know a kenshi's strength unless you actually cross your shinai with his, he said. I was shocked to hear that and was a bit skeptical about his remark when I first heard it. How can 8 dans who have accomplished so much and showed their skills in a number of matches be not strong?? Well, after obtaining and watching the Tokyo Kendo Sai video of April 2003 where a host of 8 dans "demonstrate" matches against one another, I understood what he meant. Yano sensei was clearly better and stronger, even to my eyes, than the 8 dan opponent he played against. Watching the whole tape, I could pick only one 8 dan who was as impressive as Yano sensei--he is Nakata sensei from Tokyo Metropolitan Police. There are about fifty 8 dans in the tape by the way. Like Yano sensei told me, it's not a matter of who scored what points. It's about controling the match and pressuring the opponent. To a lesser extent, it's also about the dignity and grace. Yano sensei's kendo is different from other 8 dans in these respects. He is really several notches higher even if my personal attachment to him is discounted in my judgment. By the way, I obtained other videos of 8 dans and found that Takahashi sensei from Kyoto Police and Kakehashi sensei from Tokyo Metropolitan Police were very very good (neither of them appear in the Tokyo Kendo Sai video that I obtained, though). I told my impressions to Yano sensei and he agreed. He said that Goto Kiyomitsu sensei in Oita is the one he is most impressed with right now, but I have never seen him play. So, if you don't think my observation of 8 dans has any credential, it is at least in accordance with my sensei!
Thus this time around, after having watched these videos in the U.S., I had the greatest expectations about seeing and confronting his kendo. I must admit that after playing with him, some of my expectations were not met--for one, I had fully expected that I wouldn't be able to touch him. In fact I could on a few occasions. I don't know if it was due to the progress I made or him taking some slack. Oh, a possible factor is that he'd hurt his left achilles tendon and wore heavy tapings around it. It is obvious when I watch the video of myself against Yano sensei at home, he was just playing around with me, not nearly 100% of his strength and concentration. But anyway, for the most part, he was as strong and smooth as I expected. My appreciation and amazement of Yano sensei's kendo went beyond any scale when I tested water outside at other dojos in Tokyo. No one was remotely close to Yano sensei's pressure and strength. Not even a comparison. I could handle everybody I played including a number of strong 7 dans who are supposedly very close to 8 dan and they exhibited the pressure that was nowhere close to Yano sensei's.Yano sensei told me a lot about his wild and interesting anekdotes which I enjoyed very much. One of them is where he played Mori Torao when Yano sensei was still young in his early twenties (Tiger Mori must have been in his 50s). He knew how Mori sensei was good at counter attacks, so he didn't rush to strike but slowly tried to close the distance with him. Pressured, Mori sensei stepped back a little bit while still setting up a trap once the opponent comes in. Sensing the trap, young Yano sensei stepped in to further his seme, to which Mori sensei stepped further back. As Mori sensei stepped all the way back against the wall, they went back to the original place and started over again. But the same thing happened. And Yano sensei said only a few strike attempts were made during the keiko because he was not about to be a prey of Mori sensei's counter attack and because Mori sensei was not initiating any strike. I asked Yano sensei, "But, when you are against a big sensei, aren't you supposed to take initiatives and always go for strikes no matter what?", to which he replied, "Oh, you fool, we were really in a "shinken shobu" (serious fight?), so the rank or age doesn't matter!". I would have loved to see him playing against one of the kendo legends. But what's important here is how he views kendo. A lot of what I read in books and magazines written by big time senseis is how you should keiko against a higher rank sensei and they invariably say that since you are of lower rank, you should go for seme/strikes contiuously and learn the hard way. On the contrary, Yano sensei tells his students to use their brain to pressure the opponent and crack some openings. He treats and respects you as kenshi and fully accepts a challenge from a lower-ranked/younger kenshi on the equal footage, being consistent with how he challenged Tiger Mori. Not to mention 99 chances out of 100 you are completely destroyed as a result, though.... I was convinced how strong he is when he was up against all Japan caliber college kenshis and completely dominated the practices against them....
Also, Motoda sensei, who is a new PE teacher at my high school to replace soon-to-be-retiring Yano sensei, is an excellent kenshi. He was a star during his high school and college years representing Waseda. He is small and chubby in his late 40s and he does not look like such a capable athlete at all. Well, he may not be an athlete after all, (I never know), but boy, is he one hell of a kendoist! Yano sensei says he will pass 8 dan any time now. When I play him, he can sense my "okori" and do a debana men on me despite our significant size difference. It's been a while since I got such a clean debana men.... It's amazing to see him landing one debana men after another on highly trained, extremely fast, and much taller college kenshis at Waseda.
I also had an opportunity to play against Itagaki san, who is four years older than I am. He was a college senior when I was a high school senior. I have many fond memories of him but the worst one is when I played a practice match against him one or two days before my final So-Kei competition (annual Waseda and Keio match-up). I was the captain of the team and my team was hyped up against Keio since we had lost to them three years in a row previously. Some of the members of our team who was scheduled to compete in the event had a practice match against college players and my opponent was Itagaki senpai, one of the very bests in the college team. I thought I was prepared and went into the match. I could sense that he was not at full strength to play me out of the concern that if he destroyed me, my confidence level would drop dead entering the So-Kei Sen. Well, despite the fact that Itagaki san's effort to even the match, I couldn't score any while he scored an easy dekote and kaeshi do. Man, did my confidence go down! I knew that Itagaki san wasn't doing the best he could but I still lost to him so easily--how humiliating!! That's not supposed to happen right before the most important event in my high school years. Well, I lost and, as a result, my team lost to Keio which is a bitter memory to this day. When I met Itagaki san after for the first time in 10 years, I told him this story and he laughed and said, "So you are blaming for your loss all on me??".
Well, besides practicing kendo almost every day at various dojos in Tokyo, I enjoyed my parents' company and I was glad to see how my mother is enjoying herself after her retirement. She is running a mahjang parlor in the basement and is doing everybody a favor--my uncle comes twice every week to teach mahjang to beginners which he loves to do due to the attention he gets from ladies in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s. The students who are all friends of my mother's are grateful that they could enjoy hours of mahjang with minimum maintainance fees. My father was still recovering from his ankle injury and could walk only slowly. It looks like there is a long way to go until he can play tennis again if he can ever, but his spirits are high. He is consoling himself by swimming and drinking, which is highly typical of him.
February 13, 2004
Wow. This week has been and will be one of the memorable ones in my life. I have been helping the patient from Japan who went through a brain surgery at Duke Hospital today. My job was to help the assistant physician Jay to communicate with the patient in the MIDST of the operation. Jay would flip cards of various animals in front of the patient and see if his language ability stays normal while a surgeon gives an electric shock to various parts of the brain. At times the patient's jaw dropped and he could not speak normally in trying to identify the animal. As the surgeon releases the electricity from that area, the patient could immediately speak in a normal fashion. It was simply amazing.
It was 7:30 in the morning when I entered the operation unit in the hospital. I wore a white gown, hat, a pair of feet cover, and a mask before taken to the entrance of the operation room. Through the window, I could see that the patient had been put asleep and his head was being washed and getting ready for the surgery. The sight of that and the thought of what was about to take place was too much to handle for me at that point, so I talked to Samantha who happened to be passing by me and explained my situation and dread. She gently took me to the staff's waiting room where she bought me a snack and water. She was a real sweetheart in the middle of insanity--here she was, trying to give me a sense that everything is going to be OK and I need to pretend that it's a TV show or something. The fact of the matter is that I could barely stand watching my own blood and I do the best I can to avoid those nasty medical TV shows where they show internal organs and inside of a brain for the "improvement of public knowledge of our health". Oh, please! I do not wish to gain any knowledge about how a body works with an explicit and visible exhibition of it. Anyway, Samantha was very sympathetic but the operation was still under way and it was not likely to wait until I get my senses back! I wish I could have chatted with Samantha and her coworkers at the waiting room for the rest of the day and complained about how horrible it would be in an operation room watching every action. I certainly didn't want the reality to kick in!
Before long the judgment day has come. Jay the evil called in and told me to enter the operation room. I went through the door and tried to look away from the patient. There must have been well over a dozen people in the room: a trio of world's top brain surgeons, a couple of nurses, a few physicians, a couple of anesthesia experts, and several observants who are all young neuro sergeons from Japan, eager to learn the cutting edge technologies and the arts of brain surgery at Duke. Dr. Sameshima, who works in the Dr. Fukushima's lab and who worked as a camera man during the operation, navigated me through to the other side of the room where I was given a chair. I must have sat there for the longest time--facing down or to the wall, trying to isolate myself from all the madness that was going on within 10 feet away from me. Soon, they started using a machine and a screeching sound and a burning smell followed. I started breathing with my mouth only and tried not to think about what was really taking place. All throughout it, Dr. Fukushima constantly talked about any topic that he found interesting to talk about to his fellow neuro sergeons from Japan. He would talk about how the surgeons in Japan were completely off as to where they should have cut the patient's head in the previous surgery and how he once drove from Rome to Florence instead of taking a train.
After what it seemed like forever, I heard someone say, "OK, we're gonna wake him up now". Oh, shit. Here comes the reality that I do not look forward to facing. My body suddenly got tense--tenser than it already was. I slowly looked over to the patient's direction and, THANKS GOD, Jay had managed to beautifully put a sheet of a curtain so that while we talked to him, we could only see his face. What a relief that was when I found that out!!
The surgery could not have been finished more successfully according to Dr. Fukushima and Dr. Friedman, the chief professor of neurosurgery division. What made this happen was a series of seemingly independent events. The story of how the Japanese patient ended up here was as dramatic as my experience today. It all started when the patient's family watched the documentaries on Dr. Fukushima, the charithmatic neuro sergeon with his "God's hands", who is a professor at Duke University. Dr. Fukushima is a worldly renowned surgeon who have saved countless lives of patients from all over the world. What's amazing is that the patients he operates on are mostly those who other doctors gave up on and Dr. Fukushima is pretty much their last hope. He is described in the documentaries to be the inventor of the key hole operation, which significantly improves a patient's recovery after operation compared to the traditional approach where the skull is cut wide open. He is also a physically tough individual who does several surgeries per day and sometimes multiple surgeries at one time. The patient and his family saw the documentaries after he had gone through the first surgery in Japan and been under chemo and radiotherapy. They set up an apointment with him during his brief stay in Tokyo in December last year to ask for an expert opinion of what the patient needs next. Having looked at the patient's MRI films, Dr. Fukushima suggested that the patient come to the U.S. immediately to remove the remaining tumor that the Japanese surgeons could not get rid of. He said that the tumor will sooner or later grow and impede on his language abilities as well as his abilities to command orders to his arms and legs. They then talked to their doctors in Kyoto who had operated on him and had been taking care of the patient ever since and despite their strong opposition, decided to follow the advice of the charisthma. After that, everything went right.
The whole experience was one of the worst ones I have had to go through in my life. Yet, it made me renew my reverence toward doctors and what they do. Hong Leng and I used to joke about the similarities between medical doctors and car mechanics, but wow, what brain surgeons can do is just beyond any of my remotely potential capabilities. Also, it makes everyting in perspective. The patient, according to his story, did not know the tumor before he passed out with seizure one day. He was immediately taken in to the hospital, went through a brain surgery in Kyoto, was treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy and went through surgery again in the foreign land. It could happen to anybody including me and it makes me appreciate the healthy body and happy life I have. Lastly, I realize that there are all sorts of surgeons that differ in their skills and specializations. As in doctors in economics, there are many kinds and one should not blindly believe his or her expertise solely from his title alone.
November 10
Before I forget, let me make a note of the kendo seminar that was held in Charleston in October. The invited senseis from Japan are Sumi Masatake sensei and Shinozuka Masuho sensei, both hanshi 8 dan. Sumi sensei was a great communicator. Most of the time he taught in English, which was not only quite understandable but funny, owing to his sense of humor. We don't see many witty and easy-going senseis in kendo, so it was an eye opening experience for me to see Sumi sensei teach in English and make the audience smile and laugh from time to time.
The seminar was designed to provide a guidance to those kenshis in the U.S. as to how to lead and instruct class of kendo. Consequently, the practice wasn't nearly as hard as I had expected. We extensively did "bokuto no renshu ho", which aims to train beginners with some basic movements using bokken. The footwork there was different from what I learned and how I teach in Raleigh dojo--I emphasize that a strike should be made as the right foot stomps the floor. This "bokuto no renshu ho", however, teaches you to step forward with your right foot before raising the arms, so that a strike comes as the left foot goes forward, well after the stomp. There are benefits to teaching this way of footwork, but I think it only confuses beginners who are learning the hand/foot synchronization, which I deem to be most important at their initial stage of learning. Hence, in Raleigh dojo, we will follow what we have been doing and give some time to the bokken practice until we learn the "standard" footwork.
After we were done with bokuto, we did an uchikomi keiko and free practice soon afterwards. Free practice was tough to come by because there was a long line before Sumi sensei, whom I determined I would practice with. I patiently waited in line--almost for an hour!! It was a good practice, though. He told me to work on the footwork so that I don't have to lean too forward when and after I strike.
On the second day of the seminar, there was a promotional exam. I tested for 4 dan. The last time I tested was when I was a senior in high school, so wow, 13 years ago!! I wasn't very nervous before or during the exam because I knew I was already there in terms of the skill level, though I worried a little bit about my kata. As I had fully expected, I passed. Not being cocky or disrespectful or anything, I saw some high ranked kenshis that do not necessarily match their credential. It taught me that we should not have blind prejudice over rankings. And that to gain respect from other kenshis, one should always strive to be better, no matter what his/her rank might be. The skill and proficiency of one's kendo can not be hidden under the shadow of his rank once he plays others.
As a side note, Corey-san took the members of our dojo to this restaurant he knows in downtown Charleston where his recommended menu is this seafood flavored grits. Obliged, I ordered it and wow, it tastes amazing! Dave loved it, too. After we got out of the restaurant, other gangs went out and hit another bar and had a good time while Masami and I had to return to the motel where Mickey was waiting. It was a good trip after all!
June 10
There was a kendo tournament in Washington D.C. last weekend. The results were well short of my expectations. My team and I were eliminated in the second round. I called and talked to Hara-san afterwards and he sympathized with me about my complaints. He gave me a few pointers and one of them was to try swinging bigger and be more efficient in footwork. At this point, I think that's what my kendo needs. How perceptive of him!
Speaking of kendo, I have to make notes of my recent experiences in Japan. My primary target in Tokyo was of course to meet my sensei, Yano sensei, Kyoshi 8 dan. I called his home and his wife answered the phone. As soon as I mentioned my name, she recognized me and asked, "Oh, when did you return back from the U.S.?" I was very happy to hear that because I hadn't even seen her before in my life but she knew who I was, which means that Yano sensei must have had a talk about me at home every now and then. Yano sensei was out to attend the Kyoto Taikai, but she said he would return to Tokyo after that. I later called him and he told me to come to dojo early Saturday morning when a lot of Waseda alumni gather and practice together with Yano sensei.
I visited my high school for practice three times in total. The first time, there were only students and no sensei at the dojo, so I played with young guys. One of them was very good and could strike a solid men from a far distance. Overall, I managed to handle most of them without losing my dignity of being a senpai! I gained a lot of confidence in my kendo afterwards because I had thought that they would beat the heck out of me.... I was happy!
The second time I visited there, Miyamoto-senpai was there. He runs a bogu shop in Saitama and he has been making a weekly visit to coach the team to this day. He shaved his head and looked like a monk, but his kendo skill was not rusted at all. I played him and could land a few nice strikes at the beginning, but it was all him toward the end. After practice, he told me to strike at the right opportunity and not to duck my head when striking a kote. Also, Miyamoto-senpai gave me a number of beautiful kote-suriage mens and he told me to think about how to apply pressure and avoid the trap.
On the third visit, one early Saturday morning, I could finally see Yano sensei! He was in transition to become a shihan (top-ranked sensei) at Waseda University Kendo Club and had been quite busy. The first impression I had of him in about a few years was that he hasn't changed. I was afraid that he would look old and somehow changed because of a responsibility of being a college sensei, but my anxiety was gone as soon as I saw him and talked to him. He was a talkative, friendly, wild, wonderful sensei just like before.
Yano sensei is my true sensei of both kendo and life. How much respect and adoration I have toward him is really impossible to describe in words. He was a very strong and well-respected kenshi but he doesn't behave like an authoritative figure. He is always frank and honest. Likes to talk about anything. And due to his personality, he has a great many friends and former students. Amazingly, he can recall every one of them; where they are from and what they are currently doing. It's been about twelve years since I graduated from high school, during which I refrained from kendo but still visited his office a number of times. If he was only a sensei of kendo, I would not have seen him or invited him to my wedding ceremony. By the way, he embarrassed a heck out of me during his speech in the wedding, and he seemed to be enjoying ridiculing me in front of my family and friends!
OK, so I played Yano sensei on Saturday. He is approaching 60 but his kendo hasn't changed a bit--Strong and skillful. He pretty much dominated throughout the practice. I could land a couple of close ones but couldn't do anything afterwards. After awhile when it was obvious that I couldn't do anything, it became a kakari-keiko where I tried to strike him without a rest. He stopped me when I ran out of gas and we bowed out. I took off my men and took my camcorder and started recording Yano sensei playing with other people. It was remarkable to watch him dominate other 5 dan or 6 dan senseis. His posture remains still and his strikes are beautiful to watch. I didn't realize when I was playing him, but he seemed to be truly enjoying playing kendo--he was smiling in his men!! I played Yano sensei the second time, but it was worse than the first. He didn't let me touch him even once A natural consequence of that was another kakari-keiko and my practice with Yano seinsei ended.
After practice, Yano sensei told me, "You are not thinking while playing kendo. You gotta use your brain if you studying for a Ph.D.!" He was jokingly saying that but his remark reminded me of his teachings during my high school years, "You guys should think and be creative in kendo since you are smart enought to get in to this school." His philosophy and teachings in kendo have been consistent, but, sadly, I have not made a progress! He also corrected my left leg, saying that the left hip should be flexed and the rear of the left knee be extended, not bent. Kamae is the most important in kendo, he says, and that having a strong kamae can intimidate the opponent quite a bit. Afterwards, I asked him what to do when the opponent comes deep into my ma-ai. He showed me the kata of Ono-ha-itto-ryu and explained to me what to do in that context. But as far as an advice to my kendo was concerned, that was it. He didn't speak a lot about the specifics.
Yano sensei was happy that I started kendo again. He gave me a new shinai to congratulate on that and, asked to write something on the tsuka, wrote the word "hei jo shin" which means, uh, one's usual state of mind. The message is not to be disturbed by factors that are exogenous to you. This applies both to kendo and life in general. There is a lot more I want to talk about my sensei, but I will stop now.
Later on that day after practice with Yano sensei, I visited my former colleague at the Bank of Japan and had a little chat with him, his wife, and their newly born child. They are one happy family and I admire their accomplishment so far.
After the visit to my friend, I headed out to Shonenjuku dojo in Machida, where Parker sensei was playing when he was stationed in Tokyo. The dojo has a small shinto shrine in the front and the atmosphere was solemn. I wanted to videotape the practice but the atmosphere didn't allow me to; I didn't want to offend anybody as a first time visitor. There were three 7 dan senseis, two of whom I played: Yugi sensei, the owner of the dojo, and Shimizu sensei, a surgeon at the Showa University Hospital. I thought I played them fine and they seemed to be pretty impressed with my kendo, considering that it's been only 1 year since I restarted kendo in the U.S. after about a 10 year absense before then. Shimizu sensei even mentioned that I am as skillful as any 5 dan kenshi, which was pretty flattering. I played Tsuchiya san, who had come to the U.S. and practiced in Raleigh dojo along with Suzuki sensei, Yugi sensei and Tanabe sensei. He was very good and he pretty much dominated the practice with me. He gave me an advice to start a strike from my lower body first.
After practice, I was invited to a Korean barbeque place with them and had plenty of beer and cow tongues. The members of the dojo were all very nice and friendly and I truly enjoyed their company. We mainly talked about kendo. We even talked about their second visit to the U.S.. I hope it will realize soon.
May 6
I am now in Tokyo to spend some time with my parents. They now host an exchange student from Occidental College, Simone, who goes to Waseda. They seem to get along fine. Simone gave my mother a cocktail shaker and a book on cocktails for her birthday presents a couple of days ago. A very nice and intelligent person, I found.
So far, the days in Tokyo have been pretty nice. My mother welcomed my first return in two years with a gorgeous dinner and my brother Daijiro showed up from his apartment to join the dinner to my unclefs place in Ogikubo. They now added a pretty dachshund to their family and Shelly is enjoying her company! My cousin Madoka-chan prepared three different types of homemade pasta dishes that were all delicious. It was a very enjoyable evening with lots of laughter and tasty treats.
Yesterday I went downtown to shop at a kendo shop. Afterwards, I visited Yoyogi Hachimangu, one of renowned Shinto shrines in Tokyo, and shopped some more in Shinjuku for a DVD player. One unpleasant thing I noticed about Shinjuku is the smell of the city, especially that of tobaccos! Simply too many people smoke on streets, which make my favorite activity walking unpleasant. Well, there are simply too many people, I guess. It was a national holiday and people seemed to have chosen to travel to Tokyo instead of risking exposure to SARS or some terrorist attacks overseas. Hopefully, streets are less crowded today so I could enjoy exploring interesting sites in downtown.
It's been a highly strange week. I had a presentation on Wednesday in which I found out a mistake on my numerical procedure. On Thursday, Masami received a call from Tamiko and was asked to interpret between a patient's family and a doctor at Duke University Hospital. And just now, about 10 minutes ago, a giant tree fell on the apartment and the roof just outside my apartment got banged badly and shattered. It's a total mess just outside the door. It created a big hole on the roof and some large pieces of wood are still hanging there. When I heard the sudden noise of destruction at the door area and felt the whole building was shaking, it was so loud and terrifying that I thought some kind of godzilla stepped on the building. Mickey, who had been lying on the rug as usual, suddenly got on his feet and became alert upon hearing the noise. I was getting ready to go out to the school gym and I was just motionless for several seconds while the destruction was taking place. Hopefully, the maintenaice guy will swiftly come and take care of the situation. I am afraid that the apartment next door suffered a significant damage.
This Yoshida family, a patient's family whose name happens to coincide with mine, is an interesting one. They manufacture metal parts for automobiles and they have a plant in Asheville, NC. The chariman (kaicho) of the company is this 79 year old gentleman who flew from Nagoya to look after his son's surgery. His son is responsible for the operation in Asheville, and now had to go through a major surgery on his kidney and intestant. My job is to interpret between him and his wife and the doctors as well as patient's wife and her mother who are American.
What I saw was a deeply concerned father and mother who want to do everything they can to help his son. Their anxiety was enormous; after all, they had to leave their son to the hands of surgeons who will cut open his stomach and try to take out tumors out of his body. What makes it worse is the fact that they can not communicate with the doctors or nurses or his son's wife. Not knowing what is going on would add a tremendous stress and frustration to worries and anxiety that they already have. I tried to do the best I could to ask questions to doctors and made sure to interpret the information to them as accurately and comprehensively as I could.
Operation was extended in time because the surgeon wanted to take out only a portion of kidney instead of the whole. Yoshida-san and his wife had been very much worried about the extension in time because it usually implies that something unexpected and wrong took place. Fortunately, however, the operation was successful. It was priceless to see their joy and relief when they listened to me and found out that everything was going well after the operation. I helped an old couple make a call to their friends and family in Japan and then they really got loud and expressed their joy vocally. I was very happy to see them being filled with happiness. It got me goosebump chills and welled my eyes. I was happy to be a small part of this.
It is a cliche, but how rewarding a doctor's job is to save someone's life! If I had had this type of experience in my youth to see someone being saved by the hands of doctors, I would have chosen a different career path. Oh, wait. Maybe not. I am a type of person that would faint in seeing some bleeding out of one's own body. I am sure I wouldn't survive anatomy classes!
The maintenaice guy just came in and assessed the damage. He suspects that we need to be relocated for awhile because they need to replace the roof completely. What a perfect way to be getting ready for the prospectus defense!!
Wednesday last week, snow started to fall and it quickly turned into an icy storm. In the evening, it snowed significantly enough to convince me that I should not drive to Raleigh for kendo practice, but it never occurred to me at that time what a tremendous impact this icy storm would have on the lives of many people including mine.
What happened was that snow froze on trees and they started to fall down due to the weight of ice. Durham is rich and dense with trees. When branches fell and trees split, streets were a total mess and more importantly, electricity lines were damaged. On Thursday morning, it didn't take much to realize that power was out because it was freezing inside my apartment and no lights got turned on. I was still optimistic for no concrete reason, as I usually am, as to the prospect of the recovery. Well, power didn't get back until late Saturday afternoon. As far as I know, 90% of Durham residents lost power and similar numbers in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. People got back power sooner or later than us, depending on where they live and how hard the power lines were damaged. Anyway, I ended up spending four powerless and freezing nights with Masami and Mickey.
The daily routine during that four day period was to spend as much time Duke Business School (Fuqua) as possible since they had power using the internal underground energy system the university operates. We stay there literally from morning till midnight. Sometimes Mickey came along with us because we felt very bad to leave him in the cold apartment all day. Maria and Roger, my neighbors and fellow graduate students, followed the similar pattern as we did. I saw Jose and his wife in Fuqua frequently.
After all this experience, my overall impression is, though being a typical cliche, that I couldn't appreciate the value of electricity more when I got back home on Sunday afternoon. Our life and civilization depend so much on power that we cannot live without it.
At the same time, the emergency management of power outage in this area appeared to be rather poor. I hear that when hurricane Fran hit this area in 1996, tens of thousands of people lost power for weeks, and the local government seems to have not learned from this experience. This may not be a fair comparison, but for 25 years of my life in Tokyo, I had never experienced, not even once, a power outage that lasts more than a few hours. The differences may be due to the wide-spread residential area that makes a speedy recovery more difficult. Or the density of trees that caused all the trouble. Or the technology that protects and secures the electricity lines. Or the money and resource that are allocated for this kind of emergency. Whatever the reasons are, I see here too often this type of state of emergency situation, and that people seem to be relatively acceptable of it. It might be that people's preference here dictates so that they put less money and resource for preventing this kind of disastorous situation.
Personally, I wouldn't mind having this unusual events now and then. I hardly buy any insurance. This means in economics terms that my risk aversion is not big. That aside, I think that the society as in Japan where every precautionary measures are taken to avoid emergency situations is somehow boring. It is nice and comfortable that you are always secure. But if you see it slightly differently, then you always know what comes tomorrow and what to expect. It's like you know what your Christmas gifts are before you open the box. I like to see some changes and surprises in daily life and disasters provide such abnormality. This may be similar to women saying, "Surprise me!", to which men usually don't know what to do.
During this four day period, I finished reading "Ryoma Ga Yuku", a historical novel that describes a life of an ambitious ronin who devoted himself to revive Japan in the late Edo period (mid 19th century). I now understand why Sakamoto Ryoma is still so popular among Japanese people. He had the vision that people are born equal, that a country ought to be run by delegates that are elected by the people, that Japan should open up to external trades and foster economic growth and prosperity, and that Japan should have the strong military but respect the international laws. All of his views sound nothing new from our current perspective, but the time he lived in was when Japan was still secluded from the world and people were less aware of affairs and ideas in the rest of the world. What is amazing about this guy is that he acts accordingly. In order to change Japan, he unregistered himself from the local authority, which was considered to be a crime, made a name for sword-fighting, set up his own navy, developed and utilized the connections to manupulate the local governments to form an alliance against the ruling central governement. He is truly a remarkable person in his views and actions. In the novel, he is very humane and I could understand how his views were shaped and how his personal life was like. My friend Eddie sometimes cites his dad's axiom; it's not what you know that matters, but who you know. I think Ryoma's life, which significantly affected the course of Japan that it took, outstandingly verifies the saying. He had good friends and teachers from which he learned quite a bit. His amiable character attracted many of high-powered officials at local goverments, who, largely influenced by Ryoma's ideas and persuasion/negotiation behind the scenes, eventually revolutionalized the feudal country to a modern nation state. I am so glad that I got to read this book!
There was a southeast kendo tournament last weekend in Charleston, S.C.. Fortunately, I managed to win the tournament! In my division (3-dan and above), there were 9 entries. The first opponent, Dong Ho, a Korean aerospace engineer from Atlanta, was a tough match-up. Having played him in Tennessee, I knew he was very good in defense. So, I tried to close the distance and put a pressure on him to create openings. The match didn't end as I wanted it to be (2 out-of-bahns penalty), but I was happy that I could somehow pull off a win. The second round opponent, Maeda-sensei, is a repsectable 6 dan and does a beautiful kendo. It was the lucky shot that landed on his men at the beginning that decided the match. I was already tired from the previous match and couldn't wait all the while wgeb time was running down. The third and final match was against Tsushima-san, an MBA guy from UNC Charleston. We were both tired, especially him because he had to play a consecutive match. After reviewing the match on video, I think there were a few strikes of his that would have been (or should have been) an ippon. I thought he was more skillful than I was. It was a sheer luck that I could pull off a men strike in the overtime. I was too tired to go on from that point on....
The group competition was fun, too. The four other guys on our team--Eddie, Ryan, Carl and Parker-sensei, did very well to get us to the final four, for which we got a bronze medal. It was good that each of us had something to take home from this trip.
On the Sunday morning, Masami, Mickey and I sightsaw the downtown Charleston. Houses there were pretty neat and the seafood we ate at a local restaurant was excellent. On the tip of the penninsula, there was a park in which there was a fenced area where dogs and their owners gather and socialize with one another. Mickey looked happy running and playing with bigger-sized dogs. We met a man who said he was retired and decided to move from Los Angeles to Charleston where he thinks he belongs. We chatted for awhile. It was a very pleasan Sunday morning walking by the coast and meeting local people.
My friend Ryan came up with a list of American slang. Some day, I will "step up the the plate" and master these expressions, yo! Thank you, Ryan!
I had the first surgery in my life this week. Everything started with the terrible stomach ache on the upper/center abs at 3 o'clock on the morning of Monday. I suffered from the pain and nausea throughout the night. No matter what position my body took, I felt sick to the stomach and had to force myself to throw up.
At about 7 o'clock, Masami took me to the ER of Duke University Hospital, where I mourned to express my sickness to the fullest extent possible. With the experience of Masami suffering from an allergy reaction and having to wait for a few hours to get a treatment at the ER, I knew that patients with relatively less serious symptoms are postponed to priotize those in life threatening conditions. So, I didn't hesitate one bit to articulate to the nurses and doctors how uncomfortable this stomach has been.
Thanks to that, I suppose, they treated me rather quickly by giving some shots of pain-killing medication such as morphine. There, nurses gave me all kinds of pain-killing medication such as morphine. Wow, as soon as this morphine drug came into my body through the IV tube, it gave me a sensation I have never experienced! Now I sort of understand how people could get addicted to it. What it did to me, though, was to put me asleep for about an hour. But after I woke up, I was still feeling this nausea and after a few cycles of drug injection, feeling numb, sleep, waking up, and feeling awkward again, I vomitted a large amount of half digested food and liquid, and finally felt relieved afterwards.
It was about 3 or 4 o'clock when a doctor came in and examined my stomach by pushing here and there. There was one spot I felt an acute pain at, and it was lower right part of my abs, where I hadn't felt any pain previously. With that and the result of the CT-scan, the doctor diagnosed the situation to be appendicitis. That diagnosis was the last thing in my mind. Throughout the time I was in the hospital, I was wondering what it was that I ate that made me this sick!
Around 7 o'clock in the evening, I was taken to the OR and put to asleep by general anesthesia. By the time I woke up, they had removed the appendix from my stomach. I spent a night at the hospital with nurses coming in every few hours to check on my blood pressure and body temperature. To avoid dehydration, the fluid was constantly flowing into my body through the IV and I had to pee every few hours.
The doctors and nurses treated me very well. Dr. Hayward, who is a senior surgeon and did my surgery, was very straightforward in explaining the surgery options and recovery processes, and looked totally confident in what he does. Angie, the nurse at the night time, was very nice and considerate. She said she was a nurse for Coach K as well when he went through the hip-replacement surgery.
At about 6 o'clock in the morning, Dr. Hayward stopped by and he said I would be having a liquid breakfast and normal lunch, and once they go down, I could go home. At 9 o'clock, the breakfast was served and it was composed of milk, orange juice, coffee, biscuits, grits, 4 or 5 slices of french toast, and a couple of sausages. I had everything except coffee and sausages. Having seen the leftovers, Dr. Hayword was pleased, and I could go home around noon.
It's been two days since I left the hospital. The place they cut me open still hurts, and I can only walk very slowly like elderly people. I will get the staples removed next week and should be fine afterwards. Dr. Hayward told me that I should refrain from doing any serious exercises for the next 3 to 4 weeks. Darn!I was highly disappointed because I had planned a trip to DC to attend the dojo there this coming weekend. Masami was also looking forward to it because we were going to drive through Outer Banks on the way back.... Well, we will do it some time in fall!
This past weekend Hara-san, Masami and I went to Sweetwater, Tennessee to participate in the kendo camp. We left home about 4 o'clock on the Saturday morning and arrived at the destination about six and a half hours later. I failed to complete the mission as a navigator in the passenger seat because I fell asleep somewhere around Knoxville and Hara-san, the driver, had to read the map to find where to get off from I-75. The mission incomplete #2 took place after we got off the interstate, which is when I woke up. What a place Sweetwater is, though.... There was none of gas station, restaurant, or motel at the exit. I knew from reading the map from mapquest that the school (Meiji Gakuin High) is located just outside downtown. As we were going on the narrow 2-lane road, I was expecting some cluster of buildings along the road to give directions to Hara-san. The thing is, though, there was not a single sign of "urbanness" even after we went about several miles. We had to drive back on the same road to find that we'd missed the school, which was located in the midst of the rather sparse residential area. Well, we got there about half an hour late, which is pretty good, I thought.
As I later found out, this is a boarding school for Japanese kids. Some of their parents live in the States and others live in Japan. Now, what's interesting about the school is that there is no place in its vicinity where high school kids can hang out and enjoy themselves. Since they are not allowed to drive a car, they are completely stuck in the campus unless they sign up for a weekly bus ride to a nearby shopping center. In some sense it's an ideal place to study and a wonderful opportunity to grow a life-long friendship. I know somewhat how they feel since I spent a year at Wabash College in Indiana where the situation was similar except that there was no female student! Though the life appears to suck, it's still enjoyable as I became more and more intimate with many fellow Wabash men. I began to appreciate the experience there even more after I left for Japan. It was a truly unique experience that I take with me for the rest of my life.
The main purpose of this trip was to play kendo with as many people as I could. On the first day, I played Arai-sensei (5th rank) who owns and manages a kindergarden in Atlanta, Maeda-sensei (6th rank) who teaches English at Meiji-gakuin, Yasuda-san (newly promoted 3rd rank) who works at the medical institution in Memphis, Taira-san (newly promoted 3rd rank) who studies at University of Tennessee, and a few Korean guys that I didn't really have a chance to talk to much. On the second day after the promotional exam, I played Maeda-sensei again, another Hara-san (4th dan?) who is from Atlanta, Li-san (1st rank) from Atlanta, Hara-san, and a few other players whom I couldn't remember the names of. I got tired very easily, especially after I played Maeda-sensei. He plays beautifully and his posture remains straight up before/after/while he strikes. Hara-san plays the same way, with strength and speed. Two very good role models to learn from!! Anyway, I couldn't play as many people as I would have liked. Overall, I am happy to have been able to play all of the upper ranked players that were present. I could feel that my men-strike is getting faster and stronger and that my lower-body movement is getting better even though there's still very much to improve. Through this two-day practice and the conversations with Hara-san in the car, it became clear to me what I need to work on from now on and how I should practice with lower-skilled players. Also, I gained some confidence in myself in that I could still play a decent kendo with upper ranked players. I am glad that I joined the camp!
Special thanks goes to Masami, who videotaped most of my practices and those of others from Raleigh dojo. The gym was hot inside and I am sure she didn't enjoy it as much as I would have. After all, she doesn't know anything about kendo and I would imagine it would be extremely boring to tape the practice. As a partial reward, she got to enjoy the spa at the motel we stayed in and some back massage before going to bed. Thank you, Masami!
I no longer defend myself for not updating this journal. There is just no justification for being lazy on this. Then again, I write when I feel like it. I don't owe this to anybody but myself.
Last weekend was WONDERFUL. Corey-san, whom I met through kendo, invited me, Masami, and Hara-san over to his house and treated us with about a dozen of gorgeous Japanese dishes prepared by his wife, Tamae-san. She is a Superb cook with a capital S, baby! I cannot be any less excited and enthusiastic about her dishes than Dick Vitale is about the college basketball! It was as if we'd been in a highly expensive Japanese restaurant where one cuisine after another is served in its top notch taste! On top of that, what a place they live in! It's a large, well-maintained, Southern-style house with a spacious yard in a quiet neighborhood of a gorgeous lake. They have a Japanese style bath that they installed on a special order. All the three visitors enjoyed it immensely and marvelled the quality of life that Corey family is having. It is indeed an American dream come true. I would be extremely happy if I had half of what they have in my whole life. In a shorter run, though, I hope we will have a chance to visit them soon!
This weekend, I am going to drive over the Appalatian mountains to Tennessee. The purpose is to play kendo. It will be a good opportunity to meet and play with other kendo players in the Southeast region. Right now, Raleigh dojo has only a few trained players. I can't complain, given that I couldn't even imagine that there are people who play kendo in the Triangle area. Again, the Tennessee session will give me a lot of practicing opportunities that I have been looking forward to.
Wow, another long-time-no-writing period! I have to be more consistent in keeping up with this journal. During this time, some interesting events took place. There was the insurance lapse hearing at the DMV office in south Durham, in which I successfully convinced the officer to limit the penalty charged. If unsuccessful, my license plate would have been revoked for a month, which would have messed up the life of mine and Masami's a big time. There was the announcement by the economics department to enforce the long standing rule that the third year students have to successfully defend a thesis prospectus by the end of this semester. The news was a major blow to me and my fellow classmates because this rule because this implicit rule was not strictly followed in the previous years. Consequently I had to talk to some faculty members about my work and ask them to be in my committe. In the retrospect, it was a good thing. The department is putting a pressure on us, and it has been speeding up my work so far.
Having mentioned a progress in my work, I have to confess that I am watching a movie right now. Well, today is still officially in the spring break, so I am giving myself a break. The problem is that I too often give a long one.
Watching a movie on a PC has some merits. I can create my own film library and watch one whenever I feel like it without inserting/ejecting a video cassette. I can go to anywhere in the film with speed and ease (no waiting in rewinding/forwarding). I can search on net other people's views on the movie while watching it. And most importantly, it motivates me to write a short column on the film right afterwards.
I am watching "Training Day" with Denzel Washington and Eathan Hawk. I am half way through and so far it is a very intensive and interesting movie. It teaches me a lot about wisdom in street. Some of the sayings by Denzel Washington is inspriring. For example, he said in the car after he saw Eathan Hawk chase and try to arrest the street raper and make a big talk about bringing justice to those people.
"Let a garbage man handle a garbage. We go after a big fish." "What's wrong with the street justice? Animal wipe themselves out. Good people die first. They don't want to catch a bullet in the noodle. To protect the sheep, you gotta catch the wolf. And it takes a wolf to catch a wolf."
I think these are crude but great statements about priority and resource allocation. Sometimes, people are hung up on too many things and fail to get the most important job done. To stop crime, it's not good enough to arrest those who commit one. To stop it, one needs to do something about the force that drives those crime. To do so, division of labor is indispensable. I cannot help thinking that today's mess in the Japanese economy is the failure to recognize the causes of the slump and the failure to assign adequate resource to correct them. What the administrations have done so far is to delay the implementations to take the appropriate measures. I can hopefully identify what the appropriate measures are in a convincing manner in my doctoral dissertation!!
OK, the movie just ended. I am rather disappointed how the latter half of the movie turned out. It attributed the interesting social conflict of interest to be a simple personal issue of a corrupt cop. I don't like this kind of ending. It oversimplifies the problem by blaming one bad guy. It would have been better if the theme of the movie had been directed toward "can the objective justify means?" type of argument by in that the police gets rid of bad guys but keep less of the evils (police themselves) afloat. It would have been great because the performance of Denzel Washington was superb and the movie did a good job of creating the intensity into this scene. Oh, well, ....
I experienced a lot of memorable events today. The most memorable one was Eddie's surprise visit. Man, this guy is crazy! He flew in this morning and left a note at the door of my apartment. Unfortunately, I was out doing kendo and soccer at the time of his first two visits. If I had been there, it would have been much more surprise and fun. He actually had emailed me a week before saying that he would have a surprise for me and asked if I would be doing anything this weekend. I had a hunch that he might visit me as a surprise, but I completely forgot about it until I saw his note at the door. Anyway, the important thing here is that Eddie came here to see me (and also to have a job interview) and his friendship means a lot to me.
I took him to Duke--Sarah Duke Garden, Economics Department, Chapel, and Cameron Indoor Stadium. He seemed to be impressed with the architecural beauty of the campus and the fact that there were some guys camping out for the Duke-UNC game on March 3. Man, are they crazy or what? We still have 2 more weeks to go and UNC is playing terribly this year. I mean, I am certainly regretting my choice of the UNC game as my number one pick when Maryland was available. I will probably NOT camp out for the better front seats.
Then we went to the Ethiopian restaurant where we waited almost an hour before the food was served. The food was great and it made me want to visit there again, but this waiting time was killing Eddie! A guy sitting next to us talked to us and guessed where Eddie is from, based on his apparent irritation. His word, "Be patient. This is South." sounds somewhat nice and soothing, but the place has no excuse for making us wait that long. The place looks like they have buffet bar during lunch hours. I am definitely going back there soon!
Movie again! I just saw Fight Club on my PC and was at a loss what to make of this film. It was obviously violent, but there is more to this movie than just violence and antisocial destruction. But I didn't know how to put together my thoughts, so I was looking at some viewer comments on the movie site. I was reading and reading, and, BAM, I bumped into this brilliant review written by a guy named jackdowns from Seoul, South Korea. Let me quote his complete review in the below and you will see how brilliant it is:
The reason criticisms of this film are misguided is simple:
they center around a dislike for the use of violence and a general antipathy to
the perceived messages of the film. Critics of the film will argue that the
themes of the film center around nihilism, sadism, and a general lack of respect
for modern social constructs.
An adequate rebuttal will deny none of this as the movie
does wear its intentions quite on its sleeves. But then again the annals of
great literature are surrounded by these themes. Dostoevsky's "Notes from
Underground", Albert Camus' "The Stranger", "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D.
Salinger to name but a few. Indeed, since the birth of the Industrial Revolution
the conflict between man and the society attempting to mechanise him has been a
major theme of literature and art.
Why does this matter? Because Fight Club is even more
relevant now than it was when it came out in the gogo era of the stock market
bubble and the Millenium madness. The ending of the film, that rampant
consumerism will lead to the buildings falling down around our ears, makes
complete sense in the context of 9/11 and its aftermath. Osama bin Durden has
started his own Fight Club and its madness we now face.
Fight Club does not condone violence but rather rejects it,
or better put, rejects the fundamental roots of what leads to the violence it
presents. As the world's resources are destroyed and we become more and more
alienated from nature, the last this we need is more
consumerism.
All other personal opinions can fall by the wayside. You may
not like the medium but you must at least respect the message. Indeed that
message may be the most important one America and the world faces as it enters
the new millenium and struggles to deal with its own teeming masses and the need
to satisfy all of their needs.
The last word belongs to Tyler Durden: F**k Martha Stewart!
I have been enjoying downloading music files and listening to them on my PC. Since my PC is connected via ADSL, large files come at a reasonably high speed. Depending upon the counterpart's connection, it takes about 3 to 10 minutes to download one music file. For the past few days, I have been getting video files as well, which are much larger in size. It usually takes overnight to download the complete files, but since the PC is always on and connected to internet, it doesn't stop me from getting those super-large files.
The quality of those video files is, overall, fair. It's certainly good enough to enjoy a movie on PC. I have downloaded "Ghost World", "Snatch", and "A Beautiful Mind" so far and am currently downloading "Pearl Harbor" and "The Man Who Wasn't There". While writing this journal at this moment, I am watching "A Beautiful Mind" which is ranked 5th in the current box office. It's about the life of the great mathematician/economist John Nash. Contrary to my prior expectations, Russel Crowe did a great job playing this brilliant but crazy guy. It makes me want to read the book on which this movie is based. The theme of the movie, however, is being a bit unclear to me.
Now, why is a current box office movie available online, or even better, free of charge! First of all, where can I get those files for free? There are several "file sharing" sites where one can exchange one another's files as long as they serve for personal usage. Even after Napster's activities were regulated, there exist so many websites that allow free file exchanges that it's impossible for the federal government to intervene in each of these activities and detect who violated the copy right laws.
OK, now the question is why the movie files are available online even before the video or DVD is released. The movie I am seeing right now has got to be a pirated version. Somebody must have recorded this, using a camcorder in a theater or something. That's the only way I can think of how they have access to this film. The quality, for that matter, is pretty good. I didn't hear any laughter or noise of the audience! Or is there another way to pirate these new films??
The movie just ended. Now I understand the theme of the movie--"love", which is the only thing Mr. Nash could recognize as real. Let me quote his speech in the movie in Stockholm, 1994:
"I've always believed in numbers. And that
equations and logics lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuit, I
ask, 'what truly is logic?' 'Who decides reason?' My question has taken me to
physical and metaphical dillusion. I made the most important discovery in my
career, the most important discovery in my life. It is only in the mysterious
equation of love, that any logical reasons can be found. I am only here tonight
because of you, you are the reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you."
Wow, it's been a while! It's not that there was nothing to write about. It was just my innate laziness that kept me from updating this journal. It will happen again and again in the future. I will try to stick to my vow to keep the journal at least once a week!
After all the hassle, I decided to have my mother send my old bogu (protectors for kendo) here. I wanted to buy a brand new set of it to make a fresh start of my kendo life in the US, but for economical and other reasons, I thought that it was best to still use what was once used and wait for the updates until they are necessary.
Anyway, I am VERY excited about playing kendo again. I even dream about it nowadays. In my dreams I can be extremely quick and strong. No matter who the opponent is, I could hit him with the speed, strength, and elegance--sometimes with an amazing move. In reality, alas, I doubt if I can keep up with those big American guys. After all, I haven't played over 10 years and have been getting old and slow. Well, I have been slow all my life, but I used to have the quickness or should I say, "instantaneity" that is critical to kendo. I had the vision and timing right--from experience, I could tell when the opponent tries to hit and thus could respond at the instance when he does that. Whether I still have those abilities, I am not sure. But at least in my dreams, I am capable of every move that is imaginable!
Aside from kendo, what else interesting is going on in my life? Well, I saw a rather old movie "Body Heat" at home the other day. It was a very sophisticated soap opera where a woman colluded with a man in love to murder her rich husband. It was very enjoyable with the unexpected ending, and those who love a suspence and thriller type movies should definitely watch it (it's you, Hong Leng!).
Last weekend, I went to the dojo in Raleigh with Hara-san. We met through internet. He wrote an article about Kendo in the Newsletter issued by Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta. In the same issue, an American guy who studied at Waseda also wrote an article about the dojo there. It brought back so many of good old days in my high school. It makes me realize that kendo was a very big part of my life and I did grow a lot through practicing it.
Anyway, Hara-san took me to the dojo where they divide up the place for judo, karate and kendo. There were about 20-30 men and women practicing kendo and I was impressed by their passion to pursue it. Mr. Parker, the instructor and the man in charge, seemed to be a disciplined man and was passionate about teaching the spirit of kendo. He said he had been stationed in Japan for four years and now works as a military doctor in Fort Bragg. That explains where his discipline comes from!
Hara-san has go-dan and he is very good indeed. He played all the way to the college level and his arms look like a couple of logs. He works at UNC medical center as a post doctorate fellow. He seems to be a very nice person and I look forward to playing kendo with him!
I haven't given a serious thought to this, but I have a feeling that me giving up kendo in the freshman year at college has something to do with its unnecessary formalities and unreasonable practices. I think I made a transition around that time from a typical ignorant Japanese guy to a more open-minded and thoughtful man. It was perhaps triggered by a series of statement by a teacher at my high school, who basically said in his own peculiar way, "Read books and be intellectual". I started reading various books, made a trip overseas which opened a whole new world for myself, and wrote essays, one of which won a major prize back then. To me, kendo seemed to symbolize the pre-modern concept of Japan, which started to bother me, because there seemed to be so many unreasonable practices. Imagine getting up at 5 in the morning in the middle of winter and practicing kendo on the icy floor of dojo with bare feet. The point of this "kangeiko" is to throw oneself in adversity and train one's mental toughness. Well, it is just like a military! Another example would involve the strict rules of seniority where "senpai" (seniors) have the absolute control over "kohai" (juniors, or more appropriately, slaves!). This nonsense tradition of pre-modernity in kendo includes many more in its list, and I guess it just bothered me to put myself in such environment when my personal growth occured rather intellectually at that time. For more practical matters, being a kendo club member in college took up too much of my time to do other things I wanted to do such as travelling and studying my favorite subjects. It was still a hard decision to give up kendo since I had played competitively more than 10 years before then. But I quit it. When I think back, I sometimes wonder if it was the right decision. Back then, it was an inevitable decision, given the situation I was under.
Anyway, putting all the negative connotations that kendo reminds me of, I would like to play it again. I have grown enough to appreciate the cons and pros of this martial arts and I just look forward to playing kendo in a non-pressure, non-competitive atmosphere. To play it, I need some protectors to wear. Hara-san showed me a list of a few online shops where one can buy kendo related goods. A major deflation has been taking place in this area as well! I think some of the items are as low as half the price of what they used to be when more than 10 years ago!
Chris, Kirk, Kathleen, Renzo, Masami and I all went to see the movie, Lord of the rings. Chris was pretty hiked up about it and he was the one who proposed to everyone to see it together. According to him, the original books were written several decades ago and most of the American kids with an interest in fantasy and wizard type stuff would read it, not once but multiple times! Chris himself is rereading it with the same enthusiasm as in his childhood, while Kirk the hairy feet wizard is doing the same thing in the midst of his extra-busy job interview period. This enhanced my expectations of this movie greatly!
Well, as it turned out, the tickets were sold out soon after Chris bought them in advance. Diego showed up but couldn't get in because he hadn't asked Chris to buy one for him. This just shows how popular this movie is among ordinary American citizens!
So, we watched the movie. It was pretty long (almost 3 and a half hours?). Overall, my evaluation of this movie is "above average" but not "superb" or "brilliant". It was a story about this ring that gives ultimate power to the holder of it and the battle between those evil guys who try to reclaim it and those good guys who try to destroy it. Given my prior knowledge of the plot, which is close to none, and my personal distaste in fantasy type movies, the movie didn't gain my overall praisal. However, the special effects were absolutely amazing and some of the scenes were picturesque and plain awesome. That alone is something worthy to see, I guess. Needless to say, Chris loved it and he even wants to see it again! I guess I should read the novel to give a fair judgment on this film.
This coming semester is the latter half of the third year in the Ph.D. program, which puts me under a tremendous pressure to come up with a decent dissertation topic and present my work in the workshop at the economics department. I will brainstorm what I have in mind for now in order to help sort out my ideas and narrow down the topic.
What am I interested in? Is there anything worthy of dedicating my academic career to? Well, before that, I probably should ask; What am I capable of doing to add to an existing economic literature? Well, after a few years of research experience at the Bank of Japan, I have a better idea of the Japanese economy than most academic economists out there. Also, I acquired some knowledge of economic and financial statistics in Japan--where to get them and what to be aware of in using them. So, I guess that's my relative strength and advantages to other people.
Then again, what am I interested in? Looking at an ongoing stagnant economy, I would like to explain, based on an economic model, how the Japanese economy came to be in such a mess and draw some policy implications, based on a rigourous framework of macroeconomics. As far as I know, not many academic scholars have done an extensive work in this area. Sure, there are a variety of nonacademic "economists" who propose a variety of policy prescriptions to rescue Japan's economy. Some claims are absurd and some are worthy to give a thought to. My work should examine their claims in a more serious economic model. I should summarize what arguments they are making and, based on the qualitative or quantitative implications of economic models that I will construct, refute or support their arguments.
I can think of three different claims about what's going wrong in Japan's economy. The first and seemingly the most popular argument is the inability of the financial sector after the burst of the bubble economy. The key player in the financial sector, banks, are incapable of playing an intermediary role due to the heavey burden of bad debts they have accumulated over the past decade. Banks are said to retreat their credit from small and risky firms because they are no longer able to take a risk in lending, worrying about the already deteriorated balance sheet figures. This "credit crunch" prevents some fast growing firms from obtaining credit and thus results in non-Pareto efficient resource allocation. As the resource does not go to the most prominent sector, the economy does not move on and remains as stagnant as it is.
The second claim involves supply-side problems that are deeply rooted in the Japanese economy. Supporters of this claim usually fingerpoint well-known problems such as the complex ditribution, seniority-based employment and wage determination, weak corporate governance, tight government regulation in every aspect of the economy, and so on. Unless these structual reforms come along, they claim, the Japanese economy cannot expect a strong recovery from the current slump.
The third claim points to a deflationary pressure which tends to contract economic activities. Their argument goes something like this; prices are falling, which on one hand means that corporate sales and profits are falling. This forces firms to cut back on their employment or wage payment, which dampens the demand through a decline in disposable income. On the other hand, as long as prices are falling, real interest rates are rising, which also dampens the aggregate demand through investment and consumption. A typical policy suggestion along this line calls for the central bank to print money and create an expected inflation.
I am not so sure if the above three exhaust all the existing arguments that explain the stagnant economy. I need to read more to see if there are other claims to be made and to understand deeper what they are really saying along their arguments.
The obvious second step that I should pursue is to construct a general equilibrium model that has features of my interests. I will get back to this point later.
Happy New Year! May the new year be a blessed one for all of you!
A few major events took place in my life in the previous year such as quitting the job at the Bank of Japan and passing the qualifying and field exams at the economics department. My life turned from an ordinary and predictable "salaryman" type to an unpredictable but interesting one. The key to this change in my life involves "choice". For the first time in my life, or at least it feels like, I decided the direction of where my life should be headed. Don't get me wrong here. Yes, I'd picked my school, friends to hang out with, career and such. Life is a continuous series of choice. BUT, the decision to part myself from the corporate Japan this past summer was truly my own, in a sense that I chose to do so independently of my parents' influence. It should sound funny that a 28-year-old man finally chose his life independently of his parents. That's been the way it has been when it comes to the major decision makings in my life. Am I embarrassing myself in confessing this? Yeah. Am I proud of this decision? I can't agree more!
It's been snowing like crazy since last night. Weather reports said that the snow would be 6-10 inch tall, but my guess is that it's even taller than that, judging from what I saw today. It's still snowing even! I took Mickey out this morning and, oh, he enjoyed every bit of it! It was frustrating for me that Mickey was really excited yet did not poop during the entire freezing 1-hour walk. Obviously, he didn't find his usual spots (he usually does his thing on a dry grass area). The entire ground in my neighborhood was covered with thick snow (Look at some pictures!). No wonder he couldn't find his usual spots! Meanwhile, all the public schools in this area are closed. It will be extremely quiet for a day or two.
Ken-chan and Kyoko-san are coming to my house for a hot "Nabe" this evening. Masami has been preparing for that. It's something that I've been looking forward to.
As I am writing this journal, today turns into tomorrow, my 29th birthday. Since today wasn't the most exciting day of my life, I won't waste time writing today's events but reflect upon my childhood life a little.
When I was a kid, I used to wonder what I will be when the year turns 2000. The bathroom of my family's house in Tokyo had a calendar on the wall and every time I had to do my thing in the morning, I used to look at the calendar and ponder how my life would become 20 years from then. --Interruption-- Masami just surprised me with a birthday present (a nice gray sweater)! She said she had to shop around a lot of places before she finally decided on this sweater. She even took my smelly shoes and snoop around shoe stores. Poor Masami! My feet are exceptionally wide and ugly and I have the hardest time finding a pair that barely fits my feet (I usually have no choice as to color and design after all). Anyways, thank you Masami! You can have great expectations on your Jan. 8th birthday!
Back to my childhood story. Well, I never imagined that I would still be studying or that I would be in a foreign land in year 2000. I was only picturing myself as a cool and handsome man just like my 5th grade teacher, Osawa-sensei, who was of my age now back then. He was like an idol to me. He could play badmington at a professional level, coached a basketball team, and overall, he was very athletic. At the same time, he used to play the guitar to us students and we learned to enjoy singing like we never knew before. In sum, I guess he was a childhood hero to me, although I wasn't exactly aware of it back then.
Frankly, I had no idea what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do in my life, but I knew this: I wanted to walk like Osawa-sensei! I used to watch him walk on the playground of the primary school through the window glass of the 3rd floor of the school building. He wore the blue casual shirts and black sweatpants, which looked so cool back then. The way he walked in those outfits was some kind of art to me. Possibilities of my careers seemed so wide and open that I didn't know what I would do but knew how I wanted to look and walk.
By the way, he only taught us for one year and left the school to Seoul, Korea for reasons that I never knew. I don't even remember his first name, so I can't search for him on internet (there are too many of those with Osawa as their last name).
When I think back now, he wasn't tall or all that handsome, although he was definitely above average. The way he dressed wasn't particularly impressive (c'mon, sweatpants to school?). The way he walked, as I recall, still rings some bell, but wasn't all that great. It was some kind of infatuation toward the adult of the same sex that I projected future myself onto. I guess I need a shrink that can fully analyze my childhood in this respect!
The important message I want to draw from this anecdote is that I didn't know or I was nowhere near predicting what I would become when I am as old as my childhood icon. A 20-year forecast is pretty difficult back then. Now that I am 29 years old, I have a better idea of what I would like to do in my life and what kind of strength and weaknesses I have. And, given what I do now and given that I do the best I can to finish school, I have a good prediction of what I will have become in 20 years. Life becomes more predictable at this stage, I guess. The other side of the coin is, of course, that I have limited choices as to what I CAN do. Also, given the state of my appearance right now, it's easy to picture Kotaro at the age of 50--a fat and half-bold middle-aged man, far from what Osawa-sensei would look like right now.
This is the beginning of my journal. I intend to write it at lease once a week. The purpose of this is to let my friends and family be informed of my life here at Duke and some of my thoughts. Also, when I become old, I would like to look back to my journal and be sentimental about my own past! This is a good day to start because it's both a Christmas and our wedding anniversary date.
As a starter, let me talk about the trip to Memphis last weekend. The main goal of this trip was to see the basketball game between Memphis Grizzlies and L.A. Lakers. While the Lakers is a back to back national champion and has two superstars, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, Memphis, having moved from Vancouver this year, has been a struggling team. The bright side of their story is that they have the super-rookie, Shane Battier, the college basketball legend from Duke University! He is a three time national defensive player of the year and a national player of the year when Duke won the national championship last year. Since I learned from an Espn news that the Grizzlies games do not attract large crowd, I decided to visit their home game and give them a support! The schedule was perfect. They are taking the Lakers on Dec. 21. I gotta see this game!
So, Masami, Mickey and I all packed up (well, Masami did it for all of us three) and headed west on the Thursday morning. On the way to the west end of Tennessee, we stopped at Maryville, a town that is not far from the Smokey Mountains National Park, to visit an old friend of mine. Mana was one of the group of high school students who travelled to Germany to "promote international friendship". She has been in Maryville with her husband since March, and, wow, what a gorgeous house she lives in! I wonder when I can afford one like that.... We had a nice chat with her and her husband. They gave us a handsome photo frame as a Christmas gift, which I am very grateful for. We left them and stayed in a town called Lebanon, some 20-30 miles away from Nashville.
On the following day (Friday), we drove across the state of Tennessee on I-40, all the way to Memphis. After checking in at a nearby motel, Masami and I visited Graceland, the land of Elvis Presley. It really speaks itself how magnificent Presley was as a singer and how much he still means to Memphis. They have the museums that shows his collection of cars and his private jets. There is a tour of his mansion. The nearby area has all kinds of Elvis souvenier shops. For a young non-American, it is hard to understand the significance of Elvis or to even appreciate the songs of his, but people obviously have different opinions. I wonder what happens to this site as time goes by and the memory of Elvis fades away.
After a short stop at Graceland, we drove to downtown to purchase the basketball tickets at the stadium. The stadium was called "Pyramid" and it was really a beautiful "pyramid"-shaped building covered with glasses. Though hugely impressed with the magnificent building, it didn't take long for us to learn that the tickets were all sold out and we had to buy them from scalpers. I talked to several and tried to bargain as much as I could, using the negotiation skills acquired in Morocco and Thailand! The best I could do was 60 dollars for a couple of 5-dollar tickets. The fact that Masami and I look Asian, that we are are accompanied by a pure-bred Mickey, and that I was wearing a Duke sweatshirt was not in our advantage in the price negotiation.
The game was fantastic and well worth 60 bucks! To everybody's surprise, Grizzlies ended up beating Lakers and the crowd went wild. Shane played well, although I think he needs to work on his "show-off" plays. Jason Williams made several critical 3 point shots. Overall, they played really well. Besides the excitement of the game itself, there was a bonus benefit to the crowds. Because Grizzlies scored more than 100 points, Tacobell, a sponsor of the game, announced that the tickets entitle some kind of a freebee (we fail to take advantage of this opportunity in Tennessee, so we will see if the deal is still good in North Carolina!). Now, 60 bucks were well spent!
On the way home, Masami and I had some quarrels over some silly stuff. Maybe I shouldn't reveal my privacy to public so much, so I refrain from discussing the details of this matter any further. I might change my policy in the future.
Merry Christmas. We went to the church service at the Duke Chapel on the night of the Chrismas Eve. It was nice. We got to sing several songs that sounded familiar to me. A lot of thoughs came to my mind while sitting in the chapel, but it's already late and I will close for now.
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by Kotaro Yoshida
