(North and South Extensions of Transportation through the Tokyo Station)Charity out of a Pure Heart
The year 2008 was very exceptional in terms of science for Japan. If no financial crisis had hit so hard the nation, the Japanese society would be more engaged in a heated discussion about the intellectual power of the nation. It is because three Japanese citizens and one naturalized American from a Japanese national, namely four of the Japanese race, won Nobel Prize in 2008.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/2008.html
First of all, Japanese scientists are very different from any others of Asia and Africa.
Japanese scientists are not educated in foreign language all through primary school to university. They are educated in the Japanese language all through domestic primary school to domestic university. They may go to Harvard or Cambridge, however, only as grown-up scientists. It is because Japan has never had colonial masters from Europe or America.
In this context, work of Japanese scientists is a fruit of Japanese unique traditions, culture, and history.
Indeed, Japan is a nation of 2000 year history, importing, absorbing, and applying physical and spiritual work of ancient China and India, including Buddhism and Confucianism.
Though Egypt, Arab countries, Aryan nations, India, and China could not sustain consistent development and deployment of their past or ancient glory and civilization, only Japan has been able to achieve it.
The quality and the quantity, or the depth and fullness of Japanese Civilization allowed the nation to be the world No.4 country militarily before WWII and the world No.2 country economically after WWII.
But, a more significant implication is that Japan closed its door to the world from 1639 to 1853, though, importing some cultural goods through restricted channels from Holland, China, and Korea.
In this period of national isolation under the samurai regime, Japan also developed a unique economic system based on a feudal system. It was also supported by a higher educational standard of the Tokugawa samurai period. About half of Japanese farmers and most of craftsmen and merchants at least in the 18th century could read, write, and calculate on the abacus, though samurai bureaucrats were all requested to read and write even Chinese classics in addition to mastering the art of war.
Therefore, the concept of economy for the Japanese people is a little different, yet significantly no matter how subtle it may be conceived, from that for Europeans, Judaists, Muslims, Hindus, and even Chinese.
However without respecting these historic backgrounds, some American high-ranking officials, including a Secretary of the Treasury, tend to request certain changes in the Japanese economic, political, and social systems in their favor, which sometimes annoys or causes offence to some or many Japanese.
And, finally a showdown came in the last fall as all the major investment banks on Wall Street disappeared through bankruptcy, transformation to commercial banks, or M&A.
Then, there came an announcement that three Japanese citizens and one naturalized American from a Japanese national, namely four of the Japanese race, won Nobel Prize in 2008.
Last night, the NHK TV station in Tokyo broadcast a program featuring the four Japanese-race scientists.
Especially, they introduced an interesting story on Mr. Yoichiro Nambu, now an American citizen.
When Mr. Nanbu retired from the service for the Imperial Military in 1945, he had no professors to help him resume his study in physics in the University of Tokyo. He established his talent and success in the field almost all by himself so as to be invited to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, in 1952.
Though he could frankly talk with Albert Einstein, Mr. Nanbu had to compete with so many talented American scientists, which made him experience a professional crisis he had never suffered in Japan.
Yet, Mr. Nanbu moved to the University of Chicago to pull himself together, delivering many epoch-making theories and achievements.
Finally, Mr. Yoichiro Nambu sent a good word for Japanese youths in the NHK studio. It is from ancient Chinese philosophy.
It reads: Learning without thought is barren; Thinking without learning is parlous.
(When I was very young, I thought if I had become a Nobel-Prize-class scientist like Hideki Yukawa I would have had to fly over the Pacific Ocean to see somebody like Einstein in a jet plane which must have been providing some sentimental background music. So, what did you hear even if not flying from Paris?
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/oldies/mrlonely.html )
1Ti 1:5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
1Ti 1:6 From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling;
1Ti 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.