7 June 2002 (27 Sivan 5762)
From Monday through Thursday this week I was invited for the second time to teach an intensive course entitled "Languages and Cultures of the Jewish People" at Ehime University. When I taught it for the first time about three years ago, it was probably one of the most unforgettable and successful courses I have ever taught in my life. Then I talked not only about Hebrew and Jewish languages but also about Jewish history, Judaism and Jewish music, including dancing together in class. According to the feedback I got from the participants three years ago, I decided to include the practical study of Hebrew this time.
With a lot of expectation I went to the university on Monday straight from the port where I arrived on that very day by ferry from Kobe. Instead of about 30 students who were officially registered in the course, there were only about 15. When I asked them in the beginning to tell me the reason why they decided to take this course, most of them told me that they did so to get credits. I was rather disappointed and perplexed as I am not used to teaching things Jewish to people with little or no interest in the subject per se. It did not take me long to realize that it was a great mistake to have included the study of Modern Hebrew. In spite of my initial worry, the course went and ended more or less well. I was a little surprised that more participants took an interest in Judaism than in any other subject covered in the course though the main topic was Hebrew and Jewish languages.
I am still asking myself whether it is part of the responsibility of university teachers to motivate their students to take an interest in things they were not interested in at all initially. In principle, I do not think it is, but it is often true not only in the university but also in life in general that an accidental encounter can affect you in a most fundamental way as it happened to myself concerning Hebrew. I only hope that I could instigate them to study further about aspects of the Jewish cultures as one can never know what will happen next.
14 June 2002 (4 Tamuz 5762)
It was rather surprising to read in newspapers and happened to see on TV in someone else's house that so many people here, especially the young, repeated the shouts of "Nippon" ('Japan' in Japanese) with such enthusiasm during and even after the World Cup soccer games of the Japanese national team. I say this because I thought that school teachers, most of whom are leftists, have succeeded in brainwashing their pupils and convincing them that any nationalistic sentiment necessarily leads to a war as it lead to the participation of Japan in the Second World War, therefore is evil. I am happy to see that the influences they have been exerting with their unhealthy ideology, not shared by the majority of the population, have not been so pervasive after all.
Although I myself cannot be so enthusiastic about such trifles as soccer, and I think that a state is in a sense a necessary evil, love of their own country must be a deep-rooted, even natural, sentiment for the majority of people. Although there is always a danger that it may lead to chauvinism, it is much healthier than what leftist school teachers have been trying to teach about Japan by denying everything, both good and bad, that was before the Second World War. In no normal country that has not been denied its past pupils are taught that the national anthem and flag are evil without questioning why.
I must agree that the World Cup soccer games, like other world sports events, are a kind of wars between states without weapons. This may partly explain that witnessing this "war" with their own eyes, many young people here have had their dormant nationalistic sentiment awakened. But soccer is just a sport after all. It can only intoxicate people for a short time, making them forget real problems.
21 June 2002 (11 Tamuz 5762)
Luckily or unluckily, I happened to find out this week that my ignorance about the tax laws in Japan had caused me a substantial monetary loss for the past eight years. I went to the city office to negotiate about the amount of my national health insurance as I was supposed to pay as much as one fifth of my monthly income, which was simply too much. Since the tax is automatically deducted from my income, I had never taken the trouble of filing my income tax return before, but according to the advice of a clerk I negotiated with, I went to the tax office to do so for the first time in my life.
To my great surprise, I was told that part of the tax deducted automatically from my income would be refunded, and it would amount to about one half of my average monthly income. Since the municipal tax is based on the readjusted income tax, it was also reduced, and I will be refunded. Furthermore, since the amount of the national health insurance is based on the municipal tax, it was also reduced substantially. The amount of money I overpaid in the last fiscal year is almost equal to my average monthly income, and I had overpaid such a amount of money for the past eight years. Stupid me!
Of course, I knew that one was supposed to file one's income tax return at the end of each fiscal year, but I thought out of ignorance that the amount of money to be refunded would not be large enough to justify the trouble of preparing documents for declaring the income. It is only by chance that I found out that I was totally wrong. Fortunately, I would be refunded part of the income tax I overpaid last year, and it seems that I would also be refunded for the past five years.
28 June 2002 (18 Tamuz 5762)
Of the five senses, hearing and smell must be different from sight, taste and touch. It is usually difficult and sometimes even impossible to escape from something unpleasant or intolerable to your eyes or nose when you encounter it in your daily life. Generally, you cannot escape so quickly from the place where you experience it as to stop sensing the source of the nuisance completely. On the other hand, it is easy to escape from something your sight, taste or touch cannot tolerate. You have only to turn your face or remove your tongue or hands. This is one of the reasons why I am bothered not only by certain kinds of noise and smell but mainly by those who make them without caring about others around them. Unfortunately, it is not rare for me to suffer from such nuisance or nausea in my daily life.
I am especially sensitive to any kind of mechanical repetitive noise. I have even moved a couple of times just to escape from such a noise in the neighborhood. But since I cannot afford to move so often, and there is no guarantee that the new place will be quieter, I am fighting against noise, especially if it is due to lack of consideration by someone who makes it. Since I moved to this neighborhood three and a half years ago, I have succeeded in stopping six sources of noise in the neighborhood, including wind bells and an alarm clock echoing in the whole neighborhood.
Another source of mechanical repetitive noise I have been tortured by, but have not dared to stop, is the bass part, mainly by drums, of hard rock, which is torture in itself for me, leaking from earphones or headphones of people sitting beside me in a bus or a train. There is also something pathological about them. Though they are physically in a public place, they are secluding themselves in their own space shielded by the wall of noise. I wonder why they can be so insensitive about others when they seem to be hypersensitive about themselves. What really sucks is not the noise itself but those who make it without caring about others around them.
Although I cannot smell well, there is one kind of smell I simply cannot stand. It is the odor of cigarettes, which, strangely, I can detect even from afar. I am not sure whether this is a universal or uniquely Japanese phenomenon, but I see so many people who start smoking in a restaurant or other public places without asking others sitting beside them, flip cigarette butts on the street, and/or walk on the street with a cigarette in their hands. Especially the last behavior angers me every time I see it because it is dangerous; clothes, hands or even eyes of passers-by can be burnt. Although I do not care much about the negative effects cigarettes may have on smokers themselves, they may as well learn manners when they smoke in public. Here again what really sucks is not cigarettes themselves but the manners of (some) smokers.