Dreams of the Past Few Nights and Lucky Graham Greene

I have had a few dreams for the past few nights and most of them I forgot. Why do I forget them, so vivid when I’m asleep and half asleep, right when I get out of bed? I even try to stay in bed a little longer only to remember them. But one of them was a musical rehearsal on the beach. Some ten kids of eight or ten years old was practicing what they were supposed to say in unison. Just one line. And the language was English. And I was there with them to do the same. Suddenly asked to do it, I couldn’t follow the kids. The scene changed to another place, apparently in a place like a classroom. An Asian woman, still young, perhaps in her 20s, was asked a question a few times and every time she answered, “Ask me again in a minute.” Fast forward to the party after the musical. A woman, this time Westerner, asked me about a dish. I answered, “This is cabbage with some meat inside.”

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Graham Greene was very much depressive, but he was in regular contact with his mother and brothers, especially Hugh Greene. Lucky man. He had family members who were happy to accept him.

Now I’m reading the second volume of The Life of Graham Greene by Norman Sherry. The pages about Malaya and Vietnam draw me in.

Mood Goes Down After Interpretation Job

I know that my mood goes down after every interpretation job that lasts more than a few days. And it is happening today too as I finished an 8-day work yesterday. I spent lots of time with the man who came this time and didn’t seem accustomed of being overseas with almost no English. Reunion with AL and AP after many months. Deep concentration and much speaking as interpreter, much talking with AL and AP whose wife I also met on Friday at CC. It seems that every time I spend time with them my mind goes sky high and this is what I need to keep the feeling of isolation away.

I Got Really Drunk Last Wednesday

Wednesday afternoon, I went to a hardware shop at VivoCity to buy a shower hose because the joint at the shower head of the old one had gotten broken the previous night. It was a metal joint and had been leaking for some time. When I tried to tighten it by hand, it simply cracked and broke into pieces.

After buying it, I entered the Giant supermarket and noticed a missed call. Why do I miss calls so often?

It was from the boss of those engineers I had worked with. I returned the call and he told me that he was in Singapore and asked me if I would want to see him. Of course I said yes.

It took me about half an hour to reach the lobby of the hotel he was staying at and I found three others, two of whom I’d never met before. They came for a managers and supervisors’ meeting at Tai Seng.

I was very glad to see them especially because, having been under virtual house arrest for my work since before Christmas, I hadn’t really talked to anyone since the beginning of the year.

It turned out that one of them was a graduate of the same university and we talked a lot if only because of the fact. We also talked about the November trip to Milpitas, which I immensely enjoyed.

At about 8:30 pm they went back to the hotel to leave for the airport. Moderately drunk only with beer, I hopped in CC. I didn’t expect find anyone to talk to. Surely enough, I kept drinking alone and started feeling so stupid and unbearably isolated. Thinking I was wasting my time and drunk, I left. But not before I sent SMS messages to L to tell her I was almost completely drunk. I managed to board a 124 bus to come back home

Beicho Kuchi-makase: You Have to Pay Now + How Asahi Reporters Conduct Interviews

数日前、朝日新聞のウェブサイトのレイアウトが変わっていた。10月から更新されていなかった「米朝　口まかせ」は探してようやく見つかった。更新されていた！ただ、有料になっていて読めない。ずっと読むのを楽しんできたのに。「食と料理」もどこへ行ったのか。これも有料化だろうな、きっと。

同じく朝日。日豪外相の共同会見で、カー外相が河野談話の見直しを「望ましくない」と述べたと伝えている。外国の要人によるこの種の発言があるたび思うのは、どういう状況で発言があったのか知りたいということだ。勘ぐるのは、例えば本人が何も冒頭発言などで言っていないのに、朝日記者がわざわざ、「日本政府の歴史認識に関する姿勢についてどうお考えですか」と質問を投げかけて、記者が聞きたい「その一言」を引き出す手法ではないかということ。歴史認識について質問されたら、「正しくなければならぬ」というのが当たり前の回答だろう。日本政府の認識に「誤り」があるのかどうか何も具体的に触れなくても、記者は日本政府による歴史認識の誤りが指摘されたような記事にする。今回は、「近代史で最も暗い出来事の一つであり、見直しは望ましくない」と発言したとあるが、河野談話がどうして生まれたのか、何を目的にしていたのかについて外相がどこまで詳細に知っているのかがはなはだ疑わしい。

Not Here, Not There: An Overseas Japanese Case

It does not happen often to me to  talk about life in a serious manner. Our future life. I had such a talk this time in Johor. He, who was born in India and moved to Singapore when he was still a young child, is the most important man who manages the dealings with my client, which is the parent company of his. I had met him in May when I got engaged for the same client. We were driving to a restaurant for dinner and I was sitting in the passenger seat. There seem to him three types of life for a man who is getting old, over 50. Some go into religion and others into charity. Yet another type goes to women. He says none of these seems attractive to him. I agreed. On religion, I said to him, “I don’t have to be religious to be nice,” just as I wrote some days ago. About myself, I told him in essence that I don’t feel settled down yet with nobody to live with. I’m worried thinking that there would be no one to find me if I suddenly collapse. And I have no place to belong to. More specifically, no Japanese comes near me when I’m drinking with friends or acquaintances, say, from Singapore or England. What’s the point of surrounding you with people all from your own country when you live overseas? I said, “I’m not Japanese enough to Japanese, and too Japanese to non-Japanese.” “Not here, not there” is how he described it. He is right. To him, I must be only someone who works as the interpreter for the parent company. That’s because I appreciate him much. He even told me about his family situation. I don’t think I had had this kind of talk with anyone since my Osaka days.