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 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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My Great-Grandfather’s Retirement Allowance

 Will you get a retirement allowance in your future? It depends on your working style. If you work for a Japanese-style company as a full-time worker, you can get a lot of money when you retire. If you can get it, do you have plans to make an efficient investment of funds?

 For your information, I shall tell you an old story about my great-grandfather’s investment plan.

 My great-grandfather was an elementary school teacher. When he retired, he successfully got his retirement allowance. 

 His investment plan was this: He lent land and built many small houses for rent. He could get rental income and enjoy his old age.

 His plan worked for a while.

 But my grandfather recommended changing the plan and selling the houses. My grandfather was a highly educated person who graduated from a national university. It was during WWⅡ, so if there were an air raid at the houses, my great-grandfather would lose all of his property.

 My great-grandfather refused to sell them. He said he had donated tons of money to a shrine. He believed no bomb would ever come to his houses because of religious power. My great-grandfather was a religious and highly educated person. My grandfather tried to persuade him logically, but it was in vain.

 Sometimes, a religious person could be stubborn.

 I respect all religions in the world. When I visit churches, shrines, temples, and other holy places, I pray sincerely. But I also know religions never work like that. Any religion doesn’t work depends on money.

 As a result, my great-grandfather’s houses were all burned down. He didn’t own the land. He lost his retirement allowance.

 If he had had a different plan, my family might still be rich.

 Financial planning is always difficult.

 

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Picture by NORIMA

April in Japan

Are you coming to Japan? When?

 April is a good time to visit Japan. Those are warm days. You can watch cherry blossoms. It is a highly recommended season.

 But be careful because in April, Japan experiences small inconveniences every year.

 Schools, companies, and government offices all start the new term on the first day of April. Many people are given transfer notices. There are many freshmen in all fields.

 In a train, most Japanese people follow some unwritten rules, like giving way to passengers getting off at a busy station. But in April, you can find many people who don’t know the rules. So sometimes, some disruptions happen in trains. The train crew could also be freshmen. Japanese train systems are punctual. But in April, there are many delays.

 When we drive in April, we can find new drivers on the roads. Some people may be from different areas. They are not familiar with the roads. I am really careful to drive in April. I feel that my blood freezes a few times in April.

 Even in TV, there are many technical issues on pictures and sounds in April. I guess new TV workers make mistakes in April.

 If you go to a hospital in April, you need to be a little brave. It depends on the hospital, though. Some doctors tend to recommend that patients take a blood sample. Of course, in some cases, the doctors really need a blood sample for your health, but actually, some doctors want newbie nurses to have an experience taking a blood sample. I had an encounter with a neophyte nurse who had not yet experienced taking blood samples from a patient. I was the first. I had blood congestion for two weeks. I contributed to the medical world.

 Everyone was a freshman once. Everyone could be a freshman again. All you need is to tolerate April in Japan.

 Please come to Japan in April. You can experience wild Japan.

 

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Picture by Batako

 

Treated Like a Child

 When I was a university student, I was invited to a party with my mother and her friends in a restaurant. My mother had many friends, and she often asked me to accompany her to her meetings with her friends.

 At the dinner, I felt a strange atmosphere. It started when I saw a man and a woman who were sitting separately but paying attention to each other. I didn’t know why.

 I guessed they might be a divorced couple. This might not be a simple dinner party. It could be an opportunity for an intentional reunion for them.

 Actually, I was wrong, but my guess was kind of close. It was an arranged introduction for marriage. Officially, we had a dinner party, but it was also an event for the meeting of the man and the woman.

 In that case, I wanted to be involved. I could be supportive. I had no idea that was an arranged introduction for marriage. I was already a university student. I could understand the situation. My mother didn’t tell me; I think she treated me like a child.

 I didn’t know the situation, so I made a mistake.

 The man started to talk about his adventure. He traveled all around Biwa Lake (the biggest lake in Japan) by bicycle. After that, I talked about my adventure. I traveled all around Hokkaido (the largest prefecture in Japan) by bicycle. I think my story was not supportive of him. 

 If I knew that it was an arranged introduction for marriage, I shouldn’t have told my story about Hokkaido.

 I don’t know if they got married or not after that.

 If you have a party with a specific purpose, inform all the party members, including university students. We should not treat university students as children.

 

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Picture by NORIMA

 

Thinking New Music is “Noise”

When I was a high school student, I loved Blue Hearts very much. Blue Hearts is a Japanese punk rock band. I often listened to their music on cassette tapes. My mother listened to some of the music, and she said, “Why is such a bad singer singing a song?”

I was shocked. I doubted my mother’s intellect. This was punk rock. The vocalist should not be evaluated as “good” or “bad.”

My mother was a highly intelligent person. Her opinion was not related to her intellect. It was her way of looking at music. When she was young, singers had to be well-trained, which meant they were professional singers. That was common sense in my mother’s time.

I listened to the Beatles when I was a child. Everyone loved them. But when I researched them, I found that the Beatles were controversial in their early years. Some of the harsher critics described their music as “noise”.

When I was a junior high school student, I studied baroque music. I actually listened to records of some of it. I felt this music was boring. But the word “baroque” meant “twisted like a baroque pearl”; that is, “bizarre” and “foolish.” The original meaning had a negative connotation. In the early modern age, baroque music was like punk rock; it didn’t follow the old rules.

I’m not saying that my mother, the critics who criticized the Beatles, and the people who called the new style of music “baroque” are all stupid.

My point is that all of us, someday, will reach an age when we hear new music and think of it as just “noise.” If we have a long life, we can’t avoid that. That is a symptom of aging.

Luckily, I can still enjoy the newest music. I have never reached that age. But I still feel that the music that I loved when I was young is good.

Someday, I will reach that age. In that case, I will never say negative things about new music. I will pretend that I also enjoy it, so younger people won’t make fun of me.

“The newest music! I like it!”

 

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Picture by K.Nakano