The 3rd anniversary of my mother's death.

It was the 3rd anniversary of my mother's death yesterday.

While my memory of her is getting less vivid for this past 3 years, it is becoming that of bird eye's view for me. That is, I recall her life as a whole in the ages she has lived in. Young days in the pre war age and during the war. Raising the family with our father in the post war age. Suffering from Alzheimers in her last several years. She has been indirectly killed by the earth quake. Studying the history around the war, I realized what a tough age she had spent. I am proud she has lived her life with all her might and affection toward the others. It was a life hard to live but still rewarded in the end.

Since I am getting older now, I am apt to overlap her life to mine. I could imagine what she thought and how she felt for things at my age. I am often stunned at how fast time is going by. She might be feeling that way. Life is like a breath. I should be ready how to spend the rest of my life. In her latest years, becoming like a child, she still has loved the family and smiled at them all the time until the very last moment of her life while she has not hesitated expressing her anxiety or worries. I don't know if I would have a chance to see her again when I pass away. But, if I could, I would tell her I have spent the last years of my life as she had done.

The house my parents used to live is ornamented by flowers in the shade of the zelkova tree as if they were living there. In a few days, my brother and his wife will visit here to renew our memories of our mother.

Where do you go in a hurry?

A few days ago, I have met a guy in W5 on 15m. He was one of those who finishes his each transmission with BK. I knew there had been such guys anywhere but dared to ask him if it was common to finish transmission with BK. He denied that and explained it had been a kind of habit for him.

I fully understood him. Many people use BK in stead of each other's identification. It must be a kind of habit as he said. Even if the sender is not willing to do so, it hastens me to finish the QSO with him. As a matter of fact, those BK user always finish a QSO without proceeding to "tell me your story" process. I could not help feeling an obvious influence from contesting on this way of operation.

Nowadays, contesting is a dominant style of operation. Plain week day contests are often heard in addition to the contests held at almost every week end. The week end one is often multiple all over the world. Non contesters without WARC band set up like me should keep off the air almost half a week. Some clubs have training programs to educate young beginners to be contesters. No wonder that the contest style QSO has been becoming the standard style of operation.

I still wonder what is the merit of this type of operation. CW is a very slow mode of communication whether they may hasten with use of BK or not. If all of us "contestize" QSO, it may sound like exchange of jargon. Will it attract young people? They will know very soon that such jargon or symbol exchange is totally meaningless. I have already mentioned of this contest style QSOs as loss of the form in QSO. I don't think it will bring anything good to the future of ham radio. It deprives rich possibilities of ham radio communication on this mode.

Ending with BK, where do you go in a hurry?

Omlet

This week end, we have had our daughter home. Another fun time.

I prepared rice cooked with sliced bamboo sprout, hot soy bean curd seasoned with sea plant, sashimi of bonito, fresh salad featuring lettuce harvested in our garden farm, soy bean paste soup and this special omlet. This omlet contains corasely minched beef and pork with a few vegetables. The sauce is tomato ketchup with wine, sauce and butter. The desert was strawberry in yogurt.

 

Sharing the same hobbies

I have been working hard in the garden all the day lately. After taking lunch, I took a rest listening to this piece. Piano quartet A major by Brahms. This is a music for spring. Fresh and vivid. Even though I scarcely have any scenic idea for any music by Brahms, this one reminds me of droplets on lively growing leaves in this season. Shining reflecting sunray. While g minor piano quartet quartet composed immediately before this one is a well structured music like a symphony, this one is freely composed full of affectionate melodies. The relationship between these two adjacent piano quartets, the same genre of chamber music, may be comparable to that between the symphony Nr1 and Nr2. I have not investigated as for the season Brahms made this music. But i am pretty sure he did in this time of a year.

 

 

In some time, I turned on the gear and listened on 20m. Rol K3RA was working Eu there. No other signals from the US. After listening to Rol for a while, I gave him a call to say hi. I told him, an amateur pianist, that I had listened to this music. He answered he had read a book of Bach. I asked him if it had been the book by Gardiner, Bach Music in the Castle of Heaven. He seemed to be surprised to hear of the title of the book he had actually read.

I told him I had been reading it. It was the book Dave K6XG had recommended me to read and Bob W6CYX had been given for a Christmas present by his wife last year. It was a gift to Rol from his niece, another amateur pianist. What a coincidence!

Its style and content have been a bit sophisticated to me. It takes me much time to go on reading it. I still believe it has been worth making effort to read it. Rol told me it seemed an academic book. He meant it was not very easy even for him to read it through. I was a little bit reliecved to hear that because his words assured me it had not been only my poor vocabulary in English that made me feel a bit difficult to understand it.

It is always good to have friends with the same hobbies. The more we share interests in the same hobbies, the more enjoyable it is to talk to them. It might only mean that this book had been read by many people. Nonetheless, it is always a joy for me to see such friend as rol who share the same hobbies. Promising to talk about what Gardiner said in the book in the next QSO, we have closed the QSO.

Another family dish in Japan

Vegetables, soy bean curd, konjak and chicken meat cooked with soy sauce, sake and other seasonings. A typical family dish in Japan. It was a success that my wife had another helping!

 

 

A dark side of a megapharma

For the past few years, Novartis Pharma in Japan has had a project proceeded. It was a campaign for their new antihypertensive drug. They have plotted a false study that was intended to show the effects of the drug, that is, not only antihypertension but also multiple organ protection effects. They have bribed some researchers in the related medicine in Japan. Shamefully enough, some of them were the leaders in the clinical medicine. A person in Novartis Pharma in Japan has manupilated the statistics of the data in order to obtain the result desirable to them. They have utilized that result for the advertisement of that drug. This campaign has been quite successful in the market here. But it was not so long before this deceit has become public. The company is accused of this crime.

In the beginning of this month, the president of the company in Switzerland has commented about this event. He said that the japanese division of the company has given the medical doctors priority to the patients. It is different from the business ethics in Europe and America. It should, as he said, be reformed. He claims it is a problem peculiar to Japan and the medical system here .

Is he right? I could hardly believe so.

Smiling grimly, I should point out that the most of doctors in Japan have been swindled by Novartis Pharma and it was japanese doctors who questioned the study of the drug. It was very few doctors who took part in this swindle plotted by Novartis Pharma.

In addition, even more importantly, there have recently been a couple of bribery cases by Novartis Pharma made public in the world. One is in China and the other in the USA. This clearly shows it was not a peculiar case attributable to the system in Japan. But it is the characteristic of Novartis Pharma itself. It is an business ethic issue of Novartis Pharma as a global mega pharma.

Novartis Pharma was born as a result of merger of two old and big pharmaceautical companies, Ciba geigy and Sandoz both in Switerland. in 1996. It is a typical global company which is told to have become the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world by 2012.

As global companies always do, Novartis Pharma must have tried to maximize their profit from their business and to purchase the other pharmaceutical companies. It is often easier and even cheaper for them to absorb the others with certain technologies or certain candidates for new drug. Such business tactics will yield more profit. Then an automatic movement for profit will go on. It is a phase of capitalistic world which should not be blamed at all. But Novartis Pharma might have forgotten the glorious history as pharmaceutical company and might have started bribery for a tactics to win in the globalism of the business. They were against the business ethics all over the world.

What the president commented on his company's disgraceful scandal may mean that the event is the problem of Novartis Pharma itself. It is not our system but Novartis Pharma that should be reformed.

I could not help seeing the dark side of the globalism which is going on in the world.

An ordinary but still irreplaceable QSO

Last week end, a guy in W6 has let me know JIDXC started. It was on 40m at 0705Z. Investigating the current rule, I knew it had undergone a big change. It lasts only for 30 hours. It is for the participants who are getting older. It may be to activate the contest as well.  I have watched it when the bands are open. Except for the beginning and the ending, it could hardly be regarded as active as it used to be. I was a keen joiner of this contest for 40m category around 1990. Even compared with that in those days, it seemed to have lost participants on any band this time.

I tried to work JAs on 40m for regular ordinary QSO. I have called CQ for several times in the daytime when the band was open only for JA. There have, however, been no callers to me at all. I realized again there were much less CW operators enjoying ordinary QSOs in JA for now. I have known of that for the past years and was not surprised at that at all.

This afternoon, between gardening works, I have called CQ on 20m, where Martin AE5KC/M has given me a call. He was originally from Mexico and has been to homeland. He was on the way back home. He told me it would take him 3 hours to drive back to Dallas. He has pulled over his car and was going to take a rest for a while.

I didn't want to bother him taking a rest and was saying goodbye to him. He interrupted it and asked what time it was in our local. I answered it was 3PM bright afternoon. It was 1AM at his place. He sounded to be reluctant to quit the QSO. I could imagine, while taking a break, he was relaxing with radio. The surrounding was quiet and dark. He could hear a JA on the radio. He was running only a barefoot with a whip. It might not be common for him to catch a JA with his mobile set up. That has made him not willing to leave there so soon. As it is often said, treasure every meeting for it will never recur. I have imagined what he thought then in this way.

Wishing him a good rest for a while and a safe trip back to office, I gave the final message to him. It was not a fabulous exciting QSO at all. It might be an ordinary QSO. It must be regarded as a trivial one to most hams. But I was pleased to have met him in this way. It could not be replaced to any other QSOs. I still would look for such a QSO from now on. I won't try to persuade the others to do the same way. I just would go on this style of enjoyment in ham radio.   

Shopping in Tokyo

My wife has started learining flute about half a year ago. She has been really enthusiastic for the instrument. She always practises it at midnight. There have never been any midnight when I could not hear her making
tonguing at high pitch or blowing scales. She complains of getting rusty in memorizing fingering or performing a fast motif in music etc. Even if she has played a bit of piano in her young days, I always tell her, she could not complain of slow progress at her age.

It has been a used instrument borrowed from a major instrument company that she practised with. She found it a bit tough to go on practising that old one, so that she wished to get a new one with better performance. She has been eagerly searching what instrument would be suitable for her or where to get such an item. She wanted me to go with her. I was a bit reluctant to say yes to her because I could not tell a good wind instrument from the others. Especially if she, still a real beginner, plays them by herself. She seemed sad to hear that and told me to ask our daughter to go together with her.

In  a few days, I agreed her to go with her. She has never had such a hobby which she could be devoted to so much by herself since we had married. Maybe, gardening is another hobby for her. It has become, however, like a kind of duty to water the plants at present. I knew how it is relieving us from the stressful routine to play instruments however unskilled we might be with them. I knew it was a time when she could be free from those troublesome reality. Won't it be a good hobby for her in the retirement soon as well? I decided to support her seeking a good flute.

We left home an hour before noon here. It was in Okubo in the downtown of Tokyo where we were heading to. How long has it been for us to go for such shopping in Tokyo? When we were engaged immidiately after graduation from the school, we promised to come to Tokyo for concerts etc often. It takes only an hour and a bit more to go to Tokyo on a train. But it turned out to take us even more than a couple of hours to reach somewhere in Tokyo in door to door. And our busy work and family duties have prevented us from coming there so often. I could not help recalling the past decades when we had lived together in the countryside away from Tokyo where we spent our student days. How much am I owing to her to reach our age? Hasn't there been anything which I could do for her in our life for the past 3 decades?

We were lost when we took off at the station of Okubo of the Yamanote line. We started to walk to the opposite way from that to the shop. In a few minutes, we realized that and took a rest at a restaurant there. In our engagement days, I remembered, we had often loafed around the downtown while we prepared for the MD examination together with our mutual firends. What a time of hope and pleasure! Now, almost having finished our career in our lives, we were settled down at a restaurant together taking late lunch and coffee.

The instrument shop was in an alley in Okubo away from the main street. The outlook was not very gorgeous. But a decent and neat shop inside. Not very crowded.  Very hospitable staff have welcomed us there. My wife has chosen several flutes and has tried playing each of them at a room for 2 hours long. We asked a personnel to play each of them for us. We have chosen a model by Muramatsu, a well known maker in Japan. It was not a very expensive model but should be good enough for a new comer. My wife has contacted with her flute teacher on cell phone, who was not very happy with any products from that maker. Finally, she agreed with my wife to get it since it was my wife's choice.

On the way back home, we both fell asleep on seats in the train. A bit tired. But a satisfying trip. Watching her being content with a new instrument she got in this trip, I thought I should bring her for shopping or concerts etc more often so far we could do that.

 

In our young days when we started residency at a med school hospital nearby.

Yellowtail and radish

Fresh  yellowtail is available in supermarket now. It is the season of yellowtail with radish. It is a popular dish for family meal here. Radish is boiled with rece washed water prior to cooking with yellowtail. Yellowtail is pretreated with salt and, later, boiled water to lessen its fishy smell. yellowtail is cooked with stock, soy sauce, sake, ginger and sugar etc. In 15 min., radish is put into it with some additional seasoning materials. Cook them for another half an hour.

It is really good. Yellowtail has rich taste while radish absorbs well seasoned sauce with the taste of yellowfish. A gift from nature in this season.

   

Bach Suite Nr2 played by Maurice Gendron

Recently, I have been listening to this pretty old recording of Bach's suite by Maurice Gendron. He was popular in 1960s or 70s when I was a student starting learning cello. Unfortunately, his performance has not been on the radio etc so often any longer.

The modern cellists are inclined to play them with too much exaggerations or too excessive dynamics. Of course, there are some exceptions like Yo Yo Ma. The modern cellists are playing these pieces as if they were required to add something new to those by the old orthodox. I am afraid it always end in failure.

The suites by Bach should be played without any exxagerations. It should sound as if it were a gift from heaven. Not artificial but as apriori. This performance is very orthodox. Not much variation in tempo and dynamic. As if he believes in the power the suite were originally born with.

The 1st day of increased sales tax

It is the 1st day of the increased sales tax today. From 5 to 8%. It is sceduled to be risen to 10% next fall. They say it should be risen up to 20% in the near future to cover all the expenditure for the social security which is increasing in accordance with the progressed aging of the population.

I admit such taxation is inevitable to stabilize our society. But it is the problem how the government is going to use the increased revenue. So far as this rise of the sales tax is concerned, they will get 5 trillion JPY. At the same time, they have made a budget to stimulate the economy for the same amount of increased revenue. The 3% increase of sales tax is actually paid for the civil engineering business and the export business. Who knows they might go on the same expenditure from next budget on? So far, there is no trickle down realized in the economy at present which the government has insisted. Haven't they promised to use the increased revenue for social security?

BOJ has been buying the national bond without any limit for the past several years. It has started purchasing the long term national bond for the couple of years. It is hazardous. It would cause " a bad inflation". If BOJ stopped purchasing it, it would result in drastic drop of the value of national bond. BOJ could never stop issuing the national bond. An endless easing! I could hardly believe they have any means to do with progressive inflation which we could expect as a result of such easing. The people are not infromed that inflation is a transfer or money from us to the government. The government insists such an inflation could be controlled and would contribute to get out of the deflation. I could hardly believe in their both sayings.

Magnolia in full bloom

Magnolia flowers are fully coming out now.  Looking this tree with full blown flowers, I surely feel spring has finally arrived here. My mother used to love this tree. I still remember of her with smile like a child telling me magnolia was coming out.

 

My father has planted it about 30 years ago.