From 0 to 100?

Odd but true. Some Japanese food labels carry the description of "Ages 0 to 100." Very interesting, indeed. One label was found on a bottle of salad dressing. It makes me think: are people over 100 years of age being advised not to consume any of these dressings because it may be too oily, too sour, or too salty? For crying out loud, they reach their centennial already. Let them have whatever they want! Or are they saying that babies right after birth could technically be bottle-fed with milk with a dash of vinegary dressing?

Almost Greek to Me

Since my travels to Europe in the 70s I have visited many public squares: in small towns and in big cities; during the fall, winter, spring, and summer; at dawn and near dusk, day and night. In my subsequent travels −after learning about the Greek agora and the Roman forum during college− I tried to recreate the feeling of being in that ancient marketplace, in that old public square. Did anybody ever stand and think that the very spot she or he stood on would one day be a subject of a study? What went on the mind of the people as they walked among the architectures that dwarfed them? In Nashville, Tennessee, stood the only standing replica of the Parthenon of Athens. While I was in college, many times I would visit the park where the monument stood and walked around the structure, but the feeling I was searching for eluded me.

Then today it happened in what I thought was the unlikeliest place in the world: the Ebisu Garden Place, one of the many contemporary temples to the gods and goddesses of commercialism. I have been to this shopping and dining complex cum brewery (the Yebisu Beer) many times, but today, because of the gorgeous mid-Fall weather of sunny and cool, I decided to walk aimlessly, in and out of and around the different buildings in the area. After three hours in the area, I walked on the ground level of a building with a tall ceiling. The portico was devoid of any Greek element: no Doric, Ionic or Corinthian columns; instead, it was simply rectangular columns that lined the sides of the building, supporting the overhanging roof.

The angle of the sun cast a shadow of the adjacent structure onto the wall of this building. Suddenly I felt as if I were circling a classical edifice in the ancient time. It was a weird feeling, because I thought such a reaction would only be available to me in the West, while touring similar structures. Here in the East, specifically in Japan, I thought I would be overcome by a site-specific sensation, such as: the Shinto shrines, the Buddhist temples or the Zen gardens. How foolish of me to be so narrow-minded. An exhilarating experience it was not; nonetheless, it was a gratifying feeling. At the time of the revelation, I was not thinking about the people in the future; instead, I was soaking in the moment of what I thought would be a walk among the giants in the ancient times, and oddly enough, that made my Sunday for me.

Soy Sauce Made from Human Hair

I did not know this, but today I was sent a link to an article that talked about how the Chinese and the Japanese used human hair for the production of soy-sauce. Further, the article said that the amino acid that was present in human hair provided an alternative to soy beans in giving soy sauce its flavor. What makes it dangerous is that the chemicals used to extract these amino acids are carcinogenic. While the Japanese used this method during the World War II because of soybean shortage (because of food shortages, soybean was consumed as soybean, instead of being used to make soy sauce), they stop the practice some time ago. The Japanese put a ban on the production of soy sauce from anything other than organic proteins. The Chinese soy sauce manufacturer, on the other hand, saw the use of human hair as a cheaper alternative to using real soybeans. For full view of the article, click the heading on this blog, or go to http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/index.html

Setting Back the Clock of Equal Rights

Maybe it is the trend these days to set back the clock of progress. The United States' stance on environmental issues seem to unravel decades of the move forward. Now, the Japanese government is tinkering with Article 24 of their Constitution, which guarantees the equal rights for all in terms of marriage and family. This past June, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed revisions that would strengthen the family and community values at the cost of equal rights.

The following is an Op/Ed article from Asahi Weekly/Asahi Shimbun of the International Herald Tribune, dated November 11, 2004. You can click the title of this particular blog if you would like to go to the site itself. If the link is broken, worry not; the article has been published in its entirety down below:

BACKLASH: Revisionist thinking
By MIEKO TAKENOBU,The Asahi Shimbun

Women's groups have banded together to fight proposed changes to the Constitution that target their equal rights.

Women's groups are roaring back at proposed constitutional revisions that target their equal rights.

At issue is Article 24 of the Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for men and women in terms of marriage and family. In June, a group in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party issued a draft document that proposed rewriting the article to focus on the family--especially obligations to support the family--and community values.

A nationwide network of 12 women's groups has formed to resist the changes. At a news conference held Oct. 29 in Tokyo, women in the network spoke out on the issue.

``Should we return to the days before Article 24 when decisions about women's educational advancement, work and marriage were all made by the male head of the household?'' one participant asked.

Another said, ``Any weakening of Article 24, which defines equality within the home, would endanger the domestic violence prevention law, the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society as well as the insurance program for elderly care.''

Participants included octogenarian Mutsuko Miki, widow of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki, as well as women in their 30s such as Hisako Motoyama, an organizer with nongovernmental organizations.

As written now, Article 24 states: ``Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes, and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.

``With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.''

The proposed revision by the LDP group changes the focus of the article. A draft, posted on the Internet, proposed as a new ``public duty'' an obligation to support the family. The draft also said ``(Article 24) should be reviewed from the standpoint of stressing family and community values.''

LDP members who helped compile the draft say they are surprised at the strong negative reaction. Lower House member Kyoko Nishikawa said the proposal did not mean a return to the traditional Japanese family where the patriarch ruled with an iron fist.

``I think a Constitution that does not have any reference to the home is wrong,'' Nishikawa said. ``It is necessary to place importance on the home as the foundation. I personally think what should be included is a clause like `the home is the basic unit of society.' ''

Another member of the team, Yoshitaka Sakurada, said the negative reaction was due to a misunderstanding.

`Should we return to the days ... when decisions ... were all made by the male head of the household?'

PARTICIPANT Nationwide women's group network

``It will not do if under civil law a homemaker who cared for elderly parents did not receive an inheritance matching her contribution because of the provisions for equal division of inheritance,'' Sakurada said. ``The fact that the family is important should be included in the Constitution as a means of confirming that principle. We are not thinking about reviewing the clause about the equality of the sexes.''

However, Hiroshi Nakasatomi, an associate professor of constitutional law at Fukushima University, sees a direct relationship between the focus on the family in the LDP proposal and a review of the clause for equality of the sexes.

The LDP proposal points out that the family and community were destroyed after World War II due to egotism. In order to rebuild family and community values, the LDP proposal includes the provision for ``an obligation for supporting the family'' as well as a new provision for ``protecting the family as the duty of the nation.''

According to Nakasatomi, the unstated precondition of the proposal is that women would be expected to handle the obligation for supporting the family. As a result, a review of the equality of the sexes would come into play because the need would arise for a division of roles according to gender in terms of supporting the family.

One LDP member who is opposed to revising Article 24 is Upper House member Yoichi Masuzoe.

``The objective of constitutional revision is to adjust the Constitution to changes in society, but the proposal on Article 24 moves in the opposite direction,'' Masuzoe said. He added that the proposal to revise Article 24 was a political attempt to appeal to conservative voters.

``Since the LDP cannot attract the undecided voter, it tends to depend on the conservative support base from which it can ensure it receives votes,'' Masuzoe said.

Another woman who was surprised by the LDP proposal was movie director Tomoko Fujiwara. She finished a documentary this fall about Beate Sirota Gordon, the American woman credited as the creator of Article 24.

``Having lived in Japan for a decade from the time she was five, Gordon proposed Article 24 based on her knowledge of the real status of women,'' Fujiwara said. ``I wanted to show through the movie that her idea had taken root in Japan.''

Screenings of ``A Gift from Beate'' are planned in conjunction with efforts to protect Article 24. The film is scheduled to open in Japan next spring.(IHT/Asahi: November 11,2004)

Gone, All Gone

*sigh* My laptop is back and the hard disk is replaced, but a small chunk of my life is gone. I said earlier that losing the hard disk somehow did not sadden me because at the time, the US election did not go my way, but as I got my laptop back and started rebuilding, I realized how much I had lost. Did I not back-up my data in another disk? Yes, I did, to a hard disk with a capacity of 320GB! But alas, that darned LaCie Big Disk was corrupted just few days before the laptop incident. As a result, some files were damaged, including my photo and music collection. Thank goodness there was the desktop back-up. Now I do what I should have done long time ago: back-up onto CD-ROMs and DVDs; lesson learned...*sigh*

I have fallen off the NaNoWriMo and BlogMo wagon, but I am going to see if I can catch up. ...doubt it, but maybe I can make it a LoDecWriMo and LoDecBlogMo (Local December Writing Month and Blogging Month). Any takers?

But the Dog Ate My...

On the depressing day of the 2004 US election, my laptop hard disk was loose. Subsequent tinkering with it did nothing. The election apparently not going my way, I decided to go to Apple Ginza to have my laptop examined and was informed that I had lost the disk; completely lost it. Thank goodness it was still under warranty. It just happened that a few days before, the external hard disk that acted as a back-up system was experiencing problems too. Somehow, these two incidents paled to the news of the election; I was surprised to find myself at peace with losing the 70GB of stuff from that laptop and risking losing 160GB of data from the external hard disk... Needless to say, I will be without a laptop, and that NaNoBlogMo and NaNoWriMo will have to wait till my laptop comes back as I am typing this on a borrowed computer.

NaNo NaNo

Yes, yours truly has decided to join the NaNoWriMo and NaNoBlogMo for this month. What an earth possesses me to do this, I have no clue. If you are interested, go to http://50000wordsinnovember.blogspot.com or just click the title "NaNo NaNo" above. Why such name? The National November Writing Month invites and challenges bloggers to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Yes, many a crap will have been produced by the end of this month, including mine. I am supposed to have written about 1600 words per day if I am to finish this on time, but as it is, I am already late!!! Second day, and I am only at 1006. Hm, the at-the-moment election coverage at CNN and BBC News do take away my focus, but what do they say about excuses?