Kurashi - News From Japan

http://www.marca.com/eventos/marcador/futbol/2014_15/champions/1a_fase/jornada_3/grupo_a/atm_mlm/ My brother is in Madrid, the Champions League has that effect on people. http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sport/fotboll/mff/direktrapport-fran-champions-league/ Malmö FF against Madrid...

Congratulations to Shinji Kagawa, 23, who scored a hat-trick for Manchester United! "I think I'll get a lot of attention because I scored a hat-trick but the fans in Japan are looking toward the Real Madrid game and that's where I'm setting my sights," Kagawa said, after netting in the 46th, 76th and 87th minutes before a turnout of 75,586 at Old Trafford. "It'll be a terrific atmosphere here. I'll put the team first as always and prepare as well as I can for the match." Kagawa scored three goals ("hat trick" in football parlance) in United's 4-0 home win over Norwich City. Kagawa is the first Japanese to score a hat trick on English soil since Junichi Inamoto, who fired Fulham into their first UEFA Cup in 2002 with a triple at Craven Cottage, according to The Mainichi ... Terrific photo, what a joy for the fans: AP Photo/Jon Super/The Mainichi Update : 428 comments so far on The Guardian: M...

As most of my long-suffering Kurashi readers know, I'm from Malmö, a harbour city in the south of Sweden, that used to be a part of Denmark way back some 400 years ago before we all decided enough is enough, let us all get along... Well, we dealt with that. In Malmö, we are closer to Copenhagen than to Stockholm in some ways. There may be a lesson here for prefectures in Japan that are further west, near Korea and China... Funny how a single Swedish football player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who went to the same elementary school, Rosengårdsskolan as my younger brother Johan and I, now define Sweden. Here is what happened in the last couple of days. Zlatan, who has scored for and won all kinds of honours in Europe for all kinds of great clubs, including Paris, Inter, Milan, you name it... He started out in a small local Rosengård team called Assyriska, where not a single player had Swedish nationality, and was later playing for MFF, the main club in Malmö. Fast forward, and this incr...

It has been an amazing summer. I'm just back from London, having seen the best (and some of the worst) of the old Roman city by the Thames, in a country that keeps on rising to the occasion. Absolutely marvelous, as it were. Today, back in Ginza, Tokyo, some 500,000 people showed up to greet the medalists from the Olympics. The 38 medals won at the London games were the most ever by a Japanese Olympic team. It has been that kind of summer. Protests against nuclear power in Tokyo and Kyoto and elsewhere in Japan. Thousands of young people educating themselves and others about energy issues. Energy prices and food cost of course going up? The UK customers are facing higher heating bills, and the winter of 2012 could be harsh. As the red bus passed Hyde Park and Speakers Corner, I was surprised how that particular spot was empty of people with an issue. Rather, that entire park area is now full of war monuments. The scars from last year's Reclaim the City protests, and other...

Finally Fredrik Löf, who previously had two bronze medals, achieved his goal and got a gold medal in the Olympics, together with Lund native Max Salminen... Congratulations, or as we say here, grattis! Very dramatic final as Sweden had to pass both Brazil and the UK, and the UK had to really muck things up to not win! If we include canoe, Sweden has gotten medals in water-related events in just about every Olympics ever.  Youtube video with nice slideshow of photos from the event on Sunday.

I just had this thought, this feeling, that the Euro 2012 is just a way for Europe to deal with the karma of so many battles between people in the past. Now, we don't go to war against each other. We just play football. Karma? Still angry? I really wonder why. Not only that, but we have exported the game around the world. Why not go forward and promote much more good around the planet? We need to focus on the great, not the nasty, bad. If we are going to get through the next couple of years, let's work together. But, we can do better. Karma means we take responsibility for what we do, what we say, yes even what we think. We need to "think better" and be more clever. The Independent: Banking: King hits panic button Fears of new credit crunch prompt Bank of England to kickstart emergency lending scheme Sir Mervyn King, and George Osborne said the Bank and the Treasury were working on a liquidity operation – a "funding for lending...

My brother was visiting briefly this week before a conference in Hong Kong. What to do on a very hot day in mid August? Tom, frequent commenter and old friend from London, suggested - baseball! I would rather have gone sailing with Pandabonium, but as I checked out the game, it all made sense. 45,000 fans at Tokyo Dome, for a fun event (I watched the Carps beat the Giants in Hiroshima in May) so I got the tickets. What a good call that turned out to be. Baseball fans in Japan are the best, with brass bands, drums, and good manners. When the home team is batting, only the home team fans will cheer. Then, when the away team bats, their fans get to lift the roof. Johan, an avid Malmö FF football fan, noted that there was no hatred, no firecrackers, no violence. Check one for team sports, Made in Japan. We have a lot to learn in Europe. He also liked how they serve beers and while not cheap (800 Yen) it is the Real Deal, no imitations. A big cheer for the young ladies running u...

Exciting game, Sawa scored 2-2 and then penalty kicks, and Japan won. Terrific final. Well deserved! Update: FIFA removes all videos of this amazing game from Youtube. You'd think at a moment like this they would actually want people to watch it, to get more people, especially women, especially in Asia, more interested in playing and enjoying football. Sadly, not the case. Old men still dictate the rules for others. I did find this , but no embedding, but certainly worth your while! "Transcendental moment for Japan..."

World Cup in Germany, the Swedish ladies lost to Japan in an exciting game. Japan also beat Mexico 4-0 (Sawa did a hat-trick!) but lost to England 0-2. Tonight, or rather Monday morning, Japanese time, it is Japan-US in the finals. Here are the highlights from the Japan-Sweden game, some really good moments, especially captain (No 10) Homare Sawa 澤穂希 who is just terrific, a play maker who also played for Atlanta and Washington DC teams in the US.

Remember Konan's ace pitcher Yosuke Shimabukuro , who helped his team win the High School baseball tournament this weekend? Turns out he is a well known figure in Ginowan City, where U.S. Futenma Air Station is located, at the time of the 2004 USMC helicopter crash into the Okinawa International University campus. Peace Philosophy Centre, reading Okinawa newspapers, notes that he even held a speech at the Rally against the American military bases, and there is also a photo of him on the town's website: Shimabukuro was a grade 6 student, and as a student leader, he spoke at the Ginowan Residents Rally, as representative of all elementary school students. The Rally was held on September 12, 2004, a month after the August 13 accident, and attended by more than 30,000 residents, one third of Ginowan City's residents (More rally photos from Ginowan City's website ). Shimabukuro then called for a safer living environment for the residents. Ginowan City website: One year afte...

Konan, the baseball team from Okinawa, won big today against Tokaidai in the classic event of summer, the Koshien High School Baseball Tournament. This was Konan's first final, led by top pro prospect pitcher Yosuke Shimabukuro . It is a historic win - the first time a team from Okinawa wins the popular tournament since the start in the 1920s. What a welcome piece of good news for the Okinawans. Congratulations!! The games all the end the same way. While the winning team celebrates, the losing team is left in a puddle of tears before the players drop to their knees to scoop some of the deep-brown infield dirt into little plastic baggies — a treasured memento for the rest of their lives. More over at the WSJ blog, Japan’s Boys of Summer Are Back

Zen's Sekai , a blog I like, is in Osaka for some serious archery practice . He is amazingly honest about his experiences and if you like good writing, do have a look. His wife takes great photos too. Afterward more practice, and another time in front of Dai-Sensei, I was helped with my standing form and orientation to the shooting line, which I was blowing, yet Dai-Sensei was patient and had someone help me. I felt better on my next to last shot when I got a dead center bulls eye and heard a couple of exclamations from behind me… yeah baby, Yatta! Kyudo is closely related to Zen. Both may require long, hard practice. By being able to observe yourself, in a self-referal way, and then letting go, you start making progress. Having a great teacher is of course helpful. I like how the narrative of the Nihon Chronicles 2010 takes the reader deep into Nippon mindfulness country, a place where old people do Tai Chi at 6:00 AM in some Osaka park, and where a "foreigner" is no lon...

Rural Japan, at least in areas near big cities, should focus on sustainable agriculture, food security and solutions that benefit the people who have lived in such areas for a long time. Yet, there is much at stake. Golf courses have been a problem at least since the 1980s, and now we are beginning to hear that many metropolitan residents have no grave to go to . Such a particular Tokyo problem, and Nikkei has more details: In Tokyo, 18,000 new graves were needed each year for the 20 years up to 2004, but only 8,000 were available annually. There are indications that there will be a shortage of final resting places for the next 50 years or more. So, 20-30 years ago, farmland and forests were turned into golf courses. Local citizens protested, tried to lobby the government, held meetings and wanted to stop this madness. Let's hope golf courses are not turned into massive graveyards. We need that land for better things, for the living. It is one thing to see the road signs and an occ...

On October 2 I had the great pleasure to go sailing in Japan, for the first time. It was a terrific holiday. Ibaraki Prefecture is about two or three hours east from where I live, so I took the train and the bus in spite of the weather reports. Yup, the forecast was rather gloomy, but peak oil pundit/pacific island blogger, the always brave Pandabonium decided that a bit of rain wasn't going to stop us from having a lot of fun. P has managed to import to Japan the first Lido class sailing boat, that he named Bluesette , made by W.D. Schock in the US of A; it turned out to be a rather fine little craft (with two sails) and enough space for three adults. As you can see from the photos, Kurashi (life, living) was having the time of his life. We had the best winds, and the worst rain, but somehow the first day of sailing was just pure fun. Lake Hinuma Yacht Harbor , Ibaraki. Glad I made it back, alive. The skills you need to sail depend a lot on the boat - and who is in charge. I was...

Ibaraki prefecture is a haven for farms of all sizes and shapes and as I wrote last summer in my post titled Ibaraki Trip , you can learn a lot about that state of Japan's agriculture there. Last weekend I again had an opportunity to visit friends near Kashima, as we went sailing on Lake Hinuma (in the pouring rain, but that's another story!) and enjoyed some of the local cuisine. Fish in particular is abundant in the fall in Ibaraki, including hirame (flat fish), sea bass and abalone. In fact the small silver fish was jumping in the lake (one even managed to land in the Lido) and on early Saturday morning we saw anglers with rubber gear standing in the shallow lake with long rods. Nokyo , the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives (農業協同組合 nōgyō kyōdō kumiai), also called JA-Zenchu , or just JA as it is often abbreviated, is Japan's farmers' association. It is a very powerful lobby group that is often critizised by the organic farmers as JA promotes pesticides and f...

Gold medals, silver, bronze. World records, fun performances. Now that it is all over, back to the ordinary, grey everyday life. On the air pollution score, Beijing has invested in new subway and bus lines, applying high emissions standards (Beijing has lately moved to the very stringent Euro IV) and cleaner energy in and around Beijing. China made big promises to clean up Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games. How well did they do? Greenpeace’s new Olympic report has some answers. "It is crucial that the [IOC] requires host cities to set comparable and mandatory environmental standards, thereby ensuring that environment is honored as the third pillar of the Olympics, after sports and culture," said Lo Sze Ping, Greenpeace China's campaign director. Download the full report here Each chapter deals with very interesting details that you will probably not be getting on your regular sports pages: Executive summary/The environment, Beijing and the 2008 Olympic Games Air quality ...

Tonight on the news I heard the call, " Mokutou! " at least two times. First, it was a moment of prayer by the rescue workers in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, as they have tried to find survivors from the big earthquake last week. Second, the same call was heard as the survivors in Okinawa (NHK video), southern Japan, marked that it is 63 years since the end of the final battle there. Mokutou means something like silent prayer, or a silent minute. I searched a bit using google and found a nice thread on a judo/aikido blog called E-Budo , where people discuss what this moment of silence means to them. It is often called mokusou in the martial arts world, and could be called "meditation", according to some. (Another commentator was reminded of " furitama ": shaking the balls, an exercise with a specifically religious aim, at least in the beginning.) Blogger Markaso notes: "In my Dojo, where we practice Go Jyu Ryu, we do a Mokusou before and after a pr...