Another birthday

The host sister of when I went to America is now in Tokyo and we met three weeks ago, as I wrote before.
There, I met a 9 year old boy, who was her hostbrother.
He was a very cute and friendly boy, and we became good friends. We built a country named Shouzou Republic, that consist of me, the president, him, the minister, and Shouzou Kuwagata, an insect he showed me in the picture. The land is where we are.

Tomorrow is my minister's birthday, and today we, I, his parents, my host sister, his brother, and our common friend from Korea, had a little party for him at his house.
I and he first did a TV game, Mario Cart, a car racing game with 12 cars, on Wii. We did that three weeks ago, and he got for average the fourth rank, and I got the last rank for the all races. I wanted to get the higher rank this time, but I got only the last rank this time, too, while he got the first or second rank this time. Anyway, we had fun.
Then we had pizza and tacos for dinner. We, adults spoke a lot, and he didn't have very much chance to speak, for our bad. We asked him if he wanted to go studying abroad in the future, but it sounded he doesn't have very much intention. I know he is too small now, and hope he will change his intention in the future, that is 6 years from now.
Next we had a birthday cake, a short cake. We sang the birthday song in English, in Japanese, and in Korean.
They passed a little quick, and the next is the waited present time. First his parents gave him a in-room struck out game. He liked it very much, and we had a little game with it. I and he got good score. We enjoyed it very much. Next, my hostsister gave him a yonmokunarabe, kind of like Othello. I and he did two games, and the score was 1-1. I lost a game for 10 year old boy. I was kind of ashamed. The last present was mine. What i chose for him was a mini robot of an insect. It walks, and turns when it touches a wall or hears a big sound. It was really cool and I liked it very much, but I was afraid if he would like it. It was a needless worry. He gave a little exclaim seeing it, and played with it for a long time. I was very pleased. We named it Shouzou mushi, and it became the fourth menber of Shouzou Republic.
That was all for the party, and I went home. On parting, we made a promise to meet again. I really like him and his familly very much, so I hope this relationship will last for life. I'm looking forward to his future.

Birthday

I have a 4th grader friend, my best friend I met in the art club.

I got an e-mail from him this morning, saying he comes to Fuchinobe today and proposing our meeting after school today.
I was surprised that he still comes to Fuchinobe, and what surprised me most was that today was my birthday. I didn't have any plan for today. Off course I said yes.

It was a few weeks after we had met before, but we felt it had been long when we met.
We first went to EXCELSIOR CAFE in front of Fuchinobe station. I was terribly poor then, but I thought it was time to use money, for it was my birthday spent with a friend. I orderd Roma Chicken sandwich and medium caramel almond coffee. It cost about 800 yen. I usually don't eat luch to save money, so it was a great expence for me. We talked about movies (we both love movies), our club, and about Aikido, that I recently started, and so on. He gave me a few cigarrets. I don't smoke very much, but I sometimes smoke when I'm with my friends. I don't know why for sure, but I feel very happy when smoking with my friends. We had a very nice time there.

Then we went to Machida to have dinner. He loves ramen, and I had a ramen restaurant I had wanted to go, so we went there. The name is Karamen Shinkuu. We both ordered big size ramen. It was 850 yen. It was my birthday.
It was violently hot, but very tasty, so we loved it.

Then we went to convinence store for him to get a beer. I didn't drink, for I couldn't drink alcohol very much, but I smoked while he was drinking, in front of the store.

Then we walked slowly to the Odakyu Machida station, and parted at the plathome, doing greeting of having fist meet each other's, that we always do on parting, my favorite greeting.

He didn't say happy birthday or anything. Maybe he didn't know it was my birthday, and perhaps it was just coincidence that we met today. But I'm not surprised if he did. He is such a guy, and I'm such a guy that doesn't tell him it's my birthday, and we like each other very much.

It was a very nice birthday today.

love and peace

I belong to art club, although I don't do very much artistic activity.( I have been interested in movies and other arts, and I just liked the people when I went to the freshmen canvass.) I think I made a really good choice. I have made many good friends there and have had happy time in this club.

This spring we had a new cool guy who likes hippie culture.
Maybe I need an explanation for hippie.
Hippie is a people who protest against the Establishment, and advocate returns to nature. They love freedom, nature, peace, and art. As the Vietnam war, so in late 60's, it became very popular all over the world. Of course they were against the war.
Today after school, we, about 10 or so, gatherd in the grass before chapel, and had a Hippie Night, proposed by the guy. Some of us tied their hair and wore like hippie, and played "Imagine" of John Lennon and "Like a Rolling Stone" of Bob Dylan with guitars and harmonicas.
When the clear blue sky gets darker and gets mixed with orange, it was so beautiful and we felt very nice.
I'm happy to have them, and I'm very happy that it's still June. We have much time left.

Martial Art.

This is my essay for IE Writing class. I have been wondering what martial art is, so I chose this topic. I tried to find the charactreristics of 3 kinds of martial art and analyze their thought from their technics. It was quite interesting to see the differences between them.


Martial Art

Shouzou Hirata

Martial art has an aspect as a kind of body language between two bodies. Each kind of martial arts has a philosophy on how the player looks on the opponent and it is represented in its techniques. There are two types of martial art according to how the player approaches the opponent: one is a battle with blows (In Japanese, it is called Go, which means hard and strong), and the other is with throws (In Japanese, it is called Ju, which means soft and adoptable). The difference between Go and Ju comes from the difference in philosophy in each on how the player looks on the opponent.

The typical sport of Go is boxing. The players keep firing blows at each other until one is knocked out, gives up or time runs out. In this sport, the opponent is not a human but a wall. He stands in front of the player like a wall that tries to illustrate the limit of his physical ability. To overcome the limit in himself, he has to crush the wall. According to Wikipedia, this sport started in ancient Europe. As the background, there is probably the dualism of traditional European philosophy. The structure that either is to be ruled by power is the same thing that we can see in the history of European science’s ruling nature.

On the other hand, the typical sport of Ju is aikido or judo that both have, according to Wikipedia, stemmed from jujutsu. The player throws the opponent and ties him down. According to it, the fundamental philosophy of this sport is survival of both self and others, and discipline of mind is an important aim. So, on the contrary to that opponent is a wall that should be crushed in boxing, the opponent is to be respected and cared in Judo and he is not an object but a person whose path should be changed to avoid collision. One of the best ways to know what Judo is to watch the movie “Sugata Sanshiro” by Akira Kurosawa. In the movie, a judoist Sugata, with a match near at hand, sees his opponent’s daughter pray to God for her father’s win. Sugata finds unbeatable air in her unselfish shape, and realizes that unselfishness is the essence of invincibility. Sugata, who achieved unselfish mind through training under his master, at the match, throws the opponent. Carried from the hall, he tells Sugata that he felt good when thrown by him and expresses gratitude. However, judo has a match, so the players are still eager for win. Aikido puts more importance in mentality than judo. Aikido denies conflict, so doesn’t have a match. Tatsuru Uchida, who is a philosopher and also an aikido player, says, in aikido, the players become one creature at heart and body, so he feels sad when the training is over feeling as if he parts with a part of himself.

As we live our life, there are both times when we have to crush a wall and when we have to change a path of a person, so we need them both. Boxing is originated in Europe, and judo and aikido are in Japan, but now boxing has gained great popularity in Japan, and in European country such as France the number of people who plays aikido or judo is bigger than in Japan. As we assimilate each other’s martial arts, we can reach the better way to balance with our world.


Works cited
Sugata Sanshiro. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Susumu Hujita. Eigahaikyuusha, 1943
Uchida, Tatsuru. Home Page. Uchida Taturu no kenkyuushitsu. 12. May. 2008. 13. May.2008
“Judo” Wikipedia. 12. May. 2008
“Boxing” Wikipedia. 12. May. 2008 <>

Reunion

When I was a high school student, I lived in Minnessota, America for a year as an exchange student. It's 4 years ago from now.

First, I stayed at a family's in Minneapolis, which is the biggest city of the state, for 3 months. The hostfamily consisted of a hostmother, hostfather and a hostbrother of 12. He was such a cute boy. His hobby was to watch Japanese animes, and I was often made to watch them with him at midnight after hostparents went to bed. If I fall asleep, he got angry. He said he had had been up for four days straight watching animes, that I don't know if it's real. His favorites were Dragon Ball, FLCL, Cowboy Bebop. I had not seen FLCL and Cowboy in Japan , but they were really cool, high quality animes, and they became my favorites, too. They are not so popular in Japan, but they are really in the U.S. I was surprised at American kids' good sense. Anyway, I had nice times with him. He often came to my room to do a loud game on computer which is only in my room, even when I was doing my homework, that kind of annoyed me, but I knew that he was actually wanted to be with me. I love him. Hostparents, they were both really nice, and took good care of me. I'm really thankful for them.
Second, I stayed at a different family's in the same city for two months. The hostfamily consisted of a hostmother, hostfather, and a hostbrother of the same age. His real parents had divorced, and he had lived with his mother and a father in a low to whom she remarried, and with his real father who lives very close to them weekly in turn. Hostmother liked reading, watching movies, and we had same hobbies. So we talked a lot about them and other things. I spent Christmas season with them and we had many parties with their relatives. It is a really fantastic memory. I really liked this family, so when I parted with them, I cried really hard.
Third, I stayed at a family's in a small town which is about 3 hours car ride from minneapolis for 6 months. It was a big family. I had hostmother, hostfather, 2 hostsisters, and 2 hostbtothers. The oldest was a girl of the same age as mine, and so she introduced me to her friends. We sometimes had parties, and I had really good times. The second oldest was 2-year younger boy. He was a black, and an adopted child. He was not a good student at school and kind of difficult child, but was really a kind and nice guy. We sometimes did a basketball together. The youngest and second youngest were shy boy and girl. And I was, too. So actually we didn't have much conversation, but they were cute and I liked them. And, the hostmother and hostfather, they were really really nice people. They took really good care of me, and tried all their best to have me have good time. They always talked to me who were shy and not good at English, with as much humor and cheerfulness as possible, and took me to all the events going on around the town. They were really nice to me. I had really good time with them, and I'm really thankful for them.

I had a really nice year in minnessota.

From the last summer, the oldest hostsister at the third family is in Tokyo. She stoped out from college, and works here. The family have lived in Akita for about 10 years for father's job, so she wanted to come back to Japan again, though she couldn't speak Japanese very well. I was thinking about going back to Minnessota, so it was a big welcome surprise. When I met her last year for the first time after I left the U.S., we were so glad and had a happy time. She grew more and more nice and brilliant. She is learning japanese at a high speed, which surprises me, and now we talk in japanese. Actually her Japanese is better than my English. We have met for a few times since the last summer, and we became much better friends than before.

And now, her family is visiting her here in Tokyo. I met them yesterday. Well, what a delight it was for me to see them after 4 years! The youngest and second youngest grew so big, and I couldn't recognize thtem until introduced. The youngest boy became a gentleman, and the second youngest girl became very beautiful. We had BBQ with many other hostsister's friends, and had a very nice time. And today, we met again. My mother was together this time. She showed her great thankfulness to my hostfamily for having me, and talked a lot. We went to tenpura restaurant, and it seemed that they liked it, to my delight. However, I still have a serious problem. I still couldn't talk with the youngest and second youngest kids very well. We are still shy, and I was nervous.
I do want to get close to them soon. They will be here for another 2 weeks.