Take the time to try something really big in life.
When Meiji University's Alpine Club held a training camp on Mount Hakuba 48 years ago to welcome score of*1 new members, the first to drop from exhaustion was slightly built freshman from the agriculture department. His nickname wa "Donguri" (acorn) because he kept falling down. This man was Naomi Uemura (1941-1984), who later became the first person in the world conquer*2 the highest peaks on five continents.
So this great adventurer was no shining star from th start. After graduating, Uemura went to the United State to raise money for his expendition. According to his book, "Seishun wo Yama ni Kakete"* Devoting my youthful years to mountain climbing) published by Bungeishunju Ltd., Uemura made this heartfelt vow*3: "Uutil I find a job, I'll spend as little money as possible, even if it means having to live on nothing but*4 cucumbers!" His optimism and refusal to quit likely helped him survive.
Soon this year's new office workers will have survived a month on the job themselves. Some may have recieved nothing but scoldings these past weeks, but they should not lose heart. Katsuya Nomura, manager of the the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles pro baseball team, said in an interview with the mainichi Shimbun: "I don't scold those who are beyond hope and I couldn't care less about." Nomura was describing how he deals with his top players, but it also explains why he habitually complains about promising young players, too.
When I was a cub reporter*6, I got yelled at while I was using a pay phone. I was forced to listen to lengthy tirade*7 but I don't remmebrr what it was about. This person was screaming loudly, so I held the reciever away from my ear. Then, I heard a voice behind me asking, "Why is someone so mad*8 at you?" I turned and saw a primary school kid gazing up at me with woried eyes.
Now, I am convinced *9 that not rookie*10 is "beyond hope." No one would be a rookie in the first place if someone hadn't seen their potential*11 and hired them. So here is my advice to all rookies: Set yourself a truly ambitious goal now, while you still have space to make mistakes. Do it and know you are completely free to step boldly. Recall ""Acorn" Uemura, who returned from the Hakuba training camp after enduring a miserable time. He made a firm resolution to get up at 6 a.m. every day to run 9 kilometers on mountain roads. That resolve eventually led him to become a world-renowned explorer and adventurer.
Not everyone can take a rest during the Golden Week holidays, but I hope that all the young, determined people out there are beginning to plan something really big. Were it Uemura, he would perhaps spend the break nibbling at cucumbers as he contemplated*14 the order in which he would attempt the peaks on those five continents. (Herald Asahi, May 5)
So this great adventurer was no shining star from th start. After graduating, Uemura went to the United State to raise money for his expendition. According to his book, "Seishun wo Yama ni Kakete"* Devoting my youthful years to mountain climbing) published by Bungeishunju Ltd., Uemura made this heartfelt vow*3: "Uutil I find a job, I'll spend as little money as possible, even if it means having to live on nothing but*4 cucumbers!" His optimism and refusal to quit likely helped him survive.
Soon this year's new office workers will have survived a month on the job themselves. Some may have recieved nothing but scoldings these past weeks, but they should not lose heart. Katsuya Nomura, manager of the the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles pro baseball team, said in an interview with the mainichi Shimbun: "I don't scold those who are beyond hope and I couldn't care less about." Nomura was describing how he deals with his top players, but it also explains why he habitually complains about promising young players, too.
When I was a cub reporter*6, I got yelled at while I was using a pay phone. I was forced to listen to lengthy tirade*7 but I don't remmebrr what it was about. This person was screaming loudly, so I held the reciever away from my ear. Then, I heard a voice behind me asking, "Why is someone so mad*8 at you?" I turned and saw a primary school kid gazing up at me with woried eyes.
Now, I am convinced *9 that not rookie*10 is "beyond hope." No one would be a rookie in the first place if someone hadn't seen their potential*11 and hired them. So here is my advice to all rookies: Set yourself a truly ambitious goal now, while you still have space to make mistakes. Do it and know you are completely free to step boldly. Recall ""Acorn" Uemura, who returned from the Hakuba training camp after enduring a miserable time. He made a firm resolution to get up at 6 a.m. every day to run 9 kilometers on mountain roads. That resolve eventually led him to become a world-renowned explorer and adventurer.
Not everyone can take a rest during the Golden Week holidays, but I hope that all the young, determined people out there are beginning to plan something really big. Were it Uemura, he would perhaps spend the break nibbling at cucumbers as he contemplated*14 the order in which he would attempt the peaks on those five continents. (Herald Asahi, May 5)
New gas suicides also harm those left behind.
Manga artist Shigeru Mizuki once visited a temple in Aomori Prefecture dedicated to jizo, the gurdian deity of all creatures as well as children who died before their parents. There, he found many bizarre-looking stone statues of the deity wearing military caps and students' uniforms. Mizuki, an expert on monsters and supernatural beings in the manga world, felt a subtle*2 sadness that belongs to neither the living nor the dead. It was like "a sort of spiritual gas," Mizuki recalls in his book "Yokai Gadan" published by Iwanami Shoten Publishers.
Kitaro, one of Mizuki's best-known characters in the manga series "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro," can use his hair as an antenna to detect looming evil spirit activity. The uncanny*3 spirits," in the form of invisible gas, provide settings for stories only when they choose when and where to waft*4. If they were to gush out*5 at any time or anywhere, it would spoil the atmospher.
SUicides using poisonous*6 hydrogen sulfide have occurred one after another recently. Since the gas is invisible and can leak from tiny holes, it can easily cause collateral damage*7 to people who happen to be nearby. In the municipal housing complex in Konan, Kochi Prefecture, where a junior high school girl died Wednesday in an apparent*8 hydrogen sulfide suicide, 80 people were taken to hospital.
Such suicides have rapidly grown this spring. Explanations on how to produce the gas using household products are circulating*9 on the Internet and apparently spread among young people seized with the desire to kill themselves. In preparation of producing the gas, many people also put up a sign outside their doors to warn neighbors, as instructed on the Internet. The sign reads "poinonous gas in production."
Before hydrogen sulfide, explanations on how to use briquette coal to produce carbon monoxide*10 as a means*11 of committing suicide spread through the Internet. All that has changed are the materials used and the kind of gas being producted. Meanwhile, the urge to take one's life is spreading among copycats and the trend is giving rise to*12 more new jizo statues. People consult the Internet to learn ways to commit suicide and put up signs of warning to neighbors. Can they not change their desire to "connect" with others and to take their painstaking*13 efforts to end their lives, thereby keeping the will to live?
It is sad to think that the last thing that links suicide victims with this world in poison gas. Using gas to kill themselves is the worst thing they can do to their neighbors and people who rush to their rescue having read the signs. Such horrible*14 deeds only double the grief of those left behind. (Herald Asahi)
Kitaro, one of Mizuki's best-known characters in the manga series "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro," can use his hair as an antenna to detect looming evil spirit activity. The uncanny*3 spirits," in the form of invisible gas, provide settings for stories only when they choose when and where to waft*4. If they were to gush out*5 at any time or anywhere, it would spoil the atmospher.
SUicides using poisonous*6 hydrogen sulfide have occurred one after another recently. Since the gas is invisible and can leak from tiny holes, it can easily cause collateral damage*7 to people who happen to be nearby. In the municipal housing complex in Konan, Kochi Prefecture, where a junior high school girl died Wednesday in an apparent*8 hydrogen sulfide suicide, 80 people were taken to hospital.
Such suicides have rapidly grown this spring. Explanations on how to produce the gas using household products are circulating*9 on the Internet and apparently spread among young people seized with the desire to kill themselves. In preparation of producing the gas, many people also put up a sign outside their doors to warn neighbors, as instructed on the Internet. The sign reads "poinonous gas in production."
Before hydrogen sulfide, explanations on how to use briquette coal to produce carbon monoxide*10 as a means*11 of committing suicide spread through the Internet. All that has changed are the materials used and the kind of gas being producted. Meanwhile, the urge to take one's life is spreading among copycats and the trend is giving rise to*12 more new jizo statues. People consult the Internet to learn ways to commit suicide and put up signs of warning to neighbors. Can they not change their desire to "connect" with others and to take their painstaking*13 efforts to end their lives, thereby keeping the will to live?
It is sad to think that the last thing that links suicide victims with this world in poison gas. Using gas to kill themselves is the worst thing they can do to their neighbors and people who rush to their rescue having read the signs. Such horrible*14 deeds only double the grief of those left behind. (Herald Asahi)
TV is one thing, but the courtroom is another.
"After wearing it for a day/ I fold my faded blue prison garb*1/ Feeling the lingering warmth of my body." This tanka was composed by Akito Shima, who committed*2 murder when he was 24 and was executed*3 at age 33 in 1967. The poem describes the joy he felt at the end of each day and is testament*4 to his deep remorse*5 and appreciation of life.
If I were a citizen judge, what judgement would I have passed on *6 the person who killed a mother and her daughter in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, nine years ago? In an appealed court decision passed Tuseday, the presiding judge at Hiroshima High Court, ordered by Supreme Court to retry the case, overturned*7 two previous life sentences*8 and handed down*9 the death sentence to the defendant who was 18 at the time of the crime.
There are two images that I can clearly picture in my mind when I think about the case. One is a photo of the victim Yayoi Motomura holding her baby daughter. She was 23 and her child was 11 months old when they were murdered. Their bodies would never be warm again.
If I were a citizen judge, what judgement would I have passed on *6 the person who killed a mother and her daughter in Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, nine years ago? In an appealed court decision passed Tuseday, the presiding judge at Hiroshima High Court, ordered by Supreme Court to retry the case, overturned*7 two previous life sentences*8 and handed down*9 the death sentence to the defendant who was 18 at the time of the crime.
There are two images that I can clearly picture in my mind when I think about the case. One is a photo of the victim Yayoi Motomura holding her baby daughter. She was 23 and her child was 11 months old when they were murdered. Their bodies would never be warm again.
Price hikes*1 squeezing*2 fatherless families
A 41 years old woman, whose husband took his own life when he was 51, continues to work as a nursing-care helper to provide for her three children while taking medicine to relieve an irregular heartbeat. The woman wrote in response to*3 a questionnaire: If I try to earn money, I lose time to spend with my children. I am seized*4 with anxiety not knowing what to do."
As the prices of daily essentials go up, how are fatherless families that are socially vulnerable*5
As the prices of daily essentials go up, how are fatherless families that are socially vulnerable*5
Tulip vandalism*1sign of an oppressive*2 society
"Les Papillons" (The butterflies) is a long poem by Gerand de Nerval (1808-1855), a French poet. Part of it, translated into Japanese by Kyuichiro Inoue (1909-1999), goes to the effect: "Butterflies flutter, flowers without a stem, flowers picked up into a net... ." The butterflies glide away over green grass like sentiments of love, the poem continues. And because of their beauty, they are eventually visited with tragedy.
As if to echo this poetic imagination, stemless flowers and flowerless stems-a pathetic* sight indeed- are being descovered in various parts of Japan this spring. I don't want to think there are people out there begrudging*4 things of beauty, but flowers are being cut and trampled*5 upon in an ongoing spate spate of vandalism.
Earlier this month, about 1,000 tulips planted along a main street in the city of Maebashi were butchered. Despite a tightened neighborhood watch after the incident, vandalism occured again, and some of the tulips were nearly upriited. I felt chiloled by the words of a city offical, who said "malevolence*6" is sesed in this crime.
Tulips awere trageted*7 in Fukuoka and SHizuoka prefectures, too. Those in SHizuoka were planted in memory of a deceased woman surfer by her friends. "Hana ni arashi" (literally, a bloom caught in a storm) is an old Japanese expression, meaning that dab things can happen in the best of times. Had those tulips been ruined by a rainstorm, one could have accepted the outcome as inevitable*8. But it's a totally different matter when vandalism was the cause, and this must deeply distress the deceased surfer's friends.
In our society becoming a place where strangers cannot be trasted? Spray-paint graffiti*9 were discovered on Sunday in the main hall of Zenkoji temple had just declined to be the starting point of the Olympic torch relay for the Beijing Olympics. The temple premises are said to be open to faithful 24/7*10. But now that it is obious that not everyone is pious*11 worshipper, calls may be made to review this arrangement.
With the "torches" of benevolence*12 being put out one by one society is growing more oppressive, as if everyone should be suspicious of*13 one another. In the shadows cast by suspicion, cynical*14 sayings of old glitter unpleasantly. The indivisuals who vandalized the tulips and the temple are contributing to this unacceptable social trend. (Herald Asahi, April 22)
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As if to echo this poetic imagination, stemless flowers and flowerless stems-a pathetic* sight indeed- are being descovered in various parts of Japan this spring. I don't want to think there are people out there begrudging*4 things of beauty, but flowers are being cut and trampled*5 upon in an ongoing spate spate of vandalism.
Earlier this month, about 1,000 tulips planted along a main street in the city of Maebashi were butchered. Despite a tightened neighborhood watch after the incident, vandalism occured again, and some of the tulips were nearly upriited. I felt chiloled by the words of a city offical, who said "malevolence*6" is sesed in this crime.
Tulips awere trageted*7 in Fukuoka and SHizuoka prefectures, too. Those in SHizuoka were planted in memory of a deceased woman surfer by her friends. "Hana ni arashi" (literally, a bloom caught in a storm) is an old Japanese expression, meaning that dab things can happen in the best of times. Had those tulips been ruined by a rainstorm, one could have accepted the outcome as inevitable*8. But it's a totally different matter when vandalism was the cause, and this must deeply distress the deceased surfer's friends.
In our society becoming a place where strangers cannot be trasted? Spray-paint graffiti*9 were discovered on Sunday in the main hall of Zenkoji temple had just declined to be the starting point of the Olympic torch relay for the Beijing Olympics. The temple premises are said to be open to faithful 24/7*10. But now that it is obious that not everyone is pious*11 worshipper, calls may be made to review this arrangement.
With the "torches" of benevolence*12 being put out one by one society is growing more oppressive, as if everyone should be suspicious of*13 one another. In the shadows cast by suspicion, cynical*14 sayings of old glitter unpleasantly. The indivisuals who vandalized the tulips and the temple are contributing to this unacceptable social trend. (Herald Asahi, April 22)
