Miniature likening photos feature days of "stay safe" antivirus fight

 

December 22, 2020

Miniature likening photos feature days of "stay safe" antivirus fight 

The young Japanese photographer has filled a part of exhibition rooms at an art museum in Saga, southwestern Japan, with a lot of miniature works and their corresponding zoomed pictures. 

The artist builds a unique world of miniature figures by fabricating small pieces with various personal effects casually found in the daily life and likening them to different things. This time, he focuses on items seen in the current days with the new covid-19 virus.

Visitors find miniature works made with disposable light blue face masks. Their pleats are compared to lane lines in the swimming pool in one photo and waves in the beach in another one. A different photo shows a clinical thermometer likened to a smart race car with four miniature wheels attached.  

A pair of surgical grabs is also likened to waves with which a female surfer is enjoying. 

Mourners and a priest are seen bowing to a coffin put on the PC keyboard which is likened to the graveyard.  

The Miniature Life Exhibition at the Saga museum started late in November, as Japanese people were increasingly concerned with the spread of the new coronavirus amid the approach of cold winter days. 

Tatsuya Tanaka, the 39-year-old artist, introduces himself as an art director and miniature photographer. 

His jobs include not only taking pictures of miniature objects but also crafting miniature figures to be placed at a georama setting made by himself for them. 

His "Miniature Calendar" website, opened in 2011, daily updates his works made with small items casually seen in the daily life likened to different things. 

Breads are sometimes likened to mountains, and fruits are compared to balloons. Further, vegetables are likened to forests.  

In a message to visitors at the museum, Tanaka says it is the very fight against the new coronavirus that has enabled him to produce the latest works, in an effort to survive the "stay safe" days. 

He hopes that visitors will have fun by finding the interesting features of the series of likened items. 

Japan bracing for combined attack of covid-19 pandemic and seasonal flu

November 28, 2020

Japan bracing for combined attack of covid-19 pandemic and seasonal flu 

Japan's first covid-19 case, involving a male in his 30s, was reported on January 16, and since then, almost one year is about to pass. The number of infected people in Japan has been increasing steadily from month to month. The number of fatal cases is also on the increase. To be worse,  Japan is facing with the possibility of a simultaneous attack of the new coronavirus pandemic and the seasonal influenza. 

From March to April just after the start of the pandemic, Japanese people had difficulties finding face masks at shops, and their prices shot up in many areas. 

Citizens with masks handmade, in group or individuals, came up to donate their holdings to facilities like schools, kindergartens and nursing homes. These moves were raised by the media and helped arouse an emergency mood wide among Japanese people at that time. 

As time has passed, various kinds of face masks are available at present, at drugstores, convenience stores and elsewhere across Japan, among them disposable and reusable masks and those for professional use. 

Products with cute characters and colorful ones are seen at some shops. Face shields and mouth shields are also available at many places.  

This gives a sense of security to Japanese more or less for now, but they are rather bracing for fears of the seasonal influenza toward winter. 

This year's winter is predicted to be colder than usual in most parts of Japan. Local governments are busy preparing influenza vaccines for preventive shots particularly to elderly people and those with underlying illness. 

In Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, vaccination shots were started free of charge for people aged 65 or older at the beginning of October at hospitals and clinics. These shots usually cost 1,500 yen.

Elderly people are recommended to receive vaccinations at an early time, before the stock of flu vaccines for this season runs out. But those with allergic predispositions are advised to be careful about having a flu immunization.

"I'm allergic to an injection, so I talk to my attending physician always before receiving an immunization," said an elderly woman.   

Persimmons enlivening Japanese as autumn air deepens toward winter

October 28, 2020

Persimmons enlivening Japanese as autumn air deepens toward winter 

As autumn deepens day by day in many parts of Japan, Japanese see shops' shelves filled with a various kind of fruits. Among them are persimmons, known as the king of fruits in autumn in Japan. 

Persimmons are loved by Japanese for their refined sweetness. 

Many kinds of persimmons are sweet themselves. "Shibugaki" persimmons are bitter and cannot be eaten as they are, but they sweeten when they are dried with the gentle autumn sunlight. 

A landscape in which rods with lots of shibugaki persimmons tied to each other by strings are hung in front of farmers' houses is a traditionally observed scene in Japan's autumn. 

Customers are seen looking for their favorite kinds of persimmons at farmers' markets around this time of the year.

This year, they have to pay attention to themselves while shopping to keep away from the covid-19 infection. Persimmons contained in transparent plastic bags are on the shelves, so they may not be contaminated. This reminds customers that they live in a quite new living environment with the coronavirus. 

The tall tower of Horyuji Temple far ahead,

the sound of its bell comes to me, when I bite a persimmon. 

(A personal translation)

This is a haiku short poem made by Natsume Soseki, a distinguished novelist who was active from the middle of the Meiji era. Soseki, a scholar-turned writer, left many famous novels, which are still read by Japanese.  

Horyuji, a buddhist temple in Nara, Japan's ancient capital, was originally built in the late 6th century. 

Its five-story tower is the oldest existing wooden structure in Japan, so the image of the time-honored structure makes Japanese feel like they are back in an ancient, rustic atmosphere. 

Many Japanese have spent boring, painful days this year, trying to be uninfected by the deadly corona virus. Persimmons are expected to give them time to refresh themselves to live a new normal life in the days ahead.

Libraries' role being questioned as users are on increase in Japan

September 29, 2020 

Libraries' role being questioned as users are on increase in Japan 

Many Japanese tend to be more impressed by the arrival of autumn in their daily life compared to that of other seasons. This is why they like to characterize autumn in various ways; autumn is the best season for Japanese to have fun with arts, or read books, or enjoy eating.  

The number of libraries in Japan, mostly public ones, has been increasing in recent years. So has been the number of users, from children to elderly people.

With a population of some 127 million, Japan had approximately 3,300 libraries in 2018, an increase of over 20 percent in 15 years. The number of  registered users grew to about 58 million.

Why is the number of library users increasing? Various reasons are cited for the phenomenon, but relevant figures indicate the increase reflects efforts by librarians and other related people to make libraries in the country make friendlier to citizens. 

Of the libraries across Japan, about 95  percent open on weekends and holidays, while about 90 percent of them have barrier-free facilities. 

These efforts have come at a time when Japan's population has been aging year after year. The moves are important and welcome for elderly people, but the fact must be mentioned that libraries in Japan have become a place for many citizens to relax themselves, experts say.

Libraries are an important social infrastructure in which citizens can spend their time to satisfy their respective purposes, but they must provide opportunities to citizens for learning and making research and studies about their life and jobs, and this is an essential mission for libraries, they say.

Following changes in Japan's social situation, libraries continue to fulfill their missions, but this year, they have endeavored to secure a safe, healthy environment for users amid the covid-19 pandemic. 

Visitors are asked to clean their hands with disinfectants and register their name and phone number at the entrance, so that they can be reached when necessary. At some libraries, a book sterilizing machine can also be seen installed in the library room. 

Cited as a matter of recent concern for libraries is a continued decrease in the number of books sold. This reflects the fact that the number of printed books is on the decrease following the spread of digitized books on new social media tools. 

The plight of conventional book publishers and editors has led them to blame their difficulties on libraries' moves to have more entertainment books like novels in their collections. 

A noted book publisher has asked for a grace of one year before libraries buy newly released books for their collections. 

Following the spread of digitized information on the Internet and efforts to develop an even quicker search engine, libraries may become a useless facility in society in the not too distant future, some experts warn. 

Japan had boasted a high literacy rate from as early as the 19th century. Westerners who came to Japan before it opens itself to the rest of the world in the middle of the 19th century were surprised to see not a few ordinary people reading books. 

Young Japanese tend to spend less time for reading printed books to obtain information, but Japanese people have essentially loved reading books. 

Despite the series of changes in society, Japan's libraries are expected to remain as an important social facility to help satisfy citizens' needs to know. 

Japanese children ending bitter, short summer vacation with covid-19 pandemic

 

August 30, 2020

Japanese children ending bitter, short summer vacation with covid-19 pandemic

Public schools across Japan, from elementary schools to high schools, saw their business suspended from the start of March following the spread of the covid-19 pandemic. 

School officials and teachers had expected the suspension would end sometime later in the year, but they are now determined to stay with the new virus into the new year and try to explore a new environment for education with the coronavirus. 

The bottom line is that Japan's school officials have to secure a required number of school days for a year amid the difficult situation. 

Japan's school calendar runs from April to March, including the summer holidays from July to August and the year-end and New Year's holidays around the turn of the year. 

Japan's education law requires 195 to 198 days for lessons for each of the three years at the junior high schools. 

Business at elementary schools and high schools returned to almost normal in most parts of Japan in June, but many schools had to cut short the summer vacation this year in order to catch up with the effects of the suspension from spring.

Specifically, the summer holidays were shortened to around two weeks from six to seven weeks for the usual year at many schools. As a result, school kids and students must return to school toward the end of August, beginning the second part of the three-term school year. 

The second term is crowded with many events on top of the regular learning curriculums. The biggest of them is the sports meet. 

Junior high schools usually hold the sports meet in May, but they could not do so this year amid the pandemic, and they had to postpone the event until autumn. 

"We were earlier concerned that we had to cancel this year's sports meet in autumn, too, but we desired to hold the event by all means," said a junior high school official in a small city in the Kyushu area of southwestern Japan. 

"We thought so,  because the event would be the last one for third graders before they graduate next year, and we hoped that it may be a happy memory for their life ahead,"  the official said.

Dried small fountain revives on continued heavy rain in southwestern Japan

July 31, 2020

Dried small fountain revives on continued heavy rain in southwestern Japan

Many Japanese people have come to realize that the current fight against the covid-19 pandemic will be a long battle. To be worse, they find themselves amid the extended years of phenomena of climate change, notably abnormally hot weather and heavy rainfalls, but people sometimes see rare happy signs brought by the nature. 

As a long spell of rain hit the southwestern Japan area from late June to July this year, too, residents of the central part of Asakura, Fukuoka Prefecture, saw pure underground water blowing out from a dried small fountain one day early July.

The move came after a decades-long hiatus, to be a delightful incident to people in the neighboring areas. 

Very cool, fresh underground water had kept blowing from the fountain until the 1960s. The "Ryusen Ike (Dragon Pond), the foundation so called, combined with beautiful maple trees seen around the site to attract spectators from neighboring regions, particularly from summer to autumn. 

The pond also became a playing ground for children in the neighborhood in the summer. The Dragon Pond, which was about 5 to 6 meters across at that time, was as deep as the water came to a height of the chest of the small kid, and because the water was very cold, children could not keep playing long in the water, an elderly man living near the pond recalled.

The fountain gradually began to dry up in later years. Local residents suspected that a main water vein believed to come from Koishiwaragawa River flowing from the north had been cut off with the digging of a site upstream for building a major restaurant in the 1970s.

The water then completely dried up. The site was then just like a low spot, or a pit, to be a danger to children. This was the reason why local people filled up the dried pond and set up playing gear for kids at the site. 

In recent years, people saw underground water blow up in the dried pond again from time to time after days of heavy rain in early July. But rainy days came more intensively than ever in the area this summer, causing underground water to blow up in the dried pond markedly.

A picture of the incident was used on the front page of a bimonthly newsletter for Asakura citizens in July. "We came to know about the reviving of the Dragon Pond, getting information from our colleagues," a city official in charge of the bulletin. 

They were monitoring the dried pond from a few days before, after receiving information from part of local people. They were working with a team newly organized in the city office for resuscitating the local community by refocusing water-related assets in the city, said the official.

Japanese face triple threats in new virus age this summer

June 29, 2020

Japanese face triple threats in new virus age this summer

The number of flowers blooming in summer is limited in Japan, but a closer look at fields and elsewhere makes it possible to find red, yellow, purple and other bright flowers in bloom following the nature's clock. "This is why summer flowers look more adorable to us, flower lovers," says a friend of mine.
People themselves have to take care of their own conditions in summer, particularly during the "tsuyu" rainy season from June to July.
Many parts of the Japanese Archipelago have been hit by abnormal climate phenomena almost every summer, among them torrential rainfalls and repeated heat waves.
The recent abnormal weather patterns appear to have come to stay as regular occurrences.
This summer, Japanese find themselves facing three threats, the unabated new corona virus pandemic, on top of the conventional risks of land slides and floods triggered by heavy rain and heat strokes amid very hot weather.
When necessary, people have to take shelter mainly at designated public facilities, while trying to protect themselves from the covid-19 virus infection. 
The spread of the new deadly virus appeared to have peaked out in many parts of Japan at one time in June, but the virus seems to be regaining its strength late June.
People were earlier seen talking to each other optimistically, "The corona virus should weaken when hot summer days come." But this scenario has turned out to be totally unfounded.
Japanese people have come to understand that they should enjoy Japan's beautiful seasonal changes they have seen so far with a close watch on new findings about the dangerous behavior of the new virus from now on.

New life style for days with covid-19 remains to be seen in Japan

May 30, 2020


New life style for days with covid-19 remains to be seen in Japan

Japanese people are moving step by step toward resuming their normal life after two months of self-restraints to survive the covid-19 pandemic, but they are asked to explore a different normal lifestyle for the new days in which they live with the new virus.
Restrictions on the use of public facilities and places, such as libraries, museums and parks, are gradually being removed. This has given a sigh of relief for many families, making them possible to go out with kids and let them play out on the ground. However, people working on small businesses in various fields are having difficulty attracting customers back to their shops.
Hardest hit by the "jishuku" self-restraint moves in Japan's society is the night entertainment business world with operations in busy areas in major cities in various regions.
It is far from certain if and when the night businesses will truly return to their previous situation.
Japan's policymakers have come to remove or soften restrictions on people's life and business activities in view of signs that the first wave of spread of the deadly virus has peaked out in Japan, but people are urged to continue the series of new living customs, such as wearing face masks, keeping a social distance in making lines at public places, and avoiding crowded, bustling areas.
The "Bunkagai" district in the heart of Kurume, in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, is a hub of night business operators, which have attracted thousands of people almost every night. But passers-by on the streets and alleys in the area are scarce.
It remains unknown if the area will actually take its energies back, and the plight of night businesses in the district may undermine the local economy.

Migrating swallows tell Japanese people rotation of seasons amid pandemic

April 28, 2020

Migrating swallows tell Japanese people rotation of seasons amid pandemic

Swallows migrating from the south to the Japanese Archipelago are busy making nests from April to May before parenting toward summer.
First groups of swallows, "tsubame" in the Japanese language, flying from Southeast Asia reach the southernmost areas of Japan from late February to early March.
Researches show tsubame can fly a maximum 300 kilometers a day in migrating to the Japanese Archipelago, but they usually fly 20 to 30 kilometers a day from island to island toward Japan.
The season's first appearance of tsubame coming in is an important harbinger of spring in southern to southwestern Japan.
At a farmers' market in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, southwestern Japan, many tsubame were seen flying busily between their nests and nearby feeding areas on a clear day late April.

"We are in a pretty fix (for the new corona virus), but they have come to us this year, too, and this is just joyous to us, you see," a shopper said.
With a shiny black body and tail wings as well as a red throat, tsubame birds usually return to the same areas as they stayed in the previous year.
About 20 percent of them return to the same nests as they used the previous year, according to researches, and when their old nests are destroyed or unfound, they make new nests nearby.
Herds of tsubame using the building of the farmers' market as their summer habitat make nests on the wall or around the vents beneath the extended wooden roof. To build new nests, they bring small pieces of mud and straws one by one from fields around the areas.
Reports of infections and deaths of covid-19 kept increasing through April despite a series of measures taken by Japan's government to contain the pandemic. As of April 28, the number of infected people within Japan came to 13,895, while fatal cases totaled 413.
Japan declared a state of emergency across the country on April 7, requesting local government governors to urge residents of their respective regions to try to protest themselves individually from the deadly virus.
They are recommended to wear masks, wash their hands carefully every time on returning home, refrain from going out for nonessential purposes, and take a social distance of about 2 meters in making lines at shopping centers and other public places.
It has become a new custom for people to rub their hands with disinfectants placed at the entrance of shops and public facilities.
As the emergency measures are likely to be extended into May, Japanese people are asked to get accustomed with the series of rules as a "new normal lifestyle" from now on.
"We, the human beings, should explore a way to live with the virus, rather than trying to eliminate it," a famous infectious disease researcher said in a newspaper article.
The ongoing fight against the new virus is expected to be a long battle.
Experts say that Japan must continue efforts not just to contain the disease but also to get the people acquire a social immunity in an attempt to pull out of the pandemic.
The studies of past global epidemics show that the civilizations which lived with many infectious diseases have proved to be tougher than other civilizations.
The latest pandemic reminds us that the human beings are a part of the nature and cannot live with no linkage with other creatures. The swallows flying vigorously and orderly within their summer habitats in Japan appear to be showing this providence of nature.