In the end of 2022

The year 2022 is going away soon. Having had a nice dinner for the NY Day's Eve with family members, I am settled down at my room listening to St. Matthew's Passion. It is the time for me to leave some sentences reflecting this passing year and viewing the coming year ahead. Hopefully, words of hope. I have been reluctant to do it because all coming up in my mind is something ominous and depriving me of hope for the future.

As for the past years, I have lost good friends and a family member. 

Glenn NN6T has fought against cancer for years. I have been informed about it from him for years. Together with his faithful wife, Susan, he has lived a good life even though he could have lived longer without cancer. We have shared the same friends through ham radio like Ed W7GVE or Kemp K7UQH. I was sad not to be able to hear his vivid fast Morse code on 40m early in the evening. 

Ellen W1YL also has lived her life in her own way. A legendary CW operator and a pioneer in ham radio in the US after WWII. In her last several years, she could operate W7RN through the remote control thanks to Tom K5RC and her other faithful friends. She sounded like a teen age girl operating radio, very vivid and sociable. Even though I have not known her in person for a long time enough to write anything like an obituary, she has been a good company to share the pleasure of this extinguishing hobby of Morse code. She has never complained of her situation and has loved her life independent from anyone. 

Alan AC2K has become a good friend of mine since I met him in person at FOC dinner in Seattle in 2012. A stout looking and sociable guy. Whenever the band was open to NA here, I often could hear him on any bands. Since he moved to Tucson AZ a few years ago, we met a bit less often. He seemed to have enjoyed his retirement there, however. It was a shock for me to hear he had suffered from leukemia in the beginning of this year. He seemed to have had hope for recovery. It was good for him that his family had been with him until the very last moment. I sure missed his vivid and sociable way of operation. 

My father in law was a tender and affectionate person. I owe him so much and am sorry I could not repay him for those things. He was a man of efforts in life. Even thouogh I have not visited him too often in the past, he always welcomed me with that gentle Sanuki dialect, the local dialect of my wife's birth place. Several years ago, when he and his wife have decided to go into a nursing home, I heard from my wife, he has ordered to clean up and to repair their old house. I thought it was in order to prevent from crime to the house where no one was supposed to live. But that house was, I guess, the product from their hard work throughout their lives. After having it cleaned up beautifully, as the last work of his life, he got out of it. 

All of these people have lived their own lives eagerly and faithfully. They are now freed from their worries, anguishes or anxieties. Here, I would say "You have lived good lives. I would follow you in sometime."

One of the biggest changes in my life was that I quit ham radio this August. Honestly, I am unhappy to have left it. Of course, still missing chances to say hello on the air to good friends, I believe everyone should reach the stage of life to say farewell to it, willingly or unwillingly. A lot of friends have told me they would miss me. So did I feel the same way. If such a saying is allowed, however, we may be missing our good old days when we have had great time together on the air. 

I have been told by a few friends that our authority would deregulate the licencing system, which I have thought to be very problematic as I wrote in a post regarding the reason why I quit radio. It might encourage me to return to the hobby. But, so far as I know, the system even after that deregulation is still far from the global standard. Very bureaucratic and having ham radio as a tool for concession for certain people in JARD or in the administrative offices. I thought I would get another licence to renew my call sign before it is allocated to another guy. But so far, I won't do that very soon. In stead, I would write down an article of the reception system of Morse code and the pleasure of communication with it before I get too old. Now quite some people have the same idea but are not perfect in understanding it from point of my view. It is also important to investigate what brings pleasure in that old mode communication and to verbalize it in own words. Without that, this hobby won't be delivered to young people who know how to easily and more efficiently communicate others in the internet.

As you may know from the posts in this blog, my main stage in life is in garden farm, tiney one, and the kitchen. I used to ask myself it was what I should spend this time of my life. But, standing on soil itself has become a pleasure for me. Looming threat of food deficit is another motivation for that as well. Learning about the ecology how the vegetables and plants are growing is stimulating me a lot. It will take me long time to learn how to do farming after the naturel farming method. But I would practice it without chemicals and least fertilizers. It is inwardly satisfying me a lot. It is another pleasure for me to see my wife enjoying the dishes I prepare with the crops from my garden farm.

As a former doctor and a high risk person, I have been studying on COVID19 pandemic. As a trait of RNA virus, SARS CoV2 pathogen has undergone a lot of mutations. Those with less virulence and more infectivity seem to survive and to build a surge world wide. Except for in China and Japan, it seems to have been settled down. Sure hope it goes that way. But who knows? This localization of contagion surge may reflect the hosts' susceptibility. It may change with another mutation strain. They say a lot of mammals species have been infected with this virus, which means there is more reservoir for this virus(es). The reservoir may cause mutations which could occur another pandemic. As you know, zoonosis viruses other than SARS CoV2 which could cause other pandemics amount up to 800000 in the world, they say. Rampant development of nature may free such pathogen(s) invade into human sociey in the future. 

Another concern about COVID19 is that people often neglect the problem of long COVID. In the US, a report says, 4 million people could not go for work due to it. IN Japan, 1.6% of all infected suffer long COVID serious enough to bother daily life activity. I am afraid it could become a burden to the social security in the future.  

I am often excited to read about new findings in immunology/virology, even though I could not catch up all of them yet. Just for fun, I would go on reading papers and books about them. In the phylogeny of SARS CoV2, we are experiencing the real story of evolution. With my rotten ability, I don't know how I could go on studying it but sure will try.  

As for music, no cello practice any longer. With the carpal tunnel syndrome like symptoms subsiding, I may start playing it again. It would be just for own fun but not for ensemble etc. I have been obssessed to practice more and more and to catch up other ensemble members. Now, being free from that obsessive intention, I am rather feeling happy and could enjoy listening to various kinds of music. The song pieces of Mahler and Richard Strauss were good harvests for me this year. Understanding the aria, choir and recitative in St. Matthew's Passion has been a object this year. I am making a bit of progress, even quite slow. With understanding the phrases in it, I could be as if in the scene Jesus had been in the New Testament. I would go it on.

As for politics/economy in our country as well as in the world, I should talk a lot about them. Cutting it short, I guess it is not very rosy. I am afraid there are leaders all over the world who dare to tell lies or conspiracy. And certain percentage of people are resonat with them. I am afraid it is a crisis to democracy. I don't know how to deal with it by myself. Just speaking out whenever I could and am required to. Our government now accumulates liabilities while the BOJ, the main bank, is falling into insolvency. The need for social security is climbing up. But the government decided to double the expense for military expansion. They pretend to strenghthen self defence with missiles reaching the other countries' military bases. They would execute preemptive strikes with those missles. They say we are going into the prewar era from the postwar era. 

I might have pretended to live fairly intellectual life. It is not the reality. I often spend time purposelessly watching Youtube at own room. In the end of the day, I would reflect it. A lazy retiree in a countryside in fact. Knowing my ability, physical and intellectual, is on the way downward, I still try to fill my life with more pleasure.

Our family is doing fine. My wife seems to have decided retiring next year even though the process is tough. Then I might be a bit more free from the duty as the chef, hopefully. I would carry on the journey of life searching more excitement and pleasure.

Thanks for visiting this mannerism blog. I appreciate your comment whatever it might be related with. Wishing all of you a very Happy and Healthy New Year in 1.5 hours.

Shin 

Another osechi braised pork with boiled eggs.

Magnolia is already budding. A bit earlier than usual year. 

New Year Days' dishes

We have a number of traditional dishes for the New Years' Days named osechi. Since both of us have been busy with our profession and later, in my case, laziness in retirement, I have never tried that yet. In this year end, I dared to try a couple of dishes of osechi. One is boiled black beans seasoned with sugar and sake. The other is this dish shown in the picture, sweet chestnut paste, sweetened chestnuts cooked with sieved sweet potatoes. Both materials are the harvest in our home farm. The chef is also home grown 73 years old man. It was a bit laborious but still a fun. My wife enjoys it as a taster.

Honestly, making these dishes, I have had a couple of impressions with these NYDay's dishes. 

One is that it was a fun to cook this one with home grown chestnuts and sweet potatoes. I wish I had not thrown away the chestnuts and had kept them for such a dish as this one.

The other is the opposite. I was almost astonished to see how much sugar the recipe requires to add to this dish. Eating this dish is almost equivalent to eating sugar. I had better cut it down even if I enjoy it for a dessert. It is a poison for such an elderly as me. 

I should have finished the greeting in the end of the year by now, not enjoying such as cooking. Maybe, hopefully, it will be posted before the New Year Day. 

But in case, I couldn't, I wish all of you happy and better year in 2023. Thanks for visiting this blog in a kind of mannerism! 

 

Pork miso soup and Mahler 9th

For dinner, I have prepared this miso soup with pork. It is a popular family dish named Tonjiru in Japanese. Home grown taro and radish were used for the material.

While cooking this and one more, I have run a CD of Mahler 9th at pretty loud sound as if I were at the concert hall. It may not be suitable for a music at kitchen, too serious and emotional. But I like listening such as Mahler, Bruckner or Brahms while cooking.

It was a recording of Berliner Phiharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado in 2000. It was the time when he had climbed to the top as a conductor in the world. He was diagnosed as gastric cancer in that year, however. I don't know if he knew of that by this recording. Judging from how this serious symphony was diligently played, he must know of that.

His thought sure sounds double imaged with what the composer has thought in composing this piece. Passion, jest and wandering are expressed in the first three movements, which converges into the reconciliation with death in the last movement. As I wrote about it before, the yiddish melody and repeated motif of something like gasping in this last movement present us the mental state Mahler has reached. I don't know if it was the ultimate solution on life and death for him or not. It is still moving us whenever listening to it. 　

Thinking of such a thing, the dishes were ready. The other dish was potato stew featuring home grown potatoes. My wife, coming home at 8 PM, has enjoyed this soup so much. Everything goes peaceful and pleasant. 

Before sleeping, I would listen to this CD again. 

Blue berry leaves turning colorful

 At corners of the fence, fallen leaves and pulled weeds are piled up. It will turn to be compost next spring. It is the main source of nutrients for the vegetables and plants at our garden/farm. 

Yesterday, I was working at one of them in the garden. The beautiful leaves of blue berry bushes came in my eyes. I knew they had been there. But I have not paid much attention to them. It was an unexpected surprise. Among several kinds of deciduous trees here, it must be the tree of the most impressive leaves in gradation in this season.  

As I have iterated in this blog, it is woderful those leaves, hued various beautiful colors, are shining most brightly at the very moment when they are falling on the ground. And they will fertilize the plant with their death. 

In the human society, the opposite things are going on. Elderly pursuing more power and money defeating the others. The system of the domestic as well as the international societies are so complicated that it won't be easy for us to ascribe a lot of troubles, struggles or even wars to a single cause. But the avidity for power and money of those ruling nations may be the basic issue, I believe. Will there be any wisdom to overcome it? Without it, there could be nuclear arm war occurring in the near future. The Ukrainean war has told us nuclear war could be a reality, not just for deterrence of war. 

 

Garland chrysanthemum and Sukiyaki

Garland chrysanthemum, syungiku that means chrysanthemum in spring, is a popular vegetable in winter. I have had a lot of it grown in the garden farm. Despite of, or, thanks to the cold atmosphere for the past few weeks, they have grown well.

As I have least knowledge how to cook them, I have made Sukiyaki, the only menu,  which I knew this vegetable was used as a material.

Chinese cabbasge, also home grown, was used in this dish. Sukiyaki is famous for a Japanese dish. I seldom cook that menu. The main reason may be beef is pretty expensive compared with pork or chicken in our country. With our currency getting weaker, imported beef is even more expensive by 20 or 30%. Beef made in Japan was even more costly than imported ones from the US or Australia. The prices are getting closer for now. When watching the prices of foods etc at super market, I sensitively know how inflation is going on. Anyway, sometimes I should kive in a bit of luxury. Maybe, I will get a bit better beef to be added in the dish tomorrow.

This vegetable seems good for salad so far as it is fresh. I would try that soon. 

Two issues in Morse code learning

 Even keeping a distance from Morse code, I am still concerned how it is alive and used in ham radio. Looking around SNS groups, I found a couple of trends in learning procedure of Morse code.

Firstly, most of the beginners are learning it through some sofe ware. It is a quite frequent question made by them in SNS what soft ware is the best to learn it. Actually, I haven't tried any such soft ware by myself and not eligible to mention about it. But I would question if it is the best or the only way to learn it. Learning through soft ware may help people a lot to remember all characters in Morse code in the beginning. After that step, is soft ware learning ideal way or not, I wonder.

I won't idealize how we have learned Morse code back in '60s. Those days, after remembering all the characters, we were listening to CW bands every day. We could first copy only a part of call signs. However, while going on listening on the bands, we found ourselves to be able to copy everything. The world has started to be opened all of sudden. I should say the progress is step wise. So we should keep ourselves grinding into it for weeks or even monthes. We need to go through that flat floor until we could go up to the higher place. While doing SWLing, we could learn how to operate radio and what ettiauette we should keep in operation. In actual communication, we should do with fading or interference which we could experience only on the air but not with computer. I wonder why experienced operators won't advise new comers to train this way.  

I sometimes find advices from senior operators to beginners to copy words en bloc. Copying each word as a whole for its sounding may help, as they advice, to copy code faster. I believe it would embarrass beginners. Our short term memory buffer is limited. A large cluster dots/dashes is hard to remember. I guess advising that way, the senior operators are not conscious of what's going on in reception process. We are taking the meaning of the message at every moment. When we copy a part of the word being sent, we subconsciously try to read the latter part of the word. We guess what word should follow in the context. Reading a sentence or even a whole message, we are guessing what to come next from the context. It is done almost unconsciously. This is the process of head copy. In stead of advising young beginners to remember the sound of a word as a whole, we should encourage them to read the word. sentence and message. It is a continuous process of reading. 

The coup d'etat plot in Germany and ultra right extremists in the world

The coup d'etat plot in Germany has surprised us a lot. It is hard to believe there was such an extremist right wing people in one of the developed countries. Especially, it is a shock that the group included policemen/military officers even in small number, who are empowered to resort to force. It seems to aim to revive the regime of German Reich with racial elitecism, that is, identical or very close to Nazism.

In WWII, so far as I learned, most German people have approved Nazis by Hitler at least in the beginning, while some of them stood up against it and even tried to execute assassination of Hitler, which all were ended in vain. Even after the war, those having protested and having been killed by Nazis and their family members have had to undergo criticism for their action during WWII by some people. With the efforts of the people involved in the protests against Nazis and related people, around 1970, they have finally restored the honor of those having lost their lives in the struggle against Nazis.

But the racism and exclusion of minorities seem to be still alive in a lot of countries including Germany. I suspect there should be those believing in such extreme idea in the society, which has shown up as this coup d'etat plot. I hear the ultra right wing party AfD is getting some approval and some seats in the House in Germany. The same thing is going on in Japan. Even worse, the ultra right wing occupies most of the ruling party here. Its goal as a political party is to change the constitution and to have the military as in prewar era. Their basic propaganda is to return to the regime  of the imperialism. 

There are the other example of ultra right wing politicians and their parties in so many countries. One example is Russia lead by Putin. He is adhering to the regime of Russian Empire after experiencing the decline of USSR by himself. The characteristics of such ultra right dictator are firstly sticking to a regime in the past brilliant and successful to their eyes. Secondly, they won't hesitate to rely on fake or publish it to the people as well as the world. They are also eager to expand armaments and even to resort to military power. 

I am sure this trend in politics may reflect certain changes in the society. We should investigate what has brought such ultra right wing in the world and care for that if it is possible. In Ukraine, we have learned nuclear weapons could destroy human civilization by such a dictator. The coup d'etat plot, even though unsuccessful this time, is alarming us that. 

In early winter

It seems everything has been in hibernation in the garden/farm. It is really early winter now. It gets frosty early in the morning here. 

Spinach is an exception. Though slowly, they are still growing. Some of them grown earlier have been used a material for miso soup. 

Knowing that onion is the vegetable growing in winter, I am still amazed at its growth. I have given a bit of grass mulching to them. It may help them to survive in the cold snap which comes on them frequently in the coming months. In early spring, they will bear big fruits at the base.

Three trees at the northern side of our house. Two camellias and one unknown decidupis tree. Camellia are in full bloom. 

The unknown deciduous tree has colored leaves in beautiful gradation. Whenever I see such fallen leaves, an episode comes on in my mind. When our Empress Michiko has turned 86 years of age and could not play piano any longer, which she had loved so much, she told that everything we could do is a gift from heaven, every loss of our abilities is to return it to heaven. It is a right attitude toward aging, I believe. we should never be upset or saddened to have lost our abilities but accept it as a consequence of aging. What a profound idea! In addition, fallen leaves will become nutrition to the following lives.

Camellia flowers. They are joy in this season when the other flowers finished their lives. 

A camellia flower in close up. I could not help admiring its beauty.

I would devote myself to reading books and listening to music. Not bored at all. In 3 months, the garden/farm will revive and may keep me so busy.

 

A memory of Elegy by Faure

One more trifle of memory in young days.

When I finished the early residency at a med school here, I returned to mother school for research work in immunogenetics for a few years. On weekdays, I stayed at my parents' home and, later, at a small apartment close to the lab. I went back to home in Tochigi in weekends. Sometimes, I have drove back to home on my car. Late at Saturday evening, I always ran on a fixed route. Whenever I went through the northern border of Tokyo abutting on Saitama through a big river, I felt I had been there in the past. Late at night, the area was covered with darkness. There were high buildings of apartment on the other side. Only street lights at regular interval were looming up the street and the adjascent area. 

In some time, I remembered having been the area in my school days. I have visited a piano teacher with the pianist friend U. U was showing our performance of Elegy by Faure to him in her lesson. I can't remember what season it was but it was surely cool evening. Feeling so tense, I was getting out of the exit of a subway station, bringing cello on shoulder. It was U's usual lesson. I can't remember what I was told by him at all. 

Several weeks ago, I happened to make correspondence with U and asked her about that lesson. She told me it was Hanaoka, a post-graduate student of a famous art university. He later went to France and devoted hard to performance of piano there. He was awarded at a few concours there. He has become a professor of piano at a music university here.  

I was so nervous to go for that lesson but was still a bit proud of being chosen for a partner for the lesson by her. However, I wasn't yet confident at cello performance at all. I felt sorry for her because I had not been proficient at performance. I have been a kind of unconfidence guy at various things including playing cello. In the mail, I apologized her for that. 

She has not answered anything to that. She only let me know the teacher had praised my cello while she was only with him. It might be only a diplomatic words to me. If she had told anything to encourage me, I would have been saddened. But it was relieving me a lot that she told that without commenting on my cello skill etc. I felt of her considerateness in just delivering the teacher's words to me. 

Faure's Elegy is a famous piece for cellists. It is a work of romanticism hued with sentimentalism in youth. I have played it at a few occasions before audience ever since. No chance to play it with U any longer. Talking of the episode of her lesson, however, I felt this little bitter memory had turned a warm one in my mind. All thanks to U. This is a performance of this piece by Krijgh. The performance advances steadily until it reaches the theme reproduced in an octave higher than the beginning. Creative and excellent performance.

Discretionary labor system

 Our MHLW is aiming to apply the discretionary labor system to more kinds of professions/labors. It is stated to let the workers work at their convenience. 

Actually, it was planned to have them work endlessly at low wage. The business executives would have them work long hours without paying overtime pay under the discretionary labor system. 

The tragedy is that the Labor Union is not against that "reformation". Our economy depends mainly on the domestic demand but not on export businesses. But the workers' income has been decreasing for the past 3 decades with substantial cut of the income for the workers. It has lowered labor productivity and caused very slow increase of GDP. 

This reformation or change of the work system may lead to further decrease pf labor productivity through lowered income. The top of Labor Union seems to belong to the politicians, burocrats and businessmen governening this country.

Ill health or even death from overwork among workers may be resulted by this socially unacceptable change in labor system. The executives who could improve labor productivity only through such a lousy change in labor system should be retired at present. 

I am wondering why the workers and/or the major opponent party won't oppose to such a slavery sytem in the modern world.