Different Way of Fighting

I had lunch with a neighbor a few days ago. She took over business from her father and now runs the restaurant in the neighborhood.  

Hang in There

I and my husband had dinner at a soba restaurant yesterday near Ginza, Tokyo. The restaurant is not fancy, but the owner and chefs are all very nice. It is getting increasingly difficult to find staff at restaurants or shops who speak using their brains without referring to manuals...

It had been two months before we went there last time and during the two-month period, the neighborhood had completely changed. The building in which the soba restaurant is located was surrounded by other taller buildings under construction.

The restaurant owner said that real estate value had been rising in Japan because of the Olympic bubble economy, so the area had been targeted by condo developers. He also said that he had been approached by a travel agent last year and asked if he was interested in serving soba courses for tourists from Asian countries. Although this would have brought him a quite amount of revenue for lunch, because the number of customers during the lunch time was guaranteed by the agent, he had said no. He was more interested in having more personal time and staying healthy.  

The owner said that one of the chefs, who had been his business partner for more than 30 years, had got sick and taken an operation two days earlier. He said that the chef would not come back.

Again, it is getting more and more difficult to find someone making decisions based on the idea that having money is useless unless you are in good health and spirit and have time to spend it!

When leaving the restaurant, we promised to celebrate in two and half years, that is, right after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, that our prophecy, i.e., those benefiting from the bubble economy would all go to hell, had come true.

We all were aware that we might have gone there before they would....

But anyway, I want the owner and the chef to hang in there.

Loneliness

I had a sense of loneliness for the first time when I was four or five. Looking back, it was very natural for me to feel like this because at that time my mom was severely depressed. She had a difficulty to deal with new environments, which changed almost every year due to my dad’s business.

I felt acutely conscious that I was lonely again when I was a sixth grader. I had gone to four elementary schools. Until I made friends at each school, I had to spend time alone at school and after school. This loneliness changed my life. I became independent and introvert while being very good at pretending to be extrovert, cheerful and funny, because otherwise, I would have to eat lunch by myself or be bullied.

One day, one of my classmates gave me a book “Boujour Tristess” by Francoise Sagan. That was the last day for me to go to the school and I made a farewell speech at the end of classroom hours.

And this book and her other books changed my life, too. They told me that everyone was lonely and that “everyone is born and dies alone.” “Oh, I am not alone!” I said to myself.

I sometimes see people who seem to think that they are not alone or who depend on others (or even drugs!) to fill in emptiness or those who think that the idea that everyone is alone in itself is stupid or negative.

I don’t think so. Everyone is alone and this is a fact. And because of that, we can enjoy being with someone you like or love. 

Legacy That Needs to Be Passed on – Article 24 of Japanese Constitution

One of the recent hottest political issues in Japan is definitely the amendment of the Constitution proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party ("LDP") of Japan and people’s focus is mostly on Article 9. I completely agree with the “renunciation of war” and am against any amendments to the article. I cannot see any reason for the amendment no matter what other countries want Japan to do, even if they are our allies. I understand the historical uniqueness of the birth of the Constitution (some saying that it was forced by the U.S.), but we have to thank them for such peaceful constitution and determine whether to amend it based on not how it was established "back then," but what is in it and whether or not we "now" want to keep it.

Legacy That Needs to Be Passed on - Women’s Rights

One of my college friends once told me that “you can’t just ignore feminism just because you don’t understand it because at least you must have benefited from their legacy.”

Reason for Writing in English, My Second Language

Some may wonder why the author of this blog (hereinafter “I”), who is Japanese, writes posts of the blog not in Japanese, but English.

My first post, “Reason to Start Blog - De-Imprinting,” is about how I started to keep a distance from my parents because of the imposition of their values (about, for example, racial discrimination) and the marginalization of me due to my different opinions. But even when writing the post, I thought that the idea described in the post might not be supported by Japanese readers. When I talked with Japanese friends, coworkers and relatives about my relationship with my parents, most of them just said that “it cannot be helped,” meaning that children should do and accept whatever they are told to do by their parents, because parents are parents and otherwise, they would be ostracized by other family members.

My parents (and maybe many Asian people, including Japanese) think, consciously or unconsciously, that parents own children and that it is natural for children to follow parents' values. However, I believe that children are independent of parents after a certain age and because of that, it is inevitable that some children cease to have any relationship but blood one.

I have also other questions regarding family values, e.g., the definition of women's happiness (see "Responsibility of Parents"); the still prevalent patriarchy system in Japan (see "Money May Not Matter to You, but to Me" and "Money Does Not Matter - No.2"); the definition of work (see "Because I Work, I Don't Have to Do Labor Work") and other matters, such as the definition of Mottainai (see "Mottainai - Make it Work or Let it Go").

So, how are these my views considered in your country or culture? Are these minority opinions or wrong opinions or are they supported?

I write posts of this blog in English because I want to know how the majority opinion in Japan is viewed by those of other countries with diverse backgrounds because here in Japan, people with different views from the majority, like me, are often marginalized. I was marginalized during the almost entire childhood for a reason (which I may describe in another post) and no longer want to be marginalized.  

How Can Women SHINE?

There is an ongoing discussion in Japan of how to maximize women’s abilities in workplace while ensuring that they can raise children.

There was also an article on the Internet a few days ago about women who quit jobs to be dedicated homemakers but are now wondering if the decisions were right.

Another interesting thing is that a couple days later, a follow-up article saying that “dedicated homemakers can also ‘SHINE,’” i.e., realize themselves to the full extent, was posted.

It reminds Keiko of Sachiko. Sachiko has recently solved an old problem related to the definition of work. In brief, Sachiko’s mother, who has been a dedicated homemaker through her life, said that she no longer needed to do household chores as she “worked.” “Work” here means writing calligraphy and holding calligraphy classes, to which she has dedicated herself, but which has made no financial contribution to the household.

Keiko believes that the fundamental issue here is the same. They confuse the meaning of two different things, i.e., activities which need to be performed for biological necessities and activities which need to be performed for self-realization.   

Activities which need to be performed for biological necessities, such as doing household chores and earning a certain amount of money which supports one’s life, do not necessarily make them SHINE. They are requisites and that’s it. In other words, hataraku or shigoto in Japanese, when used to refer to these activities (or labor according to Hanna Arendt’s theory) is not supposed to provide the joy of life.

Some perform such labor activities to fulfill their biological necessities and by doing so, may be able to partially or fully realize themselves and feel the joy of life while others perform such activities only for money and may need to find such joy in other sphere.      

So, Keiko believes that if Japanese women want to SHINE or realize themselves, they need to know first what they want. The thing is that what you want is sometimes different from what others want. But convincing others that what you want should be right for others is waste of your time. People can lie to others, but cannot to themselves. If you figure out what you want, you just go ahead and never look back.  

Responsibility of Parents

Before taking college exams, Keiko was told by her mother that she should major in not law, but literature, because women who major in law were not considered feminine, could not marry someone successful and rich and unmarried women could never be happy.

Money Matters - No.2

In Japan, there was a legal system that the eldest son took care of his parents and other family members in exchange for inheriting all property. It is no longer legally provided and under the current law, property is equally divided between all heirs. However, this outdated system still exists and one of the most interesting legacies is that only the eldest son (if a son does not exist, the eldest daughter) and his spouse as well as his unmarried sisters who have never married may be buried in the family grave, but others have to procure their own graves.