(Tokyo suburbs)"Not Without Honour"
Is this symbolic for some?
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Millvina Dean, who as a baby was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic, died Sunday, having been the last survivor of 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/31/world/AP-EU-Obit-Last-Titanic-Survivor.html?_r=1&hp
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SECTION I: A Concierge in Paris
In early 1950’s, Japanese author Naoki Kojima (1919 - 2008) for the first time visited Paris and stayed in Hotel Royal Monceau.
At the same time, a group of Japanese politicians put up at the same hotel. Though Kojima in his 30's was still young compared with them and thus neglected by those politicians behaving barefaced, he knew well their names, faces, and backgrounds. So, when he was asked by one of concierges, all of whom looked very much interested in politicians from the Far East, about one specific member of the group, he could explain well who he was.
The concierge said, "This hotel accepts many politicians coming from all over the world. That gentleman truly bears comparison with those world-class politicians. He indeed never gives himself airs. Though he never stands on his dignity, his real dignity cannot be covered and unnoticed."
The Japanese author, Naoki Kojima, never forgot this incident, and thus 35 years later he wrote that it was a scene that had remained so clearly in his memory for the long time.
The Japanese politician who behaved like a samurai in Paris among townsman-class colleagues is Kenzo Matsumura (1883 - 1971). Matsumura started his political career in association with a democratic party before WWII, and held his first ministerial post in the Cabinet formed immediately after the surrender of the Empire of Japan in August 1945.
However, what is symbolic to me is that Naoki Kojima, an ex-officer of the Imperial Navy during WWII, lived a long life as a notable author in Japan until September 14, 2008, a day before the debacle of Wall Street.
SECTION II: Future Waves
Recently the NHK TV station of Japan interviewed a French elite, probably in Paris, who presented his view on the future of the world in a TV program.
He said that two types of modern nomads must be a focus in his theory, though Japanese people, living in islands, must not be able to grasp what nomads are; yet he started to think about nomads deeply when he had visited Tokyo.
As people try to understand more what is very different or remote from them, I think this French elite has some deep defect in his intelligence.
And he also simply said that one type of nomads, consisting of tens of millions of rich people, freely travel the world for business or any other reasons, while another type of nomads, consisting of billion poor people, have no other choices but move over boarders to get jobs, foods, and safety.
It is an old paradigm focused on a jet set or helicopter guys and local low-key residents.
Yet, the French elite looks like playing a role of a certain symbol of the European Civilization sensing a real great change getting closer to their continent.
He also predicted that America, though unlike the Roman Empire and the British Empire, will retreat to inside its borders, abandoning the hegemony over the world.
But, I do not think so. America is now playing a role of the Alexander the Great deploying its military from Mesopotamia to Afghanistan. And, after the era of the Alexander the Great, truly the era of the Roman Empire is to come. And, the U.S. might become part of the new Roman Empire with Israel, in one of my theories on the future.
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(To be continued...)
Mar 6:1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.
Mar 6:2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
Mar 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
Mar 6:4 But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.