A Cellphone without a Camera

 Lately, I met a young person who used an outdated cellphone. I was surprised because I assumed all young people used smartphones. I asked him why. He said, “This cellphone is very convenient in my workplace.”

 He was working for a famous carmaker. The car industry is very competitive. There are many secrets in the factories. The company banned people from entering some areas with their smartphones that have cameras. His cell phone was an old one without a camera, so he could bring it to any area.

 Other workers need to go to a special department where they break the cameras of the phones. The department would signal that the cameras are surely broken, and then the workers can enter the special areas with their phones.

 He said he wanted to buy a new phone, but he couldn’t find a phone that had no camera. As an engineer, he didn’t want to break a new camera.

 Phone makers tend to create new functions, but I think they should make phones with fewer features. In Japan, there are many top-secret factories. All the workers of these factories would buy phones without cameras.

Picture by Graphs

Professor U

 

 

U is a professor at Tokyo University. When she was a graduate student in Kyoto, she attended my mother’s lectures. They got along well. Theirs was like a master-pupil relationship. A few years later, U become more famous than my mother. She published a million bestselling books and become a professor at the most reputable university in Japan. But she still respected my mother. Sometimes Professor U participated in my mother’s events or activities in Nagoya. Sometimes Professor U wrote introductions for my mother’s books. In addition, Professor U sometimes mentioned my mother’s name in the media, saying, “There is a wonderful woman in Nagoya,” or something along those lines.

A few months after my mother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease, she and her colleagues held an event in Nagoya. Professor U came from Tokyo to participate. At that point, my mother already needed my help to participate in the event. But I didn’t make an official announcement about her disease. She ran many organizations, so I just told some key persons in the organizations about her diagnosis. I thought they needed time to organize new systems that weren’t dependent on my mother. My healthy mother’s fame would give them an advantage as they created strong new systems. By contrast, if everyone knew about my mother’s disease, the organizations could lose their influence.

After the event, Professor U, my mother, and I were alone in a cab. We were headed to Nagoya station. I didn’t say anything, but Professor U figured out what my mother had from a short conversation with her. I realized she had noticed. But I didn’t say anything.

When we arrived at Nagoya station, Professor U was teary-eyed as she gave my mother a big hug. But my mother didn’t understand why she was crying. My mother and I saw Professor U off. She lived in Tokyo. She would be taking a super express train to Tokyo.

However, Professor U went in the wrong direction. She did not walk toward the ticket gate for the super express. Some people described Nagoya station as a labyrinth. It had a complicated structure. Even people who lived in Nagoya would lose their way. I thought she’d lost her way. So I almost followed her to help her. But I changed my mind. She’d just found out her master had Alzheimer’s disease. This was one of the most important scenes in her life, one she would repeatedly remember. No one had asked me to play a part in that scene. It made sense to let her lose her way: to separate from her master and lose her way.

A few years later, all of my mother’s acquaintances knew about her disease. We held an event in Nagoya. Once more, Professor U participated. The first half of the event was a speech by another professor. Professor U sat down next to my mother in the audience. She kept holding my mother’s hand during the speech.

I experienced something similar: I was separated from my master and lost my way. I visit my master’s grave every year. I feel cold when I touch the gravestone. Today, my mother could be a warm gravestone. It is difficult to communicate with her. But, if you hold her hand, at least it feels warm.

Picture by Kyoko

Remote

 

In the initial stage of Alzheimer’s disease, the patient tends to lose items. My mother did. Among the items that caused trouble were air conditioners’ remote controls.

In the winter, we used a gas heater with a fan. It didn’t have a remote. So there was no problem. But in the summer, we used air conditioners with remotes. My mother repeatedly lost the remotes. That was a problem. When she lost her bankbook, a complicated procedure was necessary for its reissuing. But the banks didn’t ask us for too much money. It cost about 10 dollars. The air conditioners’ remotes were a different story.

These days, some companies sell economic remotes that can be used for all kinds of air conditioners. In those days, however, I had to call the air conditioner manufacturer to request a new remote. Then they would send it to us. It cost about 200 dollars.

Every time my mother lost a remote, we had to pay 200 dollars. Then, during the two or three days it took for the new remote to arrive, we had to endure the hot summer without the air conditioner. Alternatively, we couldn’t turn off the air conditioner, resulting in an expensive electric bill.

My solution was the same as the one I adopted when my mother lost her bankbooks: We would have two remotes for every air conditioner, and I would keep one of them. When my mother insisted she’d lost her remotes, I just used my hidden remote, saying, “I’ve found it.” When she lost her bankbook, an elaborate charade was necessary. I had to pretend to look for the bankbook. Then I would put a new one somewhere and let her find it because I didn’t want her to suspect me. In the case of the remotes, the charade wasn’t necessary. My mother would never suspect that I was interested in them. She had Alzheimer’s disease, but she was not crazy.

Now I can buy a remote online for almost all air-conditioner makes with less than 10 dollars. I wish that had been possible when I was taking care of my mother. It would have been easy and economic.

By the way, “Summer Time Machine Blues” is a Japanese theatrical play. It was also made into a movie. The theatrical masterpiece was released in 2001. It’s a great science fiction comedy about some people looking for an air-conditioner remote using a time machine. If we’d had economic remotes when it was released, the story wouldn’t have made sense.

I am glad for contemporary convenience. But too many convenient tools could take the drama out of our lives.

Picture by Sato