Melancholic pages of my life in Japan – departure of Remus-san

It was raining today in Tokyo. The rain added more cold to the already cold climate. The rain, which is used as a symbol in literature and movies, it seemed to me, was not merely coincide. Film directors have used rain, to express the pain of separation, death, miseries and depressed thoughts. While coming back from Narita airport today after sending off Remus-san, I was thinking of some of movie scenes where the rain symbolized the pain of separation.

Every departure is painful, but departure of some people, who are close to our heart, makes us depressed. The life amalgamated with pleasures and sorrows will not wait even a single moment for anybody’s consolation. I do not intend to search for the roots of sorrow or pleasure here. Today is one of the saddest days I have ever experienced after mother’s departure from Japan.

Today may not be a suitable day to write all the thoughts into this blog about the departure of Remus-san. As planned, Remus-san left Tokyo today. For sure, it is not just a departure for me. Remus said goodbye to Japan and I am just back home from the airport. Though I feel that today, it may not be a good day to write about his departure, I am unable to resist from sharing those painful moments of departure.

Either the otherwise crowded subway station was empty or I might not have noticed it. The mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of a good friendship which was started almost two years before. I have written about Remus before also in this blog when we friends gathered for a party at his apartment. Japanese language friends reunion

The friendship started from Sakura, when I was on a short transfer from the head office. We used to dine out some days at the Indian restaurant near the JR Sakura station. When Remus was moved to the head office, I was happy to get a companion.

Remus helped me a lot to set up my family, before they come to Japan. He was the one guided me and even purchased for me most of the house-hold items. Since I am not good at selecting the things, I followed his selection. He booked the flight tickets and helped me recharge the PASMO card and the list of things goes on……. I know well that friendship can not be listed out on a piece of paper or blog. What is coming out here is just the plain thoughts from my mind, when I am trying to console myself.

Remus was my lunch partner too at McDonalds and KFC. We shared our thoughts, fears, ambitions, plans and future. We shared the knowledge and discussed things of common interest. For my kids, he was Remus uncle. They loved to play with him during his visits to our home.

A true friendship, which can not be expressed by words, is something we cherish, is something we keep close to our hearts always. The life with many physical departures of beloved friends keeps on going with out waiting for us to recover from the twinge. The time will heal………this is what Remus told at the airport and I agreed.

The life in Japan, away from the home country, with good friends like Remus, was smooth and prolific. The voids created by the physical separation may not be filled up easily. I considered myself rather strong willed and unshaken. At the final moments in front of the departure gate, I noticed my words tremble and vision smudge as the eyes started filling……..

The end of this post is without any conclusion as this is one of the melancholic pages of my life in Japan.

Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords in our own proper entrails

Suicide is a cry for help. When one feels that the door of the last hope is also closed, and there is nothing left with for them to live in this earth, they, being carried away with uncontrolled emotions may decide to say goodbye to this world. This is how almost all of the suicides happen in Japan too as in any other parts of the world. Academically, this explanation may be enough to start the answer to the related question. In the real world, individual life situations and complex mental processes changes from country to country.

When I read the report on CNN.com on March 2009, "Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'", I related the phenomenon as part of the existing Japanese psyche. In fact, I was reading the book, Bushido at that time and was on an impression that the news appeared in CNN.com/asia is not a new social issue to be discussed with much importance this year only.

For sure, the ever increasing rate of suicide is a social issue in Japan, which needs to be thoroughly analyzed and prevented. Some people in every country may commit suicide and the social and personal reasons behind those acts of self killings changes according to the country. The last two years, we have enough reasons while reading the increased number of suicides.

I read somewhere in the middle of December 2009, that the suicide deaths in Japan has reached around 30198 by the end of November 2009 itself. That is pretty much a huge figure and a figure of concern for the social scientists. Since, 1997, the suicide deaths have crossed the border of 22,000 suicide deaths per year. Since then it has been continuing with a figure some thing around 30,000. It was horrible to hear that the death rate has crossed the 30,000 limit also.

I would like to recollect, some of my life experiences connected with the suicide in Japan. When I was waiting for the train in the morning to head towards the work place, I heard some strange announcements in Japanese language and on those days, the train comes too late, sometimes more than half an hour. Without knowing the actual reasons for the delay of trains, in order to reach the office I would choose to walk from the nearest exit of the station. As I could not understand the full meaning of the announcement in Japanese, some of my friends advised me to look into the display board where the message for the reason of delay will be displayed. If the kanji for personal accident is displayed, it might be a suicide case, and the train will be delayed more. Last year, I have walked at least 4 times as I have seen that message in the display board.

Every time I walk I used to remember the book ‘Bushido’ written by Inazo Nitobe-san. Suicide is institutionalized in Japan! Those institutionalized suicides known as Seppuku or Kappuku commonly called Hara-kiri were different from the ones happening now a days. Still the suicide rate in Japan is one of the highest in the world. For Japan, a country having almost everything to identify with a self pride, a country with the second strongest economy in the world, a country, which is a model to other nations on how to protect citizens rights, a country having a fairly good distribution of wealth system, suicide remains a scar, we need to agree.

I am not competitive at this stage to write analytical reasons behind this tendency of self killing. But one thing is sure that suicide is neither a matter of pride nor a way to escape from the personal defeats as observed in the Samurai period. In all countries, suicides happen, but when it happens more in a country like Japan, there may be reasons apart from merely economical as that mentioned in CNN.com/asia and it becomes a matter of concern.

It may not be the spirits walking around and turns the swords to their own proper entrails. There may be reasons that spread to the victim’s helplessness to deal with minute fluctuations in the external world that affect the internal world too. Education that focus on self manifestation, apart from simple school syllabus will help to a good extent to reinforce the positive life motivating elements in new generation. That will help to realize when the spirits start walking abroad and turns the sword to one’s own bowels.

Mount Naeba exploration on new year day

The snow, like white cotton balls continued falling down and piling up making our way difficult to go through. Though the car was provided with snow tyres, we were a bit skeptic to reach our destination by seeing the heavy snow fall all along the road to Mount Naeba.

The New year’s first day was memorable, not only in the mere meaning of just seeing a different place, but also by pushing a car to escape from the ice-trap where we spent around forty minutes and finally got help from the rescue team.

It was just the start of our exploration of Mount Naeba and we were on our way to the parking space in front of Prince Hotel Naeba. The journey was started at 7:00 AM from Higashi Ojima and we were happy with the hope that we can reach by 10:30AM at the destination and can enjoy the trip to Mount Kagura from Mount Naeba ski resorts.

All of us, lived most of our lives in tropical climate were thrilled to play with snow. We have seen snow fall in Tokyo, but not enough snow that we have seen in the websites of ski-resorts. The prime motivation to select a place like Mount Naeba was to make a different experience on the New Year’s Day itself. Change is the slogan in air now a days as we hear it from every corner. Let it be politics or personal life, change is a must to make the things lively.

Mount Naeba ski-resort is around 220km away from Tokyo. The day was clear when we started from Tokyo and on the way we could see Mount Fuji clearly. Mount Fuji is visible on a clear day from Tokyo also. As we were approaching to the mountain ranges near to Mount Naeba we could see the snow fall and on the middle of the way we stopped for a while to take snaps of the snow filled paddy fields and river.

Contrary to our expectations, on 1st January 2010, there was heavy snow fall and wind at the resorts. With our broken Japanese, when we approached the information counter, we were informed that the world’s longest dragondola, which is 5.5 kms from Naeba valleys to Tashiro area of Kagura ski resorts is closed due to heavy snow wind. It is dangerous to ride on the dragondola when there is a heavy wind. He informed that the ropeway operation is under red alert.

However, we could ride on the dragondola 2 which is around 1.7 kms from the slope of Mount Naeba to its peak. Fully clad with winter protection cloths, we could reach to the destination point of dragondola 2. That was an amazing and unforgettable experience to play with snow. The snow was piling up on branches of trees. They have already shed their leaves before the winter season. Now they got snow flowers!. The scene down to the valleys while we ride on the ropeway was impressive with bunches of snow sticking to the tree branches looked like trees with white flowers.

There were skiers coming down to the slope of the mountain playing with their children. At the top, we played with snow literally dipping ourselves inside the snow piles.

The resort and the surrounding areas of Prince Hotel Resorts are fully provided with all kinds of facilities to make the trip comfortable and strain-free, except the natural obstructions happen unpredictably.

It was around 5:30 PM when we decided to return back from the snow mountains. Restarting the car itself took another half an hour as the whole parking area was filled with snow and most of the cars were covered with ice. Everything looked white at the parking area. Struggling to restart the car, finally we could make our way to Tokyo with memories of an extraordinary experience.

Planning of the trip to Mount Naeba was much easier with the help of the website maintained by Prince Hotels & Resorts. We could make our plan well with the guidelines given in this website. Thanks to the website owner too for making this New Year celebration a memorable and impressive one. The link to the website is here; http://www.princehotels.co.jp/ski/naeba-e/index.html