Japanese Surgeon's Daily Life

An Old Friend

　　My old friend who lives in Tokyo came back after a long interval. I called up other friends and held a welcoming party for him.
　　He is still single and I'm sometimes envious of his independent, freewheeling life. He often visits unsafe areas where Japan's Foreign Ministry warns to take extreme care. This announcement is on the brink of issuing travel bans. His last trip's destinations were East European countries, but I remember he had stepped in Iraqi Kurdistan or Chernobyl on former trips.
　　He gave us souvenirs from his recent trip to East European countries. It's an armenian brandy, shown below. We opened each bottle at once and tasted it! That's why the amount is a little reduced. We talked forgetting the time.

(Vocabulary)
Iraqi Kurdistan イラク北部に設けられたクルド人自治区





東京に住む古い友人が帰省した。最近行った旅行のお土産ということでアルメニアの酒をもらった。彼は独り者で時々羨ましくなるが、少し危険と思われるところへ旅行する。外務省のウェブサイトを見ると渡航には注意をと指摘されているところにも平気で出かける。今回は東欧だったが、中東の普通の旅行者はあまり立ち入らない地域にも出かけていく。ＦＢでたくさんの記事を書いてくれるので出かけるたびに楽しみにしている。写真は古い仲間が集まった場所で配ってくれたお土産。少し減っているのはその場で皆で少しずつ呑んだから。時間を忘れて痛飲。再会を期して別れた。

Concert

　　I'm a Japanese traditional bamboo flute, shakuhachi, player. I started learning and playing it in my student days, so my career streches about 40 years. I take part in the joint concert with lots of people including school boys and girls once or twice a year these days. I'm writing about a mini-concert in my office in this entry.
　　My office has a daycare department and people who live in that facility wanted to listen to my performance. The following pictures show the concert held in the hospital. Three koto - Japanese harp - players in the picture were also professionals. I hope that people who don't have enough pleasure in their daily lives got some happy time even if it was a short time. Anyway, I also spent a wonderful time in the daytime.

POCKETALK™

　　I've been hearing of pocketalk™. In case you are wondering, it's a translator gadget. It seemed to be able to handle 74 languages, but I didn't have any interest in it at all.
　　However, I had to buy it the other day, because several Chinese came to often visit my office. They are from Dalian and are staying for two years near my office to work in some factories. They are ordinary people and can't speak in English or Japanese, naturally. They can ask for an official interpreter at every consultation, but it's costly. I'm learning Mandarin now for the next trip, but my Chinese skills are not enough to use in medical conversations. The pocketalk™ was an answer eventually.
　　This is surely helpful even in the consultation room, but I found that it's very handy also for learning languages. Chinese pronunciation is unique and difficult for non-natives, and learners don't know if their pronunciation is correct, or not. Yes, I'm using this for my learning. I speak to this in Chinese or other languages sometimes. If my pronunciation is correct, it answers back a correct translation in Japanese. I recommend this for foreign language learners.

Street Terrace

　　While wandering in the European streets, you often find street terraces, but I was afraid if it was too hot or too cool, or I hated them as an obstruction for pedestrians. Today, my family went out for dinner. The restaurant was already occupied, but outside seats were open. We preferred an air-conditioned room, but we seated at the outside terrace. My eyes often met other's who were walking by us, but it was not bad to eat on the busy street.

Kochi Gokoku-jinja Shrine

　　Gokoku-jinja Shrines are often seen across Japan. At least more than 40 shrines exist, but they might not be well known abroad. Accurately and literally translated, Gokoku-jinja means "guardian of the state shrine", or "a shrine for the war dead", i.e., it's for honoring the war dead and praying for divine protection.
　　I was asked to work at a hospital in Kochi prefecture today and visited Kochi Gokoku-jinja Shrine before work. The shrine was deeply quiet in a little chilly air. Several monuments to the dead were built. I put my hands together at every monument.

Jogging

　　Japan has a rainy season called "tsuyu" in the areas other than Hokkaido and a hot summer will come after tsuyu. It's in the midst of tsuyu, but the weather was unusually clear today. I went out jogging. I'm going to run a few marathons this autumn and winter and started practice.
　　My house is located in the suburbs of Matsuyama City and there is a big park nearby, which is designed for exploiting the natural terrain of a hill, so the jogging route in this park is abundant in slopes. It's tough for me to jog here for the start of the practice of this season, but I ran. There are enough public washrooms in the park and I can get enough drinking water from the faucets there for free.
　　Then I visited the military cemetery adjacent to the park on the way home. I'll show you some pictures of the cemetery. Military horses and dogs are also honored there.

　

Memorial Services

　　I'm writing about "Houji", the traditional Buddhist rite. My parents are barely alive, but my wife's parents are already in heaven. They went to heaven 12 and 27 years ago respectively. My wife and I visited my wife's original home today to attend the memorial meeting.
　　Generally, in Houji, a monk chants a sutra for the departed and then his/her descendants get together and have dinner. If you ask me, I think this custom is for connecting the bereaved for now on forever and it's one of the good old traditions of Japan. The picture was shot behind the original house. As you see, the weather was clear. I spent a wonderful time with my brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces.