June 2008 Archives

This afternoon I got an email notifying me of the death of a classmate who studied together at our laboratory when we were university students. According to the email, last Sunday he suddenly had a stroke related to type I diabetes he had been suffered from, and passed away. He was as old as I.

It is my first time that I lose a classmate with whom I shared the same memories at school. It is surprising and regrettable.

I can't attend his funeral and say good-bye to him because the funeral hall is too far from where I live, but instead I sent a telegram of condolence with the other classmates and I'll keep his memory in mind for life.

NTT DoCoMo, one of Japan's major cell phone carriers, announced that in August this year it would sell Blackberry devices to public. NTT DoCoMo is the only carrier that has the right to distribute Blackberry in Japan.

Although Blackberry is today an essential communications tool for those from businesspersons to general people in the world, Japan has been the only first-place country where no Blackberry services for individuals are currently available. The only exception is Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES) provided by NTT DoCoMo to corporations only, but BES is closed to private persons because NTT DoCoMo fears that Blackberry may affect the sales of I-mode, one of NTT DoCoMo's core competences. There are no other mobile carriers that can offer Blackberry services, so Japanese people, except some lucky persons whose employer has BES for them, have no chance to enjoy communicating with the device.

This announce means that NTT DoCoMo is opening the door to the world. The mobile services Japanese people are currently using have been closed within Japan. Most of them are cutting-edge, but are useless if you get outside this country. This opening of Blackberry will help Japanese people to get in touch with what people in the world are usually doing in their daily life.

Japan is turning into a really sick country. According to media, a 25-year-old man this afternoon hit the people walking on the streets at Akihabara with his truck, jumped out of it and stabbed the people there at random with his survival knife, causing death to as many as seven people until now. The killer was arrested on the spot, saying he was "sick of life" and wanted to kill whomever he saw.

CNN.com: At least 7 dead in Tokyo stabbing spree
Japan Probe: Stabbing rampage in Akihabara: 7 people killed

Similar attacks have happened increasingly for years. On the same day of 2001, Mamoru Takuma broke into elementary school classrooms and stabbed eight students to death in Osaka. Two months ago a young man suddenly attacked the people walking around the railroad station, killing one and injuring many. Wherever you are, you can be a victim of such kind of crimes here, because this country has plenty of such kind of "sick-of-life" young people with no hope for the future, and such people may cause such kind of stabbing sprees to strangers or kill themselves with hydrogen sulfide.

I wonder if it is the best choice or not for me to keep living in this sick country. If I were more skilled in English and business skills and I had more money, I could move to the U.S. or another better country and settle there, rather than being scared of crimes happening every day.