Exit triumphalism

Today the US Congress voted down the much touted 'rescue package', the measure that the American Administration hoped would stabilize the shaky financial sector. I have done quite a lot of reading up about the apparent causes of the 'crisis', especially the shady home lending, with its extraordinary acronyms (whatever would real ninjas have made of NINJA loans?) and dubious packaging of said loans via securitization. Not being an economist or even a financial planner, it is difficult to unravel the layers of esoteric detail of the situation, but I can think logically if I have to.

So it should come as no surprise that if you give large home loans to people who have no chance of paying them back, or who are likely to default in the near future; if you detach the normal screening process from the lender itself (via non-aligned mortgage brokers) and if you then on-sell these high-risk debts as if they were quite reasonable investments,( and multiply this many times over), then you have the makings of full-blown disaster.

You know, it wouldn't take more than a primary school education to figure this out, but the simple logic has alluded regulators and bankers and brokers and other financial wizards, the very cream, as it were, of US capitalism.

And this is the system that would triumph over all, taking no prisoners and ending history as we know it.

I hope that this is the end of this foolish triumphalism.

Goodbye to my old email address

Way back when the internet was all dialup and innocent, I joined Planet Netcom. a Penrith based internet provider, and logged on for the first time. I remember that I had to write out and insert script into some kind of program and do quite a lot more than the point and click that makes most things fairly easy these days. It was late 1995.

I also received my first email address, which I named after my dog Ruth. ruth@pnc.com.au. I've kept and used it to this day, even after PNC was swallowed by a bigger company, and I've sent and received an awful lot of emails since. They document, at least in part, some important times in my life.

Ruth died two years ago this October and the account has long since been superceded by another companies broadband. Still I paid the monthly fee and kept the old email, because it attached me to something I can't put a finger on right now, and it signified a little of the bond between Ruth and me. It was one of those abiding connections, maybe like an old phone number, or perhaps like a box of old letters.

Today I ended the account and I feel very sad about it. Nadia tells me that I'm being silly and that it was a waste of money, though I'm not too sure what dollar value can be attached to memory. Or trust.

js26 More densha

Trains were a bit of a preoccupation of mine in Japan. Not only could you ride on them and potentially go anywhere on the long archapeligo, but they were pretty much constantly heard. Late at night, JR carriages would be clack-clacking from across the old rice paddies down by the river, while the more metallic rumble of the shintetsu trains was omnipresnet as they shuttled through the suburbs. Not only that, but train companies all had different platform jingles or sounds, from tinny horns to cute tunes, though hearing these from our place would have been a stretch.

In the first pic above, a JR local speeds through the above mentioned rice-fields. In the latter, a shintestsu local enters Yokoyama Station from Flowertown.

js25 Trains 2

The Shintetsu spur line runs parallel Sanda'a kansen up to Woodytown.. Generally speaking, it seems less well patronised than the other lines, possibly because it is more expensive. The trains also seem a little older and noisier. Even though we had a Shintetsu station (Yokoyama) 10 minutes stroll from home, we always preferred to walk to the JR mainline station, and I think the reason was principally cost. It was a lovely walk anyway. Sometimes after Nihongo Salon I would catch a local to Flowertown for shopping, though only if I was pressed for time. A few times Nadia and I caught the Kobe Dentetsu to Shinkaichi Station to the west of Kobe if we were going into Sannomiya, though that entailed a change of trains.

For Christmas 2006 I got a little Olympus digital camera and set out to take a few snaps. It was a cold day but the sun had that crisp deep yellow quality, the kind that throws everything into sharp relief. A local on the Shintestsu line was approaching Yokoyama station (from Sanda Honmachi) so I took the shot.

If you want more information on this train company, someone has kindly set up a page in wikipedia, here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Electric_Railway

or here for the company site (in Japanese)

http://www.shintetsu.co.jp/

js24 Trains 1

Japan is a paradise for train lovers or spotters. Lines run the length and breadth of the nation and going by rail is the best way of seeing the country. You don't have to worry about traffic jams or tolls. You certainly don't have to worry about the bloody parking, which is either expensive or simply unavailable.

As I have said in previous posts, Sanda is served by two lines, the JR Fukuchiyama, and the Kobe Dentetsu (also referred to as the Shintetsu). The former runs into Osaka via Takarasuka and the latter, to Kobe. A spur from the Dentetsu runs uptown through Sanda. If I wanted to be a pedant (and perhaps I do here), there is a a third option, which Nadia and I often used when going into Umeda. If you take JR to Takarasuka, you can change to the wonderful, cheaper and often praised Hankyu line. More about my favourite train company later.

Pictured is a JR Tambaji Rapid at a rail crossing on the approach to Sanda Station, coming from the direction of Sasayama.

And more about the Fukuchiyama line can be found here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukuchiyama_Line

js24 Looking up our street

Self-indulgent I know, but here is yet another photo of our street, this one taken from the Sandadani Park end. I could tell you a few anecdotes about this or that neighbour, but perhaps another time. May I draw your attention to the gutters (the principle reason for posting this shot), which are fairly typical in Japan. Yes, pretty much open trenches and an absolute trap for any motorist who might happen to get a little too close. I only ever saw such an accident once, just around the corner, in fact. Once the front wheel went in to the gutter, the car (a van) lurched into the wall. An expensive mistake. On another occasion a new teacher friend of ours walked right into one on a dark night.

So why not cover these vast troughs with a steel grate or the like? Well. you can, but you have to do it yourself. Concrete rectangular blocks cost about 150 yen each and you might need forty to do the front of the property. You can see that the residence on the left of the photo has done this very thing. We had bought and installed a dozen or so outside the school in the critical spots, such as where students parked their cars, and I would have eventually filled the entire area had we not come home.

Apparently this kind of guttering is great for pushing heavy snow into, or so I was told. Though there must really be a better way.

js23 Fukada Park Amphitheatre

All over Sanda City, and no doubt across Japan, are evacuation areas that are solemn reminders that the country is prone to earthquakes, tsunami and typhoons. Fukada Park amphitheatre is a good example of such an area, though it also serves as a performance space, albeit on a rather epic level.

There is a little story which I always associate with this space. When we came to Japan for our sister-city gigs in 1998, Fukada Park was the site of the major performance, a show which included three choirs and a symphony orchestra. It was a wonderful night.

Here I must digress. For the story really begins back in Australia in 1993, when I found a little poster at the local library advertising singing workshops. I tore off the tiny hand-written strip with the contact details. I joined the class (there were only three or four of us) which was run by one Janet Swain. Later that year, Janet formed the choir Crowd Around in her living room, and the rest is (choral) history.

By 1998 we had built a bit of a reputation in the Blue Mountains and Janet applied for (or was asked) to assist with the Sanda-Blue Mountains Sister-City Celebrations. Could we possibly go to Japan for a week of homestay and performance, as representatives of the Blue Mountains? I think you can guess at our answer.

And so we did. And this is what the amphitheatre in Fukada Park always reminds me of. By reading a poster and acting upon an impulse, I ended up living and working in Japan. I also met my wife, who joined Crowd Around in 1998. And we had Tom and began a new journey. You know, I could never have guessed it if you'd asked me 15 years ago.

I'd like to have posted a photo of the choir on stage 10 years ago, but I don't have one handy. So here's a relatively recent shot of the space. It's quiet now but it was buzzing with people and energy then. And so so hot.

js22 Fukada Park

When Nadia and I first went to Japan with our choir Crowd Around in 1998, one of the highlights was an open-air performance at Fukada Park. I wont go into detail about that now. On subsequent stays, barely a day passed when I didn't walk in the park for some reason. It was the kind of place that you could walk through and on top of and about without ever getting bored, and on weekends it was alive with dogs and baseball practice and informal soccer games.

At one end of the park is the Hyogo Museum of Nature and Human Activities, an imposing modernist structure with a vast array of windows, the roof of which acts as a bridge between the Flowertown shopping district and Fujigaoka. At the other end is a children's maze and play area, with the kind of giant slides that are banned in Australia but just fine In Japan.

My attempt at trendy photograhy is an abject failure, but I'm sure you get the idea.

js21 Shimagatani

While most roads in Japan do not have a name, just about every intersection does. I rather like the custom of labeling them, because it immediately identifies a micro-location, a good reference point when trying to give or receive directions.

Our nearest major intersection was Shimagatani, the photo in question taken from adjacent our local hospital, overlooking the multi-lane Kansen. The Kansen winds its way through the heart of Sanda, from the main JR station, past our old chome and up to the 'new towns' of Woodytown and Culturetown. The Shintetsu spur railway line traces the same course.

Follow the arrows (in the enlarged photo) straight ahead and you will be winding your way down to JR Sanda Station. Turn left and you'll end up in the same place, though this way you'll pass a great little Italian restaurant. Make a right and you're heading out to Fujiwaradai and eventually, the spa town of Arima. These of course are just names that have little meaning except maybe to a small band of Sandaphiles, but Nadia and I can readily attach a dozen memories to each direction taken, whether it be to our favourite karaoke box, vegetarian cafe or friend's house.

There is one of these intersections near everyone, everywhere, really.