"Before the Face of All People"

(150km Northwest of Tokyo)


"Before the Face of All People"

(New Authority in Culture and Politics)


Incumbent national Diet members as well as ex-lawmakers are busy in Tokyo discussing the future of the shockingly unpopular Aso Administration, though Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso visited the White House two days ago as the first official foreign guest to President Mr. Barack Obama; even TV announcers in Tokyo are commenting on needs for cooperation of politicians in promoting anti-recession measures.

Indeed, the U.S. Government took a 36% share of Citigroup.

Truly taxpayers and voters are the master of the national politics and economy.



SECTION I: Global Administrative Idea

The United Nations in New York claims its authority over the world in terms of consolidated military and security operations as well as power politics with some addition to human rights activities based on Christianity.

However, we mankind absolutely need another United Nations aimed at promoting culture, art, literature, and science.

So, I propose that mankind form New United Nations for promotion of humanity, human happiness, mankind’s well being and culture, art, science, and religion.

Its Headquarter must be established in Kyoto, Japan.

It must not be in Europe, since Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus do not like big cities in Europe.

It must not be in America, since American native people are yet prepared for this great mission while trailing African Americans in terms of development.

It must not be in China, since human rights have been violated so vastly in China, including invaded Tibet.

However, Tokyo is too congested. Japan has an old capital Kyoto. It is suitable for New United Nations of Culture more than for doubtful CO2 discussions.


SECTION II: JAPANESE OBAMAS

In August 2005, Yoji Nagaoka, a graduator of the University of Tokyo and graduate school of Harvard University, committed a suicide, just before the general election conducted on Sept. 11 of the year.

Yoji Nagaoka was then a member of a faction of Japan's Parliament members and under a strong political pressure, since his boss Mr. Shizuka Kamei and then Prime Minister Mr. Junichiro Koizumi had a tense relationship over postal service privatization.

After the death of Yoji Nagaoka, his widow took up his role as a candidate for the election to secure the seat in the National Diet, somehow. Mr. Koizumi's LDP also won the fatal election overwhelmingly, securing more than two thirds of the Lower House seats in coalition with New Komeito, leading to a strengthened tie with the Bush Administration.

In May 2007, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, then the Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, committed a suicide.

He had been relentlessly attacked for months by the Oppositions for his doubtful management of political money. He must have resigned from the cabinet post. But, then Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe was determined to protect his minister at his post.

Then, to a big and ominous surprise to the Japanese people, Minister Matsuoka put an end to the extrajudicial prosecution by terminating his life. However it had a grave and negative influence on the ruling LDP.

In the Upper house election conducted soon after the death of the Minister, namely in the summer of 2007, the LDP and its allies lost a majority in the House, thus paving the way for the DPJ, a labor-union associated party, toward a scramble for political power as is seen today, though the DPJ is still on the opposition side due to the dominance of the LDP in the Lower House.

In January 2009, Hisayasu Nagata, a former National Diet member of the DPJ, committed a suicide, though he had resigned as legislator in March 2006, taking responsibility for his unproven accusation of a certain leader of the LDP.

In February 2009, Mr. Shoichi Nakagawa resigned as Japanese Minister of Finance, taking responsibility for damaging Japan's dignity by his inappropriate behaviors in Rome on the G7 Meeting.

(Though it is a matter of speculation, if the Vatican informed European or American media agencies of some ungodly manners of a Japanese celebrity, such as Japan's Finance Minister, those agencies must take it as a holy boon, if truly from Heaven or not.)

Now, such Japanese tragic victims (and a person in a trumoil) are all ex-high ranking bureaucrats of the Japanese Government before having entered the national politics as a law maker.

They truly look like teachers by negative example. As long as the people can learn lessons from their tragedies, they should not be forgotten so easily, since Mr. Barack Obama has already done away with Mr. Daschle and Mr. Richardson as well as Ms. Kennedy, in a sense.

**** **** **** ****

That is why it is expected that the Democratic Party of Japan-centric coalition cabinet will be launched if the next snap election is held in Japan today or the next week, or otherwise in any foreseeable future until this September.

Then, the sub-era will finally shift from the Koizumi-Bush alliance to the Ozawa-Obama alliance, since the DPJ with the head Mr. Ichiro Ozawa is backed by labor unions in Japan.

Accordingly, you will have to find new friends in both the democratic parties in the U.S. and Japan.

Finally I want to tender my condolences for those whose life and honor cannot be protected by the Vatican, the Wall Street, the U.S. Senate, and Nagata-cho, Tokyo.



(Do not enter the Vatican if you have a few too many drinks. It might cost your honor. It must be when you renounce the world that you go there. Si vous devenez une religieuse, mon cher, je ne suis pas contre elle, pour parler franchement.

http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~har-snow/Pathetique_p.mid

Source: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~har-snow/music.htm)


Luk 2:27 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,

Luk 2:28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,

Luk 2:29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:

Luk 2:30 For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,

Luk 2:31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

"Rest in Hope"

(Around Tokyo)


"Rest in Hope"



This morning it snowed for hours around Tokyo.

At noon, the NHK TV channel presented a band in an entertainment program after the news time.

The band was called "Jackie Yoshikawa and the Blue Comets."

It was late 1960's that the band had go on to stardom in the Japanese entertainment business. The band had two main singers: Inoue with a saxophone and Mihara with a guitar. After having sold 1.5 million copies of a song titled "Blue Chateau," they gradually faded away along with a change in time to the post-Vietnam War era.

When Inoue committed a suicide in 2000, I remembered the band long forgotten, since Inoue was the most talented musician in Japan 30 years before.

In 1967, the band played with Hibari Misora (1937 - 1989), the most successful singer in Japan after WWII. The song called "Makka-na Taiyo (The Red, Red Sun)" sold 1.4 million, the fourth most sold song title of Hibari. As she had been already a legend for young people in late 1960's, her collaboration with the Beetles’-style band was a kind of sensation then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibari_Misora

Hibari was a genius girl in singing. If she had not died of a disease 20 years ago, she might have been named as a national treasure, almost seriously. She was always perfectly on pitch, never losing a key. But, she had a strong tie with a notorious Japanese gang group.

(Once Mr. Shintaro Ishihara, the incumbent Governor of Tokyo and also a very successful author, described Hibari as a flatly common singer [without a sense of high society at all, though outwardly, in my interpretation]; yet the Governor had a younger brother who died in 1987 as one of the most beloved actor in Japan and who somehow looked not so different from Hibarai's divorced husband who is an actor, too.)

So, this noon, 40 years after their golden days, the Blue Comets made a TV appearance on a public TV channel in Japan: with Mihara singing an old song and playing the guitar.

Of course, what I wanted to see was Misora Hibari and "Jackie Yoshikawa and the Blue Comets," singing "Makka-na Taiyo (The Red, Red Sun)."

It might be because the song might have something in common with "Yuhi-ga Naite-iru (Sunset Crying)" played by the Spiders in Japan also 40 years ago, since I presented the melody in EEE Reporter to commemorate the great earthquake in China last year.

Anyway, they are part of the modern Japanese Civilization, good or bad.

It is so if you like them or not.

Indeed, only the God can judge the people and their entertainers.

Truly, I am the one who is waiting for the judgment, with those who listen to me.



(30 ans plus tard, vous serez une grande star, ma fille. Ne pas mourir d'une maladie, ne pas commettre un suicide, depuis la guerre sera terminée et une récession aura disparu.

[I meant "a war will be over and a recession will end," before submission to Google Translation, my girl...]

The Red, Red Sun (like love):
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/j-folk0/makkanataiyou.html

Sunset Crying (like love):
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/gs/yuhiganaiteiru.html )


Act 2:26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:

Act 2:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Act 2:28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

"My Works unto the End"

"My Works unto the End"

(Ame-nimo Makezu)


The copyright on works of Kenji Miyazawa, a great Japanese author, expired in 1983, since he died in 1933.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Miyazawa



The title of this one of the most famous poems in the Japanese literary history is "I Will Face Rain" in my translation version, though laterally it means "I never succumb to the rain."
So, it goes:

I WILL FACE RAIN
Kenji Miyazawa

Face a rain;
Face the wind,
Pressing biting pain
On me firmly facing them forward.

Anger nowhere;
Ambition nowhere,
In my manner;
Quietly smiling is all my air.

Taking a humble meal,
Thinking every meaning,
On every occasion,
Hoard it all but self-justification.


(http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000081/files/45630_23908.html )

My translation version for the latter part and the appendix is omitted, for some reasons.

*** *** *** ***

A young French-speaking Canadian woman has recently made her dream come true.

She was chosen from 3,186 candidates, mostly Japanese girls, to be a title-song singer of animation works in Tokyo, according to The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

So, as a Japanese, I may sing in my own way some of lyrics created during the era of the Great Depression in Japan, such as Amenimo Makezu wriiten down in 1931.

(For other Japanese literary works:
http://www.shuppanjin.com/eng/classics.html

Finally, find somebody now writing something respectable as it is an era of the quasi-Great Depression.



(When I was young, listening to some song, I felt like being a future author or something like a hero myself, though I often enjoyed Manga comics and drank Coca Cola, since no McDonald hamburger shops were all around...

Savez-vous, ma princesse, qu'ils appellent McDonald "Makudo" à Paris?

http://dvweb.mpf.arcstarmusic.com/mdb_dst2/appendix4/R5/cRD65_2120806.asx

Source: http://mysound.jp/music/detail/tYSJ7/)


Rev 2:24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.

Rev 2:25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.

Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

Rev 2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

"He should not see death"

(All around Tokyo)


"He should not see death"


On Monday, July 21, 2008, I wrote:

Some Americans might still remember the Ehime-Maru tragedy that occurred in early 2001, (leading to the regime change in Japan to pave the way for Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi's premiership so drastically).

Specifically in the tragedy, a Japanese fisheries high school had lost its training ship and some lives of students and sailors off the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, due to an unavoidable collision with a US navy submarine with oil businessmen from Texas on board as civilian visitors to the submarine.

The Ehime-Maru, of course, was from the Ehime Prefecture.

This incident called the story "Moby Dick" to my mind, though, after the 9/11 Terror Attacks.

---------
It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."

Chapter One
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville
---------

It is because "Ehime-Maru" sounds like "ISHMAEL", since the both were on a "wailing voyage" as I once wrote in EEE Reporter.

And, yesterday, one of my favorite towns in Ehime recorded the highest temperature in this summer in Japan.

Of course, I heard that Mr. Barack Obama recently visited Afghanistan and said that he would transfer some troops from Iraq to Afghanistan

http://eereporter.blogspot.com/2008/07/10076-degrees-fahrenheit-in-japan.html


Now I wonder if the prophecy by Herman Melville includes a prediction that Mr. Barack Obama would emerge as U.S. President while Moby Dick-like European-race candidates should be defeated in the sea of the people.

Or, otherwise, a fate of "Mortgage-Burdened Wall Street" might have been predicted.

Then, there must be other prophecy on this great recession.

*** *** *** ***

The novel Moby-Dick really indicates human-diversity in addition to biodiversity.

For the world to maintain its appropriate diversity, it definitely needs the Japanese Civilization, as proven recently in the Nobel Prize awarding ceremony and the Oscar awarding ceremony.



(Du rouge au jaune, vert et bleu. C'est pourquoi, pour l'éternité est blanc et noir pour rien. Mais, l'amour est structual, n'est-ce pas, mon amour?

That is all for you.

http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/j-sengo1/haisoremadeyo.html)




Luk 2:24 And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.

Luk 2:25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

Luk 2:26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

"He shall be called a Nazarene"

"He shall be called a Nazarene"

(More than Literacy Value for Japan)


The most respected Japanese novelist in the Japanese history is Soseki Natsume (1867 - 1916).

His literature is a kind of missing link in the Japanese literary development when observed outside Japan.

He did not write a novel comparable to those crated in Europe or America in those days when measured by the Western academic criteria. In other words, no students or scholars in the West would find anything original and creative in his works as pieces of art to be respected in the West.　　

However, he is the one who found the gap in the concept of literature between the East and the West. Accordingly, he made a great effort to present a style and a philosophy Japanese literature needed to adapt itself to the modern era dominated by the Western Civilization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsume_S%C5%8Dseki

He once said in his speech to elite students in a certain public occasion in Japan.

"When you become members of the society to be leaders in business, politics, academic circles, or any other fields in this country, your money and power would buy you many false friends or only false friends. You have to avoid such a situation...otherwise you would harm others as well as yourself..."

Details might be a little different, but he said so in a defiant attitude to authority, though he had graduated from the Imperial University of Tokyo to be officially dispatched to England to learn the European literature at national expense, with expectation of his creating a chair in the Imperial University which however he never did (he went down to Ehime Prefecture in western Japan to be a high-school teacher in English, instead).

That is why I like Soseki Natsume as much as I like some of his works.




(Quand je vais à Hollywood, mon cher, si ce n'est à Shanghai en 1930?

http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/j-senzen/herijunzailai.html)


Mat 2:21 And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

Mat 2:22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

Mat 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

"the corn fields on the sabbath day" - A Writer and Rider

A Night Station around Tokyo

"the corn fields on the sabbath day"

(A Writer and Rider)

Currently due to a grave economic slump, it is said that more and more young Japanese have come to read works by Takiji Kobayashi (1903 - 1933), a Japanese author of proletarian literature who joined the Japanese Communist Party before WWII, but was killed by special political police who hated communism.

Especially, Kobayashi's "Kanikosen (Crab-Canning Boat)" has recently become a best-seller among young and poor Japanese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanikosen

Nonetheless, it is said that young author Takiji Kobayashi had once taken Naoya Shiga as his teacher.

"Naoya Shiga (1883 - 1971) was a novelist and short story writer active in Taishō and Showa period Japan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoya_Shiga

Naoya Shiga was born rich and raised rich to live a long life while enjoying the title "God of Fiction" (Shosetsu no Kami-sama ) bestowed by his fans and the media.

Yet, when he was young, learning in the Imperial University of Tokyo, Naoya Shiga took Kanzo Uchimura as his teacher, since Uchimura was a notable Japanese author, Christian evangelist, and the founder of the Non-Church Movement (Mu-Kyoukai) of Christianity in the Meiji and Taisho period Japan (1868 - 1926).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchimura_Kanz%C5%8D

Yet, Shiga left the university as well as famous scholar Uchimura, to be a successful novelist. Shiga's works are said to be influenced not only by Buddhism but also Christianity implicitly, though the background of the era in Japan was featured by "Taisho Democracy" (a civil movement toward democracy before WWII or the Great Depression era in 1930’s in the Empire of Japan).

Anyway, Naoya Shiga wrote one of the most successful novels in the Japanese modern literary circles, titled "A Dark Night's Passing (Anya-Koro)" (which however I don't think I ever read).

(Shiga's manuscript)

Though Shiga's works are often introduced in school text books, there is one, seldom focused on, which he wrote after WWII on his memory of a bicycle he had used in the early 20th century.

When Naoya Shiga was low teen (of a very rich family), he had a British bicycle, for he loved to ride on a bicycle so much like other rich boys in Tokyo in those days. But, he wanted to replace his old bicycle one day; so he went to a bicycle shop his friend had recommended to make a deal to sell his old bicycle and buy a new one.

The owner of the shop said that he would buy the boy's old one at 50 yen and sell a new one at 170 yen, immediately offering 50 yen which boy Shiga took with him, going back home.  All he had to do was to get necessary money from his home, come back, and complete the deal.

But, walking on his way home, he found a more attractive U.S. bicycle at a different shop. Naoya without hesitation started another negotiation with a shop owner to buy the American bicycle at 140 yen. So, the enchanted boy delivered that 50 yen he had received in the preceding deal, which was yet to be completed, to get the sleek American bicycle and rode on it back home being accompanied by an employee of the shop to pay the rest of the price.

Naoya Shiga in his thirteen was very happy with a high-performance American bicycle until he heard a rumor that a certain bicycle-shop owner was telling people that he had been practiced a deceit on by a certain boy.

"Deceit!" A rich boy started to feel troubled and annoyed, which could not be solved though he even listened to a preacher in a church. He could not even sleep at night.

Finally, he asked 10 yen from his grandmother, went to the shop where he had sold his old bicycle, and extended it to the shop owner.

Yet, the shop owner said, smiling, "As I am a businessman, I have never made a deal disadvantageous to me. You don’t have to behave like this with such consideration."

But, the long-suffering boy handed the money to the bicycle businessman forcibly, though just five yen as discounted due to the firm refusal of the bicycle shop owner insisting to receive nil, and then went back home riding on his great American bicycle, feeling like a kind of hero.

Great Novelist Naoya Shiga recalled, after WWII, that in those days when he did that bicycle deal, 10 yen had been sufficient for a month living. And, in those years, no Japanese bicycle makers were available, since it was the end of the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) or early 20th century in Japan.

*** *** *** ***

The CBS TV news program, as observed around Tokyo before this noon, reported that more than 30 states of America are suffering a huge deficit in their governmental account, totaling to more than $40 billion.

Now, American people must start to turn to literature.

It is so, since many, poor, young Japanese are nowadays reading a work of proletarian literature written 80 years ago by a tragic communist author, Takiji Kobayashi, who once followed Naoya Shiga, God of Fiction in Japan or a great rider of an American bicycle called Cleveland 100 years ago.



(A lesson of today is of course that a tiny ethical incident that happened when one was young could sometimes decide the fate in his later life.)




Mar 2:23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.

Mar 2:24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?

Mar 2:25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?

Mar 2:26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?

Mar 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: