Saturday, December 30, 2006

Some pics 6 - The death penalty



















I have nothing to say. All the pictures are from this web site except the top one. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/00086B05-1552-4329-BB22-02F15D2E25DF.htm

The top one was created by my friend. All rights reserved.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Hello, Good bye, Hello again 3

The mechanic had our car towed to the repair plant in the town, which is named Bathurst. The boss of the plant told me it would take 4 or 5 hours to fix the clutch and cost me $500. We decided to make it fixed. The staff took me to the center ofthe town. We had to kill 5 hours there. We went to bank to withdraw money and had lunch at a hungry jacks. I do never eat any fast food in Japan since I had seen a documentary film "Hibakusha" about radio-active pollutions in this world. http://www.g-gendai.co.jp/hibakusha/index.html

The film taught me the potatoes grown in Hanford,USA, the land which is polluted by radio-active are imported for Macs chips in Japan. I am too afraid to eat any fast foods since then. But, running out of money, I had no choice in Bathurst. The shop was crammed with lots of Indian students. I was wondering why such a many Indians were here. No matter. I did care of how I survive hangry jacks. I was the hangry jacks hoping no potates came from polluted land. Value combo, I ate them up. I was sorry the food tasted shit, chemicals. I was wondering why Indians were eating these shit. They are the master of spices, I enjoyed their food when I was in India. Why do they have to eat these chemical shit? I began to sucpect food educations in Austarlia is not so good. Shinka and I left the shop.

We were walking around the town, small but good enough to kill 3 hours. We found a park to relax. Sitting down on the green grass, I was a family playing on the ground, a family with an Aboriginal woman. It was the first time for me to come accross an Aborigine in Australia. She looked like a baby-sitter. I was watching the family without any thinking.

The guy who took me to the town, came back to in front of the barbershop. He drove a good car, Ford, I told him we went hangry jacks for lunch. He answered "Bloody hell". The car was so comfortable compared to our car. I told him I wanted this car. He said "Bloody hell, Toyota is better than Ford". I love flattering. Our car was on the road in front of the plant. We completed payment quickly and rashed into the car. How did it work? Perfect. The mechanic set the clutch a bit heavy for a long drive. I liked it.

We drove the car, this time with care, paid attention to every signal we passed. We saw the sunset in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful, one of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. I wished I were the wild life in the waste land so that I could see this sunsent everyday. However, I am the human-being who might hit the wild life on the road. The night had came, and we were still on the way to Griffith. It was almost a midnight we got Griffith. We were looking for a place to stay. Shinka said "My dream is staying in Motel once in my life". I said "Why do not we?" We went to buy wine and stayed in a motel. The morning after, we could not start the engine of fucking car..... again..... I regreted that we stayed in the motel. But it was too late.

to be continued....

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Some pics 5 - The massacre

2004 June,
Afghanistan,
Tim-tar,
The detention house to massacre the Hazara people http://www.hazara.net/
2004 June,
Afghanistan,
Ali-Chapan,
Survivors of the genocide.
2004 June,
Afganistan,
Ali-Chapan,
An eyewitness and survivors
2003 January,
Afghanistan,
On the way to Herat
2003 January,
Iran,
Mashhad

Monday, December 25, 2006

Japan hangs four prisoners on Chiristmas day

Do you know Japanese people celebrate Christmas day? It is a strange phenominon. Most of us are not Christians. We might be Buddists. But I think it is better to articulate that most of Japanese are atheists. We still maintain the death penalty system. I think we should abolish the burutal. Chiristmas season is the season of death penalty in Japan. The justice ministry wants to hang the inmates every year. This season is the last chance for them to kill. And almost nobody cares what is going on the jail because they are busy with buying christmas presents, preparing for New year. However I guess all of the death-row inmates are afraid of they can not survive untill New year. Despair. I always feel weird when I got a message "A Merry Christmas" from Japanese friends. To be honest, I want to destroy the Christmas day of Japan and the death penalty system as well. What do you think?


http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20061225p2a00m0na012000c.html
Japan hangs four prisoners on Christmas day
Four death-row inmates were hanged on Monday, the first executions in 15 months in Japan, informed sources said.
The Justice Ministry announced the number of those executed but failed to publish their names.
Former Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura refused to sign any execution orders, but incumbent Justice Minister Jinen Nagase ordered the execution of four death row inmates three months after he took office.
Those executed were Hiroaki Hidaka, 44, a former taxi driver convicted of murder and robbery; Yoshimitsu Akiyama, 77, also convicted of murder and robbery; Yoshio Fujinami, 75, convicted of murder and robbery; and Michio Fukuoka, 64, convicted of murder.
The fact that the executions were carried out in the last week of 2006 -- making it the 14th straight year death-row inmates have been killed by the state -- shows that the Justice Ministry apparently wants to maintain the execution system in Japan, observers say.
Sugiura's predecessor, Justice Minister Megumu Sato also refused to sign execution orders from December 1990 to November 1991. Both Sugiura and Sato reportedly did so based on their religious beliefs, as Buddhists. (Mainichi)
Click here for the original Japanese story
December 25, 2006

Some pics 4 Traveling across the ocean

2002 December,
Afghanistan,
Kabul
2006 December,
China,
Baoding

2006 October,
Australia,
Gold coast
2006 November,
Australia,
Gatton
2004 June,
Afghanistan,
Band-e-Amir
2006 November
Australia,
Fraser island

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Ordinary Diary

I went to see Earth's Stage yesterday held in Osaka.
http://www.e-stageone.org/

It is a show of Mr. Kuwayama, a psychiatrist of Japan, who travel all over the world sometimes as a traveler or a international aid staff. Most of Japanse people are not concerned about world issue like poverty, natural disater, and war. Because Japan is the island located far east of Eurasia continent and Japanese govermnet had never sent any troops to overseas since the end of world war 2. His aim of Earth's Stage is to try to introduce problems of the world through his journey. He sings and talks with lots of pictures and video. It was amazing. He used easy words to make him understood for children. It was first time for most of the audience, about 2000 people, and me as well to see his show. It looked he send his important message to them, which was success. But I was wondering his way of convincing people is good or not. He describe this world as beautiful, I mean too beutiful. I understand his words very well. He said "Refugees on camp in Somalia and Cosovo and somewhere else are suffering. But they struggle to survive with positive thinkings and atitudes. I am surprised how children in the refugee camp smile and make a cheerful laghter. It was same after the ruin caused by big earthquake of Pakistan and Indonesia. I never thougt I am helping them. I am helped by the people who I offer my services to. Their courage to live, toughness, close relationships of family, which we lost long time ago......" It was nice, totally nice, but he never blamed on who start the wars, what causes world povety. It could be a right decision not to mention any of causes so that people who know nothing about how the problem trigered by idiot act. They never hurts, feel comfortable. But, now, right now, people are being killed in Iraq, in Palestine, or somewhere else, without any reason you can articulate, caused by the goverments who count money to get into their pockets, international companies who want to make money with oils after the gulf war... We never hurts, but those people under expensive bombs of USA army hurts. The million dollars of bombs and weapons which the total of Iraqi and Afgahn people can not afford with all of their money are destroying the life of the poor now, the resolute of ungency now. Fuck that. This world is wrong. I was talking to myself such a things.

My friends also came to the show. One of them, Atusko, who felt the same way as me said "The show was too beautful and perfect to join in. I felt detatched. Maybe I can not see things straight. Anyhow I felt it strange." She is working in Kobe as a NPO staff, a kind of social worker in a Japanese way. I agreed. But I did not say what I thought during the show. It was too dark. I mean I was thinking about the blood of Iraqi people, whose head was smashed by cluster bombs. I could not shut the image away, the image behind picture of beautiful moutains and natures Mr. Kuwayama was showing. It was a skull of small child shatterd by the bomb, there was a deep darkness inside the bone. I was thinking the truth is lying on the deep darkness, in the abyss I was seeing, the truth to lead the world to the right way. I was in a silnce, surround by good friends I love.

And then, I went to see one of my best friends, who is Bermese. He was an asylum seeker who detained in the detention house, which is Japanese Abu Ghraib prison, "Nyukan" for almost 2 years. He got married with a Japanese woman had baby last month. I saw him last time over 1 year ago. I was excited and looked forward to see him. We meet up again at the same old place as usual. We went to drink at a restaurant with a girl. She is the leader of peace movement in Osaka, named C. C is suffering from the depression. She have a mental doctor who give her some rules to keep, one of which is never go to drink. We broke the rule. I did not mean to. Maugn did that. I thought it was right and ,at least, she can learn from him how to cope with the depression. Maugn must have the depression in Nyukan detention house. But it was wrong. It turned out he have never got the depression in the hell. Anyways, we talked in the pub, talked about mainly "Marriage". We each have their own problems. C broke up with her boyfriend a month ago due to the depresson. Maugn have the frustraion of living with the partents of his wife. I have a girl friend who are working far away from me, in Oman, I have not seen her since past February, now that I start to think I should describe her as ex girlfrind. Every of us hurts. C said " I was told by my friends it was not good to break the relationship during the depression. But I did not break. It was him to say good bye. I know it was a bit too hard to keep it normal because of my sick. But..." Maugn said "If I were you, I will work on next one." I was just listening to her. I was trying to analyse her, my major was psychology which I hated to study. I was thinking the broken relationship is the main reason of the depression, but I was thinking another thing, which is the gender bias in Japan. C is able. Very able. Too able woman in Japanese society brings lots of envies and harrasments from idot men. She must have such a experiences through her activity. She was working in a welfare home in her local town just before she she got sick. "It was too much work for me. I felt strange day by day and I realized I am sick a month later." Maugn was listening to her carefully. "And I broke up with my boy friend. I do know why. We love each other, are fond of each other. But I came to feel I have some fears on him. Sometimes he got angry with the reason I do not understand. I was trying to make him easy. And then I realized my self I am afraid of him. I am afraid to say something which I concern to make him angry. It was difficult. "

Gender bias. The boyfriend also did not know or notice the reason why he himself was angry. He He can not name the anger he had. He can not, because if he name the feeling he has, it would show the fact that he has fear of C, I mean C's ablity. I guess that he must have give her a reason to be angry at random. "He did not like me when I am elated. I did not mean to show off." It is too complexed. They should have gone for counseling together. The problem is her boyfriend never ever wants to go for counseling because of his pride. Fuck Pride! Pride is the apartheid wall, the disorder prevents true love. Maugn showed a photo of his brand new baby. We laughed at the baby's face, which is funny and cute. Maugn was worrying about his baby does not look like him. No, he does not look like his father. I said "He looks like you When he grows upm and acts like you and annoys you a lot" I am such a sweet person who believe in that true love waits. C laughed, anyhow. I was hardly succeed to make her laugh. But she must have suspected she laughed at it because of her medication. Hard. Reminds me of the words of Samuel Becket,

" Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better"

It takes time to get over the hardship. But you will. You will fail better again. That is right.

Some pics 3 Traveling about Asia

2002 January, Aghanistan,
Bamiyan
2002 December, Pakistan,
Lahore
2002 January, Iran,
Mashhad
2002 August, Cambodia,
Angkor Wat
2002 December, Afhganistan,
On the way to Mazar-e-Sharif

Friday, December 22, 2006

Suicide Nation

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide."
Albert Camus










It is depressing to know lots of kids commited suicide in Japan. I was in Australia from July to November this time. I am back to Osaka, the second largest city in Japan. You might be surprised to know more than 30000 people commit suicide every year in Japan, which means 89 people kill themselves per a day. There must be lots of reasons, mainly some of them lost of their work or due to too much work. I will describe how the people in their office were droven into the mad situation later. It is a crazy story. I have some documents about it.

Year/ Total/ Male/ Female/ under 20/ 20~39/ 40~59/ over 60
1980/ 21,048/ 13,155 / 7,893/ 678/ 7,052/ 7,049/ 6,166/
1985 /23,599/ 15,624 / 7,975/ 557/ 6,067/ 9,751/ 7,143/
1990/ 21,346/ 13,102/ 8,244/ 467/ 4,769 /8,158/ 7,853 /
1995/ 22,445/ 14,874/ 7,571/ 515/ 4,976/ 9,030/ 7,739/
2000/ 31,957/ 22,727/ 9,230/ 598/ 6,986/ 13,063/ 10,997/
2001/ 31,042/ 22,144/ 8,898/ 586/ 6,717/ 12,526/ 10,891/
2002/ 32,143/ 23,080/ 9,063/ 502/ 6,953/ 13,275/ 11,119/
2003/ 34,427 /24,963/ 9,464/ 613/ 7,956/ 14,033/ 11,529/
2004/ 32,325/ 23,272/ 9,053/ 589/ 7,580/ 12,874/ 10,994/



Now, it is focused on the phenominon that Kids commit suicide. Why do they contemplate suicide? The news papers and TV report say they are suffering from bullying. It is said that the chain reaction will occur after mass media report the incident like serial killing, what is called copy cat criminal. Suicide is also the crime that hurts people around them, especially family. But suicide is also the punishment to their future. How can this be happened? I need to think radicall y and fundamentally. I will write more details.

Hello, Good bye, Hello again 2

It was freezing on the road. The engine sounded bad and smelled bad. We realized we could not shift into any gears. If you hold strong on to low, anyhow we could drive slowly. But 10 minutes after the engine started to smell. So we had to rest the engine over and over and over again. We park our car beside the road lots of huge dump cars and trailers were passing. Anyhow we came to end of the upslope, and Shinka disengaged the gear. I thought he went crazy due to the shock and coldness. No he did not.

It was the only way to gather speed when the engine is not working. We were rolling down the hill to the end of the world, no, to the gas station. It was 3am that I asked sales people if they had mechanics or not. No they did not have. We restarted to roll down the hill to the next station. I asked the same thing. No, they did not have. I know nobody wants to fix the car at 4 in the morning. But it is 100% sure we would clash if we kept rolling down in the dark. I ringed up some mechanics. Fortunately one mechanic was awake. He said he would come to the gas station in 20 minuites. We were waiting in the car and fell a sleep. He showed up 2 hours later. He was nice and quick. It took 5 minuites to chech out the car. And he said "Clutch is gone". Shinka and I decided to poke the fucking car into Kazu's house when we get back to Sydney.

to be continued......

Thursday, December 21, 2006

some pics2 - Traveling

2002 August, Viet Nam, Danan

2004 June, Afghanistan, Kabul
2004 June, Afhganistan, Turkmen

2002 June, Afghanistan, Kabul Suburbia

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Hello, Good bye, Hello again

I have some friends, not so many, but all over the world. I am too lazy to keep in touch with them. This blog can be a good tool to communicate with everybody I concern. I wish all my friends are away from misery. But, as Sommuel Beckett said, “The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.” I believe this or accept this rule. This words reminds me of a tiny happiness like meeting again with old friends, on the other hand, some of my friends are missing under the violent regimes. Anyways, let me write something about my life in Australia.

I was working in Griffith, 500km west of Sydney. I started seasonal work there. I had not worked on any fruit picking jobs. I knew nothing about it. Han youp, my Korean friend in Sydney, introdused me Japanese girl who worked before in Griffith. Chikako was a funny girl, wearing stirings underpants according to Han youp. Yes, she did. I comfirmed it when we met in the flat Han youp and She shared with other people from South America. She was lying on the sofa. Fortunaly or unfortunately her pants were showing. It was a nice first impression, which made me feel I could trust her. I talked to her in English at first. I do not know why. Maybe I was a bit sweet panic. Anyways we talked for a while. She gave me some useful information about seasonal works. And I decided to go to Griffith because it is near Sydney. It is not near in a Japanese way. 500km is the same distance of Between Tokyo and Osaka. Almost nobody in Japan says Tokyo is near Osaka. But in Australiam it is near.

The day after Shinka, my friend from Japan, and I went to buy a car. We searched for some seller through some websites. We found a Japanese guy who offered a Daihatu for $500. I ringed him up on the same day and met up on the same day and made contract on the same day. This was a fiasico. I was in such a hurry because I was runinng out of money to stay in expensive city like Sydney. Good bye Sydney!

Lesson No.1 , Never hurry.

2 days after we made contract with the Japanese guy, Kazu, we left Sydney with our brand new car. This was not brand new but I felt like brand new and Shnka must have felt same way. We were too high. Shinka was driving fast and I was dancing and singing next to him. We were too high to stop on red signal. No, this was not true. We were too high to notice there was a corner with signal. It was too late. He put on the break after we passed the stop line. We saw lighting, lighting on the corner of small town on midnight. We were in a flood of photoflash. I was worring about one thing, if police saw this photo, he could not stop laughing at my face. I could not take it. But I was also sure Shinka was not worring about his face but that he had to pay fine for infrigement. He was depressed and his foot was paralyzed by the shock. He asked me to switch driving. I could not ask him he got out piss or not. I was talking to myself "Never hurry" on the driving seat. 2 hours later, our car went broke, almotst dead on the way to Griffith, on a mountain of winter. There was a electnic bulettin board on the road, in front of us, which indicated 3 degrees C. The wind was blowing harsh and blew out our hope. We were pushing the fucking car with hazard lamp on...

to be continued.....

Some pics -Traveling

2001 Feburuary, Nepal, Himalayan montains
2004 June, Afghanistan, Mazar-e-Sharif
2004 June, Afghanistan, Kabul Karte-Char
2004 June, Ashganistan, On the way to Uzbekistan

Samuel Beckett quotes

Samuel Beckett quotes