Inflation and Family Strife

I heard this story from my mother.

My family lived with my paternal grandmother. My mother was always scolded by my grandmother. My grandmother said to my mother, “You spend too much money!” “You are not good at shopping!” “You have to learn to make ends meet!”

 My mother had hard feelings about that even after my grandmother’s death. My mother sometimes complained that “she didn’t know it was because of inflation.”

 When I was a baby, Japan experienced a period of inflation. In 1970, the average first monthly payment for someone who graduated from a university was $111. In those days, most women didn’t have an income. In other words, a family could live on that income. Only 17% of people could study at university. Those were lucky people. They could have nice lifestyles with that income.

 My grandmother didn’t watch news programs. She didn’t read newspapers. She didn’t go shopping. She didn’t have information about inflation. That why she thought her son had married a stupid woman.

 History repeats itself.

 For a few weeks, my wife was busy at work. So, I went shopping to buy everyday items. I paid for those from my pocket money and kept the receipts. After that, my wife would give me the money from our family budget. She summed up the receipts and screamed, “That is too expensive! You cooked the receipts!”

 She started inspecting the receipts. She tried to find out if I had bought some stupid items using our family budget. I am a stupid man. Of course, I sometimes buy some stupid items, like cigarettes. But I don’t spend our family money on stupid items.

 My wife checked all the receipts. She never found any stupid items on the receipts. I was innocent, as I had insisted to her.

 Now, inflation is happening all around the world. It causes strife for many families everywhere.

 I heard that in the 1970s, the same thing happened. As a result, there was a wage increase. But wage increases are always too late.

 We need to do our best to survive.

Proofreading by Claire ProofreadingServices.com

Japanese

Picture by Gugu

Drone Show

 When my family went to Osaka Expo, the venue was very crowded. Most of the pavilions were already full. We could not go in any pavilions.

 My sister-in-law got information that the UK pavilion was not so crowded. If we waited for one hour in front of the pavilion, we could go inside.

 We decided to try the UK pavilion. When we were walking to the pavilion, we could see fireworks in the sky.

 When we were waiting in front of the pavilion, we could watch the drone show. That was the first time I had seen a drone show. Of course, that was a wonderful experience.

 The beauty of fireworks is difficult to show on television. The beauty of a drone show is also difficult to show on television. Each drone moved regularly. They made a beautiful show.

 At the same time, I felt scared. If a war happened, the drones would attack us.

 I am a Star Wars fan. In the story, there is a Clone War. Clone people fight against AI robots. But actually, we are now experiencing Drone Wars.

 Japanese fireworks are beautiful. Firework techniques were developed during the Edo period. During that period, Japan didn’t experience any wars. People could concentrate on developing fireworks. This must be a good way to use gunpowder.

 I hope people never use drones for wars. I hope people use drones in peaceful ways, like for entertainment. We will see many, many beautiful drone shows in the future.

 Japanese 

Proofreading by Claire ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by mirai4192

UK Pavilion

       My wife, my wife’s younger sister, and I went to Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan.

Beforehand, we applied to visit popular pavilions online, but we were all rejected. Thus, we did not visit the famous pavilions.

My sister-in-law said she wanted to visit the UK Pavilion. She works in the UK. If I could visit an expo in a foreign country, I would want to see the Japanese Pavilion.

Luckily, we were informed that we could visit the UK Pavilion by waiting for an hour, which we did.

We could visit at least one pavilion. At the same time, we knew why we could enter the UK Pavilion after just an hour of waiting.

In the UK Pavilion, we just walked around and watched movies. The movies were not exceptional—they were educational. My wife complained, “Is this a class?”

Sometimes, I work for movie companies. I thought that if I asked six coworkers, we could make the same quality of movies as those that we watched.

My sister-in-law said that people in the UK are generally not interested in expos.

On the contrary, the Japanese might be too crazy about expos.

Japanese

Proofreading ProofreadingServices.com

Special Skill

Did you go to Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan?

My house is not far from the venue, so my wife and I decided to visit the expo to make memories. At that time, my wife’s younger sister, who lives in London, was temporarily staying at their parents’ house. She decided to come along, and the three of us went on an overnight trip.

I was so happy that I saw a full-scale Mobile Suit Gundam. That is my all-time favorite animation. My wife and my sister-in-law are not familiar with Gundam. They didn’t say anything about it.

That was summer, and Japan was experiencing the worst heat wave. But when we visited the expo, it was not blazing hot. Many people visited the site, and the venue was packed. We had to wait for over an hour to enter the venue and another hour to leave it.

But I think the biggest problem was the women’s restrooms. In the venue, many women formed significantly long lines in front of all the ladies’ restrooms. By contrast, no lines were observed in front of the men’s restrooms. The women had to queue for a long time in the restrooms. Being a woman is challenging. If you feel the need to urinate, you have to wait for a long time. You need to pull yourself together strongly.

I think it’s not a small problem. We need to think of female and male equality. If we think of true equality, the sizes of restroom areas should not be equal. If the sizes were equal, the number of toilet bowls for women would be less than that for men. We should prepare at least the same number of toilet bowls for both men and women, but I don’t think that is enough. Females need more time to use the restroom. I think restrooms for women need a bigger area and more toilet bowls to address this issue.

I don’t know if the expo planner was a man or a woman, but did that person not feel anything when he or she watched the long lines for the women’s restrooms?

This problem not only applies to the expo but also to any events or theaters. The planners need to consider this problem when they design the restrooms—the restrooms are important.

How did my wife solve this problem at the expo? Don’t worry. She has a special skill. Gundam didn’t have special skills in the story, but my wife does. When I first met my wife, I assumed she was a boy. She looked like a male. She always wore boyish-style clothes. Sometimes, she gets scolded by other women in the restrooms: “This is the ladies’ restroom!”

My wife’s special skill is using the men’s restroom. We entered the same male restroom, but no one minded her. You need talent to use this special skill. If you can pull off wearing men’s attire, you can try that.

My sister-in-law? She has a more radical special skill. If she tries, she can endure not urinating for over seventeen hours. This might be a wonderful special skill.

However, these are not the solutions to the problem. My wife doesn’t want to use the male restroom, and my sister-in-law definitely cannot hold out all the time.

I strongly insist that there be true equality for men and women when it comes to restrooms.

Proofreading ProofreadingServices.com

 Japanese

 

Long-distance friends

  When I was a child, some friends of my family moved to other towns. Those experiences had a strong impact on me. I almost felt like my friends had died. I believed I couldn’t see them again.

Now, I am an adult. But I think maintaining friendships with long-distance friends is difficult.

We can meet neighborhood friends easily. We can meet by chance. We can invite them someplace easily. We can go to cafés, bars, restaurants, and events together. We can help each other with small tasks. These actions are a good opportunity for maintaining friendships.

When I studied in California, I had many foreign friends. I still keep in touch with some of them. Sometimes, I send cards to them. Two of them send me cards too.

One friend from Hong Kong still lives in California. Another friend from Taiwan lives in Taiwan now.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, both of them sent me emails asking, “Are you OK?” I was OK. I lived far away from the epicenter. My fiancée scolded me because I didn’t call her when the earthquake happened. That was the biggest damage I experienced from that earthquake. But don’t worry, she is my wife now. And I was happy to hear from old friends.

They actually helped me when the pandemic happened. In Japan, people needed to wear masks everywhere. But we couldn’t buy masks in any shops. Magically, though, everyone wore masks everywhere.

My friends knew about that situation. They sent me masks from the USA and Taiwan. Let me say a few words of thanks. Those masks were really useful. Thank you!

You know, most of my friends live in Japan. If we have a problem nationwide, most of my friends have the same problem. No one can help me. But my USA friend and my Taiwan friend can help me.

Keeping in touch with long-distance friends is bothersome. Out of sight is out of mind.

But there are situations only long-distance friends can help you with. In our future, no one can predict who will help us in any situation. We need to keep in touch with long-distance friends.

Japanese 

Proofreading by Claire ProofreadingServices.com

 

Nightmare

One night, I had a nightmare. I jumped up from the nightmare. I was sweating a lot. My heart was beating very quickly. I was relieved when I realized it was a dream. I went back to sleep again.

The next morning, I checked my smartwatch. It recorded that I had woken up in the middle of the night. It also recorded my heart rate. It was for a very short time, but my heart rate was as fast as when I have been doing strenuous exercise.

This could be used as a good dieting method in the future. You can sleep while using this method, but you can also do strenuous exercise. If you invent such a method, you will get tons of money.

But if I need to experience nightmares while using this method, I don’t want to try it. I don’t want to experience any nightmares.

Someone, please, invent a new method I can use to have a good night’s sleep and nice dreams while dieting in a healthy way.

 

Proofreading by Claire ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by brgfx

Japanese 

May Be a Friend

 One day in spring, my wife and I went for a drive. Of course, my wife was driving the car. I am not good at driving, but I can enjoy the drive. What a wonderful day!

 We stopped because the traffic signal was red. In the next seconds, we felt a shock. We heard a crashing sound.

 Our car was bumped by a truck from behind.

 I bought the car for the memory of our marriage, but it was badly broken. At that moment, it became a scrapped car.

 When the truck hit, I looked back at the driver. I saw that he was putting down his smartphone. I am sure he was driving while using the smartphone.

 Luckily, no one was injured in this accident. Policemen came, and we did all the procedures after the accident. We exchanged phone numbers with the truck driver.

 After everything, my wife and I went back to our normal life. I checked my smartphone. Facebook showed the truck driver’s page and read “May be a friend.”

 He is not my friend. I don’t want a friend who drives and uses a smartphone at the same time.

 I love social media, but sometimes, it is insensitive.

 

Proofreading by ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by ayakono