happy birthday tom!

Tom is one today. Right now he is having a nap while I dash out these words, though he customarily wakes in the middle of a sentence. There is no escaping this tyranny. And this joy.

Time seems at a standstill as we try, vainly, to get our things together. There are empty boxes and part-full boxes, flat boxes and parts of boxes. Getting them in a complete state to the post office is the hard part. We just don't see to have the time to make it.

The Australian PM is in Japan at the moment. I have tried hard to avoid this man but he seems bent on thwarting me.

So Happy First Birthday Tom! The photo above was not taken today, but a week or so ago in Sasayama. Country Japan.

chain gang

It's difficult not to be sceptical about the visit of Dick Cheney to Australia. His musings on China, Iran and the Middle East are suspect, to say the least. Cheney is really the brains behind the Bush administration and a key architect of the disasterous war in Iraq. The unelected Rumsfeld has gone and has now received a dumping from John McCain.

Cheney, however, has been able to hide behind his bumbling and cliche ridden boss. Bush has undoubtedly taken some of the flack that should reasonably have be sheeted home to Cheney.

Naturally Australia, like the vassal state we so often seem to be, laid out the red carpet, closed the streets to traffic, and generally brown-nosed the so often mistaken VP. When will we grow up? An alliance is one thing. Sycophancy is quite another.

celebrity

I don't understand it and I don't crave it. I really have no notion of what its about or even why it exists. But evidently it drives a whole industry of magazines and media.

I notice that even my favourite online paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, regularly features pieces about talentless yet, um, famous, c's. Their names wont be featured here. Why add to their glory?

Time is fast flying and we still have a lot of packing and 'closure' before leaving. In fact, there's only four weeks of teaching and then a week or so of hols. It's fantastic that the school will continue though I doubt that we will get to hear much about how things go after Becki takes charge.

Soft Landing?

My last post mused on how things might go for Yes School in the next two months. The answer came last week when a young American called Becki and a Japanese friend bought the school. Not only that but we seem to have had an influx of trial students - by my reckonning, about 10 in the last week. It's nice to be so popular again though it's come a little late for us. But more power to the new owners. We really hope that they do well.

So there is a little less for us to do over the next two months- plenty of teaching still and a lot of packing and sending. But we are happy for the continuity.

A few days ago I cracked a rib as a result of tripping over a large concrete seat in the middle of the pathway near the new Aeon. A shocking place for it but I should have been watching where I was going, not musing at the view. As a tribute, I leave the above photo. The injury occurred on the right of the concrete bridge. And boy does it hurt!

Time, Winter, Tom.

Since Christmas, time seems to having been racing by. In a week it will be February (stop stating the bleedin' obvious -ed.) and we will be starting to wind things up here. Presently we don't know just how the story will end. Will the school sell to a happy buyer and go on for another twenty years, or will we close it down? I sincerely hope for the former. We won't see a brass razoo, but both of us hope that something we believe in can continue and that our relationship with Japan can remain strong. After all, its been our second home for a long time now.

Tom is moving through the hai hai phase and is walking with the support of whatever object his hands can grasp. Sometimes these objects lack purchase or grounding and so he discovers, to his discomforture, that gravity is a central force in his life. I can't count the number of times his head has impacted the floor. But he always bounces back.

He has also taken a liking to the keyboard as the picture above attests.

Worst pop music ever

Sometimes I tune into my local community radio Honey FM for the short duration of its tiny footprint, though I am never sure why. Morning programming is particularly anodyne, either, a selection of American Country from the 1970's, or, pop hits of the same era. Thinking about the latter ( a mismash of bubblegum tosh that I really had forgotten existed) set me to wondering about a SMH blog I read the other day,,,,,,,the worst ever pop songs.

I had meant to respond to the blog but found myself wondering whether the songs listed could ever represent anything other than a personal viewpoint. Surely there must be a list of the top 20 worst songs we could all agree on? Doesn't everyone groan at the mention of....(Insert your most hated song in this space)? But here is where memory plays a trick. Even while I agreed, for the most part, with the bloggers opinion, listening to Honey FM's ghastly selection demonstrated that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of forgotten pop tragedies. Most of them are of equal awfulness. Any ranking would be purely subjective.

Was it Elton John who said that pop music is really a disposable commodity, like so much else? We can love songs for a little while and then forget them , like spring flowers. Perhaps all that matters is how we felt at the time we liked them, in that short space between familiarity and contempt.

Moider most foul.

On the whole, I feel very safe in Japan. It's an orderly place and people exert a high level of self-control, certainly more than in Australia. I haven't checked the crime figures, but I would guess that the murder rate per head of population is higher in Oz too.

But when it come to brutal or bizarre murders, often amongst family members, Japan takes the cake. Rarely a day passes when another out of the ordinary killing is reported. Most recently, a young man murdered and chopped into pieces his sister, allegedly because she told him that he wouldn't amount to anything. It's now pretty routine for news items about fathers killing sons or daughters, sons killing their fathers, mothers dropping infants from high rise apartments and so on.

I've asked Japanese friends and students just what is going on. Is there something the matter in modern Japanese society? I have a few pet theories that I wont discuss here. Suffice it it say that many people seem to think that something is rotten at a fundamental level. Too much pressure...few mental health services.

I do feel safe here but I wonder, for example, about the man next door, who dislikes foreigners and who one evening banged angrily on his bedroom window when our baby was crying. Yes really, a potential lunatic, in my opinion.

Happy New Year!

The world is a sorry place. Bomb blasts, wars, cruelty and ignorance abound. Things appear to be getting worse in absolute denial of any notion of progress. There is surely, no perfection for the human species. Who would place odds on another 500 years of earthly domination?

Still, there is a light, small, distant and hard to distinguish through the noise of infamy and folly, which is compelling and necessary.

So Happy New Year from this tired family. And a moment of levity.....

Winter Teething

I broke a filling about two weeks ago eating a bowl of muesli. A kindly Japanese dentist very competently fixed the problem on Boxing Day and refused payment. What can I say for such kindness?

I would like to mention her name but I have been censored by my wife, as usual. The creative process aint what it used to be.

But I'm grateful all the same.

This and That

I think most non-Japanese living in Japan for any length of time reach a point (I believe it's usually around the three year mark) when they start to become a little cynical about their circumstnces. Yes, and especially, somewhat critical of their adopted home.

We all breeze through the first year, thinking that the sun shines brightly from every orifice here. Even the staring seems interesting. Are we not the centre of attention? Are we not exotic? We are like swans in the duckpond.

Year Two is a consolidation of this process, though a few things start to rankle. Why does it have to be done that way? Why this absurd rigmarole? And what about that obaasan who snuck ahead of me in the train queue or the one who pushed me out of the way to get discounted bread? And why are those men sitting when there are older people and even pregnant women standing on the train? Hmmm. But still, it's a great place to live. And anyway, there are plenty of problems back home much worse.....

It may well be that familiarity breads a kind of contempt, or just the onset of reality over the Disney state of mind, but Year Three, for many foreigners here, seems to present a fork in the road, or perhaps, a roundabout. Some, feeling that its unfair that they are still 'foreigners', become disillusioned, cynical, even aggressive. They have tried to learn the language, they have adapted to many of the customs, they pay their taxes, so, why, this continued arbitrary classification. For such people, personal slights can be found in the simplest of daily transactions.
Most will probably return home. Or, at least, they should.

Others less afflicted wander in a cultural no man's land, never really belonging, always somewhat disconnected. They too, should go home. But they tend to stay.

I'm not sure where I am. Being a father has presented a different situation for me in this, my third year. About halfway through I'm enjoying it more than, say, six months ago. My criticisms for the most part have been tempered. And one should never bite the hand, as they say.

Winter

How long since my last post? I'm afraid that it's indicative of the amount of time I can spend at the puter these days without interruption. No thinking time permitted. No space to make the sentences in any coherent order. This is fatherhood. Or at least, it's earliest stages.

The days are closing in rather quickly now. The cloud is thinner and streaked like a thin paste across the sky. If I had a huge knife I could scrape it up and spread it over a cosmic sized piece of toast. And the redness of the sunsets! I don't like winter but it has its beauties.

We all have colds so there is cough syrup and mandarins and all manner of natural and synthetic medication about the place. All, of course, safely stowed from he who is now eight and a half months old. The same he who can now stand with the assistance of a chair or sofa, and yes, the same he who wakes ten times at night. Joy and despair in one wriggling bundle.

But mostly it's joy, when I think about it.

Good bye Ruth 1990 - 2006

Yesterday my old friend Ruth finally died. We have been together for some 16 years and so, I am very sad and at a loss for words. Today I just want to leave this haiku.

funny, autumn leaves fall
but my old dog has died
in the spring

allurgee

I've been suffering from an allergy for about six weeks now, and the nose blowing finally got to the point where I went to the doctor on Saturday. Two hours and 10,000 yen later, I emerged with sufficient drugs to quell the sneezing, though I am left with a sense of vagueness and a slight wooziness. I seem to always get sick one way or another in Japan (last it time it was only pnuemonia!) and something here, or probably, many things here, seem to disagree with my body.

Racing into October as we are, it seems like only yesterday that I was complaining loudly (and to whoever would liten) about how hot is was. Yes, how hot and how bloody humid. The nights are cooler now and sunny days are very pleasant though the signs of winter are omnipresent. The layers of cloud, for example, are like so many moth-eaten bunnyrugs, rather than a majestic pile of cotton wool. (Here I am reminded of Larkin's 'Summer, Mother, I', the 'high-builded cloud', but that's beside the point.)

Now with the routines of teaching and looking after our demanding little one, life has assumed a predictability. It's hard to do anything really interesting because of the train travel and risk of Tom's loud complaining, so Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto, once regular destinations, are like phantoms now. Parenting is such a life change that there is no way to describe the difference. One day we were on a this planet, the following day, on this one. And there is no way of travelling between these two worlds. Really, there isn't.

sushi

The Koizumi era ended last week, a period which coincidentally shadowed my own stay in Japan. A lot of print has been expended on the success or otherwise of the now former Prime Minister, but it is probably safe to say this. That Koizumi inherited a legacy of deflation and economic stagnation, a banking system mired in bad debt, and an inward looking polity. Today Japan is growing again, has defeated deflation and has generally undergone a massive shakeup at company level. It is more forward looking and confident internationally. Added to this was Koizumi's unique style of governance, a crash through or crash methodology in which policy creation and delivery was often prised from the reach of meddling political hacks and civil servants. An interesting time to be in Japan.

Shinzo Abe is also an interesting man and may well prove to be a better Prime Minister, if he can get beyond a purely conservative agenda. The Yasukuni issue is begging for a resolution. There is still way too much nannying by civil authorities. Japanese who want to achieve outside the parameters currently set down (culturally and politically) should be allowed to do so. Japan also needs to deal more honestly with its recent wartime past; textbooks which whitewash atrocities or misdeeds are at best, unhelpful.

But the foundation has been laid. Vale Lionheart!

Half-Baked Prince

Having started the most recent Harry Potter adventure In Australia and been forced to abandon it, I decided to borrow the same substantial tome from Sanda library. With a three week deadline for its return, I managed the last chapter this morning. A good read with a few surprises, as usual.

Of course, I think everyone knew about the death of Dumbledore within minutes of the novel's release, but the manner of his death had, luckily, thus far evaded me. I was surprised and somewhat shocked that the ghastly deed was the work of Severus Snape, whom Dumbledore had implicitly trusted. Despite his past history as a Death Eater and servant of the unmentionable one, we had, I believe, been given some reason to believe that Snape had undergone some kind of transformation of character. At first reading, this change appears to now to have been deluded good-will one behalf of the readership.

But therein lies to problem. Having sought out the opinion of other Potter readers at a fan site (not something I make a habit of, incidentally) I discovered that a lot of folks felt the same way. That is, despite his somewhat irksome nature, Snape was seen as redeemable. Further, that the murder of Dumbledore was a shocking incident, given the absolute trust that the latter had had in Snape. And. no doubt, the complex feelings that readers had about the sardonic wizard.

This has, in turn, spurned some elaborate theories about the reality of the act itself. One theory, supported by events and quotations from the novels, argued that Snape was obeying Dumbledores plea to kill him in order to save the (hidden) Harry Potter. It fits quite a lot of the facts, but the central argument against it is simply this. Dumbledore abhored killing of any sort and to ask one of his staff members to murder him, even as a sacrifice, seems well beyond the fundamental philosophy of the man.

Is there redemption after all? Is it possible? I guess we will find out soon enough.

pontifications

The furor over Pope Benedicts recent speech has barely abated, despite the Pontiff's apology. Anyone wishing to comment on the matter would be well advised to read the text of the speech, which I did a a couple of days after the 'story' broke. It might be argued that the Pope should have used a differnt example to illustrate his point, though it seems that the choice of material may have been the result of the recent translation of the the 14th century text. So in spite of its medieval origins, it was, hot off the press, so to speak. And the Pontiff, after all, is a theologian, interested, no doubt, in the arcane and obscure.

The resulting hysteria (for there is no other word for it), shows that, at best, Islam has a problem. It has a probem with criticism, whether intended or not. It has a problem, common at to all reliogions at some stage, with extremism amongst some of its adherents. It has an ongoing problem of image amomgst many many people in the non-muslim world. The bad behaviour of the few has tarnished the majority.

Some of the problems that we see today have resulted from aspects, residual or otherwise, of Western imperial policy in the past. Some of the perceived slights have resulted from recent (and often unwise) Western interventions in the Middle East today. The Israeli/Palestinian imbroglio is a continuing sore in a wounded region. Having said that, the only way for Islam to mend its fence is through self-help - by the actions of its own believers. Somehow, through whatever efforts and collaborations possible, it must reign in those fanatics who claim to represent the faith, and demonsrate through actions, and not just protesting words, that it is a faith of peace. Does this mean eschewing excuses and ceasing to look for scapegoats? Yes. Will it mean a better deal for people of the Islamic faith and the wider world. I hope so.

This is just to say...

I guess that I must be a lucky person. And perhaps I'm having a fortunate life as A.B Facey was wont to say. Yes, there have been some misshaps. I've been arrested and been tried in a court ( a terrifying experience), I've suffered from various nervous disorders which continue to come and go and I can never return to my old job as a teacher in Australia. Pitted against this mild downside is the fact that I am happily married to a gorgeous amd lovely woman, I have a healthy baby boy, a lot of friends, some hobbies that I'm moderately good at, and, I have had the chance to work overseas on and off for the last 5 years.

I am especially happy not to be famous or even infamous. I don't want the allotted 15 minutes of fame. media attention, a well paid TV commercial or financial riches. I do want happiness, though it is an allusive quality at best. And if any of the email spammers who regularly plague my inbox are reading this, no, I don't want a penis enlargement, discount bulk viagra or the opportunity to work from home to make a fortune. Nor am I interested in allowing my bank account ot be used by a stranger in Nigeria to launder funds that don't exist.

No matter what happens, yes, it has been a fortunate life so far. I should grumble less and be thankful more.

Tomas and Thomas

I'm afraid that one of my strengths and weaknesses is that, when something comes along that I take an interest in, I tend to go in boots and all. I fear that this sometimes means losing a sense of perspective. For who, when wandering amongst trees in a dense forest, does not sometimes lose sight of the sky?

Thomas the Tank Engine. An unlikely candidate, I grant you, for an obsession. But with Tom almost 6 months old and me thinking about our times to come playing together, I started looking for train sets. It's true that, given my own train deprived childhood, this might me my own version of acting out of the childhood I never had.

So I set about looking at kits, and pricing sets (very expensive, by the way) and zooming hither and thither between one on line toy shop and the next. I found a heavily discounted set at Pee Dee toys in Australia and, after joining ebay au, won another smaller set in my first auction. I think that I should stop now, but the temptation to add to the small railway we now have is almost irresistable. But resist I must.

Well autumn is almost here. There are telltale signs in the air, a mere zephyr of cooler wind, a few early leaves on the path. Its still hot, mind you, but its turning, ever so slowly.

Scandal in the Underworld.

Alas Pluto is no more. I remember as a teenager reading 'The Search for Planet X' , one of those cheap Ashton Scholastic novelettes. It charted the efforts of Clyde, or Clive, Tombaugh (I think thats right?) a young astronomer who was certain that something was tugging at Neptune. I mean, gravitationally. And he was right. Enter tiny Pluto, the ninth planet.

I guess something about Pluto has always been a little odd. It doesn't have its own exclusive orbit around the sun. It's very tiny compared to the 4 interior gas giants and is even smaller than the Earths moon. Speculation persisted that it was an escaped moon. It was really a little like the odd one out.

But in the collective, if uninformed, imagination of the public, it was a distant and slightly cute entity marking the supposed boundary of the solar system. Alas its neither cute (the surface being entirely hostile to life) and it is far from being at the edge of our solar system. Nowhere near it, in fact.

Having said that Pluto, while losing its status in one regard, gains another. Its is now king of the dwarfs. There are worse fates surely.

The End is Nigh, perhaps..

A few things have joggled my mind recently. One was a program on Discovery Channel about the Earth in 200 million years hence. Gone is mankind and pretty much every other lifeform we know today, replaced by flying fish and land dwelling squid. Then there was an article in the Yomuiri Shimbun from the US, an elegant column about the passing of time (the journalist having turned 64) and his feelings on what he called, these 'low dishonest times'. Then, of course there are the daily headlines about war, global warming , nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

Together these various media presented a few pieces in an increasingly gloomy picture. In short, if human folly doesnt get you, then the environment, global catastrophe or evolution will. Humans have always dwelt amidst their own folllies. But we have never before faced so many threats seemingly coming at the same time. For those hopeful of a technological-get-out-of-jail card then I can only add this. Technology, whilst often fascinating and beneficial, is, often as not, a part of the problem. It may present some solutions, for example, to global warming, but it is demonstably the cause of it in the first instance. I mean, of course, the human application of technology, as there is no other application that I know of.

The trouble is, I am an optimist, for the most part. But I'm coming around to the view, things being what they are and what they could quite easily become, very little short of Divine Intervention can save our hapless species.

1945 and all that.

Being on a two week break has its benefits. This also being the anniversary of a number of WW2 (Pacific) events, I have spent quite lot of time watching the History Channel. Yesterday was a bit of a marathon; back to to back programs on the last days of all theatres of war in WW2. I've never seen a lot of the newsreel footage before, so it was just plain fascinating.

The same day's Daily Yomuiri carried the first in a series of articles on just who was to blame for the Japanese debacle in the same war. Quite reasonably, the authors lay the blame at the feet of Japan's military and political leaders of the period. There is certainly no point in encouraging revisionists in this country (or elsewhere) that Japan had some noble cause (destroying Western colonialism, no less) or that the Pearl Harbour attack was some perfidious American plot.

Alas, conspiracy theories doing the rounds have suggested that Roosevelt knew about the impending attack on Pearl and did nothing about it in order to bring America into the war. The stupidity of this theory is easily enough dismissed through plain common sense, not to mention the weight of historical evidence. I have never seen a conspiracy theory that offered anything other than false assertions or circumstantial evidence, so I guess thats why they will never be taken seriously. So why they hold such a fascination I don't know, except that, perhaps, they empower the believer in a similar way that members of esoteric movements do. 'I have special knowledge - you don't.'

Something like that.

The Tango-Hanto Tango

Our first family holiday ever (!) was to the Tango-Hanto peninsula on the Japan sea. Miwa kindly booked us a ryoukan ('Crab Heaven') in Amino, a typical seaside village The lure of the beach was just too much so we stripped down at Kizu and headed for the, er, surf, such as it was. The following day was spent almost exclusively at Kotobikki, one beach around from our ryoukan. Golden sand, clean water and happy families. What a joy to see the Japanese at play!

And really, apart from the quaint floaty devices (such as Winnie the Pooh tyres), the beach experience here is pretty much the same as that in Australia. Everyone stripped down to the essentials, everything on show. No pretention. I don't know if it carries the equivalent psychological adjustment as it does back home, I mean, that egalitarian booster that comes from being at the beach. Perhaps these days it lasts only as far as the carpark and the BMW. I don't know.

Yesterday, still feeling a little sunburnt, we trecked home slowly via Ine ( a gloriously cute fishing village on the Tango coastline) and Amanohashidate (one of the 'three beautifuls'), where we ascended the funicular for the view. I still think the sand bar puts me in mind of Abe Lincoln's beard. Or something else.

summer ascensions
my son's skin red with heat,
long line of pines, blinking.

Sanda Summer Festival

The things I love best about Japan coelesce at festival time. The Japanese are relaxed and seem, suddenly, to have oodles of time. Yukatas vie with denim. Traditional dances and music juxtapose J-pop and ballet. People eat and drink in the open. They say hello to us and want to try out their English. Such a difference!

Saturday we walked the river to watch the annual festival fish catching event. Goldfish are placed in the shallows and people wade in with nets. What they catch they take home. Later we strolled the lantern and streamer festooned laneways, past lively stalls, and on to the main arena, the city office car park. It was terribly hot so we hung about backstage in the shade, sipping kirin, chatting and, well, just watching the Japanese enjoy themselves.

I include a photo taken of said site, this being our friend and housemate Miwa, eating the popular sausage on a stick. She won't thank me for publishing this shot! But what the heck, its festival time!

Apparently......

Reuters......dateline 27.7

The Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, blamed the Whitlam Government for the blowout in inflation figures yesterday.

'The ghost of the Whitlam Governemnt can pick and choose whichever quarter it likes to intervene in. We have had years and years of success under my policies only to see this big government interference in my leadership aspirations...er... I mean.....sound economic management.'

Mr Costello cited shonky loans dealings as amongst the causes of the CPI rise.

'I have it on good authority that Kim Beazley, Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating and Jim Cairns were involved in shonky illegal loans dealings with a man named Larry. As a result, the price of a yellow fruit called a banana has shot up.'

Mr Costello added

'This Larry is the shonkiest of offshore brokers. What sort of former Government resorts to these underhand measures. Do I have to remind everyone of the jobs for the boys, faceless men, economic incompetence, kemlarrylani, Juni Morosi, big sending Labor days? Doesn't eveyone remember how we harved inflartion and stopped talking about Rhodesia midflight?'

Asked about his leadership aspirations Mr Costello was circumspect,

'I'm not buying into that one. John Howard is the leader. He is the man who brought us a fistfull of dollars (surely, years of economic growth, ed.) and that's not to be trifled with.'

The weather has been damnably humid and hot. Heat I can take up to a point, humidity I can't. It feels like we are immersed in an endless sauna bath. The effect at night is little better. We are spending more time downstairs at night and running the air-con to get things a little cooler and dryer. Such is the climate in a maritime country.

Our old friend Satoshi popped around today and was much taken with Tom's progress. We see very little of him nowadays. Not since he started work in Moriyama. He is already beholden to the company, working long hours and backing up on Saturdays every fortnight. His holiday next month will be 5 days with a weekend at either end. Its just the way things are here in Japan. Workers never consider their entitlements as real, and neither does management. The unions are too weak and too conciliatory to make a difference.

And everyone is just so busy, so scheduled up.

chopstick blues

Tom reached his fourth month today and he celebrated with a lot of grumpiness and a huge poo. The latter threatened to engulph his nappy and the sofa, like some massive typhoon, and he grinned with self-satisfaction and the ensuing mess he had made. I suppose this kind of information is really of interest only to new or newish parents.

After much effort, we still havent recruited any new students lately. Its a fact that leaves us wondering whether Sanda is just English-schooled out. There are so many small and large competitors now that students can shop around. Theoretically, market forces should dictate that the best schools survive, but this ignores the fact that the biggies can pour a lot of money into advertising and making their premises modern and attractive. We are both thinking that if matters don't improve by Christmas, then we will have to reconsider our options, as they say. But I do expect things to get better for us.

The World Cup is over and the undeserving Italians have their mitts all over the trophy. Italy played really well in only one game, against the Germans. The rest of the time they were content to play a kind of waiting game behind packed defences, a game replete with time waisting, diving and negativity. I hope that Fifa can make some rule changes that challenge this kind of play. Perhaps making the goals a little wider, having video replays for incidents in the box and acting coaches on the sidelines to watch for ham performances would help.

what's in a.....

I read today that the Crowes had named their new baby Tennyson, an interesting choice to say the least. I'm not fond of surnames masquerading as Christian names, though this one might spark new interest in the Victorian poet. The Crowes cited their mutual love of one of Tennyson's early sonnets as their inspiration, a poem that I studied eons ago in my first undergraduate degree. It's soaked in the kind of twee sentimentality and hand-on-forehead histrionics beloved of the Victorians. But I must admit, that's one of the reasons I love a lot of Tennyson's work. And probably also Thomas Hardy.

So, for the record, here's the sonnet; #10 from memory.

IF I were loved, as I desire to be,
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear,—if I were loved by thee?
All the inner, all the outer world of pain
Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,
As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.
’Twere joy, not fear, claspt hand-in-hand with thee,
To wait for death—mute—careless of all ills,
Apart upon a mountain, tho’ the surge
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far on as eye could see.

Kulcha

When I'm in Australia I'm bored and when I'm in Japan, I'm just too busy. The former state is brought on by my not having a job in teaching anymore and lots of time on my hands; the latter, by, well, just being in Japan. Everyone is busy here and if they have a gap in their planners, it will invariably be filled in short order.

I'm wondering when the Japanese, whose cultural history and artifacts suggest a great capacity for reflection, ever have time for this faculty. Or if they ever really did. Or if modern living has left them with no time at all. Its hard to say, but the distractions of the modern age are perhaps too many and too tempting. Who would prefer to wander the gardens of an old temple when they can tune in to 30 TV channels, five of which are showing baseball? Or to learn the koto or shamisan when pachinko and J-Pop are on offer?

The Japanese express surprise when foreigners (and forever we will be foreigners, alas!) show interest in the ephemera of Japanese culture, such as geisha and sumo. Why are you interested in shinto or want to learn calligraphy? Perhaps these kinds of questions arise from the notion that westerners, particular Americans and Australians, exist in a cultural desert. Of course, some do, but such an assumption ignores the pantheons of learning passed on since the Greeks. The great tradition of thinking that stretches back for two and a half millenia and which informs the modern mind. Or at least, should inform it.

During the cherry blossom season, Japanese gather under the boughs to celebrate the new but fragile flowers that bloom above their picnic mats. They spend much time just looking, observing the buds and the minutae of each blossom. Its wonderful just to watch them watching. That level of reflection is perhaps missing from everyday life here, if, for no other reason, than the fact that the schedule needs to be filled. And free time is wasted time. Change is always possible here, but only if, somewhat dangerously, the Japanese give themselves space to think in.

Visas

I never thought it could ever be so easy in Japan. Today we got our Certificates of Eligibility and our visas on the same day! It seems almost like a miracle; four years ago in the same situation, we were ordered to leave Japan to validate our visas at a Japanese foreign consulate. Apparently the law has changed and now, whacko and diddlee-dee, we can do it all in Kobe. There was one hitch. Tom's dependency visa will require further documents and a bit of stuffing around, but we are so relieved that the others are out of the way. Really it seems like a dream. We were menatlly prepared for the hop to Seoul.

So, Australia is out of the World Cup after a great tournament. Italy may well have gone the same way but for the sophistry of their hulking back, Grosso, who feigned a penalty in the last minute. This World Cup has, unfortunately, been characterised by some awful refereeing decisions. The Italian one was just one of many stupefying mistakes by officials who should know better, given their experience and training. Please Fifa, just select the very best, irrespective of their country of origin. Political correctness is never worth its downside....

The Italians

It's no secret that the Australian Soccer team in WC 2006 has exceeded the expectations of just about everyone. Just qualifying was an achievement that put to the sword a 30 year hex. Winning the opening match 3-1 against Japan was another milestone. Then there was qualifying for the Round of 16 by finishing second behind Brazil in Group F.

Tonight we play the talented Italians, a country that has won three world cups and a multitude of honours. It might be our last hurrah, or it might be yet another pioneering chapter for Australian soccer. Italy has some brilliant players in Totti and Toni. Australia has determination and great teamwork.

Sometimes just the bounce of the ball in a certain way can swing a match. Somestimes, regretably, a referee. The Italians are confident of victory and are expected to win; Australia, the underdogs, again. I think that's how we like it. C'mmon Aussie!

F Troop

A lazy weekend at home, although to be honest, most weekends are like that since Tom came into the world. We popped up to Woodytown Saty to weigh and measure Tom in the babies room. He seems to be hitting all the right targets. He's such a good boy!

This afternoon I walked downtown to the river, pondering the looming football match between Brazil and Australia, and willing the latter to a famous if improbable win. There are many possibilties with Group F and quite a few different outcomes possible, although all of these still feature Brazil coming top of the group.

There is a distinctly surreal feel to the whole WC here in Japan. The media had hyped the national teams chances so much that the defeat (glorious and emphatic) against Australia seems not to have fully penetrated the national psyche. There has been insufficient post-match analysis and a great deal of excuse making, allied with the tedious and often trivial coverage on the television. But by 3am this morning, everything might look very different, all the tables turned,as it were. I hope not. I really want Australia to go through to the Round of 16.

Pillow

I feel a little like a bed, Tom is so often resting on my chest. He seems to like this position best of all and it is sometimes the only way to calm him. I like it too, though I suspect I am being used as a babysitter rather too often. Okay, I am the dad, but I have a lot of other chores to do, such as trying to run a business.

The World Cup has started in earnest and I've lost a lot of sleep watching the first few days. Of course, I can't keep this up for long, my teaching will suffer too much. And my temper!

After a triumphant and emphatic 3-1 win over Japan last Monday, Australia faces the mighty Brazil tomorrow night. I'd love Australia to win or even draw, but my head tells me that the best team in the world simply has too many guns for the gallant socceroos. but you never know, do you?

Settling

Difficult as the past few weeks have been, there is a kind of rhythm that's starting to emerge. The sort of thing that makes you think that you might just get through, even if its by the seat of the pants. We still have a number of variables. No certificate of eligilbity as yet, no new students, little money to spend on promoting the school and a baby that is, well, a baby. Miwa is truly a blessing but she only has so much time and we both feel guilty with the amount of stuff she already does for us.

Thw WC is in full swing now after the months of phoney war (perhaps not the best choice of expressions given the venue) and I'm getting to see quite a lot via Japanese TV. The buildup to tomorrow nights match between Japan and Australia is inexorably drawing to a close, though the Japanese media is in full cry and often utterly ridiculous. The standard and subject of reportage borders on the insulting.

Anyway, Tom's awake again so I have duties to perform......

Little By Little

Miwa has come to live with us. She is a long-time friend spanning two continents and ten years. We were starting to struggle with Tom and the loss of sleep and the state of the school. So we are are so grateful just to have her around.

The World Cup grows closer with the Socceroos opener against Japan. This puts me in a beautiful quandry - living in Japan and barracking for the opponent. Its hard to say how that game will go. I think, very close.

Funny Japan; Nadia was at our local community language centre. A woman noticed that a tiny part of Tom's belly was showing (the weather was warm) and started saying 'damme damme'! You must cover it! Later we noticed (once again) children unseatbelted in moving cars! Strange priorities.

Thoughts from abroad....

I won't pretend that the past two weeks haven't been difficult. The thought has crossed my mind more than once that we have bitten off more than we could chew, as having a new born baby is quite a big ask in these circumstances. Perhaps in any circumstances.

Japan always strikes me as a place of extremes. Extraordinary kindness and strangeness in equal measure. In the past week there has been yet another violent crime against a child - a boy found dead not far from his village home in Akita Prefecture. A girl was found dead only a fortnight earlier in not dissimilar circumstances in the same town, but the police (as usual) failed to detect foul play. Now they can see a connection. Such is hindsight!

As for kindness, well, it abounds. A friend has planted a vegetable garden for us. Tonight we went to our dear friend Shu's house for dinner. No ceremony, no fuss. Just a Japanese family at home on a Sunday night. Boy, I love that!

Week 3 begins tomorrow. I hope that I can report greater stamina for the struggle ahead in my next post. I want to be a better husband and father. Really.

Arrivals

From our bedroom window, a towerblock in Flowertown looks like a castle at night. The whole structure has been scaffolded and meshed-in(for painting) so that the apartment lights are muted. The roof appears as if turreted. So lying on my bed, its not hard to imagine the tortuous treck to the dark castle on the hill. The grave porter.

The school has far too few students now to survive for any great length of time. It has disappointing to see the names of so many favourites crossed out in the roll. I guess we have a few months to turn things around, at best. I know we can, even if the competition is fierce.

Tom made the trip effortlessly, hardly crying or even lifting his head. He has cried quite a lot since though, perhaps in compensation. Journeys are not easy for me. I think I'm a perpetual creature of habit, disliking change where it takes me from the comfort zone. But I do like coming here. Everything is familiar - the house, the car, our cups and bed.

That vase.

Bon Voyage

Well my last entry from this hemisphere for a year or so. Tomorrow we head back to Japan for what promises to be a far more challenging time. I think it will be tough sometimes, but doesn't that make a better person of one, in the end.

Tom has taken to crying a lot during the day, sometimes for reasons quite beyond our ken. He's a lovely boy but it's all so life changing. We think his ears are poking out a little more today. Bodies are strange things, ne?

Leaving autumn
we slide across invisibilities,
finding the seat warm

A Prayer For Sophie

About two years ago a three year old, Sophie, was the victim of a bizarre car accident in which a motorist drove into a child car centre. She was severely burned, but, with huge courage and many operations, recovered. Today, shockingly, she was thrown 18 metres while crossing a road in her wheelchair. She is in critical condition, on life support.

I have read many prayers for her and confessions of anguish and disbelief that such fury can twice strike such an innocent. I don't have any words to sum up my feelings.

Only this prayer.

Dear Sophie

Twice you have been unfairly struck down through no fault of your own. Once you were burnt, now you are crushed. I am sad for you and grieve for you. But I am helpless to act. We are all disconsolate.

May God bless you. May He whisper kind words, soothing words to you. May His hand be upon you. May He support your body. May He replenish your spirit. May He help you to fight once again. May He carry you up this steep hill. May He touch you with love, His boundless,luminous love.

May Jesus hear this prayer

Amen.

La Plus Change......

On Monday we leave for another year in Japan. I usually love these returns, but this time the assignment is somewhat tougher. We have a new baby. We are tired. The school is struggling to keep its head above the proverbial. I find that my usual limitless energy is flagging. So too the sunny outlook.

On the other hand, every change to circumstances presents another opportunity somewhere. Somehow. It will be struggle to be alert and on-task after a sleepless night. On the other hand the very act of raising a family in a foreign land presents, perhaps, endless possibilities for moving ahead with life.

What a strange project life is! So planned yet utterly unplanned. We set our sights on certainties that we have no right to, their very solidity blasted away by the first setback or shock or disaster. And the funny thing is, everything is in some way foreseeable, not clairvoyantly, but logically. Of course people must die, even those close to us! Some will die bizarely, unfairly. Yes, that's always been the case. Fortunes are made and lost on hardwork or bad luck or just plain stupidity. We all get sick at some stage, some worse than others. People lie to us or talk behind our backs. Why does it come as such a surprise? Why should the intrusion of personal fate be so startling? How is it we exclude ourselves from inevitability of suffering until it actually claims us?

Do I have any idea? Not at all. Perhaps that the meaning of religion, in its most pure sense. To make some sense.

The One Day of the Year

Anzac Day has become very popular again. When I was at high school, the gradual decline of war veterans seemed to suggest that the commemoration would go the way of other such days.....Empire Day, Armistice Day and so forth.

Its funny that we memorialise a battlefield defeat such as the ill-fated and ludicrously executed Dardenelles Campaign in WW1. But we do and it seems that Gallipoli symbolises something hidden within the national psyche. Maybe a hankering for meaning amidst the wanton commercialisation of our lives. Maybe a need for seriousness and quiet amidst all the noise. Perhaps there's even a religious element, the fallen taking on a sacrificial, atoning quality.

I like it though. I like things that buck the trend towards selfishness and hedonism. I like moments when reflection takes on a broader, sometimes transcendent nature.

Maybe the One Day of the Year should be everyday. But then again, wouldn't that spoil everything?

Just Cute

Tom may keep us awake (often) at night, but he is a lovely boy and totemo kawaii. Yesterday his passport arrived, replete with hilariously awful photo. I won't publish it here.

This photo was taken by my wife Nadia yesterday and captures a gorgeous moment of repose. I was his six week birthday.

Trouble on the farm

What a time to bring a child into the world.

The planet seems increasingly in turmoil; extremists elected to power in Palestine, another one elected President of Iran(who incidentally, denies The Holocaust but who nevertheless thinks a Jewish state should be established in Germany), a failed war in Iraq, endless civil strife in Africa, looming conflict between China and Taiwan, an eccentrically criminal regime in North Korea, global warming......

On an upside, Berlusconi has lost power in Italy. Er, that may be it.....

I guess the world has always been a sad and deadly place for many. It's just that information gathering and exchange zips around the planet so fast now that any nuance of trouble can be swiftly reported. And endlessly replicated through digital technology. And the hype; everything scanned for a cosmetic angle, a photo opportunity. Our obsession with images. The belittlement of the word.

A picture may say a thousand words, but that narrative is in the hands of the image maker, by and large.

Music

Today, a rare all day band rehearsal. I think we covered our whole repetoire (about 20 original songs) and then some, as they say. I know I'll miss the music here, band and choir and all the other music-related things that make up my lucky existence. We really don't have the time or opportunity to play in Japan, though perhaps this time.... It's not realistic though, what, with a new baby and all.

Tonight was another gorgeous sunset, with the deep blue of the emerging night sky chasing a lighter irredescent blue into the west. The way the trees stood out in black isolation against this sky was, well, I don't have words to describe it. But precious and fleeting are two, at least.(You said you didn't have any words - ed.)

This is a countdown to leave that I really don't want to face. It's not the right time to leave family and friends. But what can you do, if you have to go.

Eyes Wide Shut

Tom's birth certificate finally arrived so we were now in a position to apply for his passport. Simple enough chore, don't you think?

Problem is that since certain events in 2001, photo ID for the passport has changed. Somewhat. All photos must be eyes open, mouth shut, both ears showing on a neutral background. Easy enough if you are, say, older than 2 or 3 years old.

I wonder if anyone in boffin-land has tried to get a four week old to conform to this criteria? Well, perhaps no. We tried on several occasions whist shopping today to get him a) to open his eyes b) not to cry whilst opening eyes c) to wake up for the camera, but alas, to no avail.

Of course, babies with eyes shut must, perforce, be terror suspects, or drug smugglers.

These days you can barely write on the lines, let alone between them.

Saturation

I read a letter to an editor recently that argued, somewhat unconvincingly, that pornography was essentially harmless. In fact, it was good for you. Never mind that the correspondent was an advocate for the industry. The fact that so few letters demurring from the opinion followed was evidence, if any more were needed, that porn has moved from the shadows into the mainstream.

Formerly, pornography was something that was restricted to tacky-looking, brightly signed shops in the most run down parts of town. Those accessing such premises ran the risk of being seen by colleagues or friends or even strangers. Hence the furtive dash from the door with the suspicious brown paper bag wedged under an arm.

Nowadays, its pretty much open slather. My email box is often graced with ads for enlarging organs of one sort or another, and much else besides. The most innocent of searches turns up one porn site after another. A simple search to find free porn is extraordinarily easy and shows up hundreds, perhaps thousands of sites. Well, so what, you might ask?

I'm no expert on the erotic, but surely porn is an unhealthy and utterly misleading entry into it. Are teenage boys to get their cues on sexuality from pornography? Hardly. What will they learn about the girls and women, other than the fact that they are, apparently, insatiable nymphos who love a good serving of abuse and humiliation on the side. If sex is about intimacy then porn is about its antithesis. Its about the explicit, the obvious, the public face of the mechanism of intercourse, outside of any real human context.

I've written before that I object to the nannying that often occurs at many levels in our society. But the regulation of access to porn is essential if sex isnt to become another tawdry consumer durable. The implications of that are too sad to contemplate.

Autumn Winds

April has been windy, like Tom's stomach. The tiny one has a lot of it, often materialising between midnight and dawn, wouldn't you know! I don't know what the remedy is - of course, we've read up on the causes and (inadequate) relief measures. It really, probably, maybe, is just a matter of waiting it out until his system is a little more mature. But he's a stoic little bugger, God Bless him!

I've finally abandoned the Soccer Fans Network Forums, after a period of several months. I didn't post a lot in that time, though I often read up on a thread or two of interest. Unfortunately, the anonymity of the internet can bring out the worst in human nature, evidenced by the frequent bad language, name-calling and ongoing racial commentary that I found amongst the posts. I suspect many of the thoughful fans were driven away by the sheer immaturity of the posts. Sayonara.

Sukareta

Tom has given us a couple of very sleepless nights. He seems to have developed wind problems that occur only in the wee hours of the morning. Consequently sleep is down to a couple of hours at best, so I hope to catch up a little this afternoon. Then again, maybe I wont.

Stephanie (our old boss in Japan) wrote to say that our applications for new work visas had gone in without a problem. Its cutting it very fine indeed though, since we are due to leave in seven weeks and the average visa turnover time is six weeks. Hope we dont have to do the South Korean thing again. Nice country but we just cant afford it.

If I may be permitted.........

I'm not going to post endless baby photos, but surely one is reasonable. This is Tom's first car ride, aged 5 days. Cute, ne?

Nannying

There's something else special about the Commonwealth. It doesn't include the United States. There are very few forums left where the views of the Superpower don't tend to dominate debate. The Commonwealth is one. It's useful and by no means anti-American to have such an arrangement, even if no-one really listens to what member states agree upon. Supposing they do agree upon anything. But they do like a good old sports jamborree.

I surprise myself a little whenever I agree with the views of The Ecomomist. Ostensibly a free-enterprise, pro-globalisation rag, I find the writing so erudite and the views so reasonably argued that, well, it is often hard to disagree. Of course I can and do differ over the Iraqi invasion, global warming and much besides, especially where a purist rationalist logic is relentlessly applied.

But I do like the manner in which its writers apply the principle of liberty to both the economic and the personal sphere of human activity. The latter has suffered an intermidable invasion from both the left and right of politics, with moralising conservatives and nanny-state social democrats seemingly in cahoots. Whether its drugs, alcohol, child-rearing, working, leisure or whatever, there is some wretched politician or social-botherer with a warning, injunction, ammendment or tedious unwanted lecture. Have they nothing better to do? Such as getting their own houses in order.

Yes, political leaders should lead, but the state should avoid, as much as possible, interfering with and in the personal lives of its citizens. There are places to educate and inform (otherwise known as schools) and if the state fails there, then there's very little chance of succeeding later.

Please leave the sermons for religious leaders.

Tadaima

Tom and Nadia came home last Friday. The pattern of broken sleep has begun, though its much easier at the moment since neither of us are working. Japan will be a different matter altogther.

I didn't know how I'd feel about becoming a father. Yes, I expected to be happy and proud and maybe a little nervous, but I didn't expect just how happy. It seems like such a natural direction to pursue. Giving up on the self can only be a good thing, surely.

We've been so busy that there's been no chance to catch up on the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Naturally Australia is winning a truckload of medals, but the standard of competition is less than the Olympics. Not demeaning the performance and skill of the athletes, but the threat from the Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago or the Isle of Man seems sigificantly less than that posed by say, the USA or Germany. And whenever has Scotland won medals at anything? Yet they are fourth in the rankings!

Still the Commonwealth is a nice old steamer that plies the calmer waters between the UN and the United States. Occasionally a Mugabe come along to rock the seas. Usually not. And perhaps, its still worth having a talking shop of sorts that has something, somewhere, in common. Even if that something has a colonial out-of-date twinge.

Tom Thumb

The last 48 hours have been exhausting and emotional. Around midnight of Sunday night, Nadia began getting more regular contractions. At 2am we were at the hospital and by 3.20am she was in full labour. Tom arrived at 7.20am.

Who can adequately describe the experience of labour and birth? Certainly not a bloke. I am, simply, in awe. Of everything about it. I am grateful. I am pinch-myself-is-this-really-happening disbelieving. I am astonished. I am so in love with my wife. I am so in love with my baby son.

slow autumns settling
leaves skip like drunken dancers,
my bundle arriving

Matte Iru

It may be a longish labour for Nadia. Yesterday she had a full checkup with a midwife and the prognosis for birth was: it could happen tonight, tomorrow or in three weeks! She continued to have contractions throughout the night and this morning. We are really both hoping that the boy comes very soon. I hate to see her in pain.

At the same time as all this has been happening, we have been hosting two Japanese friends, Chihiro and Rika. The timing couldn't be worse but its nobodies fault. Yesterday they went into Sydney alone and by all reports did well until they caught the wrong train home later on. A succession of phone calls and internet timetable checks later and things were righted. I picked them up much later wandering the streets near our house, lost in the darkness, drizzle and fog. It was like a scene from a thirties movie.

In the humid March air
come visitors from the Emporer,
invisibilities unfurling

Express Post?

We both had very little sleep last night. Nadia began getting regular and quite strong contractions from 11.30pm, the intervals of which we dutifully recorded on a scrap piece of paper. Finally at 4am, Nadia called a midwife at our local hospital, who seemed pretty adament that she was entering labour. Advice: Take two Panadol and try to sleep. Your baby will be on its way by the evening!

If the baby does come today sometime, it will be three weeks early! I was hoping for an early baby but this is well beyond what we expected. Could it be a 'false labour'? Only the unfurling of this day will tell.

What will I have to say tomorrow? I hope, a happy mother and a healthy baby!

Aki

March already. The skies colour and the tiniest of nips in the breeze are signalling the beginning of autumn, my favourite time. You can almost see the trees pondering the end of the party and the beginning of the cyclical reckonning. Not that it gets that cold in Australia, though these mountains are changeable and perverse at the best of times.

Our baby is coming in a mere month. Nadia thinks he has sunk lower into her pelvis and is assuming a classic 'presentation'. We had our last ante-natal class last night and I could see most of the participants droop at the sight of the babies 24 hour clock, a regime in which sleep assumes a sporadic nature. The baby appears to rule the roost, entirely.

Who is ever ready for their first child? We are reading books and accepting advice but there is a sense that everyone's experience is different.

A year or so ago (actually during a Japanese autumn) I wrote this haiku as part of a group letter. Worth reprinting? I don't know. You be the judge.

thinking of home
I storm the cupboards clutter
finding dry leaves

Anniversaries

Shortly, the 10th anniversary of the Howard Government will be upon us. If you has asked me 15 years ago whether this man (now the Prime Minister) had a chance of achieving such a run of success, then I would have laughed.

Howard is undoubtedly a talented political operative. He seems to have his pulse on how the electorate feels about emotive issues like immigration, security and the economy. He is a master of wedge politics and appears to be in unassailable command of his party.

His Government can take credit for sound economic management(though a deep genuflection to the previous government would be in order). But there are matters which go well beyond economic competence which mark this govenment down as both mendacious and ultimately, harmful to Australia's future.

From the beginning, Howard proceeded in a manner contrary to previous administrations. He dropped the ball with respect to Aboriginal reconciliation. What could be wrong with a simple apology? He failed to reign in Pauline Hanson's demonstrably racist party, while slyly stealing aspects of her program in anticipation of capturing the same vote. He manufactured a 'crisis' about so-called (immigrant) boat people, culminating in the disgraceful Tampa incident and on-going sagas over detention centres.

Finally, he dragged Australia into a foolish war against Iraq at the behest of the Bush Administration.

The tide will one day turn and both the US and Australia will have progressive governments again. That day is worth waiting for, though it may take decades for the damage to be repaired, if at all.

Leaving

My last day in Sanda for the time being. Outside there are brief flurries of snow, though the flakes are no sooner settled than they melt. There were voices in the street when I awoke, people walking and chatting. The odd burst of laughter. A typical Sunday pursuit anywhere really.

Last night a group of us went to karaoke, something which I love to do. We sang and drank and finished up with Dancing Queen. How daggy! Later we walked to Poco Poco Pepe and ate our fill of oishii Italian.

Today I will pack and potter about and maybe take walk to the river. Then its off to Kansai Kuko. Sayonara.

Freedom to What?

The controversy over the publications of cartoons of the Prophet Mohommad is extraordinary, to say the least. On the first count, it was probably unwise of the papers concerned to publish material that would, even on the grounds of plain common sense, have been cited as potentially inflammatory. There is a war happening in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are inresolved issues between Palestine and Israel.

Moreover, the 'freedom of expression' argument, much touted by hacks of all stripes, is hardly a great defence. Freedom of expression in the media is concomitant with the need to review the importance of, and public worthiness, of what is to be published. The sky is not the limit. Journalists would not publish details about the, say, extra-marital affairs of their colleagues. They are forbidden to publish classified information. There are already many restraints upon an unfettered freedom of expression.

But at the risk of being beheaded or slated for execution, I have to say that the behaviour of many in the Muslim world is rankly hypocritical. Arab and Middle Eastern newspapers have regularly published anti-semitic and anti-Western cartoons. Where are the riots in Tel Aviv and London? The internet buzzes with nonsensical conspiracy theories about Zionist plots or Western evils. The Muslim world accuses the West of having a stereotypical view of Muslims, that they are violent and unreasonable, but the behaviour of many Muslim adherents reinforces these stereotypes. Yes, the Muslim world is diverse and no doubt most Muslims are decent ordinary people just trying to get on wirth their lives. But this balance is compromised by images of wild-eyed acolytes holding placards that demand the beheading of anyone who dares to transgress their standard. I'm afraid you can't have it both ways.

What will come from this? No doubt, a media that is far more sensitive to religious feeling, though perhaps less inclined to publish genuinely newsworthy material. That would be sad. And for those who feel themselves slighted by recent events....a change of heart, a desire to build bridges? Unlikely, wouldn't you say? Which is even sadder.

Stopping by Sandidani koen....

The evenings are getting lighter. At first I thought it was an illusion but, after spending twenty minutes in our local park, its definitely so. Ladies were walking their dogs and one determined Pomeranian chased my feet, to gales of laughter from the encircling throng.

I'm leaving soon and a little sad. It always takes me a while to get used to any new situation, but once I do, I settle rapidly. I would like to stay, 'but I have promises to keep/ and miles to go before I sleep'.

That's just how it is.

The times

Oh to live in a time "unrecommended by event". That may have been Larkin's 1950's (though, come to think of it, there were lots of things happening then, though perhaps unrecommendable) but it seems that the current era is far too evented. (No such word, though there undoubtedly will be someday).

I suppose just being busy makes ones life potentially eventful and the news is now so regularly punctuated with disasters in the making (or waiting to happen), that a dose of those 1950's salts might be efficacious. (what the hell are you talking about? - ed.)

I've almost reached the end of this stay in Japan and last night, Vicky and Rima arrived with bags in tow and high hopes. By remarkable good chance they bumped into Satoshi Namba on the train from Amagasaki and he kindly dropped them here in frosty Mukogaoka. It was snowing when I left Sasayama and the trip home was chotto hazardous with snow and patches of ice cleaving to the road. The tyres stuck but at times I thought they wanted to skate irrationally. That's a feeling I have too sometimes.

This weekend I think we might do the walking tour of things Sanda, just to get a feel for the place. Tomorrow night there is a welcoming party for the new sensei which might or might not be well attended. A months notice isn't always enough for people in Japan, such are the lives they lead.

Posts From Japan

I've been so busy these last two weeks that I haven't (mercifully, some would say) had the time to write. Covering the work of two teachers has its downside.

I was pretty non-compis until the beginning of last week, and not really enjoying myself. Missing Nadia (we are not often apart) was a large part of that, compounding my sense of dislocation.

This week I started to feel more myself here, a little more connected to familiar things and situations. It gave me the chance to play the detached observer, if such a thing can be said to really exist. In Japan, that can be a lot of fun, especially where those strange conjunctions occur between Western practice and its transplanted application here.

For example, Valentines Day. A silly thing at the best of times back home, the Japanese have made it, effectively, into a two day practice. February 14th is a day for women to give chocolates to a male friend, while White Day, a month later, is the time when men are supposed to reciprocate.

I was explaining the original practise to a sales assistant when she said 'It's very strange that you should change the day in that way.' Of course, you'll understand that she thought that St Valentines was a Japanese invention! I don't think I even flinched, since this kind of insular thinking is not uncommon here. I didn't have the heart to point out that St Valentine wasn't a Japanese martyr and that Christianity didn't visit these shores until the 16th Century. No matter.

On a completely different note, a Japanese sumo wrestler, Tochiasuma, won the January basho today. Its unusual because a Mongolian, Asashoryu, has dominated the top division for the last 2 years. A lot of the action in this basho was very exciting with competition for first place very tight until the last few bouts.

Remembering

After Pat Robertson's most recent blunder (re- Ariel Sharon), I remain puzzled at what right-wing evangelical groups have to offer humanity. I mean, about God.

A few years ago I was involved in a very difficult, perhaps life threatening, event in my life. One day, I heard a Scottish preacher read this poem by Robert Browning over the radio. It gave me an abiding strength that, to this day, I cannot account for. I could never find it in any collection of the poet's works, probably because( as I later discovered) it was a fragment of a larger poem. By accident, I found it on the net a few weeks ago.

'A Martyr's Epitaph' from (`Easter Day'.)

I was born sickly, poor, and mean,
A slave: no misery could screen
The holders of the pearl of price
From Caesar's envy; therefore twice
I fought with beasts, and three times saw
My children suffer by his law;
At last my own release was earned:
I was some time in being burned,
But at the close a Hand came through
The fire above my head, and drew [10]
My soul to Christ, whom now I see.
Sergius, a brother, writes for me
This testimony on the wall --
For me, I have forgot it all.

Being here

There are things I love and well, don't love, about this country. I suppose you could say the same about anywhere. I have never been treated to such spontaneous kindness as I have here in Japan, nor with such indifference or suspicion.

For a foreigner, it is a place of extremes. One of my new students, who has met me on one occassion only, offered to baby sit my as yet unborn baby after he comes to Japan. Not just politeness mind you, as the offer was repeated several times. On the other hand, I still, and probably never will, feel entirely comfortable here. It's not just paranoia, though there's always a measure of that in anything I do. I realised again today ( and its a process I need to go through everytime) that non-Japanese are outsiders and will forever be so. In some cases (say, where a foreigner has married a Japanese, learnt the language fluently and made every effort to integrate) the effect is one of gradual disintegration, followed by alienation and anger. I know personally of a few cases.

As for me, I suppose I'm disappointed, then surprised that I should feel this way.On my first visit here, I accepted the stares and occasional screwed-up face with wry amusement. Later on I started to feel, well, pissed off. The novelty of being different soon wears off and is replaced by a desire to be completely invisible.

This evening, Satoshi, one of those many Japanese whom I love, called me up to see how I was and to offer help with the computer. Isn't it always the case that generalisations are best left unsaid or unwritten about?

Nothing is black and white. Nothing.

Made it.

I'm somewhat rushed as I have classes starting soon. I haven't really got my head around things yet, since the trip here was so rushed and the change from summer to winter has me spinning. At least the computer I bought on Wednesday works and the internet is up and running. A bit of a miracle given the to-dos of the past with connecting here!

Everything much the same as we left it 8 months ago except we have fewer students (sob) and the school's financial position is a little precarious. I think its a hard row these days for little conversation schools, no matter how good the staff are.

Missing Nadia a lot. Its such a different place without her.......

Japan

This might be my last post for a while. I have to hop on a plane tomorrow to help out a teacher at our conversation school in Japan, and we are without a computer(there) for the interrum.

It may only be for a few weeks, but leaving Nadia at this stage in the pregnancy is very painful for me and I'm feeling sad. If I'm busy, which I surely will be, then the time may fly. Well, I hope so........

ashita ikanakereba narimasen.

Brush cutting.

Yesterday, I heard the American President tell a group of wounded US soldiers that he had something in common with them. He has been 'wounded' by a brushcutter (called whipper snippers here) whilst cutting brush on the ranch, but in the end, had triumphed over it.

I keep waiting for this man to show a glimmer of talent, or Presidential gravitas, or even plain old common sense. I keep wondering if he really is as inept as he first appeared in those debates five years ago, whether there was any depth beneath the swaggering one-liners and simplistic notions. I confess I'm disappointed that nothing has emerged to contradict my initial opinion that Bush is unequal to the task of leading anything, let alone the world's most powerful nation. More Americans, it seems, are finally coming around to this view.

Happy New Year

What a scorcher it is today! We've already been for a swim and the mercury is pushing 37 mid-morning. And more to come.

An uneventful NYE which a few of us spent on a rockplatform at Wenty Falls. It was cooler there and we had a good view of the sweltering city below, all heat haze and dust. At 9pm the first fireworks went up - tiny coloured plumes on the horizon. We didnt wait around for midnight so Nadia and I caught the harbour celebrations on TV. I enjoyed it but really, most of the celebrating has a perfunctory nature, as if people are going through the motions because of social convention. I think a lot of people in Western societies are hungry for communal festivals, which, since the decline of religious faith and practice, are pretty scarse.

I don't think that shopping malls have lived up to their calling as the new cathedrals. Sure, folks hang out in their cool buzzing environments。There's talk of of them becoming complete recreation centres, as new city centres and meeting places. It's funny that you see so little litter in malls and so much in the local environment. Perhaps just another mark of our falsely placed loyalties. All hype and glitter and the next new thing.

Nevertheless, Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy Christmas!

The weather has cooled, just in time for the strange ritual of eating a hot dinner in the middle of summer. A lot of us still do things upside down here and I know that my mother will have the whole shebang - roast turkey and ham and vegetables and a steaming home made pudding. Perfect for a winter climate, though perhaps a little eccentric in the southern hemishere.

Its a strange quiet day, when people stop doing what they normally do and indulge in excesses of eating and drinking, of bonhomie (false or otherwise) and piety. They greet people they normally wouldn't and spend hours in the company of those they can barely abide. I rather like it though.

Just a verse from Mr Betjeman to tail things off for the day. And perhaps, as a reminder....

'And is it true? And is it true
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass windows hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?'

(from, Christmas)

Christmas and all that....

Christmas tomorrow. Today its an absolute stinker, pretty close to 40 degrees with strong westerlies chewing up any available cooler air. If anyone lights a match near the bush - well, there'll be trouble.

Last night we watched The Polar Express. I suppose we should have been forewarned by the fact that its a children's Christmas movie, but then, some of those are rather good, are they not. Yes, the special effects and animation were interesting for a while, but after that, the absence of a decent storyline or even moderately interesting characterisation had us yawning half way through. Really, a great opportunity missed because of a piss-poor script.

I love Christmas, but I do have a bone to pick with Claus. Here is a person who touts a philosophy of peace and goodwill to all, yet who flagrantly sides with the wealthy at Christmas time. You would think, given the capacity of this gentleman to travel worldwide in one night, and with an army of toy-making elves at his disposal, that he might do something about the imbalance between rich and poor on this one night of nights. But no, the rich get their expensive cars, jewellery and branded excess, whilst the poor settle for cheap plastic rubbish. Perhaps Mr Claus believes in trickle-down economics . Perhaps he is a tool of market forces.

But I have this to ask. Where's the level-playing field Claus? Where's the compassion? Where's the heart? Have a think about that next time you shove Rolex watches down the chimneys of Toorak and St Ives. Spare a thought next time you swan through the showrooms of Porsche or Ferrari in search of baubles for your mates at the big end of town....

Trouble at Yes

Yesterday we received the sad news that Lorraine's father had died. Lorraine is one of the teachers working for us at Yes in Sanda. She will come home this week and we will try to find a couple to replace her(and her husband Ian) by mid January, when the next term commences. They have done such a great job and are no doubt much loved by students there.

Finding good people is difficult. There are lots of people who have pretty good teaching skills, but who fall down in the managing a home and business department. And visa-versa, of course. And the Japanese really hate changes to teaching staff. No sooner have they gotten used to one group of foreigners, when a brand new group hove into view.

If worse comes to worse, and I hope that it doesn't, then I might have to jump on a plane and spend a few weeks in Sanda. I really don't want to leave Nadia at the moment - 5 and half months pregnant and all, and such a great time to be together.......

Something will come along, I'm sure.

Not more football....

Afraid so. With a World Cup only six or so months away and Australia and Japan in the same group, is there anything else to talk about? I've just joined a soccer forum here:

http://forums.soccerfansnetwork.com/

and have made a few tentative postings under the pseudnym, wakarahen. As I told a Japanese friend, that's because I don't know anything at all. Football's a passionate business and some of the posters get very het up over their teams and the opinions of others. I replied to an American poster whose method seems to be to shout his views over the top of everyone else and then to accuse them of anti-Americanism if they dare to disagree or put another spin on the stats he presents. (Could this be George Bush in disguise?) No reply as yet.

Now to Group F. I don' t think that the top spot is in serious doubt. Even if Brazil aren't at their best in Europe, and who knows, they should still take first place without too much trouble. So Australia will fight it out with Croatia and Japan for the second spot. Sad to say, both of the latter have improved since the last World Cup (or so informed opinion says) and Australia is a little creakier, a little older. The wild card is Australia's new coach, Guus Hiddink, whose tactical mastery may be sufficient (if our team plays very well and we have some luck) to get us over the line. The other results in the group will be critical too and it will probably come down to last match against the (very good) Croatian team.

Hmmm interesting times ahead......

World Cup Draw 2006

So, we are together with Brazil, Croatia and my 'other' homeland, Japan. A very tough group indeed, perhaps the second toughest. We are having broadband mondai so I must be brief now. More later on this historic occasion........

Just Waffle

I've just started revising a little Japanese after two months of slacking off. I discovered at least one reason for my laziness - the grammar was starting to get much harder. Or perhaps I should say, there was just too much to remember. I guess I've reached a high beginner point in my written studies (though I still haven't learned Katakana) though my conversation is very much still at the beginner level. Really by the time you can reply 'This is the man who came to the party yesterday' (In romaji, 'Kino pati ni kita hito desu') the conversation has moved along somewhat. Having the modifying clause before the noun isn' t helpful either. I enjoy learning grammar but it's application is difficult, to say the least.

Nadia's tummy is getting bigger and bigger and there are still five months to go. We swim most days though the weather until recently has been lousy- the strangest spring and early summer I can remember. It' s getting hard to her to get comfortable in bed and this can only get worse, really. Poor thing!

The FIFA draw for Germany 2006 is on Friday, so we're getting a little excited. The US National Coach has caused a bit of a stir by saying that he expects Trinidad and Tobago and Australia to be the weak links. Methinks this man may be eating his words at a later time. If the US played quality opposition on a regular basis rather than lightweights from its own confederation, then its ranking may be somewhat different. Now Australia is in Asia, we should start to climb the ladder, if, for no other reason, than the fact that we will be playing more games against better teams.

On Thinking

I often wonder what it would be like to be dumb. Or I should say, not so bright. Hardly a day passes without some grim reminder of how intelligence, so highly prized in Western civilisation, is sometimes a burden.

Today, for example, I read that intelligence, or at least a lot of it, has a correlation with Parkinson's Disease. There seems also to be a link between braininess and depression. There is data that suggests that the more educated you become, the less happy you are.

Maybe all this will be turned on its head by future research, but the adage about the happy guy with his six pack and TV set seems somewhat true. Live simply, live happily, heh?

All this thinking! My mind is never still, always restless, twitching and shifting between considerations of the self (oh, please to be spared from these!) and the myriad problems of the world. Right and wrong, truth and beauty, life and death (one more dichotomy and you're sacked - ed) oh yes, and God, do the circuit of my mind daily.

But if I look up from the computer, through the window, and beyond the neighbour's roof, I can see an endless expanse of sky. Nobody has got around to changing that, just yet.

Not harping, just.....

I had a quick scan of the blogs yesterday concerning the now notorious case of Nyugen Van, and opinion seems pretty much divided. Perhaps this reflects the recent poll (SMH) that showed that 47% approved of the state execution of the young man, astonishing if you ask me. Approved of! So many rednecks still in my own country! And to think that even the conservative Prime Minister of this country opposes capital punishment! How he must rub his hands at the prospect of wooing all those ignoramuses.

One site in particular grabbed me. I won't give it the oxygen of publicity (to quote Mrs Thatcher) but it was located in Queensland (for US readers, think Arkansas, Tennesee etc.). The author seemed still lost in the Soviet era, as he proudly displayed some witless anti-communist propaganda, alongside the predictable diatribe in favour of death sentencing. This was nobly topped off with an attack on Christianity and then an appeal to the spirit of the Enlightenment. He seemed blissfully unaware of the superb contradictions, all within a breath of each other.

Perhaps I'm a little too ascerbic. But life and death are serious matters, are they not? And snuffing out a life in an opinion poll strikes me as seriously deficient behaviour.

So remember, (as I often remind myself) , 'There but for the grace of God go I'

Craziness Part 2

The death penalty was abolished in Australia in the mid 1960's, so many Australians have never confronted its unforgiving reality. This morning Nyugen Van was executed, for reasons related in my previous post. Its important, I think, that any debate about capital punishment be free of nationalist or racist arguments or imputations, so those opposing Nyugen's execution would be well advised to steer clear of attacks on Singapore. At some stage or other, most countries have practised execution as a legal punishment, so really, no one nation can have a clear conscience in this matter.

Proponents of Nyugen's slaying (surely, 'serving of sentence', -ed) have offered very little to justify themselves. Most stand behind glib maxims (such as 'You do the crime, you do the time') or point, somewhat unconvincingly, to the problems that drugs bring. The first is too stupid to really respond to (Nobody is arguing against 'doing time', just against state sanctioned murder). The second invites us to look at the drug problem as if it were as simple matter that a few bullet points could deal with. Kill the drug mules and you will stop the problem. (Perhaps the problem started when individuals decided to become drug users.) And, look at all the suffering. Well, of course, but the causes are far more complex that those offered, and are hardly solved by killing a few low level couriers.

The arguments are largely irrelevant anyway. Nobody has argued that drug mules shouldn't get a long time in prison. Nobody has argued that they shouldn't be punished. We are simply arguing that the death penalty is an immoral and outdated act. It deters no-one. It diminishes everyone. It makes the state equally criminal and perhaps more so, since the balance of power between the individual and thre machinery of legal systems is totally unequal. It is anti-human.

To cite the Bible again, 'Thou shalt not kill'.

Nyugen Van, Rest in Peace.

Capital Crimes

There has been a huge and somewhat divisive debate in Australia in recent weeks over the proposed hanging execution of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, scheduled for tomorrow. Let me say at the outset that I am opposed to capital punishment per se.

The young man concerned was attempting to smuggle heroine into Australia and has been incarcerated for two years, pending the 'completion' of his sentence. Drugs like heroine are a curse and ruin the lives of many people. They decimate communities and create huge ripples of misery. They invariably lead to other acts of criminality.

Yet the taking of any life by any authority as a matter of justice is the purest act of hypocrisy. The crime committed is redoubled by the state, who are de facto accomplices. The state becomes the murderer. There is no justice, merely retribution, justified by lofty, though frequently mendacious claims of protecting the community, upholding standards, defending the weak...etc.... That citizens buy this comes as no surprise. Is it any different to being conned by the advertiser or lured by the glossy magazine. Is it little more than a matter of scale?

The final comment is best left to someone who was unjustly executed and who recognised the frailty of human judgement. Jesus, when confonted by an angry crowd who desired to put a woman to death for adultery, simply said. 'Let he who without sin cast the first stone.' Naturally there were no takers.

Capital punishment is wrong. State sanctioned killing is never justified.

Just One....

I don't think it hurts to include just one wedding snap here, do you? This is the bridal party at registration at the Leuralla amphitheatre on 26.11.05. Satoshi was the best man and Leila(Nadia's half-sister) was the bridesmaid. The witness is Nadia's schoolfriend and photographer, Vicky.

Marrying left your maiden name disused...

Flat but happy. I didnt think that getting married was such an exhausting affair. But it is, because if you don't have the expectations of others pressing on you, then you have your own. And sure enough, a thousand and one other matters, from the weather (important for us as the venue was outdoors) to who is picking up the flowers on the day (me, actually) impress upon the already stressed individual as the day looms.

But really, the whole thing went amazingly well. After days of rain and predictions (on the day, no less) of more rain, the sky cleared in the morning and clear skies prevailed throughout. The choir sang well, Nadia looked beautiful, my best man Satoshi( who flew in from Japan) was chuffed. The reception in the big top was fabulous and the band terrific (that's enough nauseating praise - ed.)

So we are married after seven years together. I'm happy to be married but I don't feel a lot different - yet. I guess there's a period of settling in. Maybe.

Swain Song

Last Sunday I sang with my choir , Crowd Around, at a concert 'up the road' at Katoomba. Ostensibly organised as a farewell to choral work for our former musical director, Janet Swain, the show involved our good selves and Janets Sydney based choir, Cantorium, in two individual sets followed by a combined effort/finale.

Crowd are renowned for snatching performance defeat from the jaws of rehearsal victory (gosh, that's awful!) but this time, we were actually very good. Better than Cantorium, I think, whose choice of songs were a little twee. On balance though, they probably have the stronger singing talent, so it must just have been our big heartedness(surely, incredibly good luck - ed.). Together, we fairly blasted the ball room of the Carrington Hotel into the main street.

Of course, its not a competition, but no choir likes to look weak amongst its peers. It was a personal challenge for me, since I was doing a solo on 'My Girl'. Learning the words was taxing enough, but making the delivery seem effortless and a little jazzy (remembering that white men can't jump) was doubly so. But I seemed to pull it off. Tabun.

Crowd have another gig this Saturday at which I am unable to perform though I will be in attendance. My wedding!

Kekkon no tameni

Well, our wedding looms. Only a week away now. We made the mistake today of each buying a set of paper plates for the party - strange that we should mix up such a thing. Just a misunderstanding.

We have an enlarged marquis for the back yard with additional seating, since so many people have accepted our invitation. I feel relaxed about the whole thing really. Theres not a lot more to do, and really I dont care if things dont get done.

Tom (he that is in utero) has been kicking quite a lot lately (no doubt in sympathy with the Socceroos!) and Nadia's tummy has been swelling in recent weeks. And she's only half way there!

On reflection, I'm a very lucky guy. I have a beautiful young partner, a baby on the way. I can work overseas when I want really and do pretty much what I like when in Australia. I have good friends, good health (okay, I'm a little bit of a nut-case) and sing in a great choir. I have a roof over my head that's paid for. How did I get here?

'Solving that question', as Phillip Larkin might have said, 'Brings the priest and the doctor/in their long coats/Running over the fields.'

Germany Ahoy!

For those who dont know (I suppose anyone not living in Australia), Australia have qualified for the World Cup in Germany next year. The night before last, we beat Uruguay 1-0 (4-2 on penalties) after one of the most harrowing matches I have ever watched. Truly, my heart raced and stomach twisted for the full 120 minutes, plus penalty shoot out.

The latter is surely a device that even the medieval inquisition would not have thought of. It's pure torture for the fans of both sides. But let me say how proud I am of the boys, of the effort produced against a good side under incredible pressure. And Guus Hiddink, the Dutch master! What can mere words say?

So the hoodoo of thirty years is gone, Australia is playing in Asia from next year (goodbye Oceania, and thanks for all the grief!) and we have the new A-League national competition. Things are looking up for the round ball! Your wish is granted, Johnny Warren!

By the way, hats off to Uruguay, who laboured the entire time with injuries to key players. They were worthy opponents. There's a spot in Oceania now if you like to take it, but really, it isnt to be recommended.

So, roll on next June and the clash of the 32!

The Last Place

Well, tonights the night when the final place for Germany 2006 is decided. All Australian soccer fans have been here before, usually to their bitter disappointment. Tonight is the rematch between Uruguay and the Socceroos - the first leg won by Uruguay 3 days ago in Montevideo, 1-0.

On home soil, Australia have a distinct advantage. A sell-out crowd at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney and a small deficit to make up. But Uruguay are the masters of the away draw and have the brilliant Recoba, well able to score from any situation. Getting a goal past the Uruguayan defence will be difficult and if the visitors score (say, on a breakaway), well, it may well be goodnight Germany.

I'm going to make a bold prediction. Tonight, the World Cup hoodoo of some thirty years will be lifted, any curses formerly made will be ended, and goals will flow......Maybe 5-0. Its not impossible and its certainly deserved.

Go Australia!!!

Self-Help from Self-help

Browsing in a bookshop the other day, I noticed the extraordinary number of so called self help books in stock. In fact, they seem almost limitless and spill over into a number of categories, such as health, fitness, parenting, money, to name but a few. Its almost as if anyone who had a problem or difficult situation, and who has resolved it(or thinks they have), feels the need to write about it.

Worse, most of it is re-cycled bunk or shamelessly re-worded versions of things that everyone has always known but thought was too obvious to put down in words. One striking similarity of the least reputable works is their affection for numbers. One writer felt there were seven ways that you could achieve financial independence (Step 7. Return this book and get a refund), another that there were six steps to a healthier you. Similarly, the ten habits of super successful people (#8 Always lift the toilet seat). The three essentials of raising a bright child(#1 Check parenting stock) sat somewhat cheekily next to the five ways of discovering the inner child.

Its sad and scandalous really, because amid this self-raising dross are a few gems written by genuine professionals who know what they are talking about. The penchant for numbers I can't explain, except to suggest that people have grown so lazy and publishers so cynical that anything promising relief or easy return in less than ten steps has become a good weeze.

You know what they say....if it's too good to be true......... Then again, maybe there's a book in that somewhere......

Mikoshi Madness

When in Japan, we live about 40 minutes from Sasayama, a very traditional Japanese town. Now and then we get asked to do silly things, like being the token foreigner carrying the mikoshi in the October festival. In case you're wondering, the mikoshi is a heavy thing, made almost entirely of sturdy wooden beams and bearing, if you look closely, four children in the central carriage. Actually, its not so heavy with 20 or so men are bearing the load, but one's shoulder tends to get a little sore with the constant rubbing and mikoshi acrobatics.

Well, lots of sake and parading later, this is a snap of our team from the Minami-Shinmachi district on the way home. Tannoshikatta!

Senoritas and Mad Hatters

Australia is in the midst of a discussion about new proposed anti-terror laws, which, as I have noted earlier, will give police and security organisations more power to detain (without charge) persons 'suspected' (by whom, on what grounds?) of being involved in terrorist activity. All this without any real judicial oversight and with any number of implications for media organisations and the freedom of the press. To note merely one of the more idiotic aspects of the proposed legislation, a young person detained by authorities may tell one of his or her parents. That parent may NOT tell the other parent, on pain of imprisonment. Charming.

I'm of the opinion that democracy is about proscribing the powers of the authorities, especially those that are essentially an arm of government, that do its bidding. Giving cops and spooks extra powers is rarely a good idea given their generally dismal performance. But I guess this makes life just a little kushier for them. Now they wont even have to gather information or investigate, just form some half-assed hunch about who might might be a terrorist of fellow-traveller.

I see a few threats to Australia's security, but unfortunately mostly these are elected representatives who no doubt have more than covered themselves by drafting the new laws. Suspect number one, the Prime Minister, whose reckless foreign adventurism at the behest of his American masters has made Australia a greater target for terrorists. Take a bow, you arch hypocrite.