My opinion of this week(415):

April Fool

Yesterday was April Fool. In Western countries, people enjoy playing some
tricks on this April Fool's day. Sometimes they  goes too much and  cause
a kind of trouble in society. It's no good, of course. I have heard no
such news as far as April Fool of this year is concerned. April Fool may 
come  from  a good tradition of Western countries where humors and wits
are attached a great deal of importance to social life, as far as I 
understand it.
 
April Fool has been penetrated into Japanese society in these days, but 
few people try to play some tricks to others on this day in Japan. 
Whenever, the day comes, I remember one of my personal experience which
happened a long time ago.

I used to work for an American firm located in Tokyo when I was young. 
The day before April Fool, my boss, the top executive of the firm 
suggested me to join his idea on playing a trick to several female staffs
in the office including his secretary. I agreed with him and cooperated
him to prepare for it. I believed it a good trick which is humorous and
witty alright. We set the trick in the office early in the morning before
those women staffs arrived on April Fool. 

Contrary to our expectation, all women including the secretary of boss
started getting angry when they saw  the trick. We were obliged to
apologize to all  female staffs for what we had done. There was some 
cynical and unpleasant mood in the office for several days since then.

Both my boss and I did not really understand why that happened. Those 
female  staffs encountered from time to time a kind of worse jokes which 
were a sort of sexual harassment in the recent terminology from male staffs
in the office. Our expectation was that they all would laugh at it and even
express some cheers when they saw it. But that never happened.

That was the first time that I had convinced the fact that there is a 
great difference in the sense of humor between Westerners and Japanese
although I should not say which is good and which is bad. 

I remember this whenever April Fool day comes every year and continue to
think what the differences are  and where they come from.

2005/4/2
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(416):

Entrance ceremony 

I accepted to become the president of the community association from this
April. The general assembly meeting of the community association was
held on April 3 at a community center and I started making  many works
on community activities together with twenty other committee members since
then. 

I have been a long member of the community association since our family 
started to live here 40 years ago, but I have made almost no contribution
to such community activities. I was quite busy for business when I was 
young. I lived  outside of this community in the past 15 years or so and
came back here four years ago retiring from business. So this is the first
time that I work for the community as in such position.

Every years, the executive member of community association had difficult
time to appoint the president of the association. People hesitate to become
the president position because that involves a lot of works concerning 
community activities. I really did not know it and accepted the position
in accordance with a strong request from the previous committee members of
the association. I realized the fact that how many works are involved with
the position since April 3. 

The community association are concerned with so many works including crime
prevention, disaster prevention, medical cares for aged people, education
of children, environmental issues and so and so on. There are many works 
inside of community itself and many cooperative and coordinative works with
municipal offices and other public organizations are necessary. The 
contents of then were beyond my first expectation. 

One of such works occurred soon after I became the president of the 
association. I was asked to attend the entrance ceremony of an elementary
school and a junior high school  in the community. I attended two of them
with some interest although all I had to do was just go there and sit on
chairs for guests as a representative of community. 

They were quite interested one for me as a matter of fact. While I still have
some memory about the entrance ceremony of a junior high school, I had almost
no memory at all about the entrance ceremony of elementary school. Just a
piece of very old picture is left today in which we can see a kind of dark 
faces of children, a principal and a teacher. The time was just in the middle
of the World War II. 

Contrary to such old day, the ceremony I attended was filled with happiness
and richness. But there were only 69 children in the ceremony. 

After the ceremony, I had a chance to talk with the president of PTA of
that elementary school. He said he would like to talk with me sometime in
near future to get some help on education of children in the community. 
I agreed with him without any hesitation but it was the first time that
I realized the meaning of community's help on education. 

Yes, that is one thing that we have to do as a community. What kind of help
can our community offer for those children? I hope I will be able to write
some concrete plan and actions in this column while I am in this position 
in next several months to come.

2005/4/9
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(417)：

"Any conducts based on patriotism are innocent"

Anti Japan demonstrations participated by masses of people in Peking and
Shanghai against Japanese Embassy and Japanese firms are not to be allowed
in any ways. They made a number of violent actions and gave some damages
to several facilities in those cities. The demonstrators carried placards
saying "AIKOKU MUZAI" which means any conducts based on patriotism are 
innocent. What a silly word it is! 

We can never allow the attitude of Chinese Government about such violence.
Although they expressed the concern and regret about the demonstration, 
they said Japanese Government is responsible for causing such demonstration
by masses of people due to many evil conducts by Japan during World War II.
It is quite natural that Foreign Minister Machimura strongly protested 
against it and requested Chinese Government to apologize for what happened
requesting to take  necessary actions to guarantee safety of Japanese 
citizens and  firms in China. But Chinese Government have not shown any clear
apologies so far.

My wife who usually has little interest in such international news got angry
by seeing TV news. She said: "What a terrible country it is! What kind of 
evil deed  are Japanese Government, firms and people doing to those Chinese
people today ? Japan apologized to China in many ways for what happened in the
previous war, didn't they? Why are they so ungenerous picking up past histories
over and over again?  I fully agreed with what she said.

Japanese people seemed to be rather unconcern about the news in general. I 
think Japanese mass media should express more strong critical messages against
such unreasonable violence happened in China. It is fine that Japanese side 
is calm and not to become too emotional. But they should express more angry at
first for what happened.

We guess that those people participated in demonstration represent only a small
part of people in that country.  There exists many others who have common 
sense in any means.They must know that such violent actions are shameful in 
international society. 

What does AIKOKU MUZAI mean any way?  They said any conducts would be allowed
 if they love the country. Are there any of such moral teaching in China? Never 
happen! 

We Japanese learned a lot of moral code from old Chinese philosophers such
as  Mencius and Confucius. I remembered five basic moral code  taught by
Confucius. They are Jin, Gi, Rei, Chi, Shin which means humanity, justice, 
courtesy,wisdom and faith. I believe those five are moral code which is true
in any worlds and in any ages. We never find any such silly word as 
"AIKOKU MUZAI" in any of those moral code. 

Those foolish chinese masses should learn moral conducts from their own great
philosopher existed in the past history.

2005/4/16
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(418):

Speech of apology at Asia African Meeting

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed deep remorse for Japan's 
wartime past at a meeting of Asian and African leaders on Friday. When
I watched this TV news, I thought why Japan has to repeat this kind of
apologies over and over again which were made several times in the past.
I thought it quite unnecessary at my first glance of the news last night.

But I changed my mind when I read Kubo san's comment in ML this morning
appreciating Koizumi's address at the meeting based on his basic 
strategies to improve relations with China and Korea to keep a good 
relations with other countries in the international word especially 
in Asia and Africa. That's right, his speech at time was timely and 
effective in many means.

Many Europeans, Asia, African countries may not have a good understanding
about the stance of Japan about the past war. Some may have some doubt
about it observing such very strong anti Japan demonstrations happened 
in China recently. Koizumi repeated apology by referring the past 
apology speech made by Prime Minister Murayama almost fifteen years ago.
It is nothing wrong at all to repeat apology itself and he reconfirmed it
by referring the past Prime Minister of Japan. It is the definite fact
itself and it would increase the understanding from the whole world as
far as this issue is concerned. 
 
In TV mews many Chinese in the streets of Beijing on Friday said they 
welcome Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's World War II apology 
made in Indonesia meeting , but many also warned he must follow up the 
apology with concrete, pro-China steps. My second  thought about it  was
how  persistent and demanding those people are. I had another frustration 
when I watched the news.  They obviously were talking  their objection 
about Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni　 Shrine. Why is it so serious for them? 

While many opposition law makers and mass media criticized Koizumi to 
stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine because of strong protest from China and
Korea, I personally  understood the explanation made by Koizumi as to why
he visit the Shrine. There is no contradiction at all between the apology
for the war and the visit to the Shrine which China believes the symbol 
of the past war. 

I have believed so far that Koizumi should never stop visiting the Shrine
regardless such strong opposition from China. It is a matter of basic 
freedom of faith or of religion although I have a different faith myself.
Why do they come into such area of faith? 

But I have begun to have a different thought  even on this issue now. I 
have started thinking that it may be a good idea for the Prime Minister
to stop visiting the shrine for very political reason if that is the only
way to avoid the further conflict with China and Korea. 

I just wonder if I were too Japanese now.

2005/2/23
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(419):

Spirit of bucket brigade 
　
On April 24th, I attended the training session on voluntary disaster 
prevention organization formed  by 10 local community associations in
Murayama City sponsored by West District of North Tama Fire Station 
in Tokyo. The modulator of the session talked about the case of  Hanshin
Awaji Earthquake in 1995 and Niigata Chuetu Earthquake last year.

He talked how serious those earthquakes were and explained how important 
those local voluntary disaster prevention organizations are when such 
serious disasters happen. Those local voluntary disaster prevention 
organization usually play more important part to save people rather than
fire stations.The capacity of those fire stations are not good enough in
numbers once such large scale disasters occur. 

Although I understand it generally, I have never thought that such local
voluntary disaster prevention organizations are so important that local
communities should never forget keeping them in good shape preparing for
serious disasters. Once such big earthquakes happen, self-help at each 
households and cooperative help at communities will play major role 
rather than any of public facilities and systems.

In the question and answer corner of the session, one of a president of 
community associations asked the modulator what he could do about the
fact that a lot less people join now to community association itself 
although he understand the importance of community role to prevent 
disasters. The president pointed out the fact that only about 50% of 
inhabitants join to the community association at the moment. 

The modulator answered he could not do anything about it for it is not
the job of fire station any way. 

I responded it very instantly and said:"That may be the most important 
problem to be solved first, although it is not the issue to be solved by
your organization. Those people from fire stations there seemed to be
embarrassed with my comment a little bit. But I believed my comment is
quite appropriate.

The lack of motives to participate in community activities seems to be
a general tendency of the nation these days. I have once heard that 
some people consider whether or not there exist any community 
associations when they move in there. They try to avoid to join to
any of such associations although there are some. They try to avoid 
making any voluntary works although they are obliged to be a member in
the community. 

Why does this happen? Since I started some works as a president of our 
local community, I encountered many of such depressing mind of people.
It is obvious that any of such voluntary disaster prevention 
organizations will not work when some large scale disasters really
happen with lack of corporative mind as community members. A local 
community association is the minimum common destiny of a society. 

Any of social works, including municipal and nation wide works will
not work with lack of sense of common destiny.

We see many of serious social accidents these days. Many of public systems 
come into fail. Why is it?  One of a fundamental reason for them derives
from the lack of community mind of Japanese people which we used to have
in the past as far as I see.   

I remember scenes of bucket brigade at air raid during the World War II.
People corporate each other making bucket brigade fighting for fires many
nights. 

The main rescue works were done by people in neighborhood rather than public
fire stations and self defense forces at Hanshin Await Earthquake 1995.
 
Such sense of corporative help among community people will be developed
when they face to such big disasters. But it is much better if they are 
cultivated even at our common daily community life as much as possible. 
I recommend  public fire station to hold bucket brigades contests among 
10 local communities on the day of National Disaster Prevention in 
September so that people will remind the importance of the corporative
mind in their communities.

2005/4/30
Tadashi HAYASE