City in Amazon

Two days ago, I received a post card with a picture of more than 50 crocodiles laying in a field just beside a greenish murky river. From this picture, I was able to tell the sender of this card without any waver. Yes, this is from Risa in Amazon!!

Since this summer, one of my friend went to Brazil as a Japanese language/culture teacher through "Seinen-Kaigai-Kyoryoku-Tai" program ran by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Purpose of this program is to support the community in developing countries from different key aspects such as health, education, agriculture, etc. Program is operated in semi year cycle and dispatched staff will stay in certain country for two years to complete their mission.

Risa`s main mission was to teach Japanese language and culture for the people in a city called, Tome Acu, Brazil. Tome Acu is a city where large population of Japanese descents live since 1920s as a political contract between Japanese and Local government of South Amazon to increase the production of Japanese rice and Cacao. In 1929, 189 Japanese went to Amazon as the first group, yet, their life was very severe than they  expected due to the fell of the rice production. Although the program was not in success from the beginning, emigrants from Japan continued. However, leaving people without enough economical power, from 1935-1942, 1603 people returned to Japan due to the spread of Maralia. Right after the return of large emigrants, WWII began which was a start of the hellish days for the people who remained in the land of Amazon. After the war, suffering life of the Japanese emigrants continued until 1970s when the price of cacao up warded that helped to stabilize the life condition of the emigrants. Today, more than 1600 Japanese descents live in Tome Acu and many young Japanese descents and local Brazilians cooperate to increase the agriculture production to enhance their living.

There was a web-site made by the people in Tome Acu in Japanese: http://tome-acu.hp.infoseek.co.jp/  I was very surprised by the hardly united community where Japanese culture was rooted in the society. Many stores were owned by the Japanese descents.

According to Risa`s message, it seems to be very difficult for her to teach nor to send message of Japanese culture since the people in Brazil were more Japanese than Risa. I can imagine how difficult it can be to exchange ideas on a single culture where people speak from different perspective and period of time.

I hope that I can make some time to visit her and find more about the life of emigrated people in Brazil.

Gochisousama

This afternoon, friends from high school gathered in Roppongi to welcome our friend, Habukin, from  US. Four of us met first and had a quick lunch at a ramen shop in the Roppongi Hills as Habuki requested. The place was called, Ramen Tesugama, and we found it pretty yummy~~.

Some of you in abroad may not understand, but there are many ramen freaks in Japan. They are absolutely addicted and fell under the spell of ramen. People speak about the differences on the soup in very detail such as what kind of fish the shop use to make the soup and how long they boil. My friend was aware of where a certain shop buys the noodles from and even the price of those noodles/serving. 

From my perspective, ramen is a type of fast food in Japan, which can be categorized as an unhealthy food as hamburgers in US. Can you imagine you being a hamburger freak, eating them everyday and discussing with friends on the detailed characterization on meet, cheese and bread?

I do hope to have more interest on food, but do not want to be in a level of freak which may turn myself into geekazoid...

Portrait

Please follow the instruction.

1. Draw a large circle.

2. Draw 2 sets of lines in the middle (45 degrees downward. One in right and other  in left)

3. Draw a short horizontal line below the 2 sets of lines.

4. Draw 2 half circle between 2. and 3.

Done! What do you see???

Its me!!

On Saturday afternoon, my friend from the same company and I went to a Cultural Festival in Waseda University to recapture our youth from the youngers. The campus was filled by so many different types of shops such as BBQ chicken shop, soup&bread shop, Japanese pancake shop, ... (so many foods...).

Best of the bunch was the "Portrait shop!!" Students in Comic group sat in a line and drew each of our face with in 5 to 10 min by only 200 yen!! The quality was great! The picture above was written by a Japanese special brush called, Fude. Fude is very difficult to use for drawing unless you know how to use it in a right way to avoid any smudge.

We also stopped by a shop called, "Private consulting room for any emotional issues".Their aim was to listen to other`s situation and help people to heel any kind of conflict they may have. Since we did not have enough problem to share, we decided to exchange our position with the shoper by us, being a counselor instead. The concept of this shop was pretty good!

University did help us to refresh ourselves!

Turtle Lover

Question: "If you are in love with Turtles, raise your hand~"

Prediction: 5/100 will say "YES"

Comment: Have more skins hip with them!

In the end of  this August, my brother brought 2 turtles. One is called Ishigame (photo) and the other is Hanagame. Ishigame is smaller in size, very sensitive and difficult to adapt into a new environment. In the other hand, Hanagame is larger and it has a strong power to push things around. However this is what I read from my bible, "Tips for you to be a friend with TURTLES!".

Our Ishigame (Ishi-chan) and Hanagame (Hana-chan) have absolutly the opposite character. Ishi-chan is more aggresive and challenging than Hana-chan and it will go to anyplace with out any hesitation. However, Hana-chan is more quite and it does not move much in the new environment.

Cutest thing of these two are the way they turn their body by using their neck. Once you come across to this, you will be addicted to them and do feel that you want to watch them forever.

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---Work to the same end but different approach---

Yesterday, I met my friend from university who works for JBIC (Japan Bank of International Cooperation). He is in the Environmental Risk Assessment team, working as an analyst to measure the environmental impact on different projects such as dam construction in developing countries. The result of the analysis will be reported to the target government such as India and Japanese company which tendered to obtain the project. Then, JBIC will make a decision to let a loan for this project or not by using the relevant Japanese company. At the same time, Indian government will consider the result of the test to determine the quality of the company.

Through out his explanation, I have realized so many similarities between his work and mine although we work in different style, situation, targets, restriction,...etc. The biggest difference was that he was working externally where as I work internally as a part of the company. According to his speech, it is very difficult for him to expand his scope of analysis nor investigation even he was certain that the problem lies prior to the point where he focused on. In the other hand, I do have a specific scope to look into, yet, there is a possibility to expand if necessary. He often feels powerlessness on his position who can only work with in the strictly restricted zone of the entire project.

It is great to have both external and internal perspectives. However, for now, I am satisfied with my position and I defiantly feel that working as an internal player do have so many important learning chances to increase one`s skill and knowledge for further use.