In the Sea of People
Now everybody is wondering who Mr. Barack Obama and Mr. John McCain will choose as the Vice Presidential candidate, respectively, even if a Catholic or a Judaist is not chosen.
Yet, most of the Japanese media expect a general election to be held in Japan in December 2008 or January 2009, though I think it will be after the G8 Summit in 2009.
SECTION I: Goldfish Scooping
Last night, I saw something like a big goldfish on the TV screen which was however not a swimmer in the Beijing Olympic Games.
Yet, goldfish scooping is one of common games where participants, usually children, try to catch as many goldfish as possible with a small paper-pan-like tool in the summer for fun.
------------------------------------
Goldfish scooping (Kingyo-sukui) is a Japanese traditional game in which a player scoops goldfish with a special scooper. It is also called, "Scooping goldfish", "Dipping for goldfish" or "Snatching goldfish". "Kingyo" means goldfish and "sukui" means scooping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfish_scooping
------------------------------------
Goldfish scooping is often hosted as part of entertainment business in a local festival around a Shinto shrine.
It is unique to Japan even today, though goldfish scooping is said to have started about 250 years ago.
SECTION II: JAPAN, PART OF CHINA?
Indeed there are many unique traditions, cultural aspects, industries, arts, and spiritual works and religions that can be only found and practiced in Japan.
However, some Japanese complain that Europeans and Americans they met thought that Japan was part of China.
“Our country, Japan, is not respected by Europeans and Americans. They are not interested in Japan at all. Japan is nothing! How foolish we are not to know Japan is nothing to them!”
Of course, how foolish are Europeans and Americans who still think that Japan is part of China.
Foolish Europeans and Americans do not know what country the second largest economy in the world is.
It also tells how poor the quality of the education in Europe and America is.
Yet, as the Japan has been the only great power established by a non-European race, some Europeans and Americans have tried to neglect or harm reputation of Japan.
Those evil-minded Western media, politicians, and scholars have tried to marginalize the great achievement of Japan and hide related facts from Western citizens as much as possible.
As some of Europeans and Americans have become so hostile to Japan, they are blindly praising China and India, while China is proudly doing every stupid trick at the Olympic Games and India cannot do anything to help Pakistan and prevent another possible 9/11 Terror.
If you live in Europe or America and find many who think that Japan is part of China, you must start to realize that your government is pursuing an obscurantist policy to make consumers and voters blindly docile.
SECTION III: "Prodigious Nation Japan"
Mr. Taro Aso is regarded as the most possible next Japanese prime minister even by so many national lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party the incumbent Prime Minister Mr. Yasuo Fukuda belongs to.
Mr. Aso recently wrote a book on advantages of Japan: "Totetsumonai Nihon (Prodigious Nation Japan)."
It is a big hit, selling 170,000 copies. He pointed at various advantage and merits Japan has and tried to make Japanese readers feel hopeful about their future.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%A8%E3%81%A6%E3%81%A4%E3%82%82%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC-%E6%96%B0%E6%BD%AE%E6%96%B0%E6%9B%B8-217-%E9%BA%BB%E7%94%9F-%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E/dp/410610217X
On the other hand, as Western media have attacked Japan and harmed reputation of Japan so much, some Japanese are sometimes about to lose their confidence in Japan.
In this context, Mr. Aso’s clam that Japan is a prodigious nation has its unique value.
He is anti-China, since China has joined with eagerness those malicious Western media to harm reputation of Japan.
Chinese leaders are worried that the advancement of friendly relationships between ordinary Japanese and Chinese would make Chinese citizens very pro-Japan and thus anti-Chinese Communist Party. This trend cannot be stopped, since Japan’s total trade with China has surpassed that with America. Many Chinese citizens are just pretending outwardly to hate Japan due to the past history, while respecting Japanese more than their own leaders.
It is because Chinese are feeling that Japan is truly a prodigious nation.
SECTION IV: Advice to An Unsuccessful Candidate
Mr. Taro Aso, the incumbent Secretary General of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, first ran for national election in 1983 in vain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro_Aso
He garnered 80,000 votes which were however short by 2,678 votes to win the election.
A month after the election, Mr. Aso met one influential politician by chance in a Japanese-style restaurant in Tokyo. The senior politician took him to an empty room and asked how many votes Mr. Aso had obtained in the previous election.
Mr. Aso explained the situation and expressed his intention to wholly change his style and strategy for the next election.
But, the bossy politician said that it was stupid for Mr. Aso himself to deny all he had done so far simply because he had failed in the election.
All he had to do, the notorious lawmaker said, was to change what he had done in the ratio of 2,678/80,000, namely less than one thirtieth.
Understanding the lesson, Mr. Aso felt relieved. He was no more feeling down so as to work hard for the next election. He succeeded in the next chance and went to see the notable politician to extend greetings, but the then most influential politician in Japan could not remember the advice he had given to the emerging lawmaker a few years before, laughing and saying, "If so, even I can talk like a pundit."
The big-time politician who gave an effective advice to Mr. Aso, when he failed in his first national election, was Kakuei Tanaka, former Prime Minister of Japan between 1972 and 1974; unfortunately Kakuei Tanaka was arrested and indicted for the Lockheed bribery scandal in 1976.
( http://www.aso-taro.jp/lecture/talk/070313.html )
Nonetheless, there is a Japanese proverb: The wise man can change his strategy at any moment and does a complete turnaround if necessary like when a panther moves into action.
Yet, if Kakuei Tanaka had not spotted the potential of Mr. Aso, the former prime minister would not have made Mr. Aso feel relieved by delivering a kind of impromptu joke, since what the late Mr. Tanaka wanted to do is giving an advice of whatever content. Tanaka's purpose must have been to impress Mr. Aso, then an unsuccessful candidate, as being a big boss even taking good care of a failed candidate with whatever plausible advice.
Indeed, Mr. Aso is a grandson of former Prime Minister of Japan Shigeru Yoshida, a very senior politician to Kakuei Tanaka, who was so aristocratic while Tanaka was so folksy.
****************************************************************
If a regime change occurs in Japan, from the Liberal Democratic Party-centric government to the Democratic Party of Japan-centric government, Japan’s 2000 year tradition will still condition the basic features of the Japanese society.
When those basic features are changed, Japan may face the same kind of crisis as the Roman Empire did when Christianity so widely spread in the Empire.
Or, it is as unthinkable as the U.S. will change its de-facto national religion from Christianity to something else.
But, as the end of the Vatican and the world is coming closer according to the prophecies of St. Malachy and Sir Newton, you cannot preclude any possibility.
Joh 21:9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.
Joh 21:10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.
Joh 21:11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
Joh 21:12 Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord.
Joh 21:13 Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.
Joh 21:14 This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.