Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

Tendency of Japanese Way of Thinking

　　Firstly, look at the cap shown in the following picture. It was delivered to me from a friend who had attended the exercises of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, which was open to the public. Civilians who had been luckily selected in a draw were invited onto the military vessels. He got on board the destroyer DD-114 Suzunami, the name of which is printed on the front of the cap. I had stepped on board a destroyer DD-228 Yuubetsu once, but it was moored. In his case, Suzunami was deployed along with other military vessels. It would have been a spectacular scene.
　　After the Greater East Asian War, we Japanese have been educated by the rule written by Allied Forces. We were infused with Western-oriented ways of looking at history. It was favorable to the U.S. Despite lots of the Allied Forces' breaches of international law such as indiscriminate bombings - more than 100,000 civilians were killed in one night in Tokyo in March 1945, more than 300,000 in Hiroshima by a single atomic bomb -, law-abiding Japan has been accused. Lots of young Japanese people have been educated to believe the evil of Japan and programmed to hate Japan. However, thanks to the recent violence of China and South Korea, ordinary people in Japan began to notice the distorted history. The activity of Japan's Self-defence Force started to attract people's attention. Japan is considerably changing now.

(Vocabulary)
in a draw くじで
Western-oriented ways of looking at history  欧米中心史観
breachs [C,U] (法律・規則・約束などの) 違反, 不履行, 侵害

Destroyer DD-114 Suzunami


DD-228 Yuubetsu

http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2006/08/japan-self-defe.html

Korean Delusive Act

To the citizens of Glendale City, California

Are you sane?　Or victims of Korean fabrication?

http://youtu.be/ggQaYD37Jm4

 

グレンデール市の市民の皆さんへ

あなた方は正気ですか？　それとも朝鮮人の嘘の被害者ですか？

Bullets

　　I usually see patients at the OPD on weekdays until 12 o'clock. When the tide of the patients stops, I sometimes enjoy chatting with them about everything under the sun. A patient, who had been dispatched to southern China during the Great East Asian War, visited me today with some valuable things, some of which are shown in the picture. They were bullets for the type 38 rifle. The moment I saw them, I was surprised and shouted, "Is it all right for you to keep them privately? Isn't it illegal?" He disassembled a bullet with a smile on his face and explained how it worked and showed me that it had no powder at the same time. I'm not accustomed to seeing guns or bullets, and so I got a little upset.
　　In the battlefields, he was engaged in the maintenance of the railways and the transportation of the military equipment and supplies. His story was really interesting and suggestive of the misery of the war.

Google Seminar

　　I joined a seminar on Google Apps. I use Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar in my everyday life, and I was interested in Google Apps, too. I knew it was for corporate services, but I wished to know how it worked. The presenter mentioned its functions, using movies effectively. In my opinion, it is great and it would streamline users' work. If I were to lead some groups, I would put it to effective use.

Microwave Oven and Toaster Oven

　　I'm embarrassed to say, I didn't fully understand the differences between a microwave oven and a toaster oven until this day. When I called my wife and ask how to use it, she laughed at what I had done.
　　The story is like this. I went to the nearest supermarket to get some late-night snacks in the afternoon as I had to stay overnight at my hospital. I was allowed to sleep, but if there was an emergency, I couldn't sleep and would get hungry at that time. So, I prepared something, which is shown in the picture. It was a set of small frozen pizzas, the diameter of which is about 10cm, and the description said, "You should use a toaster oven to thaw and cook them." My room is provided with a microwave oven and I thought I could cook them with it. I put a piece of frozen pizza in themicrowave oven and heated it. The result was....the pizza was barely edibleand the taste was terrible. I found that toasting and heating is completely different.

(Vocabulary)
thaw 〈人・物などが〉〈氷・雪など〉を解かす；〈冷凍食品〉を解凍する, 戻す（＋out）
～ （out） frozen food before cooking 冷凍食品を調理前にもとに戻す.

Holland

　　I've been writing this blog for about 8 years and it's probably the first time to handle Holland as a topic. That's because my youngest daughter set out for Holland a short while ago. She was dispatched to The Hague in Holland through the Youth Camp Exchange Program organized by the International Lions Club. Young exchange people from Japan to Europe are supposed to leave Japan tomorrow morning from three principal airports of Japan, i.e. Narita, Chubu and Kansai Airport. My daughter flew to Kansai Airport to get on-board tomorrow's flight LH741. All of them will get together at Frankfurt Airport when they arrive. Then they'll head for everyone's destination, like Amsterdam, Zurich, Helsinki, and so on.
　　Back to my daughter's story, it's her 7th time to go abroad, but the first time to visit Europe. She can speak English really fluently, but will be puzzled by other countries' unfamiliar customs. I hope those experiences will help her grow up. She is a budding doctor and wants to work in an international organization like WHO in the future.
　　She is due to stay with a Dutch family for 2 weeks and spend another 2 weeks in the countryside near the border with Germany with young people from all over the world. In the camp, she apparently seems to be a single Japanese and co-campers will ask her lots of things associated with Japan and vice versa. I'm looking forward to hearing her story about the camp.

(Vocabulary)
be due to do something  ＜…＞する予定である
The theme park is due to open next year. そのテーマパークは来年オープンする予定です．

New Camera

　　I wrote about my new camera before, which I got really luckily. This camera has a function of shooting 6.5 pictures per second. I had been eager to use the function after knowing that. Though I shot pictures of cars passing in front of my house, it was not fun. Last night, I happened to watch a TV news item and knew the preliminary games of the senior high school baseball tournament had begun. I believed that's it!
　　Today, I went to the stadium with my camera hanging from my neck. I tried to shoot the scene of battings. I'll upload a set of pictures below. You can see a small ball clearly. I wondered at the function. I'm not a professional photographer, but I could take these pictures. Thanks to the development of memory cards, you can actually stock as many pictures as you want in the camera and moreover they are recorded digitally and don't need any development. It leads to saving money.

Community Work

　　In my hometown, a day of the year is designated as the clean-up day of the whole city every year. July 14th was the day this year. Lots of people take part in the task of cleaning up their own neighborhood. It's not an obligatory activity and those who have some other work or something don't have to attend the event. All of them are voluntary. In general, Japanese people tend to keep tidy around their houses, but it has some limitations. The cleaning which requires much labor is usually done on this day. The pictures show a group of people who cut the weeds alongside the road. Those who have grass cutters got together with them and others including me collect the weeds cut down. It was early morning, but it was terribly hot.

Beer Train

　　My commute route is really nice, running between the downtown and a rural town, through the forest, along the seaside, and it has a wide variety of scenery. One of those beautiful scenes is the setting sun on the Seto Inland Sea.
　　The transportation company, JR, recognized that it has a commercial potential and prepared a special type of train, which is shown in the picture. Though I don't know what I should call it in English, this car has no windows and not even walls. Just a roof was provided. The train makes a round trip from Matsuyama City to Nagahama Town in two and half hours, which is my commute route, and passengers are served as much as they want beer or soft drinks with a packed supper. You are allowed to bring nibbles or anything into the car. It was really fun to have a beer party, viewing scenery from the train.

No, Never, Drugs Campaign

　　A campaign was held in the busiest shopping street in my hometown today. More than 500 people from across the political, educational, and governmental spectrum gathered. Naturally, several volunteer bodies like Matsuyama Chuo Lions Club, which I belong to, joined. Over chatting with high school students, carrying a placard and passing out flyers, we walked along the street for an hour. Much to everybody's regret, crimes associated with drugs are still happening in Japan. The flyers we delivered point out the hazards of using drugs.

New Single-lens Reflex Camera

　　I'm afraid that I have become a lousy man who derives pleasure from other's misfortunes. The story is like this: One of my friends, who is a camera enthusiast, had a nice single-lens reflex camera and he had often been asked to take snaps on various occasions like community festivals, field days, show and tells and so on. One day his camera was broken with old age. The shutter unit seemed to have reached its life span and so he gave up using the camera and decided to buy the newest one. He was going to throw the broken one away, and I asked him to give it to me with its accessories for exclusive use. These accessories were useless without its compatible camera itself. Additionally I bought two lenses from him which were in general use and he would trade in.
　　I ordered the repair from a shop and the broken unit was totally replaced. That meant the camera was the same as a new one. Including the accessories, the full set of the camera would cost more than 250,000 yen new, but I got them for 40,000 yen. It was wonderful. I'm planning to visit Europe this autumn and this camera would make the trip more enjoyable. I prepared the space for them in my bookshelf. Whenever I bought something like these gadgets, my wife would make a fuss, but this time I could get through it. No matter what she said, I got only a broken camera.

(Vocabulary)
derive sth from sth ＜…＞から＜喜び・恩恵など＞を得る
Many people derive pleasure from reading.  多くの人が読書から喜びを得ている．
derive pleasure from someone's misfortune  （人）の不幸を喜ぶ
with old age  経年変化により
cost $__ new  新品だと＿ドルかかる
fuss (ささいなことに対する) 大騒ぎ, 空騒ぎ
make a fuss  騒ぎたてる, 不平を言う
She kicked up a fuss when the waiter forgot her order. ウェイターが注文を忘れたことに対して彼女はぶうぶう言った．