SOBA noodle

I went to one of my favorite soba noodle shops in Nagoya, the city where I was born and raised.
It has a hearth in the middle of the table.  However, old Japanese house used to have a hearth on the floor, just like the picture beneath.

Actually, ordinary Japanese house had used charcoals as fuel at home in rural areas until the mid of 20th century.

The left picture is a hearth in the old post town where I visited this spring. See the following URL; http://ritztalk.blogspot.jp/2015/04/ancient-post-town-in-japan.html

This day, I ordered Soba Lunch Special, which includes a bowl of Soba noodle, a piece of sesame tofu, a piece of rolled egg (not egg roll), a bowl of vinegared rice with marinated bonito (unrolled sushi), a cup of thinly sliced and dried radish and a dish of sliced cucumber.

Ｔｈｉｓ type of fire place have been replaced with modern kitchens such as gas ranges and ovens in the middle of 20th century.

A funeral in Japanese style

15th of August became another Memorial Day for my family, in addition to the end of the Pacific War.

My mother passed away on the 15th of August after two month long coma.
On 18th, we had a funeral ceremony in a multi-purpose hall, and this picture shows the altar decorated with many flowers for my mother.

This is Buddhism style ceremony.

What we do in the ceremony is that the priest recites the Buddhist scriptures and while scriptures are recited, the attendees burn incense for the repose of a departed spirit.
After this ceremony, we burn the dead body at a crematorium.

After the cremation, the relatives get together and have some banquet to finish the period of mourning; we are allowed to have meat and fish.

For seven weeks after she passed away, we worship the burned bones of the deceased at home on a decorated tentative altar at home.  The right side is the formal alter for the ancestors and she will join there after burying  the burned bones seven weeks later.

May peace be with her.

"Obon" and the memorial days of World War ll

August is a special month in Japan.
Many people go back to their home towns in tolerance with heavily crowded transportation and stay with their families and friends around 15th of August.
For many Japanese people, this period is one of the longest vacations in a year.
We call this period " Obon", literally meaning a tray or a container carrying dishes and glasses filled with offerings on, then "Obon" has been symbolized the activities to welcome the spirits of ancestors in their family.

"Shoryu-Uma",  Katori city, Japan

"Torou-Nagashi", photo by Miki Yoshihito

These two pictures are typical events in Obon period; the upper picture is "Shoryu-Uma", meaning the horses and the cows for the spirits to move around during the "Obon" period.
The lower one is "Torou-Nagashi", a lantern ship to seeing off the spirits back to their places after "Obon" period.

"Obon" is a traditional and religious event, in addition to this, 15th of August has another aspect: one of the most important memorial day for Japanese and other countries, such as the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War (World War ll), even though it is not a national holiday.

Not only 15th of August, 6th is an Atomic Bomb Anniversary of Hiroshima, and 9th is that of Nagasaki.

Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
/media/File:Genbaku_Dome04-r.JPG

Atomic cloud over Nagasaki, 15 minutes later
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
/media/File:Atomic_cloud_over_Nagasaki_from_Koyagi-jima.jpeg

My question is why Japan did not quit the war before Atomic bomb attacks.

Before August, Japan had already got catastrophic damages at urban areas such as Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and many cities, moreover, met the US troops at Okinawa and resulted in the crushing defeat.

However, the termination of war seemed untouchable and it was difficult to speak up the termination for governors by sensing the mood in the Japanese government at that time.

We need to figure out what types of group dynamics let the military and government not decide to finish the war.

If we understand this dynamics of the hesitation to speak up whatever opinions against the mood are, I hope we will prevent Japan from repeating the bad decisions on the war; in other words, we may figure out other solutions besides the war.  Moreover, we can provide with the universal solutions for the peace over the world.

Japanese Garden

This picture shows a traditional Japanese garden, decorating trees, stone lanterns and big stones and pebbles, lying looking like a river with a stone bridge.  
The upper picture shows the whole view, and the lower shows the detail around the stone bridge.

The Bonsai has a similarity to the traditional Japanese style garden, in the sense of the shapes of trees and the allocation of stones with moss.

Stones and pebbles prevent from weed's growing, but in the hot summer day like this year, wild weeds are very active and let us make a lot of efforts to pick them off.

                            

Traditional Japanese Tea

This is a bowl of green tea, traditional Japanese tea.

We use several scoops of tea powder and stir the tea with bamboo-made whisk.

Usually, a green tea is for a tea ceremony with strict manners, but my grandmother used to drink it everyday at home without such manners.

I learned  only how to make it through her and now it is one of my favorite drinks.

Unfortunately, I don't know the traditional manners, I can't join a tea ceremony but I can enjoy it.

Life Sustaining Treatment

My mother, 81 years old, ate a piece of bread that clogged her throat and made her stop breathing.  Then my dad and brother called an ambulance and this happened on the last Tuesday, June 16th..

She had been unconscious for 5 days and in a coma on her hospital bed at the CCU room and she started breathing without artificial ventilation on Saturday but  with very weak brain wave.

Fortunately she is still alive, but unconscious now due to cardiopulmonary resuscitation comprising of an artificial hydration and nutrition, intubation and mechanical ventilation.

The doctor recommended that she needs to be on a life sustaining treatment, such as Tracheotomy for airway management and Grastrostomy for nutrition.

My mother told us that she would not like to be under life sustain treatment and she wants to have a natural death.  She has been suffering from Parkinson's disease for 6 years and she knew that now it is her time.

Some articles revealed that the spirit of a comatose person leaves the body and float around the bed. This spirit hovers over the body and sees it from the birds view angle.
Unfortunately, I did not feel her spirit around her bed.  She is still alive and I will be looking for her spirit for a while.

Hydrangea in the wet season of Japan.

Hydrangea is a symbolical flower with the wet season in Japan.  June in Japan is usually wet in everywhere besides Hokkaido, the northern island in Japan.  This wet season is called "tsuyu", which literally means "Japanese plum (Ume) rain", but the relation between Japanese plum and rain is not clear.  Some people say it is the time for Japanese plum to ripen, but no evidences.

Regarding to the rainy season, we have two rainy seasons in Japan; one is the period from June to early July, the other is from the end of August to the beginning of October, the same time of typhoon attacking at Japan.

I say "wet season" instead of "rainy season", because I would like to distinguish with each other and this season is more wet and makes feel blue.