Clear Faith

Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism.

—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Hugh Hewitt posted the text of Cardinal Ratzinger's homily at the Mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff on his blog.

God Bless Our Pope Benedict XVI

White smoke and bells at the Vatican. Christ's flock has a new shepherd!

I have long respected Joseph Ratzinger for his intelligence, his devotion, and his persistence in teaching God's truth in the face of often unkind opposition. Pope Benedict XVI is a man after John Paul II's heart and after our Lord's heart. He will continue to lead the Church surely along the path of renewal established by our late holy father.

Twelve Apathetic Men

There's a discussion on Japan's proposed new jury trial system at Japundit.

Extraordinary

At the dinner table last night we were talking about how baby H seems to already have a sense of music, rhythm, and showmanship. In response to a comment that H may have a career on the stage in front of him, F quipped that it seems that no one in our family is destined for an ordinary career.

I cried some mock tears and started to moan, All except poor salary-man Papa whose hum-drum ordinary job is paying the bills …

It gave me a smile and a warm feeling deep down when M broke in with, But Mama and Papa are raising five children. That's not ordinary.

God bless her and every one of our extraordinary brood.

Dramatis Personae

How do I write about my family while maintaining our privacy and avoiding repeated typing of awkward phrases like my fourteen-year-old son? Maybe by adopting cryptic little code names so you will know who in the family I'm talking about without knowing exactly who in the world any of us are.

S

Wife and mother. About the same age as myself. Housewife.

F

Son. Turns fifteen this year. Ninth grader.

M

Daughter. Turns twelve this year. Sixth grader.

J

Son. Turns nine this year. Third grader.

T

Daughter. Turns six this year. Kindergartener.

H

Son. Turns two this year. Toddler.

Glass Houses

On CNN.com, What Chinese textbooks don't say provides perspective on anti-Japanese protests in China.

The Kingdom of Wa

A guy in pajamas writes a humorous overview of Japanese history, The Middle Kingdom & the Kingdom of Wa A Mistory of Sino-Japanese Relations to 1868.

Japanese Diet

Ampontan at Japundit writes in Feast or Famine about Japanese food self-sufficiency.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, if Japanese stopped eating imported foods a typical menu would have to be as follows.

Breakfast

Bowl of rice, potatoes, pickled vegetables.

Lunch

2 sweet potatoes, baked potato, 1/4 apple.

Dinner

Bowl of rice, sweet potato, slice of fish.

Special treats

Udon noodles (1 bowl every other day), miso soup (1 bowl every other day), milk (1 glass every 6 days), egg (1 each week), meat (1 serving every 9 days).

Sounds healthy, in a Mahatma Gandhi kind-of-way. Actually, I get the impression that's about how Japanese ate 150 years ago before Americans introduced them to junk food. That diet would do me a lot of good, if I survived it.

Coming soon …

I need to ingrain the habit of making regular posts here. At the same time, I want to keep the quality at least a bit above the what-I-ate-for-breakfast level.

I am working on a review of the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. It's not going to be too long, but it's taking me longer to organize my thoughts than I anticipated.

Next on my reading queue are Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way by our late great Pope John Paul II (thanks for the reminder, Mom, even if it came with a red face), and Fahrenheit 451.

However, before I get too heavily into a new book, I think I'll write about the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, history textbooks, and Japanese attitudes about World War II.

… and today I had granola and a banana for breakfast.

Parking and Wa

Last month Lewis Packwood at An Englishman in Nyu-gun wrote about parking in Japan.

When I got there, about half the bays were empty. I had a look to see if there were any markings on the bays which would indicate that they were restricted. There weren't any, so I decided to park in a space which was near to Luciana's apartment.

[…] After saying my goodbyes I walked to my car, only to discover a tiny Suzuki totally blocking my car in.

[…] I explained the situation and she immediately recognised that it was her neighbour's car. "You've parked in her space", she explained.

I don't own a car, but am a condominium owner who has had to worry about parking guests and maintaining neighborhood wa, the Japanese value of social harmony over individual assertiveness. I would advise Lewis and all motorist visitors to Japanese apartment dwellers to ask their host about the location of guest parking in advance or as soon as possible after arriving.

A similar thing happened to another JET in Fukui a few months ago. She was visiting a friend in the city, and thought it would be OK to park outside her friend's apartment, but when she returned she found another resident had deliberately blocked her in. The resident turned out to be the grandma from hell, and immediately launched into a tirade of abuse directed at the unfortunate JET, as well as threatening to call the police.

Also, I don't think what Lewis and his JET friend in Fukui experienced was particularly parking rage. The other side of the wa coin is that Japanese have very little patience with others who disturb the wa. Now expressing this impatience usually creates an even greater wa disturbance and so gets repressed, especially when the offender is in some relation the social superior of the one offended. Gaijin (foreigners), at least those from what was once called the First World, are usually treated by default as honored guests and benefit from thus-imputed superiority. However, when a wa-breaker is a social subordinate, or of no particular social connection, there is no limit to the depth of rudeness to which a Japanese may sink. Unfortunately, just being neighbors or co-dwellers in an apartment building is not considered enough of a connection to deflect wa-wrath.

April

Jonah Asher at Aranami.net writes about Japan's annual season of new beginnings.

I always hear about all of these foreigners in Japan with teaching jobs or on the JET Program and how they have all of this time. Their jobs are so easy, they get to go home early and when they aren't teaching a class they can pretty much sit around and do nothing. Part of my job is teaching, but another part of it has been the building of sratch of a website for the Board of Education of my town, doing most of the IT work around my office, translating documents, coordinating events with the town's sister city and going to lots of meetings.

I have heard that coming to Japan to teach English can be frustrating and often a big disappointment, but I pity the fool who can go home early and … pretty much sit around and do nothing. I am not the world's most social animal, but I think you have to be engaged in your community, work, friends, family for your stay in Japan (or anywhere else, even home) to mean anything. I envy Jonah his challenging work.

April is moving season here in Japan. Most things in Japan, such as the school year and work rotation schedules, run on the same year as the fiscal year here in Japan, which ends at the end of March and begins at the beginning of April.

One small correction: Japanese school year etc. do not end but start every April, ending in March of the following year. The correspondence of these social and cultural cycles with the fiscal year of some organizations (there are also organizations that use the calendar year as their fiscal year) is just a coincidence: The April-March annual cycle is actually a holdover from the time when Japan used a lunisolar calendar (pre-1873) and correspond to the Chinese or Lunar New Year. Also, while most companies tend to hire a freshman class of new employees each April, office transfers can and do happen any time.

Tomomi moved into an apartment that is subsidized by her town, and these are called "danchi" in Japanese. They are basically subsidized housing but aren't just for people with low incomes. Usually they are giving out to city employees, teachers and so on to make their job more comfortable and attractive (low or free rent is always good). […] It's got three bedrooms, a nice big bathroom and even a little yard out front.

We lived in a SHATAKU, basically a DANCHI for employees of some private company, for our first ten years here in Japan. We are definitely of the take-the-subsidized-apartment-and-save-up-for-something-better school. I will likely make many posts on the subject of Japanese housing eventually, but Jonah's description is accurate. However, keep in mind that Japanese apartments and houses are almost universally tiny by US standards. The three-bedroom apartment Jonah mentions is probably fine as a single's pad, but that's the size of apartment more usually assigned to a family of four or five people.

No Hope?

(April 1, 14:36, LaGuardia AP, New York) The CNN anchorman reported that "there is no hope for the life of John Paul II". What a foolish thing to say. As the earthly life of this holy man draws to an end, his hope grows brighter and brighter until he will no longer have need of hope.

Mother of Christ, pray for us.–prayer broadcast from St. Peter's Square, Vatican

St. Patrick's Cathedral

(April 1, New York) With a day of meetings I completed the work of this trip yesterday. Food and conversation at the home of local friends made yesterday evening the most pleasant evening of the trip. Returning for a second night at my favorite New York hotel, instead of blogging an article I've been trying to write since the first night of the trip, I gave new depth to the meaning of "persistant vegitative state" in front of the television.

My flight for Denver doesn't leave until three o'clock in the afternoon, so with my morning free I decided to visit the marvelous St. Patrick's Cathedral. I kneeled before the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe and prayed the rosary.

The news is filled with reports of the approaching end of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II's life in this world. I prayed for his rest and in thanks for his teaching and leadership. John Paul II became Pope before I became a Catholic. I also prayed for the Church and for whoever is to become her next leader.

I prayed for rest for Terri Schiavo's soul. Even if she is not a martyr, she has certainly suffered more than enough that I have little doubt that she now dances in the loving light of our eternal Father. I prayed for a change of heart for those who, while she lay alive but helpless, thought that the profound depth of her suffering nullified the value of her life itself. I prayed for comfort for her family. I prayed for health and virtue for my own family.

I lit a votive candle before leaving the cathedral. Votive candles are a devotional that I've missed living in Japan. I haven't seen a single church in Japan with a rack of candles for the faithful to light as a sign of their continuing prayerful presence in spirit before the holy. It may be simply because of fire codes that brook no exceptions for devotional practice, but I have long had the feeling, about candles and many other minor devotionals that seem extinguished in Japan, that at some point the Japanese bishops made a conscious decision that these traditions were merely cultural baggage from Europe and that Catholicism would be more easily aculturated to Japan if purified of them. I think they threw more than one baby out with the bath water, and in any case Catholicism doesn't seem to suit Japanese tastes any better stipped of the devotional traditions than it did with them.

I pray for the Body of Christ, the Church, in Japan.