Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

The Truth of Nanjing

     I watched a film about what is called the Nanjing Massacre today, though I could only catch the first one hour of it due to an emergency case. This film was the first installment of a trilogy.
     What is known as the Nanjing Massacre has been investigated comprehensively and thoroughly for these past 20 years. Consequently it was concluded that the Nanjing Massacre was made up by the Chinese Communist Party and there are numerous supporting pieces of evidence. Open letters have been sent to Chinese ambassadors, Wen Jiabao (温家宝) and Hu Jintao (胡錦涛) again and again, but they didn't give any answer. I'll show you one of the letters in the following URL: http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2007/04/open-letter-to-.html What do you think after reading this open letter?
     Japan used to be an evil country and was corrected by the U.S. This is what I was taught by the Government. War criminals were punished and the Japanese people were freed by the U.S. Is that correct? Why has Japan apologized to China and Korea so many times? Many Japanese who can get information on the internet started wondering what the real history was like. I've learned about the Tokyo Trial for myself. I'd like to write about the Tokyo Trial and how we were brainwashed by D. McArthur from then on.

  Do you know who was the first person to kill more than 100,000 citizens in one night since recorded history?

(Vocabulary)
catch [他] (時間に間に合って) (映画・番組など)を見られる, (人)と連絡がつく, 話せる
I only caught the last 20 minutes of the movie. その映画は最後の20分しか見られなかった。
installment (雑誌・テレビなどの連載物の) 1回分, 一話, 一部 =episode
trilogy  (劇・本・映画などの) 三部作

(KW: 南京事件 南京大虐殺)

Medical Service System In Japan

     Jessica.Y, one of the frequent subscribers to this blog, asked me about the medical service system in Japan.
     The prices of medical services are regulated by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Every diagnostic approach and method of treatment is reasonably priced by the authority. When a cutting-edge medical technology is developed, it would be investigated for a few years and if it turn out to be effective, the new technology is listed in the coverage of official medical insurance.
     All the methods and approaches of medical service that have their official prices are covered by the official medical insurance. There are different kinds of official medical insurance and all the Japanese have a certain official medical insurance. Have you ever seen the movie "John Q"? The situation of "John Q" would never happen in Japan. No matter how rich or how poor people are, they can receive the same level of medical service across the country. Moreover, people of low income who get welfare payments are completely exempt from the medical charge.
     Japanese medical doctors have better incomes than the average people, but their incomes are lower than those of medical doctors in the western countries. However, I think that this system is good and can be the model for other developed countries.
     What Jessica.Y wrote on the comment column of Apr. 27th is true.

(Vocabulary)
Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare  厚生労働省
cutting-edge  〈研究・芸術などが〉 最先端［最前線］の
cutting-edge technology  最先端技術
exempt  免除された (+ from)

(KW: 日本の医療システム 医療保険)

My Garden Won The Award

     I had my house built 5 years ago. I asked one of the biggest housing companies, Sekisui House, to draw the design. All my family had discussions with the designer again and again. Finally it took three months to draw the blueprint.
     This entry's topic is my garden. I want to have many friends come to my house and have parties. My family are real party animals. Additionally I wanted to make a space for my dog to run.
     The designer's advice was....
     If you want to make the dog run, you never place stones as in a typical Japanese garden and you have to give up raising flowers. Big stones might hurt the dog and the flowers would be ruined by the dog. If you want to enjoy a barbecue, you have to think about an outside sink where you can get a water supply and where you can wash the barbecue utensils after the party. After such discussions, my garden was made up.
     By the way, Sekisui House holds the annual design contest in the company to have designers motivated and develop their capabilities. The design of my garden won the first prize five years ago. When I cleaned my room today, I found the CD that the designer sent to me but I didn't watch it at that time. I placedthe pictures in the left column in this blog so take a look!

(Vocabulary)
blueprint  (設計図の) 青写真

(KW:セキスイハウス)

African Fiesta 2008 In Yokohama

     I got an e-mail from my eldest daughter, Eri, a university student who lives in Tokyo. The following picture was attached to her mail.
     African Fiesta 2008, sponsored by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, was held in Yokohama City and Eri visited for fun.
     Her mail says.....
     She happened to see the booth of Senegal and tried to dance the newest style of sabre dance from Senegal in front of the booth to their ethnic music. The Senegalese in the booth were so astonished to see her dance, because her dance steps were the most recent ones. "How do you know this dance?" She was asked. She took some pictures of her and them and sent me one of them. She sounds like she enjoyed African culture and food and chatting in French.

     By the way, I don't know how she knew the dance, but she had practised jazz dance for more than 10 years since she was in short pants. She was so talented that was selected at the age of 12 as a member of the dance team dispatched by my city to Sacramento in California, USA. Sacramento is the sister city of my city and both cities have been mutually exchanging cultural envoys every two years.
     I guess when she was watching the performances on the stage for the first time, she might have picked up their steps. She likes dancing and I'm showing an old picture in which Eri and Yuri, the second daughter, were dancing at a campground in Canmore, near Banff in Alberta in 1995.

(Vocabulary)
in short pants: 幼少で
I've known Mike since he was in short pants.　子供のころから、マイクを知っている

(KW: サクラメント セネガル ダンス)

This Week's TIME Magazine

     The picture shows the cover of this week's TIME magazine. It tells us how miserable Burma's situation is.
     The Japanese media call Burma Myanmar, in spite of the fact that refugees from Burma call themselves Burmese not Myanmese. The Japanese media are disgraceful.
     Time magazine has consistently used Burma not Myanmar since the coup d'etat in 1989. The writer in the magazine puts it like this, "Burma, also known as Myanmar." Such an attitude that acts according to their principles is honorable. It might be one of the reasons why I read this magazine.

(Vocabulary)
act according to one's principles    筋を通す

(和訳)
写真は今週号のタイム誌である。ビルマの現状が如何に無残なものであるか物語っている。日本のメディアはビルマをミャンマーと呼ぶ。亡命ビルマ人が自らをミャンマー人ではなくビルマ人と呼ぶにもかかわらず、である。日本のメディアは本当に恥ずかしい。タイム誌は１９８９年のクーデター以来一貫してビルマと書いている。この記事のライターもミャンマーととしても知られるビルマという言い方をしている。筋を通すこのような態度は素晴らしい。僕がタイム誌を講読する理由の一つである。

Matsuyama Tourist Port

     I came back to Matsuyama City by the same ferry before it got dark. It's not so often I can see the scenery of the port from the sea and I enjoyed the lovely views from the deck.
     I'll show you "Turner Toh" reef that is just outside the port. "Turner Toh" is the nickname of this reef and the original name is "Shijuu shima". This nickname was named in a famous novel, "Bocchan", that was the story of a teacher who worked in Matsuyama City in the Meiji era.

(Vocabulary)
Matsuyama Tourist Port　松山観光港
"Turner Toh" reef　ターナー島　四十島

(KW: 四十島 ターナー島 坊ちゃん 夏目漱石)
 

Seto Inland Sea

     Japan consists of small islands. The four biggest islands are called "Hokkaido", "Honshu", "Kyushu" and "Shikoku". My hometown is on Shikoku island, the smallest one of these four islands. The water area that lies at the north of Shikoku is called the Seto Inland Sea. This sea is known as the most peaceful sea in Japan.
     The ferry boat that I got on was very slow and was overtaken by a small boat. You might figure out how calm this sea was from the picture.

(Vocabulary)
calm sea / peaceful sea / quiet sea  穏やかな海

(KW: 瀬戸内海 北海道 本州 九州 四国)
 

Marine Corps Air Station(MCAS) Iwakuni, Japan

     The annual air show was put on at Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni City on May 5th. I knew about this Friendship Day long ago, but it was the first time I had attended it. I had been interested in this event, but didn't have a chance to visit the station.
     The days between Apr. 29th and May. 5th are called Golden Week in Japan and it's also a holiday week. I can take consecutive days-off during this week and would rather go out for a longer trip than a day trip. This is the only reason that I haven't been to MCAS Iwakuni.
     Iwakuni City is located on the coast of Chugoku District, just on the opposite side of my hometown across Seto Inland Sea.
     I went there by a ferry that was chartered by the tour company. This ferry was going to enter the military port of MCAS Iwakuni. I couldn't wait to arrive at the port, but there were no military vessels and moreover taking pictures was prohibited. The ferry was designed for a short service like 30 minutes at the longest. I had to stay on that ferry more than 3 hours. It was really an ordeal.
     The air show was great and I enjoyed it. The first picture is the ferry boat that I got on. The second is of a transport aircraft and the last is military jets (F18 Hornets) performing aerobatics at the air show.
(Vocabulary)
air show  航空ショー
put sth on ＜行事・コンサートなど＞を催す, ＜劇など＞を上演する
The school puts on a play every year.  その学校は毎年劇を上演している．
opposite ~~~ across ～を挟んで反対側に
ordeal  厳しい試練, つらい体験
the ordeal of doing sth  ＜…＞する苦しみ［つらさ］
aerobatics  曲芸飛行（術）

 

 

(KW: 米軍 海兵隊 岩国 基地 航空ショー)