Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Famines
A few moths ago I borrowed from a public library a book on the volcano Mt. Vesuvius and city Pompeii.
In A.D. 79, Pompeii situated near Naples in the south of Rome was destroyed by a great eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
Today, the European air traffic is disrupted by the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier volcano, Iceland.
Indeed, it snowed in Hakone today, a mountainous sight seeing area near Mt. Fuji some 100 km west of Tokyo.
They say it will snow even in Tokyo tomorrow, for the first time as snowing on April 17 in these 41 years.
The Bible reads that there will be earthquakes and famines in the end of the world. The volcano eruption in Europe and spring snow in Japan seems to be reinforcing this scenario.
SECTION I: Who Defends Hatoyama?
Japan's Prime Minister Mr. Yukio Hatoyama of the DPJ recently reportedly said, "I want to work as prime minister at least for one year, since even that Shinzo Abe succeeded in serving as prime minister for one year!"
Yet, lawmaker Mr. Tsutomu Hata was in the position of the prime minister only for two months in 1994 due to a drastic but wrong decision by Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, then the most powerful leader of the ruling party like today in the DPJ.
Anyway, let's see how Washington guys love a joke about Japan, the very advanced high-tech country.
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Washington Post
Has the Obama administration been too tough on Japan?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
...
Like the Japanese public, the Obama administration has not concealed its exasperation. The president and other senior officials visiting the country have repeatedly called for an "expedited" resolution to the base dispute. After the prime minister broke his own deadline just before Christmas and announced that he would postpone the matter for another few months, the Japanese ambassador to Washington was summoned for an unusual démarche by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Pentagon says there is good reason for the impatience. Under a 2006 agreement, 8,000 U.S. Marines now based on the Japanese island of Okinawa are to be relocated to Guam, beginning this year. But that move depends on implementation of a bilateral deal to close a helicopter base that now lies in a heavily populated area, and to build new facilities in another area near the island's coast. If Japan does not move forward on the base agreement, U.S. officials have warned, the troop redeployment may be derailed.
...
Japan's nascent two-party system is a democratic achievement, not a diplomatic nuisance; give it a little time to find its course.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR2010010403142.html
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Some Japanese think that Americans do not know anything about Japan. Washington Post and New York Times know nothing about Japan. But, America is a super-power. There must be somebody that can teach something to Washington Post and New York Times even joking about Toyota. Yet, the result cannot be always welcomed by Japanese parties concerned.
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Washington Post
Among leaders at summit, Hu's first
By Al Kamen
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
...
A rich man's son, Hatoyama has impressed Obama administration officials with his unreliability on a major issue dividing Japan and the United States: the future of a Marine Corps air station in Okinawa. Hatoyama promised Obama twice that he'd solve the issue. According to a long-standing agreement with Japan, the Futenma air base is supposed to be moved to an isolated part of Okinawa. (It now sits in the middle of a city of more than 80,000.)
But Hatoyama's party, the Democratic Party of Japan, said it wanted to reexamine the agreement and to propose a different plan. It is supposed to do that by May. So far, nothing has come in over the transom. Uh, Yukio, you're supposed to be an ally, remember? Saved you countless billions with that expensive U.S. nuclear umbrella? Still buy Toyotas and such?
Meanwhile, who did give Hatoyama some love at the nuclear summit? Hu did. Yes, China's president met privately with the Japanese prime minister on Monday...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041304461.html?sub=AR
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As I wrote yesterday, it is not P.M. Mr. Hatoyama that has true or real authority to decide on any grave challenge the Hatoyama Cabinet faces.
It is Secretary-General of the ruling party DPJ Mr. Ichiro Ozawa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichir%C5%8D_Ozawa
And, it is the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDP), a very minor, unpopular, and anti-American party, that has the most influenced Mr. Ozawa on the U.S. Marine Corps' Okinawa base issue.
The SDP's top is in the Hatotama Cabinet as a minister, who often calls Mr. Ozawa complaining that P.M. Mr. Hatoyama does not listen to her. Then, Mr. Ozawa calls P.M. Mr. Hatoyama, requesting him to listen to her.
The more the DPJ jeopardizes the Japan-U.S. relationship, the less it will get votes in the coming national election. The less the DPJ wins seats in the National Diet, the more it has to rely on a few seats of the SDP, since the SDP's few seats will have casting votes in the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament.
So, it is not P.M. Mr. Hatoyama but Mr. Ichiro Ozawa and the SDP that has chosen this situation for various and complicated reasons.
And, one thing sure is that China will respect Mr. Ozawa more.
Mr. Ozawa looks like still keeping power to choose the next prime minister of Japan who will be also pro-Chinese and not so pro-American. Indeed, Japan looks like standing against America under the leadership of Mr. Ozawa, a national lawmaker since 1969, who had been well trained by the late prime minister of Japan Kakuei Tanaka who had visited Beijing in 1972 to shake hands with Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai.
Finally, in my personal opinion, Japan should change its prime minister even before the G8 Summit, since another great earthquake occurred in China very recently taking almost 1,000 lives.
SECTION II: Shanghai and Japanese in 1930's
One of the greatest Chinese authors in the modern era Lu Xun (Ro-Jin in Japanese) lived Shanghai, receiving and enjoying great support from some Japanese living in the city called devildom.
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Lu Xun (***) or Lu Hsün (Wade-Giles), was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (***) (1881 - 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century...
On a Qing government scholarship, Lu Xun left for Japan in 1902...
Lu Xun left for Sendai Medical Academy in 1904 and gained a minor reputation there as the first foreign student of the college. At the school he struck up a close student-mentor relationship with lecturer Fujino Genkurou (***); Lu Xun would recall his mentor respectfully and affectionately in an essay "Mr Fujino" in the memoirs in Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. (Incidentally, Fujino would repay the respect with an obituary essay on his death, in 1937.) However, in March 1906, Lu Xun abruptly terminated his pursuit of the degree and left the college.
He spent the next three years in Tokyo writing a series of essays in wenyan (classical Chinese) on the history of science, Chinese and comparative literature, European literature and intellectual history, Chinese society, reform and religion, as well as translating the literature of various countries into Chinese...
Returning to China, Lu Xun began teaching in the Zhejiang Secondary Normal School (***), the predecessor of Hangzhou High School (***), Shaoxing Chinese-Western School Middle school of Shaojun (***, the predecessor of Shaoxing No.1 High School) in his hometown. With the establishment of the republic, he briefly held a post in the Ministry of Education at Beijing...
In May 1918, Lu Xun used this pen name for the first time and published the first major baihua short story, Kuangren Riji (***, "A Madman's Diary")...
Another of his well-known longer stories, The True Story of Ah Q (A Q Zhengzhuan, ***), was published in installments from 1921 to 1922. The latter would become his most famous work...
From 1927 to his death, Lu Xun shifted to the more liberal city of Shanghai, where he co-founded the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun
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It is truly unthinkable that Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai never read any works by Lu Xun.
However, Lu Xun received and enjoyed great support from some Japanese, especially one who ran a book shop, living in the city called devildom.
It is truly symbolic that one of the greatest Chinese authors in the modern era Lu Xun died in 1936.
Personally, I once, when I was much younger, read "Ah Q" to admire the author Lu Xun, since he depicted a poor Chinese man so vividly and alarmingly.
*** *** *** ***
The book about Pompeii I borrowed hints that the Western Roman Empire collapsed due to toxicity of lead, a convenient metal easy to work with, based on some finding in human figures excavated in Pompeii in recent centuries.
The Bible does not mention specifically the first Jewish-Roman War (66–70) and the volcanic hazard in Pompeii, though some letter or document could have been added with reference to the two great incidents.
Yet, it was intended to be read by Roman citizens.
When Christianity started to prevail in the Roman Empire along with the Bible, it did not probably belong to Israelites any more, but was yet to belong to Roman citizens.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQH0fWXRv4I&feature=related
How blue was the sky in 1937, dear?)
Luk 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Luk 4:17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.