Author Archives: Hiro Shibata

Japanese people are shocked by a sad news today; a 73-year-old gentleman was hit by a car and killed when he was volunteering to accompany children walking to school, as his daily routine for 15 years since his granddaughter started school. It is sad enough, but what shocked us even more is that he decided to do the volunteer job because his 7-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident 33 years ago. He didn’t want to let such a tragedy happen again. He actually sacrificed his life to save a 9-year-old boy, who is one of the nine children who were crossing the road when the accident happened. He knew what he lived for, and sacrificed his life to it.

Whether you know what you live for or not, you live anyways. Even if you live selfishly for yourself, you live anyways and may live longer than others. But imagine, what do they think and feel when they end their life? Can they think “it was a good life”?

My favourite street singer, and also a friend of mine, Airi Nagoya, sings a song titled “Game”. It goes;

I want to know what I live for
Trick, cheating, the method doesn’t matter
Whatever fire, or water, I don’t mind any risk
This is not a virtual reality. I live in a reality

(Lyrics by Airi Nagoya, translated by Hiro)

Knowing what you live for is not easy. Probably many people cannot find what they live for during their life. But I’m sure even looking for what you live for is a meaningful way of life, although it doesn’t matter whether you care about it or not anyways. As I often write here, I am a looser. It’s been more than four years since I wrote that post, and from time to time I quote it. And I’m still a loser. OK, let’s see how the looser will fail, and see how meaningful it can be.

Happy New Year 2017!

Since the year 2010, I’ve made seasonal greetings web site where I combine Japanese culture and Canadian culture, which is, a combination of Christmas greetings as Canadian culture and New Year greetings as Japanese culture. I hope everyone likes my illustration!

No-one probably knows the similarity between the greetings web site and this blog. Both are also a message for myself. As I often write here, I know that no-one reads this blog, and I write this blog for myself. The greetings message is “basically” for my friends, but also partially for myself. This is what I wrote  in the greetings web site.

it also made me find how busy my daily life is. It’s good to know there is room in my heart where I enjoy cultural experience. The Japanese character that means “busy” – 忙 – is a combination of “heart” – 心 – and “lost” or even “dead”- 亡 -. This implies that busy means a state in which heart is lost or dead. When people are busy, they are often unaware that they are losing their heart.

I was telling this to myself when I came back to Japan. Life in Japan is basically busy, and it is so easy to lose my heart while I always have some emotion whether it is positive or negative. New Year resolution of the year 2016 was to visit a historical site once a month. It turned out to be a good opportunity for me to find that I usually lose (or kill?) my heart.

It’s been a little more than a week since the year 2017 started, and I am still thinking of New Year resolution of this year. One of the  “candidates” is to breath deeply. You probably thought “huh?”, which is understandable. But how often do you mind how you breathe? What this question really means is, how mindful of yourself are you? OK, this is one of New Year resolutions of this year; mind my breath to be mindful of myself.

Cooking has been one of my hobbies for many years. However, there is “no kitchen” in my current tiny apartment room provided by my company. Some functions of kitchen are embedded in the narrow hallway, and I don’t call it a kitchen. Things I can do there is limited. That’s not a place to do “my hobby”. How sad do you think it is?

But today, I’ve “restored” my old hobby. Motorcycle. During the long vacation in early May called Golden Week, I went to my parent’s place to restore my motorcycle. It was not broken but had not been used for more than four years and half while I was in Canada. Now I’ve re-registered it and got a license plate. I’m officially ready to enjoy riding.

As I wrote in a previous post, for some people vehicle is only a tool to move from one place to another and carry a load. That’s fine. But for me, motorcycle is a partner who takes me away from daily life and lets me experience something different. In an early post, I wrote “do objects have a spirit?” Motorcycles don’t, for sure. But I’ve developed strong attachment to my “partner”.

A license plate allows me to ride my motorcycle. This is official. Besides that, I always do my ritual at the beginning of a year, or in this case after restoration. I go to 箱根神社 (Hakone shrine) and get 交通安全守り (traffic safety charm). Hakone had been a critical traffic point during the Samurai Era, and I suppose traffic safety charm made at Hakone shrine “works well”. Anyways. I’m glad to restore my hobby and ritual.

“I have a dream…”

Probably many of you know this great speech made by Martin Luther King. What we should not say but I’m often about to say is;

“I had a dream…”

In my busy daily life as a salary man (Japanese employee of a company who works like a robot to make money and live on it), I often forget what I’m looking for. But sometimes I’m lucky enough to find something that reminds me of it.

Yesterday I bought a music CD. You might think “are you the last human being who buys physical CD on the planet? Why don’t you download it?” I have  two reasons. Firstly, I simply like it. I’ve met some people who still like paper books while the books are also available on Kindle or the like. I like CDs for the same reason. Secondly, the singer seems not have access to the music download market. When I bought the CD, the singer, or more precisely the pianist singer song writer was singing on the street in front of just a little more than a handful of people. She looked happy to sing in public in that way. What can be better than buying a music CD directly from the singer right after she sang the song?

I don’t know if she makes enough money by singing to live on it, but she looks more lively than typical salary men anyway. I don’t know her dream; I don’t know if singing in front of people like that is her dream, or if it is a way to make a more ambitious dream come true. But I suppose she knows, at least, what her dream is. Meeting someone like her reminds me that people can do what they like.

Friday, March 11th passed as an ordinary weekday, except for one minute of silence at 2:46 pm. This is when the massive earthquake hit Eastern Japan five years ago, which triggered a series of tsunami.

“Disaster strikes when you least expect it” is usually translated to “天災は忘れた頃にやってくる”, but the Japanese version of it literally means “disaster strikes when people lose their memory (of the previous one)“. What it tells you is that you should always prepare for unexpected natural disasters. But for Japanese people today, it also means that we should bear in mind the victims and the sufferers of the disaater. Even today, many sufferers cannot come back to their home because their hometown was completely destroyed by the tsunami and the entire town is being rebuilt. Many others are still forced to evacuate due to the nuclear crisis. Thanks to the mass media, they are still fresh memory for us.

In an old post, I wrote income often hides unwanted reality. It is true especially when the job is very demanding and it makes me forget about everything else. Autually I wrote that post when I saw the city messed by a natural disaster, which evoked the emotion I had after the earthquake and tsunami. Now I have a full-time job. I have income. But I should remember that I had been unemployed until a few months ago, that the current job is only a temporary one, and that I am still a loser.

It’s been five years, but it doesn’t feel like that long. Is it because I’ve been so busy doing somethimg demanding, whether it is a job or job hunting? Anyways, I hope everyone in the disaster area will be happy someday and they can be proud of their hometown, and hope I’ll get a job someday that I can be proud of. We’ll see.