Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

The title is Russian but it is Japanese film about two Japanese women who had a sexual relationship in 1920's. It means "Yuriko, Good-bye!."

One of them is Yoshiko Yuasa, who was a translator for Russian literature. The other is Yuriko Nakajo, a novelist. They met in Tokyo and started to have sexual relationship and then travelled to Moscow together to study Russian.

Can you believe women in those days had relationship like today's gay couple? Indeed they did. They did it openly. Japan in those days was much more male chevinist society than today. Women did not have rights to vote. Women were expected to get married to men which their parents designated and work at home. But they could not resist passion they shared with each other.

The couple had 3 years of relationship and aparted. Yuriko later married a communist activist and then after the war, she became a leading figure of post-wolrd-war-2 democratic movement. She was actually a bi-sexual woman whereas Yoshiko was truly lesbian woman who had relationship with Geisha woman before she met Yuriko.

I went to see the movie on the first showing in Tokyo. The director, Sachi Hamano, and two actresses who played the couple appeared on the stage before the showing. The actresses were very pretty. Their act, especially lesbian sex scene was very fantastic and erotic.

There were viewers from foreign countries at the theatre. I don't know if they understood the language. I think they should be more curious than Japanese viewers were.

The film itself was great one although it did not describe their life in Moscow. The film was mainly about how they met and developed relationship before they went to Moscow.

I wonder if this film is shown in foreign country or translated version of it is produced.

Translated version should be like two western women met in London or Berlin and travelled to Moscow in 1920's or 1930's. Living together there in the cold Moscow. I recommend Nicole Kidman, or Jodie Foster to play the two.

The below is preview of the film (Only Japanese).

The Founder of computer giant, Apple, Steve Jobs died. He was a charisma, capable of inventing creative and sophisticated computer products such as Macintosh, iPhone, and iPad.

People mourned his death as though an emperor died.

But at the same time in his homeland, there was a contradicting movement "Occupy Wall Street." This illustrates how serious the economy as a whole is despite the Apple marked record high sales.

Most Americans are not talented and lucky to be like Steve Jobs. From childhood, everyone is told that if you work hard, you can make yourself successful person. The reality is not.

But why should we treat him like a hero? After all, he is one of ambitious or greedy businessmen who wanted to make a huge money and prove himself very talented. He wasn't a saint like Mother Teresa or Ghandi. Nor was he a civil activist like Martin Luther King.

He was a member of richest 1 % which "Occupy Wall Street" people scapegoat.

I support Occupy Wall Street movement. It is not happening just in the U.S. but worldwide including Japan. Younger people are having hard time finding decent jobs. Partly because only 1 % occupy vast majority of the wealth.

I think a lot of people are now seeing the limit of capitalism and materialism. It is time to change our value in life.

Death of Steve Jobs and Occupy Wall Street movement symbolize coming of new era.

A decade has passed since that incident.

The U.S. declared global war on terror. The U.S. sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.

After all, did the U.S. win?

The U.S. killed Hussein and Binladen.

But the Taliban wasn't defeated. They now revived their momentum gaining support from the localies.

Iraq was never democratised but became anarchic. Iraq never had weapons of mass-destruction.

It was a fake information. The U.S. provoked war based on the lies they made up. That deteriorated reputation of the U.S. government.

The U.S. spent 1 trillion dollars for the two wars. Now the budget is in serious condition.

The economy is in very bad shape. High unemployment rate, lower rating of U.S. treasury bonds.

The U.S. parliament passed PATRIOT law. The civil liberty has been violated. The distrust against Muslims is growing. The nation is divided. The U.S. is no longer free society.

Oh, it seemed things has moved as the terrorists wish.

The book is letter format. A writer named Chikako Yamamoto's wrote her experience of life in West Germany during Chernobyl nuclear crisis between April 1986 and 1989.

During that time she lived in West Berlin. What she experienced had many similarities to my current life in Tokyo, or surprisingly even worse. Tokyo is 220 kilometers away from Fukushima, but West Berlin is 1200 km away from Chernobyl. But radioactives Germen had to deal with was the same or even worse than Fukushima. Is it because Chernobyl disaster was much worse and more wide-spread or what we've been told since Fukushima crisis was censored by the authorities?

The life in West Germany was dramatically changed since Chernobyl accident occurred. The newspaper was occupied by radioactive related matters.

In contrast as time passed by, people tried to adopt to such changed environment and not to pay attention to serious matters although food they ate had been kept contaminated.

West Germany at that time censored the reports on radioactives and supressed anti-nuke activities because at that time West Germany took pro-nuke policy. But some citizens stood up and started to fight against oppression.

Similar phenomenons have been happening here in Japan.

However, because this is quarter century after Chernobyl, we may have been a little wiser, I hope.

Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan declared "Less dependency on nuclear energy" policy on August 6, the day of Hiroshima nuclear bomb day. It is like modeled after Germany's decision of abandoning all nuke plants in that country by 2012.

Now only 1 third of Japan's nuclear power plants are operated currently. No re-operation is scheduled at this point. Local governments of where nuke plants are located are very reluctant to OK re-operation. 

Japan's Parliament decided to pass the law that promotes more use of renewable energy, so called FIT (Feed in Tarrif). This is modeled after Germany's system as well.

We have to learn a lot from Germany's experience, like we did in the past such as imperial constitution and ground force military system in late 19th century and how to recover relationship with neighboring nations which we invaded during the second world war.

Deutschland, be our good model. Danke!