The excitement never stops here is the Japanese countryside.
A few months ago, we planted potatoes. This weekend we harvested them!
I still regard this whole experience as something of a miracle.
Of course, growing up in Detroit, Michigan — which at the time was the automobile capital of the known universe — I was very familiar with plants. There was the Dodge truck PLANT over on Mound Avenue. There was the auto assembly PLANT in Sterling Heights. My whole town was full of and surrounded by such plants. From age 14 through high school, I worked as an assistant shipping clerk for an automation machinery company which sold their product internationally. We shipped 150-200 foot-long machines which machined everything from cylinder heads to crankcases to intake manifolds, by sea and land to automotive manufacturing plants in Germany, England, Argentina, Australia and so on. Some of our behemoth product lines were even painted green, I guess to go with the wallpaper in the gigantic factories which would house them. True, I had heard of this thing called a “farm” but thought it had something to do with cultivating baseball players for the major leagues. Not really curious enough to give it much thought, I assumed that since people needed food, it just somehow showed up at the supermarket. The idea that edible plants had to be planted, which would then holistically and organically grow into something useful and hopefully delicious, was never on my radar.
Okay . . . enough about my pitiful agricultural ignorance.
It’s never too late to learn unless you’re dead. Since I’m still alive and minimally sentient, I have embraced the whole gardening thing with random relish and earthy delight.
But enough talk. Feast your hungry eyes on our potato harvest. While you do that, I’ll be surfing the internet for potato recipes. Because yes . . . we’ve got a lot of potatoes!
You’ve heard the expression, “The world is an oyster.” It’s attributed to Shakespeare, from The Merry Wives of Windsor. I have to come clean. I never bought into that. In fact, for some reason lately I’m leaning toward: “The world is a potato.” Which puts a whole new spin on global warming, wouldn’t you say?
I want to send some love to the wonderful fans of LIVE FROM JAPAN!
First, I thank all of you for the enormous outpouring of praise for my book. All 5-star reviews at Barnes & Noble. Fifteen 5-star reviews at Amazon. More satisfying than charts and book sales is knowing that people truly enjoyed the book. That’s the main and certainly most important reason for writing it in the first place.
Beyond my heartfelt gratitude, I want to remind everyone who has an interest in learning about the “real Japan”, that my sharing my unique life and experiences did not end with writing LIVE FROM JAPAN!
Since it was published in February 2021, I’ve continued to write articles and post them here at this website. Like the book, it’s a mixed bag of anecdotes about both life in my traditional rural town, and stories of travel and news from other parts of Japan.
I’ll make this very easy. Here is a list of all the articles to date, starting with the most recent:
I believe in seeking the truth. And seeking the truth requires careful observation, collection of all relevant evidence, and a dispassionate, objective evaluation of that evidence, drawing from it an acceptable and incontrovertible conclusion.
For all of my life, I’ve been looking at paintings. The fact is — as boring as this makes me as a person — when I visit a new city, among my first stops is an art gallery.
This means that over the many decades of my life, I’ve viewed thousands of paintings, works of art ranging from centuries past right up until the present.
Only very recently, however, I noticed something which had previously never caught my attention. And while I can’t put an exact date on it, this mind-blowing epiphany is . . .
Until only about 200 years ago, NO ONE HAD EYELASHES!
Go ahead! I challenge you. Find me a painting from the 18th Century or before where a person who either was part of some broader scene or individually featured in a portrait, has eyelashes.
YOU CAN’T!
I don’t see any eyelashes. Do you?
Now the indisputable truth is that until various fanciful post-realism genres — e.g. Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Fauvism, Cubism — caught hold and laid the visual foundation for the social-political chaos we are now immersed in, artists were meticulous, not to say OCD, about capturing every detail and nuance of the objects and subjects of their paintings.
I’m forced — by my strict adherence to the laws of empiricism and logic — to draw only one conclusion: If people had eyelashes back then, we would see them in the paintings.
Which means, eyelashes are a recent phenomenon, a genetic innovation which burst on the scene, literally thrusting itself suddenly and dramatically into the human genome, only quite recently.
Could I be wrong?
Come on! Rembrandt wasn’t a hack. NO EYELASHES!
Actually, why should we be surprised? Do you think anyone moonwalked before 1932? Is there any evidence of a knock-knock joke that pre-dates Shakespeare? When it comes to humans, it doesn’t necessarily take millennia for big evolutionary leaps to occur.
I’m sure that this “missing eyelash” enigma can be explained with some careful, focused investigation, rigorous research, applying scientific method with precision and a passion for discovering the truth. So here’s my offer: If the National Science Foundation or any other charitable trust is willing to allocate a few million dollars, I’m more than happy to look into this rather curious matter, producing some solid and satisfying answers.
As I write this, my wife Masumi is in Hiroshima with the entire 6th grade of her school, over eighty students. They’re on a field trip to visit the Peace Park and the Peace Museum.
This trip is something that they do every year. And it’s common among the elementary schools here in Hyogo and other prefectures throughout Japan. When the kids are in their last year, they go to this world-famous city to learn about the horrors of war.
Not only is it a vital learning experience, but it’s quite an adventure, even if it’s only two days. Masumi’s kids took the Shinkansen — high-speed bullet train — from Kobe, and traveling at up to 320 km/hr (200 mph), it only took an hour-and-a-half to get there. By car it’s a five hour drive.
First day, they went to the Peace Park and sang a beautiful song called “Negai” — which means ‘hope’. I recorded Masumi’s piano performance of the song and she played that over a portable speaker at the park. The kids sang this beautiful, hopeful song.
Here are the lyrics.
There’s so much to see and take in. The museum is a phenomenal experience. Masumi took me to it years ago. When I left, I decided that everyone on the planet — especially Americans, who seem to think war is fun and games — should spend a couple days learning both the real truth about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and understand that even having one nuclear weapon is sheer insanity. Currently, the US has 5,428. Russia has 5,977. Plus seven other nations additionally have 1,360 among them. Apparently, the human species has a death wish embedded in its DNA. Is there a vaccine for total madness?
The “dome” is the only structure to survive the atomic bomb, which detonated about 500 feet directly overhead. The photo is what it still looks like, the drawing is a rendering by Masumi’s 6th grade students.
Japan has no nuclear weapons. According to its constitution, specifically and unambiguously stated in Article 9, Japan can only have a purely defensive military.
Unfortunately, the reality of the “defense” force here is not that squeaky clean. The U.S. right now is encouraging a more aggressive Japanese military, one that will support U.S. efforts to contain China and maintain its domination over the rest of the world. Perhaps it will come as a surprise that the U.S. currently has 56 military bases in Japan, meaning it is still an occupied country — from a war that ended almost eight decades ago!
Thus, there is internal tension here in Japan about war and peace, just as there is in the U.S. and most countries. The people if Japan — the everyday citizens — have long memories. Japan was almost totally destroyed as a result of their attempt to conquer this part of the world. Lesson learned. Even now, most regular people want no part of it.
BUT . . . there are highly nationalistic individuals who’ve stayed in power. The ruling party — the one initially installed and still favored by the U.S. warmongers — has been continuously in control of the things since the U.S. dictated the terms of surrender to Japan after World War II. The U.S. has kept them securely under its thumb, assuring that 1) Japan never entertains again the idea of becoming an independent world power, and 2) Japan dutifully serves the national interests and geopolitical ambitions of U.S. empire. World domination-obsessed American puppet masters play on the nationalistic leanings of this group, who proudly want a powerful Japan as a major player on the world stage, and promote divisiveness and hostility, making sure that Japan is never on amicable terms with any other regional entities. Though Japan officially claims to only be committed to “self-defense”, it has a formidable fighting force, including submarines, fighter jets, infantry — far more than it needs to defend the homeland.
Which makes the extra-curricular education of the trip to Hiroshima even more vital. As with America, it’s the people who must keep the government in check, applying constant pressure to the official leadership to embrace diplomacy and peace.
It’s obvious that Masumi’s students get it. They wrote this declaration for their visit.
I’m so fortunate to be married to someone as deeply committed to ending war as I am. Unfortunately, not everyone Masumi works with is so enlightened. Prompted by U.S. propagandists, the government and media — just like in the U.S. — spread fear, mainly of China and North Korea, and try to convince the everyday citizens of the need for a bigger, better-equipped military. Of course, much of the additional equipment would come from the U.S. weapons manufacturers. How convenient!
Peace is a tough sell in today’s world. All we can do is tell the truth and hope for the best.
Over a year ago, in my Longing For Spring article, I mentioned that every year we go to Kasai Flower Garden. It took a little longer than expected this year, mainly because it’s been so cold and roses are blooming much later, but Masumi and I made the trip this past weekend.
It’s about a one-and-a-half hour drive but very much worth it. Here are some photos, both of the extraordinary grounds and the greenhouses, among the best I’ve ever encountered.
Beyond the expected charms of this garden park, we were treated to a most unusual spectacle! Hawaiian dancing I have to say is among the last things I thought we’d run into. But Japan, as I’ve repeatedly said, is full of surprises.
While the world seems it’s becoming more chaotic by the day, economies fall apart, and many folks are worried about the future, life here in Japan, at least for us, is pretty decent. Let’s hope our good fortune holds and the rest of the planet rediscovers what’s important in life and how much value there is in every human being.
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Several years ago I visited Hiroshima. Very recently I was in Nagasaki. As is common knowledge, these were the Japanese cities on which the U.S. dropped atomic bombs, the only time in history nuclear weapons have been used in war.
Both cities have peace parks, peace memorials, and peace museums honoring the victims of these war crimes and making a noble attempt to get the world to completely abolish these horrifying weapons of mass extermination once and for all.
My reaction after spending several somber hours at each location was: ‘Everyone should be required to see this, learn the truth about the bombings, and come to fully understand the profound existential threat nuclear arms truly are.’
The problem is that the people who visit these sites are folks like Masumi and I who already want peace. And the people who really need to visit them never do, and even if they by chance were somehow to stumble on them would not take any of it in with an open mind, with love in their hearts, with a desire to learn and develop an appreciation of their fellow human beings. They worship war and view those of us who want peace as sentimental fools.
The museums offer a wealth of important insights, insights that are suppressed by our sociopathic “handlers” who know the truth but want to keep it from us normal sane folks, because we would then understand the pure evil that possesses them, their pathological agenda, and the self-destructive obsessions at the core of their desire for world conquest.
Here are three shocking facts both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki peace museums rigorously document, indisputable evidence that the dropping of the atomic bombs were war crimes.
Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Japan, Aug. 9, 1945. (AP Photo)
1) The bombs purely targeted civilians. There were no legitimate military targets near the epicenters of the blasts. The Nagasaki plutonium weapon exploded directly above hospitals, elementary and high schools, churches, a college campus, and residential buildings.
2) The dropping of the bombs was “scientific” fact finding, to determine under real conditions how effective they would be, meaning exactly what the devastation would look like. Documents from the U.S. government confirm this.
3) The dropping of the bombs was not a military necessity, but a political statement. It put the world on notice — directed especially at the Soviet Union — who would wield the ultimate power in the post-WWII world.
As has horrifyingly become apparent, there would be nothing unique about this merciless and unnecessary slaughter of Japanese civilians. Over the coming decades, the U.S. would go on a genocidal rampage: more than 1.5 million innocent North Korean citizens in the Korean War; 2 million Vietnamese non-combatants in the Vietnam War; at least 176,000 killed over twenty years in Afghanistan, from of a war we started; nearly 500,000 Iraqi deaths the direct result of our invasion of that country. More deaths in Syria, Libya, now Ukraine, all directly attributable to U.S. military aggression and imperial hubris.
But Hiroshima and Nagasaki was when our hyper-savagery initially went into high gear.
This is why we should — and must — talk, and talk honestly, about these events that occurred in the frenzy of war almost 78 years ago.
But I fear we won’t. Instead, we’ll continue to rationalize and lie, sugar-coat the truth, immerse ourselves in fairy tales, glorify war, and tolerate the worst among us to lead us closer and closer to the abyss of human annihilation. There are war planners in the MIC who now are saying we can win a nuclear war. Someone must be putting LSD in the water coolers at these think tanks!
How can we end this madness? Where can we find the courage to confront the destroyers of dreams, the killers of innocents, the psychopaths who risk the lives of every human on earth?
Don’t we owe to ourselves and this amazing human experiment to do something?
War is bankrupting us morally, economically, socially, spiritually!
Nuclear war threatens all life on the planet!
We must end the insanity!
While you’re thinking about these last few remarks, here are a few photos of the Nagasaki Peace Park, and the memorial garden which sits right in front of the peace museum.
Every modern country is struggling to deal with the pressures of new technology, pressures which are accelerating exponentially as new technologies accelerate in number, sophistication, and appeal. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, games, smartphones, tablets are all in the mix, offering on the plus side unparalled opportunities for learning and communication, quick and easy ways of getting things done, but on the negative side pulling our focus, scattering our energies, wasting our time, and attenuating our capacity for deep, extended concentration.
We deal with this as adults. Similarly kids are more distracted and tempted with the fun, ease and convenience of technology than ever before. With each passing day, there are more and more technical shortcuts for just about any task.
Now with AI, we apparently have at our fingertips a tool to get just about anything done . . . EFFORTLESSLY! Type, hit enter, BINGO! A new song, a new poem, a novel, an article on just about any topic, a plan to conquer the world!
Maybe I’m too stuck in a legacy paradigm — after all, I am a product of celebratory mating prompted by victories over Germany and Japan . . . a Baby Boomer! — or maybe there are truisms which simply are timeless.
Here’s one I believe makes sense: Human satisfaction and personal reward is not necessarily in getting something done, but in doing that something, i. e. the effort to do it.
You can buy a computer program that plays an incredible game of chess. But the real reward comes from playing an incredible game of chess.
Same with music. I know I could buy some AI software which writes on command whatever kind of song I might want to hear. Is that supposed to somehow compare with the incredible child-like joy, the exhilaration I get from writing — however good or bad it turns out — a song myself?
That concept is not lost on teachers here in Japan. My wife, Masumi, teaches music in a nearby school system. She competes with computer games, the internet, iPhones, yes the entire array of distractions which her elementary students carry around with them — and the increasingly pervasive levels of ADHD which the foregoing produce — still manages to teach her kids how to play and how to appreciate music. She deserves a medal!
Masumi loves to show me success stories she comes across, examples of how the educational system in Japan serves the real needs of students and doesn’t abandon its core mission by pandering to the latest technological fads.
Here are two such examples. These are not Masumi’s students, because she teaches grades 2 through 6, elementary level. These examples are — are you ready for this? — nursery school kids! That means 5 and under! Try to process that as you watch the Yayoi Nursery School orchestra play a piece from Phantom of the Opera.
Here is a performance at the Toddler Music Festival, playing excerpts from Camina Burana.
I’ve lived in Japan, coming and going, for sixteen years, and I’ve discovered that every major city in this country has a unique personality. This really should come as no surprise. Would anyone in the U.S. think that Miami and Detroit aren’t dramatically different? Cleveland and San Francisco? Seattle and Washington DC?
But we carry preconceptions, prejudices when we go to foreign lands. We are at first probably overwhelmed by the dramatic shift in scenery and gravitate toward cultural commonalities, seeing all the things that cities and communities and the culture in general have in common, meaning in this instance, identifying and focusing on what we expect to see wherever we go in Japan: those cultural, social, religious, architectural features which make Japan . . . Japan.
Eventually, hopefully sooner than later, the scales fall from our eyes and the perceptual filters are replaced with more sensitivity and perceptiveness, a clear and objective view.
It took a while for me. I’m no different than anyone else who grew up in the West, saddled by prejudices and misconceptions, stereotypes we are relentlessly bombarded with in the bubble of U.S. “exceptionalism”. We get these from every direction: the media, movies, television. For example, I imagined Japan pretty much all looked like downtown Tokyo. The amazing truth is, 70% of this country is covered with forests. This is a land of stunning natural beauty, not cement, glass and glaring lights.
Eventually, I began to objectively “process” what I was seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting — this last one being very important in such a food-centric society.
As anyone who follows me here knows, I live in Hyogo Prefecture with my Japanese wife, Masumi — we just celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary! We live close to three major cities: Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka. Talk about distinct personalities! Kobe is our favorite, though Kyoto is the one best-known by international travelers for its geishas, and exotic temples and shrines. Osaka is exciting and fun, to say the least. But Kobe is originally the home of Masumi’s family, though they’re now scattered about.
Over the course of our courtship and marriage, we’ve been all over Japan, from Hokkaido in the north — a stone’s throw from Russia — all the way down to Hateruma, the southernmost island in Okinawa — a stone’s throw from Taiwan.
Even so, there was one place 13 hours west of us by car, we yet had to visit.
NAGASAKI!
It’s easily the most Westernized city in Japan. See for yourself.
Maybe I should have called this article ‘Life In Japan: Culture Machine’. As you can see, we weren’t just transported in time, but were given a taste of a completely different culture, that of Europe in the 19th Century.
While I thought Masumi looked spectacular, I can’t tell you how ridiculous I felt in that outfit. At the same time, I’m generally feeling pretty ridiculous these days. Should I embrace a whole new persona on Facebook? To heck with peace. Fire the cannons!
By the way — and I’ll make this short and sweet — the reason for the “Westernization” is very straightforward. During the Meiji Restoration, Japan finally opened itself up to trade with the West. The influx of traders was led by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, who carted everything they needed to feel at home in the Land of the Rising Sun: clothing, diet, churches, religion, architecture, etc.
This is not to suggest the Japanese welcomed the cultural “pollution”. In fact, at first visitors were confined to an artificial island in the harbor of Nagasaki, so they couldn’t mix with the local population. This area is called Dejima. It has been reconstructed near the original wharf, which is where we took a few photos. When ships arrived, the sailors and businessmen had a military escort take them to directly Dejima. Obviously, there was some interaction within the confines of the island, as the traders made deals with the local Japanese. Also, since there were no women accompanying the travelers, Japanese consorts were allowed in to service the needs of the all-male population. But for a long time mobility was extremely limited.
As we all know from the McDonald’s restaurants in Paris and Beijing, cultural creep can be insistent. Eventually, more and more of the West infiltrated Nagasaki. Houses and churches — though for many years Christianity was aggressively oppressed by the Japanese — eventually were built outside of Dejima on the mainland, and it is these remaining structures which give Nagasaki its truly distinctive Western character.
Japan is among the most technologically advanced countries in the world. It has phenomenal IT, the most efficient transportation system, including 3,384 km (2103 miles) of high-speed rail lines, with beautiful sleek “bullet trains” traveling at up to 320 km/hr (199 mph).
Japan has a robust high-technology manufacturing sector, which includes many world-class electronics firms like Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Sharp, NEC, Canon, Nintendo, Toshiba, Casio. And it’s home to many major automobile manufactures — Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki.
At the same time, it is a “hybrid” society which is protective of age-old customs and traditions, preserving those legacy institutions and practices which are defining characteristics of Japan as a nation and culture.
I had a dramatic reminder of this ability to balance the efficiency and appeal of the modern with the utility and charm of the traditional, in my first-time visit to Nagasaki last weekend.
Streetcars!
There are dozens of streetcars — also called trams — rumbling and squeaking and clanking all throughout downtown Nagasaki. And it’s definitely the best way to get around. They’re fun and very inexpensive. Regardless of distance, it’s 140 yen ($1.05) for adults, 70 yen for children. You get on. You get where you’re going. You get off. And how convenient! No descent into the cavern of a subway. Just stand at one of the many stations spaced every two or three blocks — which are everywhere — climb aboard, check in with a pre-pay electronic card like the one I have (beep!), which incidentally works on every public train, subway, bus or tram everywhere in Japan . . .
Then pay on your way out (beep!), smile at the driver, step down to the station platform. You’re on your way. To Chinatown, Glover Garden, Peace Park, the central train station, wherever.
Mind you, the streetcar system is over a century old. But it still works and apparently city planners regard it as a part of Nagasaki history they see no need to retire.
The message is this: You can leave your heart in San Francisco. No problem.
Just come to Nagasaki! They have streetcars, no homeless and nobody is packing a gun.
LIVE FROM JAPAN! Revisited
I want to send some love to the wonderful fans of LIVE FROM JAPAN!
First, I thank all of you for the enormous outpouring of praise for my book. All 5-star reviews at Barnes & Noble. Fifteen 5-star reviews at Amazon. More satisfying than charts and book sales is knowing that people truly enjoyed the book. That’s the main and certainly most important reason for writing it in the first place.
Beyond my heartfelt gratitude, I want to remind everyone who has an interest in learning about the “real Japan”, that my sharing my unique life and experiences did not end with writing LIVE FROM JAPAN!
Since it was published in February 2021, I’ve continued to write articles and post them here at this website. Like the book, it’s a mixed bag of anecdotes about both life in my traditional rural town, and stories of travel and news from other parts of Japan.
I’ll make this very easy. Here is a list of all the articles to date, starting with the most recent:
All of those were written after this splendid book got published. My way of keeping you up to date and hopefully dazzled and delighted.
If you don’t have it and want the experience of holding it in your hands, here are the links:
An Apple iBOOK is available HERE.
A B&N Nook Book is available HERE.
Other popular ebook formats are available HERE.
A deluxe full-color paperback from the printer HERE.
A deluxe paperback is available from Amazon HERE.
A deluxe full-color paperback is available from B&N HERE.
ENJOY!