Hiroko's Hitokoto

The official Afghanistan Reconstruction session was held in Tokyo last week, and I saw many black limousines led by police cars, running red lights in the Shibakoen area. From time to time, I've also seen politicians answer interviewers questions on TV, and comment that their target of rebuilding the nation is become like Japan. I'm happy that they like Japan, but I wonder if they've really thought about Japan. Certainly I would be interested to know what their impression of Japan is, anyway. I've heard that one of the biggest causes of crime and general craziness in Afghanistan is that people don't have jobs. Therefore they join terrorist groups just to live. They grow drugs because that's the almost only thing their depleted and destroyed land is any good for now. The amount of donations made has been reported often, but since none of us really knows whether this money actually gets there, instead, how about sending over mid-aged skilled Japanese technology an...

There is a "Scent of Spring" - a daffodil's aroma that I can smell now in the office. Yellow Plum ("roubai") is also the scent of early spring to me. They say that scent is directly connected to your memory, and it brings you flashbacks of past memories. The sense of smell is kind of unique out of the five senses. You can feel heat, for example, but it's hard to connect touch with the heat of a fire or to differentiate it with the heat of a sunny day. With smell, however, you can see flashbacks: grandmother's kimono - camphor, mother's perfume, old photo albums, flaming briquettes, the ocean, freshly mown lawns, etc. In ancient Japan, there are 2 words used for smell. "Niohi" is more visual that contains the meanings that you can "smell" the color, elegance, and complexion if an aroma. "Kaoru" on the other hand is more physical, and describes the olfactory interaction for smells like perfume, incense, fragrance, odors, e...