The controversial painting " Beijing 2008". Japan is portrayed as I expected.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=
10150485930513240&set=
p.10150485930513240&type=1&

Have you seen the attached picture?　A few days ago, I happened to find it on Facebook. According to a Taiwanese who posted it on Facebook, this is the oil painting, "Beijing 2008", drawn by Liu Yi (劉湓), a Chinese person living in Canada, and this painting has been drawing considerable attention and becoming controversial on the internet. To see what was going on, I googled it both in English and Chinese. It seems that the painting is very popular, at least in China and Taiwan .

The picture shared on Facebook is accompanied by a very long interpretation of what the painting implies. The interpretation is originally written in Traditional Chinese, but the Japanese version translated by a Japanese person is attached. There is no information about who first gave the interpretation. Also, I'm not sure if the interpretation is exactly what the painter wanted to indicate. As a matter of fact, when I was browsing Chinese sites to see how popular the painting was on the internet, I found different interpretations on some details, but the outline is same. I think that the painting is interesting to see.

Although I don't intend to elaborate on the interpretation, I'll tell you the outline. There are four women playing mah-jong. The lady with tattoos on her back is Chinese. The bare-naked lady sitting to the left of the Chinese lady is Japanese. The lady lying on her back is Russian. The lady with a lace top is American, and her bottom half is naked. The girl standing and watching them play is Taiwanese. Their actions portray how these five countries are behaving and negotiating with the other countries. Their clothes imply the countries' situations. I'll leave more interpretations but the Japanese lady to your imagination.

According to the interpretation shared on Facebook, the Japanese lady is seriously playing mah-jong without paying attention to the other people. She is only focusing on what she is supposed to do. When I read that, I sighed deeply because I've been worried about this point. In Japan, due to the prolonged stagnation and politics in disarray, some journalists and experts have insisted that there are significant suggestions from the past, but despite that, we haven't learned a lot from the past. Especially since the Fukushima accident, the need to learn from the past has been increasing. Because of this, I've been paying more attention to suggestions from the past which some experts have highlighted.

Actually, one of the suggestions is that Japanese people pay less attention to and are less sensitive to what is going on in the world, and they are very bad at thinking with a broad view from various perspectives. I really noticed this, especially when I was outside Japan. On top of that, it seems to me that many Japanese people haven't even realized that Japan neither pays enough attention to what is going on outside Japan nor knows what other countries consider Japan to be like. Thus, when I read that interpretation on the Japanese lady, I though that it was just as I had expected and sighed deeply. At the same time, I wondered if I should consider it to be good that at least Japan is in the painting.

The impact of recent political conflict between Japan and China.

Recently in Japan, the news has been filled with the political conflict between Japan and China over the vessel accident that occurred near the island in Okinawa, Japan. This statement is based on the Japanese perspective, but I know that China and Taiwan have different perspectives. The conflict is arousing controversy and leading to various speculations. Many people assume there are agendas and ulterior motives, but ordinary people don't have any way of getting to know the truth. As far as I know, national interests among China, Japan, Taiwan and America are complexly intertwined.

This conflict inevitably and strongly makes Japanese people realize that they seriously have to think through how to protect Japan, as it has made them feel like China is likely to do anything, including the use of force, in order to achieve its goals. Some people say, "Through this conflict, our government exposed its lack of ability to conduct diplomacy, disappointing people. However, the conflict made people feel that Japan needs to enhance its defense strategy. It might be convenient for our government since it has been having a very hard time dealing with the issue about the Futenma US Force in Okinawa in the past year." I hope that the public objectively and unemotionally discusses Japan's defense policy.

The impact of various countermeasures taken by China is expected to be so serious that many people have finally realized that over dependence on China is very dangerous and that they need to build new business models. Speaking of over dependence on China, I was told by some Westerners that it was ridiculous that many Japanese companies invested a lot of money in China to open their businesses there. Even I sometimes wondered whether or not Japanese companies were thinking about diversifying risks. Recently, foreign companies have tended to shift their factories from China to other countries due to frequent strikes by workers, whereas Japanese companies are still having difficulty acquiring sites in other countries.

This conflict shows that now is the time for Japanese people to think through what Japan will be like, and decide polices based on our vision. Both Japanese people and our government haven't done that since Japan became a developed country.

Needless to say, our government needs to improve its ability to conduct diplomacy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139

Japan Airlines Receiving Public Attention

My first trip abroad was to San Diego when I was a college student many years ago. I went there by myself. On top of that, it was my first time taking an airplane. Because of this, I was very nervous. I vividly remember how I got a little panicked when I was trying to figure out how and where to take my connecting flight at an airport in Los Angeles. This was because I was overwhelmed by how big LA international airport was and I didn't know how to get to the domestic terminal from the international one. Although an American lady at the information desk told me that I had to take the free shuttle bus, I assumed that she couldn’t understand my terrible English, since it didn't make sense to me that I had to take a shuttle bus. It was actually the first time that I realized how different things are between the US and Japan. I also remember how relieved I was when I saw Japan Airlines’red crane" logo ( the attached picture). When I asked a Japanese woman at the Japan airlines (JAL) counter how to get to the domestic terminal, the ensuring conversation with her calmed me down.

Speaking of which, JAL (it was a government-run corporation until 1987) has been struggling with its poor performance for a long time. Recently, JAL announced that it was going to start negotiating with Delta Air lines to form a capital alliance. Since it seems unlikely that JAL could successfully turn around its business without government aid, it's projected that it will receive taxpayer-financed bailouts.

During this time when JAL has been receiving public attention, a remarkable movie is going to be released in a week. The title of the movie is 沈まぬ太陽. The film is based on a novel written by 山崎豊子/Toyoko Yamasaki. Since the novel is the semi fictional tale about the terrible JAL crash in 1985, every time a film company attempted to adapt the novel for the big screen in the past, they gave into strong objections made by JAL.