Dr. Ohsumi Wins Nobel

Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi on Monday won the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. According to news reports, he's been studying about cell autophagy, a process that helps the body remove unwanted proteins.

Japanese scientists won the Nobel Prize in these three years and Dr. Ohsumi became the 25th winner of the award. 

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Original and Transportation

I'm listening to "South of the Border, West of the Sun" in English with Audible. It's the third time now. The original version is written by Haruki Murakami. 

The English translation is rather simple. Even I could understand with my English ability. The last time I read the original book was a long time ago, so I forgot about the details. I glanced it today and I found that the original was different from English version. Of course that's natural, but that's why we should read original text as much as we can. 

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Skype with a Friend

I talked with an Australian friend on Skype for the first time in almost two years. He was a high school student when we talked with the last time and now he is a second year college student. He has grown up with wearing beard. His major is computer science. 

He studies Japanes by himself now because he likes Japanes manga and animation. He is struggling with learning kanjis. He really wants to read Japanese novels, but kanjis prevent reading them smoothly. 

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Japanese Immigrants to the South America

Kita Morio wrote many popular books. Kagayakeru Aoki Sorano Shitade was a series of novels that described Japanese immigrants to the South America in Meiji era.

The immigrants figured a bright future in the new world, but the reality was different. The places assigned to them were not suitable for agriculture. People died one after another due to starvation. 

The novel was not completed. Kita could not wrote the last part before he died.
「輝ける碧き空の下で」

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Grand Prix Figure

I watched several skating at the Grand Prix Figure Skating on TV. It's been held in the U.S. 

I happened to watch Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia at first and she was really nice, so I continued to watch the TV program. The last skater was Satoko Miyahara. She was a 17-year-old Japanes and the second place of the world championship last season. She marked the third place at short program. 

After the skating, she had an interview and said that she was a little bit nervous, so she wasn't able to perform well like at practice. 

I hope she will be able to do her best tomorrow and gets the title. 

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Mansion and Apartment

In Japanese language, we often hear a mantion which someone lives in. In that case, English speakers would think of a huge house like it has 10 rooms with a swimming pool in the backyard. So, we should call it an apartment instead of mantion. 

We usually think an apartment as small one, but in English, apartments come in all sizes and prices. Some apartments can cost thousands of dollars a month to rent. This kinds of misunderstanding are everywhere between English and Japanese.  That makes learning languages more interesting.  

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The Nobel Prize

Two Japanese researchers, Mr. Satoshi Omura and Mr. Takaaki Kajita, have won the Nobel Prize so far this year. I'm glad to hear the news. 

Omura and two other researchers won the prize for their discoveries concerning therapies against parasitic diseases. Their efforts have been helping thousands of people from thediseases every year. 

Kajita became a joint winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of neutrino oscillations. I'm sorry, but I can't totally understand the meaning of their reserch. Anyway, the study revealed something fundamental stuff. 

Could another Japanese win the Nobel Prize this year? How about Haruki Murakami?

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Hyojungo, Standard Japanese

I watched a TV show about Japanese language via YouTube. Contemporary standard Japanese was organized by Meiji government after Edo era ended. It was based on a Tokyo local dialect, Yamanite kotoba. Before that government officials spoke in their local language and they were hardly understand each other. That was a problem. 

Radio broadcasting played important role to spread the standard Japanese all over Japan. They even made a radio show that taught how to read Japanese with standard language for teachers. 

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Stop Racism

I've read an article about blackface that Japanese TV performers often paint their faces black to pretend African American singers. They must stop that disgusting performance immediately. 

Blackface is definitely racism. Only Japanese people don't know it. I even didn't know about that until recently, though. Some performer said,"don't get me wrong. I highly respect black people and even I wanted to be a black". But that is no excuse and there are no exception. 

You should check out minstrel show if you don't know the history of blackface. The long history of the show made the stereotype of African American people. 

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ISIS Threatens Two Japanese

The Muslim extremist group ISIS has uploaded a video that shows two Japanese hostages and a masked ISIS member standing behind them with a knife. They have demanded $200 million for a ransom. 

I had a bad feeling when I saw today's newspaper that Japanese PM Abe was shaking hands with Israel PM Netanyahu on the front page. And the bad feeling came true. 

The situation is really severe, but I wish the two Japanese come back home safely. 

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Committed Suicide or Ending One's Own Life

Shimane Prefectural government officially ended to use a word 自殺 or suicide in their documents in 2013. Since then the government began to use 自死 instead of 自殺. It's hard to translate into English, but someone tried to do it like "ending one's own life". Let me know any good ideas for it. 

Anyway, that was because a mother who has a son died by suicide in Shimane requested to the government to change the word 自殺 to 自死. She had been suffering to say 自殺 or killed oneself for her son's death. She preferred to say 自死 because it sounds kind to her. 

Some people have agreed with the idea. They say the word 自殺 sound hurt the relatives' mind because of the caracter "殺" that means kill. 

On the other hand, some people have opposed it because the word 殺 might prevent someone to commit suicide. 

I think the changing is ucceptabl because 自死 is not a new word but a common Japanese for a long time. And I don't think the word 殺 can prevent suicide. What do you think of it? 

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Kei Nishikori at U.S. Open

Kei Nishikori won the 4th round of U.S. Tennis Open against fifth-seeded Milos Raonic. He's reached not only his first U.S. Open quarterfinal but also for the first time in 92 years for Japanese player. 

I really want his next victory because if he win the next match, he will be the first Japanese semi-final player of Grand Slam tennis tournament. 

Reading

According to a survey, the book sales in the U.S. are increasing every year. By contrast, book sales in Japan has been decreasing for the past 18 years.

I think one of the reasons is the net. Japanese people are busy using the Internet, especially the younger generation. They don't have enough time for reading books. If people don't read books when they are young, they will not read books when they grow up. 

Why do American people read books more than Japanese people? I think school education is the reason. Students in the U.S. have to read lots of books for preparing class but Japanese students don't. What do you think of this?

STAP

Japanese scientists have discovered stem cells which can transform into any tissue. I'm not familiar with science but the research is said a major scientific discovery. 

The reader of the research group is a 30 years old Japanese woman, Dr Haruko Obokata. I'm really proud of her and her team. 

A Friend in Canada

I had a free time around noon today. I was bored so I tweeted if anyone want to talk with me on Skype. An Indian Twitter friend kindly offered to me to talk with.

He was born in India and graduated from university in Singapore. After that he moved to Canada where his parents and brother live in. He works there as a computer programmer.

He speaks Japanese really well. He said the only thing he did for learning Japanese was watching animation with English subtitles. Three years of watching anime made him a fluent Japanese speaker.

He spoke to me in Japanese and I spoke in English on Skype. It was strange feeling but was really fun.