Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Is Japan regressing to its pre-war condition? The past and present cause me very much to think so. Prime Minister Abe’s pronouncement that the “Imperial army’s comfort women were not coerced in the strict sense of the word” has shaken the American political world and media. Consequently, criticism of Japan has risen, and the American Congress has adopted a resolution demanding that Japan apologize to the WW II comfort women in Asia.

In some respects, this evokes close resemblance to past generation. Before the war was an era before Japan and America were in conflict. During this era, criticism of the Japanese invasion of China mounted, and the Rape of Nanking was widely reported, leading to boycotts of Japanese products, etc. Americans at the time empathized with the Chinese, who were suffering under the Japanese, and with public opinion as a causal factor, sanctions against Japan in the form of the ABCD encirclement were implemented. "A" is America, "B" means British, the “C” means China and "D" means Dutch . At the time, in Japan , there was a sense that the Japanese themselves were not at fault over the sanctions, and with their backs to the wall there would be no option but to retaliate. They merely excused their stance out of emotional theory, which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor .

 The same is happening now. Just as before, the conservative media and politicians claim that the Japanese government is not responsible for the comfort women problem, and maintain their position that the facts should be reexamined. This, despite the fact that an examination was completed 14 years ago, and the Secretary of the Cabinet at the time admitted in conversation direct army involvement. Just as in the prewar years, the judgment is extremely inward-looking and purely subjective. Further, there is no strategy behind the action. There is no sense that the resulting destination has been coolly considered. Indeed, it resembles Japan just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor .

Nevertheless, in one sense, I can hope that the current adoption will lead to a cooling off. This is because public opinion and politics in America, which is our greatest ally overseas, has started to become greatly involved in the problem of our war responsibility, which was hitherto thought to be merely a problem of the Right and Left. This is so-called “outside pressure”. This is not merely ideology, but clearly starting to develop into a question of national interest. The outside viewpoint becomes clear, forcing us to realize just how irrational our actions are. Relations with China and Korea have already chilled because of the ceremonial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and at this juncture, America can also now be added. This closely resembles the process that led to the formation of the ABCD encirclement previously. The adoption of this resolution may cause Japan to feel a sense of humiliation like having been scolded by a teacher. This should not lead, however, to citing “hara-kiri” as in the past, but should be linked primarily to coolly considering what is in the national interest. I want Japan to quit acting on emotion alone.

The first thing should be done is that Prime Minister Abe resign from his position. He made things worse.

A story of a B-29 bomber pilot who time-travels from the war-time Tokyo to present-time.

Please read from Chapter 1 to Chapter 6 first.

The texts are on Japanese blog. Please find English paragraphs on this site.

 Thank you.

I went to Kyoto last night and came back home this morning. It was hectic trip. Indeed it was not a travel for private pleasure. The trip was for business. But I could manage to visit some tourist spots in Kyoto.

 One of them is Gion town street, where my favorit movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" story took place. Geisha named SAYURI grew up there. It was pretty and very Japanese town. Unfortunately I could not see any Geisha walking on the street because it was early in the morning. But I enjoyed the street view very much. See the picture below.

The other place I went to was Kiyomizu Temple. It is famous for high stage wooden building. There is a proverb in Japan, "Jumping off the Kiyomizu Stage." meaning trying to do a big new thing. Imagine how brave you have to be to jump off this stage.

This is the view from the stage. It is 3-5 story building tall but in the old days, it was very high.

You can see other pictures of Kyoto along with other places in my photo album section on the right. Click on Japan Scenaries.

Kyoto is like foreign place for me because I used to live in US for several years and visite many foreign cities in Europe and China. Kyoto is one of great world's heritage.

Kyoto is beautiful, I am planning to visit there again near future. I will talk more about it later.

Japan has many, many earthquakes. As you know what happened in Niigata Prefecture, major earthquake and casualties like that can be seen once or twice every year. It is like annual events of our country. This earthquake caused 10 casualties but the most serious thing in fact is nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-kariwa built in this area caught a fire and was partially destructed. See the pictures.

The plant now stopped the operation for examination. It will take a year to recover and reoperate. But I hope it would not restart operating forever.

Can't believe the plant is on such dangerous area. In fact nowhere in Japan is suitable for the nuclear power plant. Japan is earthquake land.

Proponets of the nuclear energey claim Japan lacks natural resources, so we have no choice but to rely on nuclear energey. About 30% of power comes from nuclear energey. But the risk for the accident is so huge. In fact, we've already had tens of accidents. Several plant workers died. One town was closed for days because of the radiation leak. This time we had small radiation leak to the air and the ocean.

Japan can invent, and develop alternative energey like windpower and solar energey. We have the technology. But politicians are reluctant because they are heavily influenced by major power plant corporations and their union workers. The media is reluctant to report such issues because their major sponsors are power plant corporations. It is like NBC owned by GE.

This is not just Japan's problem. Like Three Mile and Chernobyl, the damage would be worldwide. Even after the accident, many residents living close to the plants are dying every year.

We can develop alternative and safe energey sources and we can even change our lifestyle to reduce our energey consumption.

 Tokyo Electric Power Corporation which owns the Kashiwazaki-kariwa plant announced Tokyo will face energey shortage because of the temporary shutdown. The company requests us to save energey to keep up the reduced supply.

As a citizen of Tokyo, I welcome that. If we can go through this year with less energey supply, that proves we do not need the shutdown plant and make this temporary shutdown permanent one. After that, we can make new movement to abondon the nuclear power plants nationwide and then worldwide.

 NO MORE NUCLEAR ENERGEY!. This is the way our world should go!