Reflection Over a White Oak Leaf

Winter in Michigan is really cold. It is colder than Tokyo when the temperature hits the lowest of the year. But it is very much pleasant to live here. Every time I drive a car in the morning or in the afternoon, I feel some sort of joy coming up from inside. This is also true when speaking with a shop clerk or someone in your neighbor. This is the same feeling as I have had when I listen to the last movement of Beethoven's 6th Symphony, where people in a rural place becomes so grateful for the sun to reappear after the storm was gone.

One of my good friends in Japan who has lived there for a long time asked me to send a white oak leaf. He spent his boyhood years in Ann Arbor and said a white oak leaf would carry good memories going back to his good old days. I went outside during lunch time in order to take some pictures of the apartment complex. I found oak leaves there when I quickly thought of this friend in Japan. I collected some leaves and put them in my car. It brought me to a silent joy as I was doing that.

"You can tell a White Oak because the tips of the leaves are rounded, like a bullet. Red Oak have pointed tips on the leaves, like the tips of an arrow. That's how we learned the difference." He explained to me.

This sort of friendship will not be limited to my private life. I even have a chance to speak with a guy I worked with in Japan over the telephone. We still work together via e-mail. It is thankful that I am able to do that, even though I have changed the company I work for.

When it comes to term with convenience, Japan should be so much better. However, it is interesting, at the same time, to be realized that there is no other country has obtained a higher standard of living than Japan with respect to the social system, infrastructure or customer services, but it is one of the worst places in some sense, where people are incapable of being connected with others. This is not a question of good or bad, but just whether you like it or not.

I personally think that if their demanding service quality are exported to other countries, it would make both Japanese and other nation become happier together.

The 21st Century Drama

21st century is pretty much different from the 20th or even before that era in that we are working for the same goal. I let go of my imagination and was feeling this way. If the world will come to an end some day, it would happen not because of a war or disaster but because of reaching to the point where people have finally settled down to a certain conclusion after all those striffles and conflicts. There would be pains, exhaustion, honesty, perfect forgiveness, and convinction for hope. If all these things are shared among all of the people on earth regardless of race and sex, then what would be left?

I liked this You Tube video I watched tonight. This appealed to me so strongly specially because it is understandable that one of the episodes in the video really can happen (although it is rare) where a clerk at cafeteria treats an Asian individual as if he were transparent or invisible. One of the participants shares his experience at around 23:45, where he (Asian American) was ignored by a shop clerk in the restaurant, and another person making a line on his back was served first in the restaurant. Each one has many things to say. The status quo of problem sharing across the border and race reminds me of the current trend of global business.