An ensemble with good friends of mine

How fast the happy days are gone! A facebook popup told, on the same day 6 years ago, I had played the piano trio of Faure at a small concert. Of course, with the same two girls. Both of them have been married since then. The violinist would become a happy mother of two children very soon.

When I was doing stably with my own practice, I recalled playing cello for spare time. I was about 50 years old, 18 years ago, then. At first, I wanted my daughter to play with me, who said no way to me for her studies for the entrance exam etc and possibly due to the rebellious phase in her life. This girl who used to learn violin from the same teacher as my daughter did is a professional violinist. She has had training and study in Germany after graduation of a music university some years ago. She has kindly done with me for over 10 years for ensemble. A kind and great violinist.

I miss those days but still feel much grateful to them for letting me play with them. Feeling I am getting worse at performing cello for something of fast passage etc in accordance with aging, I am still practising it everyday. So far, no chance for me to play such a chamber music. I am still dreaming of another chance to play with them.

The 7th anniversary of my mother's passing

In 3 days, it will be the 7th anniversary of my mother's passing. She was 96 years old. Despite of having lived in Christianity belief, she has suffered from many things in her life. In the end years of her life, she had Alzheimer's disease. Losing her recent memory, she still kept her respectable personality.

When we decided not to care for her at home but to move her to a nursing facility nearby, my borther wanted to be with her at his home in Sendai. In a year or so, it turned out to be difficult for him and his wife to go on caring for her. She had been sent in a nursing facility there, where she had had one of the best care available for her. I could not thank more the staff there and my brother/his wife.

She used to be a sharp person. I sometimes wonder what frustration and anxiety for her to lose her recent memory and some aspects of her intellectuality. She has accepted it as it was without complaining anything to the others. Her wish was to come back here and to live with our father, who had passed away 14 years ago.

Even after she has lost her recent memory, when I brought breakfast to her at the house in the same property, I found her praying eagerly sitting at the table. Even though I was not a Christian, it was an unforgettable scene of glory even for me. In her last hospitalization, she was always smiling to the visitors asking about the related people.  Even though she repeatedly expressed her wish to come home here.

On the 1st anniversary, my sister has sent me a poem titled as A Prayer for the Autumn Years of Life, by Heuvers, who had spent many years as a catholic priest in Japan. What is written in this poem was how she has spent her last years of life. I believe she has taught us how to spend the last years of our lives with her existence itself.

I still miss her.

Brahms Piano Quartet Nr.3

This is an excellent performance of this piece. Very accurate in ensemble and full of songs in performance. Each performer is really artistic with amazing capability.
It is surprising that an instant ensemble like this group could perform in this way.

The 1st movement is expressing tragedy in adolescence. Urgence and energy is in the 2nd movement. Delicate song of love is the 3rd movement. I would emphasize the 4th movement showing how unique music of Brahms is as in the case of his Nr4 symphony. Struggle in lonesomeness and meaninglessness of life is expressed in this movement in my view. This music may express every aspect of life from young days to elderly.

I used to play the last movement in med school days. A lecture room equipped with an old upright piano. It was sometime in fall. The setting sun was shining through the window facing to the west. Quiet except for our performance. We have played the last movement, even though we have never known what it had meant in our lives yet. The friends of mine, playing this piece with me, might have lived their lives and must be standing at the almost last chapter of their lives now. For now, they might understand first or even deeper what the music has meant. 

Potatoes and apples are budding

Potatoes are finally budding. I was almost uttering some words when I found this coming out in the soil.

We have planted a couple of apple trees in the garden 3 or 4 years ago. They have bloomed for the first time this year. We have looked forward to their flowers. They may bear first fruits very soon.

It was in my forties when I was first moved by plants growing or betting born. Lives are miraculous even if we know of that process as a knowledge. Older we get, more pleasure we have seeing them vivid and alive. 

I am going to plant various kinds of vegetables. It is for the harvests themselves and for the pleasure to watch lives growing.  

We will have the 7th anniversary of my mother's passing very soon. My brother and his wife will visit and have some time together with us here. Time is still flying away so fast. I would treasure every moment with family members together.

Reinvestingating the cause and consequence of the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima

A discussion in the internet urged me to investigate on the cause and consequence of the severe nuclear accident in Fukushima again. The government and the mass media have turned to approve restarting the nuclear power plants as time has passed since that accident. Restarting nuclear power plants would yield much profit to the power line companies as well as those related with it.

I still found the cause on the accident regarding hardware as well as software is not elucidated yet. The power line company and those who get profit with restarting them are inclined to stress how important restarting is. There are increasing number of people who support those views. For the last 7 years since the accident, they have been able only to visualize a part of the destroyed innder structure of the pressure vessels. Far from taking away the melt down debris etc and consequent decommisioning of the reactors. The contaminated water is still increasing in quatity since they failed to restrice influx of underground water into the area of the nuclear power plant. 

It has not been determined if the accident occurred only by Tsunami or by earthquake itself. The records of the water level/pressure level in the pressure vessels rather support the view that the nuclear power plants, especially their tubings, have been destroyed by the earthquake itself. There is a serious question on the quake proof quality ot those reactors. Without knowing how it has occurred, it might be difficult for them to set measures against such natural disaster.

It is also believed the staff at the nuclear power plants could not follow the manuals for accidents. The company had provided 3 versions of manuals to deal with different levels of accidents. The staff, who might be upset at that disaster, could not follow the indications of the manuals which could have lessened the damage or, at least, could have slow down the process of melt down. The top of the nuclear power plant was an engineer of maintenance of the plants, who was not an expert for such accidents. Actually, there have been less training or education for such severe accidents than necessary. 

The accident is told to have killed hundreds of the people in the area, even though their deaths are not directly related with the irradiation etc. Tens of thousands of people have still evacuated from their home land due to radiation contamination. Most of them should lose their home land forever.

The accident in Fukushima has not left so much damage as expected from the quantity of the radioactive matter released. It was fortunate that they could stop running the plants at the earthquake despite of the following LOCA. The wind has brought most of the contaminating materials over to the Pacific Ocean. In the next accident, which we have known unfortunately that it could occur at a definite probability, the damage could be much worse. There are 14 nuclear plants in a limited area norht of Kyoto, which could be collapsed in a row and could devastate the Western Japan. 

I wonder if we won't learn anything from the accident in Fukushima.

Seven years have passed.

It has been 7 years since the big earthquake in eastern Japan occurred today. I was seeing an ophthalmologist who gave me a diagnosis of cataracts when the earthquake occurred and was rushing back to my office after that. At this time on the day, I was struck dumb at the mess in my room of the office. Everything has fallen on the floor. My precious cello has survived despite of television set was fallen on the floor very close to it.

I have been apathic for a few days. In a couple of days, when I came back on the internet, I was surprised with gratitude to find dozens of e mails from all over the world asking how I was doing were in the mail box. Jim N3JT used to give me a phone call directly. Dave W0FBI, who used to do his military service for 4 years as a doctor in Japan, told me he would return to Japan and work for those suffering from the irradiation due to the nuclear power plant accident. How much I have thanked to all of them! Whenever I remember of those people showing their good will to us, I could not help crying. It was a real disaster but was still a chance to convince me there were good people in the world.  I thought I should change a bit of my way of living after that. I am not sure if I could come on that way. However, I still recall of what I thought that time whenever this anniversary comes on.

There was a charity concert of NY PHilharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert held in the NYC for Japanese suffers in only 7 days after the disaster. He has expressed supports to us on behalf of the orchestra members. It was Takemitsu's Requiem they performed. I have introduced on the episode and their performance as here.

There are still about 34k people evacuated from Fukushima. Many people are still with the sad memories losing their families. I should not forget them.

What recent forgery of public documents means in our country.

As this news reports, Ministry of Finance in Japan will admit they have altered, or more exactly, forged documents on the sale of the land to an ultra right private educational organization, Moritomo gakuen, with very low price. The founder of Moritomo gakuen had been ideologically close to our Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-politics/japans-finance-ministry-to-admit-altering-land-sale-documents-source-idUSKBN1GM0AD

This scandal of the sales was first reported by Asahi Shimbun on Feb 9 last year. On Feb 17, against the pursuit for commitment of the scandal by the opposite parties, Abe has denied his commitment of this scandal and has announced he would resign the position of PM and even the membership of Parliament if it was proved that he or his wife had been involved in it. Forgery of the documents seem to have been started at the same time along with what Abe alleged then.

They say the government would charge this forgery on a bureaucrat who used to make false answers to inquiries by the opposite parties to defend Abe and has resigned his position of the Commisioner of the National Tax Agency yesterday. He has been at a position of Ministry of Finance responsible for the purchase and sale of national properties and later has been promoted to the present position by the government.

This plot proposed by the government seems too unreasonable due to the timing relationship between scooping the event and forging false documents by Ministry of Finance. Forging public documents is a definite felony which bureaucrats will never commit. It is most likely that Abe has ordered them to do this forgery. A person having actually done rewriting the documents at the office has killed himself a few days ago. This sad news told us what a stress it had been for those involving in this forgery.

This is only an aspect of the forgeries this government has made for the past years. A few more scandals of cronysm, statistics in labor policy fallaciously favoring the discretionary labor system and even fraud data of statistics in economy are such examples. The present government has deformed the governing system in our country. It has injured our country so deeply that they should resign as soon as possible.