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Let's say good-bye to the miserable past, and welcome the new year of wonder. May this year be more magical, more wonderful, more marvellous, more fabulous, more beautiful and more glorious one. I sincerely hope all the people in this country live in peace and stability.

The year 2011 would be "annus miserabilis" (a miserable year) for Japan. This year will go down as one of the most appalling in Japan's history, due to the dreadful first-in-1,000-years earthquake and tsunami and the consecutive nuclear plant damage in Fukushima on 11 March.

On the day when the earthquake struck our land, I was working at the office as usual in Tokyo. At the very time when the quake occurred, I was walking on the stairway and I saw everything beginning to swing. At first I thought it was because I had a dizzy spell due to my high blood pressures, but soon I found out it was the land that was swaying because I saw a string suspended from the ceiling do so together with any other things. Then the amplitude of the tremor grew larger and larger. It reminded me of the Hanshin Awaji earthquake I had experienced in 1995 when living in Nishinomiya. I felt the quake lasted for one or two minutes, but I couldn't do anything but letting the matter take its own course.

After it ceased I entered into the office room, where everybody was shocked. Some escaped under the desk, and some stood still holding the books on the shelf so that they wouldn't fall. Tellys in the office were turned on. Every TV station was broadcasting the breaking news on the earthquake. The government announced tsunami alerts nationwide but I didn't think that a tsunami would suffer so much even if it would come, because a similar situation was just one year before when an earthquake happened in Chile followed by tsunami, which came to the Sanriku area but didn't hurt it at all.

However, about an hour later, I saw on the TV screen the sea water overflow over the banks and coastal roads into the rice fields, washing up cars, buildings and everything that was right there. I felt like watching an action film, as the scene was too far from reality.

On that day, I had to stay in the office until midnight, because the Tokyo area was suffered a great deal as well and there were no trains and public transportations available, and some networks in the Tohoku area were damaged and we had to fix it. In the midnight trains started moving again, but they were very crowded with millions of people rushing home, so I returned home on foot. It took about an hour to get back home.

After the disasters, most roads were full of thousands of unmovable cars in the first two days. After the roads were clear, petrol was running short. Many cars had to queue up in front of petrol stations to had them filled up. Thanks god my car's fuel tank was almost full because I had filled it up one week before.

I was not so troubled with my every day life after the disasters. Bath tissues were running short, but I had bought 30 rolls of them at Costco one week before so they were quite enough for a single household. The pet bottles of drinking water disappeared at convenience stores and supermarkets due to the likelihood of tap water contaminated by radioactive materials, but the pet bottles of tea and soda were still on sale. My inconvenience was negligible, comparing with the survivors who were forced to stay in evacuation facilities.

In the first few weeks from the disasters, the people in all over Japan were united. They considered the disasters as a national issue, not Tohoku-specific local one, unlike the Hanshin-Awaji case. They all cared for the survivors in the suffered area and made their best efforts to try to save them by donations and volunteer activities. Their mind was beautiful, one of Japanese virtues to take pride in.

On the last day of this year, the time has come to recall what I did and experienced in this year. Though this event is unforgettable, my end-of-year review will focus on more positive aspects.

The keywords of the year 2011 are: a car, British culture and China.

A car is what I purchased in January. Having my own car was the first in three years. Driving a car with a manual gearbox was the first in 17 years. I reviewed how to drive on educational videos posted in YouTube to get used to manoeuvres early.

British culture is what I experienced deeply this year as well as in the last four years. This year I was able to enjoy the British Hills in Fukushima I desired to visit for ages.

The last one, China, is that I visited Shanghai in January for business and Hong Kong in November for personal purposes. It was the first time to visit mainland China and the first in six years to Hong Kong. Actually I wanted to visit Beijing in March, but I gave it up because of the disasters.

The year 2011 is really "annus miserabilis" for me and many people in Japan, but I hope the next year be "annus mirabilis" (miracle year).

I'm going to Hong Kong tonight. I last visited there six years ago. I'll be back to Japan on Sunday 6th.

Action items in Hong Kong: to get SIM-lock-free iPad2 and, if possible, iPhone4S at Mong Kok; registration of new address and passport number for my account of HSBC; and sightseeing at Stanley, Aberdeen and Lamma Island.

National Azabu Supermarket at Hiroo, where foods, groceries, books, toiletries and stationery imported from abroad were available, terminated operation as of today due to the age of its building.

The Hiroo neighbourhood is one of the places I visited very frequently because a training centre of the company I worked for was in that area. I visited there from time to time to have an English test or a training for English writing or business skills when I was a young worker. Every time I had classes there, I dropped in on the supermarket to see the shoppers coming from abroad, mainly the United States, who looked rich enough to afford the imported products sold there. To see such successful people encouraged me to make my best efforts to learn English and business skills for my success.

However, several years later the training centre was closed and moved to another place. Most of the products sold in the supermarket has become what I can get online for the same prices as in their home countries, without paying extra money at such an imported grocery shops. Besides, the United States is no longer the goal for successful persons, seeing the current circumstances of it.

The supermarket was a dream for me, and a wonderland that offered me a space of extraordinariness, but it ended the role as a symbol of success with the change of the times. Without the supermarket, I will visit the Hiroo area more rarely than ever.

When I studied at university, attending the classes for "liberal arts" was mandatory for the first two years. There were a wide variety of subjects to choose from, from English, Germany, chemistry, mathematics and economics to Chinese history, Japanese literature and Japanese linguistics. Most of them were nothing to do with my major (engineering), so I thought that taking them was a waste of time and the university should teach us more practical techniques focusing on our major studies. I even thought that I should go to a professional school because they might teach only professional skills that would be necessary for my future.

Nevertheless, I found out, when I had started my career and had some job experience, that culture would win in the end. Acquiring practical knowledge and skills related to jobs are a matter of course. Your worth consists in how much cultured besides skilled. For example, in an English class I read Tristan and Isolde's tragic love story, which was originally written by Gottfried von Strassburg and made operatic by Richard Wagner, that a knight named Tristan fell in love with a king's wife, Isolde, and they ruined after illicit love. When I attended the class I suspected if the story could contribute to my future career, but now I know that it is common knowledge among general people especially in the Western countries, and ignorance of it is regarded as uncultured.

Your culture is cultivated not from hard work, but from play. Play is the space in which a mechanism moves or, in more comprehensive words, the emptiness in activeness. It seems to be a waste, but it sometimes broaden your horizons and deepen your insight. As it is often said that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, play is indispensable for everything. Who dare drive a car with a steering wheel with no play?

Play is important in spending vacation. Doing nothing is the right way to spend vacation because the word "vacation" derives from "vacant," which means empty. Wasting time is extreme luxury. Many people, however, trying to making good use of holidays, go to crowded spots resulting in getting more tired than before. In particular, Japanese people are so conscious of eliminating what is wasteful that they feel guilty to wasting time. They are so obliged to waste no time in holidays, their vacation ironically ends by wasting time and energy rather than saving them.

In the midst of your career, play sometimes help you guide to a better way. Studying a different field, seeing people doing different types of business, and even meditating in your room would be useful, besides throwing yourself into your work. They are not directly related to your current work, but they may give you some hints for your future career.

There is nothing wasteful in your life in the long run. As long as you are alive, what you are doing is helpful in something, even goofing off in the bed.

To be honest, I love stewardesses, or female flight attendants working on the aeroplane. As is often the case with Asian airlines, Japan's airlines such as Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have many attractive-looking stewardesses because of the history they once hired such women as flight attendants.

Nevertheless, I love them not only because they look good. It goes without saying that they aren't so much "the waitresses on the plane" as "the security staff" who maintain the security of the aircraft cabin. To satisfy passengers in normal or emergency conditions, they need to have hard training and pass tests to be qualified as flight attendants. Even after they manage to become stewardesses, they should have and pass periodic tests to avoid being disqualified. Their attractive smiles, dignified attitudes and graceful behaviour on the plane, backed up with their pride in strict training, mesmerise us very much. They are really noble and saintly women, differing from similarly good-looking women like newscasters of telly stations or campaign girls in pits of motor racing circuits.

Their brave and cool-headed actions often save many passengers. When the ANA 857 aeroplane was hijacked at Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, Japan on 21 June 1995 by a desperate banker, a flight attendant was captured by him, being got a full nelson with a knife pointed at her, and taken in hostage in the cabin for tens of hours with the passengers and the other crew. After the criminal had been captured by police and all the passengers released, she attended a press conference and had an interview with the press corps, talking calmly in front of TV cameras what had been going on in the cabin at that time. She behaved as a real professional. A standard young girl would've been too shocked and mentally damaged to appear in public and talk in front of press staff if she had experienced such tough circumstances. The crew members were so calm, disciplined and strong-minded that the criminal didn't get so much furious, resulting in killing or injuring no personnel until arrested.

When it comes to strong-minded actions in a dangerous situation, policewomen and military servicewomen may have such professionalism as well. They don't enchant me, however, for police officers are the personnel who controls us, regulates us and exercises the power over us, and the soldiers, sailors and airwomen don't appear in our daily lives so they aren't familiar to me.

For me, stewardesses offering us their best service on board are the best women. It's the happiest time for me that, on the taxiing aeroplane preparing for takeoff, I catch the eyes of a stewardess sitting in the jump seat facing me and when our eyes meet we smile each other.

As a passenger, I always respect them. When getting aboard I don't forget to say hello to greeting crew at the entrance door. When I lift up my heavy luggage to stow it into the overhead stowage I do it by myself instead of making her do it. I order a food or drink in a polite attitude and when she serves me and clears the table, I always say thank you to her with a smile. Of course I say thank you and goodbye to them to show my most gratitude when I'm getting off the aircraft at destination.

Needless to say, annoying the cabin crew is absolutely unacceptable. Deplorably, there are such idiots that smoke in the lavatory, use a mobile phone in the cabin, yell at her for trivial matters, or even use violence or pervert actions on her. Such vulgar passengers should get off the plane, as they don't reach the level of class to be qualified to use it.

An aircraft cabin is a salon for sophisticated ladies and gentlemen. The noble hostesses will smile at only such cultivated persons that can enjoy travel in a prudent manner.

• PowerBook 1400cs (Oct 1997 - )
• Power Macintosh 6100 (Mar 1999 - )
• iPod nano (Dec 2005 - )
• MacBook Pro (Oct 2009 - )
• iPhone 3GS (Mar 2010 - )
• iPhone 4 (Dec 2010 - )

....thanks to Steve.

We Japanese know that English is the world's de facto standard language everyone in the world need to learn to communicate with each other in this fast-globarising society. Mastering English is, nevertheless, one of the greatest hardships for most of Japanese who were born in Japan and raised by Japanese parents within Japan. They learn English as a mandatory subject in middle school, high school and even college for up to eight years, but very few of them have a good command of it.

Quite a few analysts have given comments why most Japanese are weak in English. Some say it's because English's structure of language is quite different from that of the language they usually speak. Others point out the problem with Japan's English education policies, relying overly on teaching translation techniques from English to Japanese rather than communicative English.

It is also said that English isn't necessary for Japanese people's everyday life. Even if English is taught in school, it's what they can forget after managing to pass the entrance examination of their highest education facility at long last. Once they finish studying for exams, they can do without English for life as long as they stay within Japan. Rather, showing off English is considered in many cases as rude, affected and disgusting behaviour by other average Japanese, especially elderly people who have less chance to learn English.

Why do average Japanese living in Japan hate such people who speak English fluently, though they may neither feel rude, affected nor disgusting to good painters, professional musicians, skilled karate masters, or those who are good at something other than English? Japan has been subject to America's control in business, economy, military, culture and everything else since WWII, and various kinds of things have been brought into Japan. People in Japan have been mesmerised by such American-style things and, because it has been noised about especially for the last 15 years that all examples in America are the global standard they should follow, they have made their best efforts to try to incorporate them in their daily life. However, a few things are what they can't manage to do it ---- English is the one. Affection to what they try to get in vain turns into hatred over time, and the hatred will be expressed at those who successfully have it. Due to such nature of Japanese people, most of them don't or pretend not to speak English well so that they won't generate unexpected resentment among people. Because it's considered affected to show off speaking English in public, they have less motivation to use it.

In my humble opinion, one of the important attitudes to master English is to stop admiring America too much. English is not a language for Americans only, but a lingua franca everybody in the world learns whether or not he is a native English speaker. You'll find out that American English mainly taught in Japan is not dominant in the world if you travel countries in Europe, Middle East or Southeast Asia, where British English is widely used in conversation and signs in public. People in the UK, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia use their own local English. Even within the United States, you'll see various kinds of people from businesspersons to hotel clerks, taxi drivers and newsstand workers who speak in various kinds of accents. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Nothing is fashionable and nothing is dowdyish. They are all English.

We should be a master of English, not a slave of it. We should learn it as not so much one of American cultures as an interface language to get our views over anybody in the world, regardless of his mother tongue, representing the nation we stand. The more Japanese can do it, the more they can influence in the world, resulting in the benefit of our country.

Last weekend was happy days for me because I deeply experienced a British taste last Saturday and Sunday. From the beginning I preferred the USA to the UK or other English-speaking countries, but my affection has been shifting to England for years since I happened to read Kaoru Mori's Emma, a romance manga of a maid in England in the Victorian Era who falls in love with a member of the gentry.

On the first day, the first thing I did is to see Oliver! by the Musical Club of Kokugakuin Tochigi High School playing for the school's cultural festival held in this weekend. Oliver! is, as you may already know, an English musical based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. It's the story that Oliver Twist, who has missing parents and is in a workhouse, is forced to get out of the workhouse and gets involved in a group of pickpockets. He tries to pick a pocket of a well-off lady, who finally takes him in and brings him up, and then he gets happy.

As I already wrote in this blog many times, I've kept in touch with Mito Saigusa. She is a choreographer teaching dance and choreography to the students of this club. I come and see their performance for the cultural festival every year in order to see her too. Of course she was well this year as well.

This year's show satisfied me much more, because its scene was in England in the 19th century so it was just for me. I was very happy with that.

After seeing Oliver! I left the high school to drive to British Hills, the educational facility located in Fukushima Prefecture operated by Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages, with Medieval British-style buildings in a 50-acre land. Each building is furnished with the fixtures modeling the era of the building. From the beginning it was only for the students of this Institute, it's been open to public for several years. More than a half of the staff working there were non-Japanese, ranging from Englishmen, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and more. As the official language in this area is English, even a Japanese attendant talks to you in English, because British Hills is for teaching English to guests.

A two-hour drive from Tochigi took me British Hills. It was almost on the top of a mountain, more than 20 miles far from the nearest motorway exit. Once entering into the site of British Hills, almost all traffic and informational signs on the road suddenly turned into English, just like crossing a national border into a different country.

Although I'm now active in Facebook or Twitter rather than this blog, I want to tell you that I'm still alive.

It was a big headache to me that the page design of this blog's home page had been wrong for a few months. Flickr's thumbnail pictures on the top of the page and the sidebar hadn't been displayed. But today I've restored it! The reason is very simple. I tried to comment out a </div> tag into <!-- /div --> but I forgot to add two hyphens before the greater-than symbol and it looked like <!-- /div>, so it affected the page design after that tag.