Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

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!

It is located 1 hour and half train ride from Tokyo.

It is to commemorate the event occurred in 19th century, which local fishermen transported cast-away treasure of the shrine across the sea.

So in the festival, the decorated box of the below photo, so called "Mikoshi" was transported by tens of people to the sea from the shrine.

When the mikoshi arrived near the beach, only naked guys remained there and transport it to the sea.

I joined the naked transporter group. Of course we were not totally naked. We wore white loincloth so called "Fundoshi." Very traditional men's swim wear. The difference from modern one is it doesn't cover hips and asses. It has no rubber band in it. You tighten it by folding and roping.

Bathing into water wearing fundoshi made me feel so nice. I could feel water almost all of my lower body. I can never wear boxer pants once I learned how it feels. 

See this video to know what we did.

After swimming in the sea, the group got out of the sea and walked on the street carrying the mikoshi shouting, jumping to demostrate men's energy. Since we got wet and the fundoshi is soaked, private zone's shape became obvious.

Kind of embarrassing? No if you are really Japanese boy, so called "Nihon Danji." I never minded spectators looking at us or taking pictures. We were there to show what we were.

That is the spirit of Naked Festival. I really enjoyed it. I became "Nihon Danji."

However, in modern time not many Japanese men wear it so often because some are too embarrassed or it takes time and is difficult to wear casually. That is why fundoshi can only be seen as custume in festival today.

If you are interested in knowing how to wear it, please see the below video clip.

I went to the Imperial Theatre near the imperial palace to view the stage show of "Gone with the Wind." As you know this is based on America's most famous novel written by Margaret Mitchel. It was written and made into film in 1930's.

I've seen the film version many times and read some parts of the original novel. The stage show was 2 hours and half long. It was like summarized fairly tale version of the novel and film. It is surprising to know such show was played by Japanese actors. It is like Americans playing Samurai and Geisha.

Overall the show was well-done. I do not have to compare that with the film version or original novel. Stage version has its own flavour. This story has good essence of making good story telling. Like contrast of characters, contrast of situations. Good transition and developments so that viewers can easily follow.  

 However, I do not enjoy the story as much as before.

The story is in fact, unrealistic in the following points.

1. Egoistic and moody girl like Scarlett could attract so many men.

2. Such spoiled girl growing up in a wealthy family could take care of giving birth of a child and live through turmoil after the war.

3. Such young lady fell in love with much older guy like Rhett.

Furthermore this story has been criticized for romanticizing the slavery time in the South.

Afro-American people were portrayed as loyal slaves reveling with their oppressors. In the original novel the word "nigger" was repeatedly used. There was an event that Scarlett was assaulted by a Afro-American robbery and her second husband, Frank Kennedy took a revenge of that being Koo Klax Kuran.

Indeed the story was written from the viewpoint of conservative white people in the South. Slavery shouldn't be romanticized.

I am recently interested in an actress, Hattie McDaniel in the film version who won Academy Supporting role award. The film was clean-up version compared to the novel. Not using the word "nigger," Scarlett being assaulted by white man instead of Afro-American. Scarlett's Mammy played by McDaniel did played a very important and active role in the film.

I guess it was because the producer Selznick was Jewish and sharing some oppression experience with her. The film was made in 1930's when Nazi-Germany arose in Europe.

McDaniel made a speech that she was glad to receive the award on behalf of Afro-Americans. She did the great job in that sense although she had to play a sterotype role.

I guess it would be more interesting to make a film of how she lived and how she acted in the fim during that time. Such thing should be focused.

On the Stage version I saw slave role actors put black paint on their skin to look like Afro-American. Scarlett screamed at a slave "Kuronbo (meaning Nigger)." Scarlett was assaulted by Afro-American robbery. These are wrong things, aren't they.