Ichiro's Path

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." This is actually a quote from Sir Winston Churchill. However you may think this is the quote of a statement that Major Leager Ichiro Suzuki made.

I had never been proud of my birthplace nor had I ever liked watching baseball game, ever, before this Hero of Japan; it was only when I came to know that Ichiro's birthplace is actually a few miles away from my parents home, I realized something was changing inside of me. One of my good friends once asked me if I wanted to see a batting center that Ichiro had been practicing. Giving him no sign of hesitation, I replied with full of joy and excitement, YES. Within a matter of thirty minutes or so, I stepped on the soil where Ichiro must have put footprint and walked around.

Since I prefered watching animation and cop drama and so forth, baseball had been my worst enemy; many TV programs were postponed their broadcasting or simply cancelled whenever the baseball season arrived. Furious was my child soul that projected anger towards this game of loathe; I always wished and hoped that baseball game to be vanished from the surface of this planet. Only baseball game that I liked was College Baseball. It made sense to me to support my University baseball team since I chose to enter the Univ. with full of my conscious awareness and willingness, but not the case for a local Professional baseball team or so. I did not choose to be born in the city where I grew up !

After a few decades passed since my birth, there emerged such a local, quite local and patriotic feeling on the Prefecture that I grew up. I had never consider myself to be an Aichi Prefecturure local; Nagoya, which is my birthplace and 3rd or 4th biggest cities among Japan, was more famous than Aichi prefecture that holds Nagoya city, so I consider myself to be a Nagoya citizen, not Aichi Prefecture local.

Having said them all, Ichiro blew my mind and changed everything. I owe much to him though I never met him in person. However it does not matter nor would it whether or not I meet him in person, taking into consideration that nobody, or to be exact, most of us have not, ever met Jesus Christ or Buddha or Mohammad the Prophet but they are still our inspiration and guiding paths even today and most importantly, without actually meeting them.

Ichiro knew exactly what he really wanted by the time he graduated from his elementary school, then junior high school and when choosing a high school, he made a great desicion to enter the path to the professional baseball by also giving up the path pursuing a career based upon academic competence preceded by going to a prestigious University or so that they say he could have been able to.

Route 41, National Highway, has somewhat been known as Nobel Laureate Road of Japan. Many of Japanese Nobel Laureate have somehow, something to do with the road. One was born nearby the road and grew up, one had a birthplace then moved away, e.t.c. Ichiro's birthplace is also located near the road, my parents home is just a little away from the road and I am sure, if Ichiro were running from the place to the road, it would be just a matter of within 15 seconds or so, from home base to 1st base or things like that.

I may not be as successful as those heroes; Nobel Laureate or world record breaking and creating Hero, Ichiro, however, I would like to live on the great feeling of sharing something in common with him for sure.

Soup-Nazi Reich Japan

After I mentioned the sitcom "Seinfeld" here, I had a stimulating discussion about the program with a friend of mine, which led me to feel inclined to watch the show once again. So I did it on the YouTube. Then I found a quite bizarre fact in my country, inspired by a famous episode of a tough, kicking ass, discipline fanatic, my way or highway otherwise broadway chef, so-called "Soup Nazi". The guy is just an epitome of discipline, order, concentaration and dedication to his job as a soup chef with a few emotional expression that are left for yelling and so forth.

To make my point here as quick as I can, let me say this; a guy like him is everywhere in Japan. In fact, many of Japanese LOVE a guy like the Soup Nazi chef. Although I do NOT like the way they treat their customers at all, many of people make a long que lining up in front of the restaurant talking about how good their dishes they serve are, how long they have been waiting for, how different magazines put their advertisement for the restaurant with different compliments and so forth.

One of the most typical one would be a Ramen shop. Ramen, that came here originally from China a long time ago, has been modified to fit the tongue of Japanese people thus now became a part of Japanese food consisted of noodle component and soup component. That's right, a yelling Ramen chef is The Soup Nazi in Japan. "Hey ... Welcome !". A typical chef would shout, followed by his workers under him yelling even louder than him. It does not matter whether you have money to eat or not. A ramen soup-nazi chef will decide if you are ALLOWED to eat his masterpiece or not. You would rather avoid any soup-nazi entanglement. In fact, yes, No question asked. You line up, wait for up to an hour, allowed to get in, sit down, sip a glass of water, waiting for a young apprentice coming to you to ask your order, wait another 5 minutes or so, then the masterpiece might be yours if not doing anything wrong or offensive against the head of the shop, Der Fuh:rer of Ramen Nazi.

I sometimes wonder why Japanese would go to ramen shop or many other places with the same psycho-social structure, willingly, just to be scolded by this kind of authoritative, blunt, rude, dominant type of professional including Taxi driver, Sushi chef, Driving School instructor. Soup-Nazi might be funny for you, but if you see real Soup-Nazis in Japan, you would probably want to get out of the place for sure.

Nowadays, things are changed and there seem to be lesser Soup-Nazi type of ramen shop or Sushi restaurant in Japan. However, this type of ramen shop still is, somehow, popular among people here. Many of them have something that they stick to, called "Kodawari", meaning having no spare, having particularity, to make their dishes just unique and special. Usually most of Japanese do not care about uniqueness or originality, since many want to be as normal as everybody else not to be standing in a closed community. Nevertheless, a Soup-Nazi shop owner, is different. He (mostly a male person) is the one who has been devoting his life thus energy into the pursuit of The Ultimate dish that you could ever dream of. He is the connoisseur that can tell which one is the Real McCoy and which one Bullshit. He is the judge, the king, self-proclaimed achiever in the process of on-going, never ending achievement, and most importantly, he is the head of his own clan that should be succeeded by the successor, the heir to the throne.

A Soup-Nazi chef could look harsh and tough, but he lost everything redundant in order to pursue what he believes is important. No smile nor any fancy service at all just because those things would ruin his career and the pursuit of the ultimate taste he has been searching for. Therefore, at least I can say this. A real Japanese Soup-Nazi is trustworthy in his judgment of the taste; his dedication and training in the judgment of taste is more than you could imagine. A real one smokes nothing, drinks few, seldom talks with full of concentration on freshness of fish, vegetable, pure water, fine salt and so forth. It can be compared to a sort of Martial Art or something. Oh by the way, a real Soup-Nazi type of Japanese chef does not like fancy advertisement at all. So I hope you make good friends here in Japan and ask them if they know any Soup-Nazi Sushi Chef or Ramen Chef nearby...

Now, your journey in the hunt for the Japanese Soup-Nazi has just begun ...

The International Association of Awkward Friends (IAAF)

Friendship between a man and a woman is just as awkward as that between Seinfeld and Elaine. I talked to myself recalling the episode that I watched in "Seinfeld". As brilliant and witty as he can be, Seinfeld was trying to elaborate his statements just to clarify what is implied in the situation when he was facing his best, but somehow radiating very subtle "Just-a-kind-of, just-a-little-bit-more-than-just-friends" vibes on him, friend Elaine.

Obviously they cared so much about each other, being well aware of their gender difference, to the extent that they came to realize that each of them may have wanted each other... as such, which made the particular episode of thrilling, funny and even quite profound. Love can be said of having a few different subdivision; Agape, Filia and Eros, namely unconditional pure love of care to others, love of brotherhood, and sensual love between man and woman. When someone says that the person loves you, the primary implication, I believe, is that of deep care to other people.

However, there lies confusion here. When a man and a woman get to know each other and get so close, their affection between them can be contaminated by other things. You might blame your friend of opposite sex by saying that he or she confused you. Nevertheless, it could be actually your internal confusion about your love and care to your friend taking your friend's gender into consideration, pondering how nice he or she has been to you and to be with you no matter how your actual partner such as boyfriend or girlfriend treated you or no matter how your life treated you with regards to your "relationship" matter.

Then the whole perspective on your friend might change and you might think your friend can be another man or woman that you could have been attracted to as such. Doubt, Denial, Consideration, Realization and then Confirmation ... I made this process up just like the process of acceptance of your forthcoming death, however, I would imagine things would go this way just like that judging from the Seinfeld show. In the case of the show, however, they put additional process at the end, Action. After discussion over their friendship and affection, they decided to do, well, as you can tell, an actual intercourse upon consensus. I would guess this is actually consensus gentium, general agreement from the viewers as well since Seinfeld and Elaine in the show look just good together.

Aside from the show, in the process of actual friendship, you may experience jealousy, even desire to possess your friend exclusively, or slight urge of the denial of existence of your friend's significant other or even the friendship itself !!!, when your friend got a partner besides you. There is tension going on here that primarily begins from your own mind. I would say you don't have to admit it if you do not want to since it is the process of pain and feeling of defeat and disgrace that, again, I'd imagine, everyone would feel upon the "accident". Even the word "friend" can be harsh when tossed on you by referring to your frienship as "Just Friends". It conveys the feeling of detach and cutting the lifeline between two locations.

Then both of you, "friends", may not want to talk about your frienship any longer. Or it could be just only you who do not want to see or hear from your friend. Tragedy is when your friend got a partner but you don't. But the point of discussion here is not that case; when both of you notice something different from a regular, normal friendship and start being conscious of your friend as a person of opposite sex, I'm sure there would be the emergence of this nowhere-to-go awkwardness.

Thus the establishement of the International Association of Awkward Friends (IAAF). It is for everyone that has once had, or currently has a friend that goes through awkward situations, feelings or actual friendship with your friend of opposite sex. The IAAF does not endorse gay/lesbian orientation yet, however, does encourage any that experienced friendship of heterosexual of a man and a woman to join and support the activity. You might think it would be a lot easier if things went just like Seinfeld and Elaine; they kept talking about their friendship on and on merely to avoid the awkwardness after the intercourse ! So their awkwardness would not be of your reference if you would like to lead a normal ethical life. The IAAF is still on search of the solutions to resolve this awkwardness; if the conclusion is just to live with it, then so be it since there is nothing we can do. However, I am quite sure there must be this awkward situations and the way people go about them.

If we could care and love everyone in the globe just like the way you care and love someone that you fell in love for the first time in your life, this world would be a lot better, a lot easier to live. Our problem is not to come up with this idea, but how we can practice this simple thing.