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  • Another Approach to Health

    Ayurvedic medicine, or Ayurveda, is a traditional medical system with a 3,000-year history native to the Himalayan region. Even today, it is regarded as part of alternative medicine in such countries as India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Especially in Sri Lanka, it is protected and encouraged as a national industry by the Department of Ayurveda, the world’s only administrative ministry dedicated to it.

    There is a Sri Lankan-style Ayurvedic clinic in Japan that I’ve visited monthly for almost half a year. Sunil Nishimura, a Sri Lankan Ayurvedic practitioner, has been running this clinic in Kawagoe, Saitama, since 1996. He first came to Japan in 1994, and soon after, he became ill due to the stress of his life there. He asked his family to send him Ayurvedic herbs. He took them, imported from his home country, and changed his eating habits to Sri Lankan ones. He soon recovered his health after he changed his life. That was why he opened an Ayurvedic clinic for Japanese people suffering from diseases of civilization.

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  • Brazilian Town in Japan

    I visited Oizumi, Gumma Prefecture. Large factories and plants were invited to set up in this town, and mainly Japanese Brazilians were attracted there as factory workers. According to statistics, almost 6,000 people out of this town’s population of about 41,000 are from abroad.

    The Brazilian Plaza
    Street in Brazilian town
    Sign in Portuguese
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  • Paju English Village in South Korea

    Paju English Village in South Korea

    Market Street

    Visiting England is one of the things I want to do in the future. I planned a trip there in the middle of September. I purchased air tickets to and from London and booked hotels there. To my sorrow, however, I was forced to cancel all of the reservations because of the hectic work I had been doing for almost two years. The British Hills is one of its alternatives, but I get tired of it as I have visited there many times. One day, I heard about such a place in South Korea that mocked English streets. That’s why I visited South Korea this month, though I didn’t understand Korean at all.

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  • Turning 40

    Tomorrow I’ll turn 40. Ten years ago, when I was 30, in my (Japanese-only) diary, I wrote, I looked back at what I had learned in my life before and mentioned that my dreams in my thirties were (1) good marriage, (2) success in business, (3) spare financial resources, and (4) possession of my own house. Nothing from those dreams has come true right now, except that I’ve got enough income to manage to support myself.

    Indeed, I’ve experienced a wider variety of things in my thirties than I did in my twenties. Years in my thirties were much better, much brighter, and much more exciting than those in my life before. I don’t feel as depressed as I did for a few weeks before I was turning 30. But I think I’ve lost some precious things—time left in my life and a little physical strength. There are 10 years less time left to work, earn, and live. My skin gets duller. There are more wrinkles on my face. I can drink less alcohol. And I get tired more easily.

    I think that my forties would be the decade for compromise with and a battle against aging. I will face two types of aging: one that can’t be overcome and the other that I can. I won’t try to fight physical aging too much, which can’t be helped. I won’t stick to what I can’t do, for there is a limit to my ability. Even if I give them up, I’ll have a lot of other things I can do. I won’t grieve over what I’ve lost. Instead, I’ll be thankful for what I still have.

    On the other hand, I can fight against mental aging, which means fear of change, adherence to ideas and sense I acquired in the past, and lack of curiosity about new things. This kind of aging can be overcome on my own accord, no matter how old I turn.

    The money will be more important to me. Until now, I’ve intentionally spent all the money I’ve earned on my life experiences rather than saving it. Now that I’m in my forties, I have to change my mind, because there will not be so much time left before I can no longer earn any money. I’ll try to save as much money as I can so I can spend my last days comfortably.

    The global mind is now crucial for my future life, as well. As a Japanese person, I would like to continue living in Japan until the end of my life. Yet the future is unstable. This country may no longer be safe and comfortable to live in, as shown in the events of the tsunami and radioactive contamination that occurred on March 11, 2011. Some countries around Japan are hostile towards it, so that they may attack our homeland someday. Even if I can’t live in Japan any longer for some reason, I want to be able to live and get a job anywhere else in the world. I’ll build the skills and human connections I need to do it. Of course, I’ll save my assets in several countries of the world so that I can live even if I lose one.

    Nobody knows the future, but life is fun for this. I will live the next ten years with fun.

  • A Party with High School Classmates

    One day, a postcard arrived at my flat inviting me to a party hosted by an old boys’ and girls’ association of the high school, to be held on 27 April this year in Takarazuka. I had never seen such a party with my high school classmates before, since the commencement ceremony 21 years before. I wanted to see how the people had changed their faces and figures from what they had been in high school, so I replied to the sender that I was going to attend and booked airline tickets.

    As the plane from Narita Airport to Osaka was scheduled to depart at 6.25 in the morning, and there were no trains to Narita from where I live that would have let me catch the plane, I drove to the airport at midnight. I parked it in the car park to sleep until the terminal building opened.

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  • British Hills in Spring

    Inside the Barracks

    I visited the British Hills for the first time this year because the snow melted and it became accessible by car.

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