A catalyst for many young aspiring baseball stars to go on to bigger things, in particular those who aspire to the ultimate goal of playing on a major league team, especially an American one.
I fondly remember the first time I was invited to an elementary school as a guest, it was my very first experience for the school lunch in Japan.
I have a relationship with a subsidiary of a large corporation since 1992. There was a gruff but kind engineer who had been with this company from its inception in 1970. He called me “anchan” all the time, which I guess was an appropriate suffix for him to use in this ridged Japanese hierarchal system.
Japan’s natural religion, Shinto (神道), consist of 2 ideograms: “God (神)” and “Way (道)”. I noticed there are many different Japanese disciplines contain “Way (道)”. The “Way (道)” to be the most important thing in ones own life, and the quest for all is to find ones own “Way (道)”.
Bathing is truly a unique experience in Japan. I never thought about the art of bathing while growing up in Central British Columbia, when as a child, I was taking my weekly bath on Sunday evening. Jump in, scrub up, wash off the soap (yes, while in the same water one soaped up in is where one also rinsed)
Stinky, Slimy, Savoury, Succulent and So on… One get a mixed reaction from many of the Japanese, and uniform abhorrence of this miracle food from foreigners.
What may look like just a gigantic party in Japan, is actually something that has much deeper meaning and significance to the Japanese. The time when cherry blossoms are bloom is when the Japanese gather to reflect on just how fleeting and ephemeral life can be, all the while sitting, eating, drinking, and some times singing and dancing as they congregating beneath the majestic cherry trees.
Of course the party always starts with some long winded speech by a couple of “important people”, of the group. These speeches tend to drone on and every one wants them to shut up and start the party. There’s always an amazing array of delicious food and lots and lots of “junkatsu yu” or social lubricant.
Last week we talked about the 9-year old drumming prodigy Yoyoka Kaneai and her original appearance on ellentube. She was invited on the show for a second time (first for Japanese citizen) to find out what happened in that most amusing original encounter.
