(near Yuraku-cho Sta., Tokyo City Core)Design of the Earth, Products, Formal Clothes, and Buildings
(La conception de la Terre, des produits, des vêtements formels, et les bâtiments)
1. The Earth Observed from the Moon
At last we have got the photo-pictures of the earth over the horizon of the moon.
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071113_kaguya_e.html
To my disappointment, the Western media seem to be neglecting them. However, they are very symbolic pictures which have superseded the famous one also having been taken by US astronauts from an orbit around the moon in 1969.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Apollo_10_earthrise.jpg
When the Apollo picture was released in 1969, US soldiers were fighting in Vietnam, and students were demonstrating on streets of Washington D.C., Tokyo, and Paris. It looked like people got a kind of revelation in 1969.
Then, President Nixon visited China; US troops withdrew from Vietnam; and the cold war shifted from a direct threat of the US-USSR all-out thermal nucleus war to localized intermediate-range nucleus missile competition in Europe and the Soviet Union.
Now, the pictures of the earth over the horizon of the moon the Japanese space agency has taken with a high-resolution camera can change minds of people, especially young people.
You should tell your friends that this time Japan has presented the earth over the horizon of the moon to give inspiration to peace loving people all over the world.
2. 100 Japanese Designs
The Committee "Japanesque Modern" made public 100 excellent designs Japanese companies have adopted to their products, including AQUAS LCD TV of Sharp Corp. and PRIUS of Toyota.
http://www.japanesque-modern.org/english/topics/index.html
Traditionally, Japanese products are featured by its inclination for simplicity and affinity to gentle nature and a benign mode of people's life.
Nonetheless, Japanese consumers also love European designs, including French bags, Italian bags, and Spanish bags, since they are targeted at a wealthy class.
But, industrial design rights should be protected globally to secure fair trade and fair competition in market.
Chinese manufacturers should learn design through various foreign examples but should not infringe design rights of others.
(China has so far given damages to Japan estimated to total about 80 billion US dollars due to their violations on Japan's industrial design rights and patents, which could be regarded as another Japan's war compensation to China for the Japan-China war before 1945 if Japan does not request these intellectual-property-right damages to China in future, in my personal view.)
3. North Korea
According to a Fuji TV news program broadcast last night, the elderly son of Mr. Kim Jong-il, the absolute leader of North Korean, is now in Paris.
He was spoken to on a street by a reporter in French as to why he could speak French well; he replied in French, "You know I learnt in a school in Europe."
Now, the U.S. is going to fully lift sanctions against North Korea while EU is going to deal with the Stalinist nation so as to buy mineral resources abundant in the country, since China has already obtained various rights to develop the mining industry in North Korea.
The nucleus bomb experiment North Korea dared carry out last year must have been rather directed to China as brinkmanship diplomacy, since there was and still is a possibility that China might venture into a virtual economic colonization of North Korea for its abundant mineral resources.
As long as North Korea serves China as a military front line to protect China from the U.S. military invasion, China would let North Korean leaders govern their country at their will and for their own profits.
(Officially the Korean War is yet to be concluded by North Korean and the UN troops consisting of those sent by the U.S., South Korea, etc.)
And, the clothes Mr. Kim Jong-il, the absolute leader of North Korean, always puts on tells what his governance is.
As a nominal democratic leader of laborers, Mr. Kim Jong-il has to always wear a workman's suit, the design of which is so monotonous, since a worker in a factory should suppress his or her personality in order to promote his or her work for production.
When Mr. Kim Jong-il changes his clothes to ones with pious design in public appearance, Japanese families of those who were abducted by an intelligence agency of North Korea for convenience of their activities might find a chance to take back their parents, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles someday soon.
4. Popular Political Motto "Live Together"
It seems to be a long time ago; but it was just half a year ago that the election for Tokyo Governor was conducted.
The candidate who attracted the most of public attentions was the late Mr. Noriaki (Kisho) Kurokawa, a notable Japanese architect, though he could not win the election.
His motto was a Buddhist term "Kyou-sei (living together)."
When he was a teenager, he went to a Buddhist school and regularly attended a school meeting where the head of school taught the essence of Buddhism, so that Noriaki Kurokawa learnt the deep thought, such as "Kyou-sei," about society and mankind.
Though Noriaki Kurokawa died recently and suddenly of a disease, the same term has been adopted by Prime Minister Mr. Yasuo Fukuda.
Interestingly, the same motto, "Kyou-sei," has been used by the head of the Oppositions Mr. Ichiro Ozawa in these decades.
Noriaki Kurokawa's design for buildings was probably aimed at letting people and the nature more live together.
I hope that politicians will learn through his design what God let Noriaki Kurokawa inform Tokyo citizens, the Japanese, and the global citizens of, while risking his life, eventually.
* * *
The God is also a genius to design a contemporary arrangement of continents on the earth.
Significance of geographical locations of Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca as well as Japan and the new continents, including the U.S., are beyond human imagination, since without Amazon mankind might be suffering more the irregular weather and the global warming.
(Which design do you like between that of the Eiffel Tower and that of the Tokyo Tower?
It is said that the Tokyo Tower was built using iron and steel extracted from combat vehicles and tanks the US military had used in the Korean War that erupted in 1950.
Despite inferior beauty of design, the Tokyo Tower has survived an uncountable number of earthquakes and typhoons the Eiffel Tower has never known in these 50 years.)
"THE WORKERS IN THE VINEYARD"
(Die Arbeiter im Weinberg)