雪が降っています

Yuki, the snow in Japanese language is one of the words I like most. When I did learn to use the ‘te’ form in our Japanese language lessons, I was almost obsessed to repeat the sentence ‘Yuki ga fute imasu’ means ‘It is snowing’. ‘te’ form is used to express a continuous action.

Snow is ardently attractive to me and the Japanese word for snow carries some mysterious beauty with it. Yuki is one of the names of Japanese girls too. I like the kanji for Yuki 雪. The Kanji character for snow or Yuki bears a modified Kanji character for rain. Rain is called ‘Ame’ in Japanese language and is written as雨. Kanji brings the nature into scripts. We can see the rain drops falling from the roof of our universe in this Kanji character or we can imagine as we open the window, we see the water drops falling and we call it rain! Snow is another version of rain and so it carries the kanji for rain too, but on a modified form.

Thus Yuki ga fute imasu is written in Japanese language as 雪が降っています. This is a combination of Kanji and Hiragana. Though I have been learning Hiragana and Katakana in our Japanese class, Kanji is still a dream project. It may take years to learn Japanese Kanji.

This year this is the sixth or seventh snow fall in Tokyo today. Last two years there were only one snow fall each. Though we got more snow falls, only twice it became heavy. On February 1st and today snow accumulated on the ground and remained for some time. Today it was second of such snow fall in the morning, but not very heavy as happened in the first day of February. The snow accumulated on the tree tops and on the play grounds, but was melting soon.

Taking the opportunity, some of the students got an excuse for absence from the school and play on the ground. There were not many, but in the morning some of them made their way to the play ground. We managed to capture some of the moments of today’s snow fall. It was morning 7:00 and my hands were shivering while standing at the balcony.

When the glaciers melt and volcanoes turn ice skating resorts

There is one more snow fall out of the windows in front of me. Rarely, we open these windows during winter season. Occasion like snow fall are precious for us and we like to snapshot them in cherished memories. This is the fourth day in this winter season that we are lucky (!) to get snow. Compared to the previous years, snow fall in Tokyo this year is high this year.

This year’s winter is the coldest one I have ever experienced with more snow falls. The climate world over is changing unpredictably and this was one of the hot subject of debate when leaders met at Copenhagen on January to discuss and outline carbon emission regulations. That was a failed climate conference. The depressing fact of the climate change is that it is a universal phenomenon. Those responsible and not responsible for more carbon emission to the environment will equally share the burdens of climate change.

Copenhagen has not given anything hopeful to us that our national leaders in the recent future will be able to find a common chord to start a reverse process for the climate change. Reminding the biblical predictions we hear the variations in the weather predictions world over. The Vancouver winter Olympics was interestingly highlighted by the media with the absence of snow! Deserts starts getting more rain, migration of tropical sea creatures towards the poles are now the subjects of talk in coffee shops.

When I visited Indonesia, it was supposed to be a rainy season in the typical tropical area. When enquired to Indonesian friends the reply was pointing to the recent shift of the climate due to global warming. It was hot and the temperature was around 40 degree C. Recollecting own experience, I have also noticed the drastic climate change happened in Kerala, a southern state of India. We used to comfortably enjoy the cool climate of the green state of India during our childhood with the temperature moderates at 24 to 30 degree C throughout the year. During the 1990s we started hearing about the upward shift of the maximum temperature and now it reaches during summer at 40 deg C that reminds me of Indonesia’s climate now.

 

Human migration happened in the same way as the insects move from the unfavorable climate to the more favorable climate. It is the survival of the fittest theory that forces all the living things. When the desert becomes forest and when the forest becomes desert and the snow fall turns into fire of the desert, creatures also have to shift their habitats. When I talked to some people from Maldives at Trivandrum some years before, they shared similar concerns of migration at a near future to a nearby friendly country due to the rising sea water. Maldives will be one of first few island nations that will suffer the serious consequences of green house effect.

The reason for more snow during this winter may not be due to the climatic change or it may be due to the heavy snow at the northern hemisphere. Recently Japan has also concerns of virus and bacteria migration from the tropical countries as the climate at the tropical countries turn hostile to those viruses and bacteria.

Copenhagen was the graveyard of Kyoto protocol. More glaciers will melt in the coming years and the sea will gulp more island nations. Those who live at the top of the mountains think they are safe and laugh at those living down. They don’t know that ice at their bottom is melting. This happens at a time when the volcanoes turn ice skating resorts!

It is still snowing outside!

Breach of etiquettes while riding subway trains in Tokyo

I was told during a conversation by a Japanese friend that one of the survey conducted by Association of Japanese private railways revealed that noise is the biggest nuisance passengers get annoyed most. True! Recently everybody have mobile and almost all the time except sleeping it is the only companion for most people.

Use of mobile phone near priority seats is prohibited in Tokyo subway trains. Yes, the words written in the trains behind the priority seats could be read like this; “Please turn off the mobile phone near priority seat” This is considered as the manner while travelling in subway trains in Tokyo. Priority seats are reserved for aged people, physically challenged, pregnant women and lady passengers with babies. Priority seats or courtesy seats can be found at the end of each car.

Some of the public behaviors that attracted and impressed me in Japan are discipline, obedience to the law and regulations and cleanliness. Recently (Saikin in Japanese) I have been getting negative blows to my impression by seeing the public behavior, I must admit very frankly. Still I do praise the pin drop silence at subway trains. The self discipline is much higher than that in any other countries that I have seen. The very often noticed bad manner is the making-up of some of the J-girls. It is extremely a public nuisance especially to those sitting near to them. Applying make up while riding in the train is one of the biggest breaches of rail etiquettes, though it is written well in Japanese to please do it at home.

A good percentage of train passengers dwell in to their own world with their handsets. The handsets will be switched to manner mode. This is also one of the notices written inside the train with a symbol of mobile phone. Switch the mobile into manner mode is widely practiced in Japan while riding subway trains. "Please set your mobile phone to silent mode and refrain from making calls" is the words written inside the trains. Putting the mobile phone mode in to silent or manner mode is called ‘maanaa-modo” in Japanese language. It is written in Katakana scripts. Still some of the girls especially will be using their handsets though they occupy the priority seats. It is less offensive than turning the subway trains their beauty saloons!

Also, recent experiences force me to think there is a considerable deterioration in the cleanliness in the subway’s public places. The old and middle old generation tempts to blame the new generation’s growing ‘carelessness’ attitude, while some blames it on the recent economic troubles. The truth may be somewhere in between, but still there is considerable effort from the authorities to keep the roads and public places clean which is admirable.

Most often the breaches of manners are practiced by some foreigners too like talking loudly that will annoy the co-passengers and travelling in groups with baby strollers etc. This at one side, some of the friends have shared a peculiar problem of being a target of ‘staring’ by some of the local people while waiting for trains and riding in the trains. This one I feel may not be categorized as discrimination towards foreigners. This could be just out of curiosity. Even I will stare for a moment if I meet a foreigner at my own country. The point of discrimination is on how far the staring goes. After all, some people can not take out their eyes from some objects. Such kinds of people are there in every country and not only limited to Japan, though it is little inconvenience to become an object of staring!