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ここで一句。。。

Wednesday, September 24, 2014


It was during Hippo Fukushima Camp I attended last weekend. Despite only had 2 hours of sleeping time the previous night, I didn’t feel sleepy at all after joining the morning exercise, that’s why I used the time to join the strolls outside. The sight was awesome - the veil of fog was hanging on the air, rendering a bit of unearthly touch to the field of view. And that’s how I took the picture above.

The scene reminded me of a 俳句 (haiku)by Watanabe Eri that I heard in one TV program. I really like the haiku, so I would like to introduce it here.
ようやくここは
秋の穂のなる
東北
(Some of you might notice that the 韻律 (inritsu)was 7-7-4 instead of 5-7-5 which often be used in a conventional haiku, but I won’t talk about the technical aspect now.)

For those of you who would like to know the meaning, the English translation would be more or less as follows:
At long last, it is autumn seeds bearing Tohoko, once again.
(I think everyone are well aware that it’s hard to make a translation of a prosaic work which can still convey the nuance and spirit of the original version,so it’s just natural that making a translation of a poetic work while keeping the nuance, literal meaning, and figurative meaning would be next to impossible.Therefore, my translation above is still far from perfect. For the same reason,I kept the title of this post in Japanese: because the translation in English would be either too long or losing the ‘punch’ that the Japanese title possesses.)

Back to the haiku, Watanabe Eri was a native Tohoku, and she participated in activities to support the disaster relief program in Tohoku.The haiku she wrote refers to the rice field in the tsunami hit area. The field was saturated with sea water, thus it was impossible to grow rice there anymore.It took around three years of rehabilitation process to return it to the original condition and start growing rice again. It should be felt long and difficult to recover back to normal life for those who live there, but I’ve seen lots of people facing hardship with unrelenting smile in the past 3 years, so I really glad they finally made it. And as in Japan the people of Tohoku is known for their patience and hard work spirit, this time once again they showed that the reputation didn’t come for nothing.

And the bottom line of what I want to say is, try to always be patient no matter how hard the problem that stand in your way.Anyway, God is with those who are patient.

Several Years Past the 'Crossroad'

Thursday, September 11, 2014

This happened during open campus in my university several weeks ago. Like any other open campuses, there were lots of high school students and their parents came visiting us. I always like this kind of atmosphere: young people full of dreams trying to decide what they want to do with their future (hmm, I start to sound like I'm old now :-) ). Perhaps it’s because I always feel their dreams and energy are contagious and lift me up that I like being in this kind of atmosphere.

Anyway, I didn’t expect any of them to visit our lab, because our building didn’t open for public this year. That’s why, I was a bit surprised to see two high school students standing in the corridor leading to our lab. I was thinking that they were lost (and given that our building was in the far south corner of the campus, they must’ve been completely lost to be there :-) ), so I approached them and asked whether I could be of a help. They told me that they just wanted to know what kind of research being performed in this building.

“On what grade are you now?” I asked.

“We’re in our junior year.”

 It meant that they still had another one and half year to decide what they would like to do after high school. I continued, “Have you decide on what are you going to do in the future?”

“We’re thinking about studying chemistry.”

“Well, our laboratory is doing chemical engineering and applied chemistry. I can tell you some of the things that we’re doing here if you want.”

They said that they would like to, so I gave them a bit background about our laboratory. Since I had to prepare for other thing that day, I couldn’t explain long, and I told them to read the posters hanging on the corridor wall if they wanted to know more. I left them there for my preparation, and when I returned several minutes later, they were still there.

One of the students saw me, came, and asked, “By the way, do you know Chou Kai Ha?”

I have some Chinese friends named Chou, but I didn’t familiar with the name Chou Kai Ha. But came to think of it, I usually remember my Chinese friend’s full name with their Chinese pronunciation, while Chou Kai Ha was definitely a Japanese pronunciation. If the sound ‘Kai’ is represented by the kanji for ‘sea’, and the sound ‘Ha’ is represented by the kanji for ‘wave’, then the reading in Chinese will be Zhang Hai Bo, my batch mate during master course, who worked at DuPont after graduation.

I asked the student to make sure, “Do you meant Chou-san who works at DuPont?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I know him. We finished our master course together.”

“Actually, he is my father.”

What he just said struck me just like Dart Vader struck the audiences with his ‘I am your father’ line :-). My friend’s son is in high school now? Oh my goodness, am I that old? :-) (yeah, I can hear some of you say: “yes you are” :-) ).

Actually, after knowing that I was planning to go back to Indonesia to become lecturer there one day, some of my friends, both during school days and working days, told me - half joking of course - that they would send their kids to me to learn one day. “You know, like the thing that you often read in stories, the parents send the hero-will-be kid to be trained by their trusted friend...” (Training a hero-will-be? Who do they think I am? Obiwan Kenobi? :-) ). Anyway, of course that wouldn’t happen anytime soon, but in several years, it wouldn’t be a far fetch story. I could imagine that one day a student came to me revealing my 'old school days sins' such as, "my father told me that you and him once played fireworks in fire restricted area", or "my mother said that both of you triggered burglar alarm in chemical engineering building." (by the way, both of the ‘sins’ above are based on facts :-), however, the two of my friends who were involved in those incidents still don’t have any offspring now, so I think I’m still spared for at least another 18 years if that were meant to happen :-) ).

Well, that made me realized that the dreams that my friends and I had years ago, however crazy and far-fetched it seemed during those days, were one by one come into reality (of course not all, for example, no matter how hard I wish it to come true, I’m still not batman now :-) ). That’s why I often encourage people who are on the crossroad to their future - like those two high school students - to dream any dream that they want. There’s no dream too big, and of course there’s no dream too small, as long as they really wanted it. Anyways, the limit of what we can achieve is determined by the scope of our dream - if we are too afraid to dream (either because we think it is too big or too small) - then chances are we would never get what we want.

And now that I’m often in the position to give advice to people on the ‘crossroad’, it’s still fresh in my mind the days when I myself was on my own ‘crossroad’ - that finally led me to where I am now: the day when I talked to Mr. K when I was going to resigned from ‘the Firm’. That day he asked me about what I wanted to do next.

“Actually I still don’t know what kind of work that I want to do, but I think first I want to take master course”, I replied.

“Why is that?”

“Because after comparing these past several years, the days that I enjoyed the most were the days during my 4th year in the campus, when all I did was doing research, and sometimes teaching my juniors. I really love those days.”

Mr. K laughed. “You should continue until doctor then. If you really enjoyed those days, I think you will enjoy working as a lecturer. You even can try to return here when you finish.”

And even though I didn’t talk too much about it with my friends, some of them were able to see through me and knew that I wanted to be a lecturer. During days leading to my departure to Japan (I forgot the details, but I think it was either when I stayed at Ari’s house and played labyrinth with him or it was in his car when we went to airport), Ari said “don’t forget to return to GP soon.”

“Huh?”

“You’re going to be a lecturer right? Anyway, it will be much easier for us to drop by the campus from time to time if you are there.”

Well, I’m not sure whether GP will receive me when I return to Indonesia one day anyways, but hey, we all have the right to dream. Maybe I’m still not where I hope I would be, but I believe that I am where I am supposed to be right now. Perhaps it will take lots of detouring and getting lost on my way there, but I think I’ll just take Little My advice from Moomins, ‘what you need to do now is get lost the best that you can’ :-).

And back to the ‘training a hero’ stuff, if I really meant to be the one who's going to train the hero, I think I need to brush up some rusty techniques. Now, where did I keep my light-saber? Hope I haven't sold it to second hand market... :-)

Toilet Wisdom

Monday, January 20, 2014

After living for a while in Japan, I found that most of my Japanese friends like to decorate their toilet - just like any other rooms. I don’t know how about other Indonesian, but my family doesn’t have the habit of decorating toilet :-), that’s why at first I was a bit amazed with my finding. When my mother visited me here and stayed in one of my Japanese friends’ house - and thus had the chance to use the decorated toilet, she commented, “your sisters will stay there for hours if they were to use that toilet” :-)
(My sisters like to spend long times in toilet, even in our plain, unadorned toilet. Sometimes they even bring book inside to kill the time.)

And since I had visited many toilets around Japan (well, that’s just natural, because the number of time you spend in toilet should be proportional to the length of time you spend in a country :-) ), I realized that one of the typical decorations used for toilets here is a maxim, saying, or poet, like the one shown in the picture. I took it from Kondo family’s toilet when I visited them. For those of you who would like to know the meaning, it was about child raising. I put the translation below (it’s just a loose translation, I didn’t mean to do it strictly word by word). And about the content, don't ask me if it is right or wrong, since I still don't have the experience of raising a child :-). However, like any other wisdom by human, it may contain some truths and mistakes, so just take the one that you think is right.

Thoughts on Child Raising

A child raised among people with gracious heart will be able to persevere, 
while a child raised with lots of encouragement will grow up to have self-confidence.
A child raised with praising will know how to be grateful, 
and a child raised in a fair environment will have a sense of justice.
A child raised with compassion will have a good devotion, 
while a child raised in the environment that acknowledge him will be able to treat himself right.
A child raised with the love of his peers will be able to find love in the world.