Enjoyment of Cruise Voyage

What is the only world common language, which everybody, no matter what country, race, skin color, or languages he or she carries, can understand? It is "Smile". People make all effort to have others smile. One may hope to make his family smile. The other may want to make his customer smile. Human history was always with people's smile. It may not be an exaggeration to say that one of an important factor for people to live is to smile and make others smile.

Changing the air makes people happy and smile. This cruise tour to Mexican Riviera is the one, which makes you smile. This American favorite leisure trip is not so popular for Japanese. Some of them think it must be expensive. The other thinks it is for retired people. People may not be able to take a long enough vacation to take cruise trips, which are at least a week. Many of them take two weeks or one to two months.

However, many cruise trips are not so expensive. A family, who can spend two to three thousand dollars for a vacation trip to Hawaii or California, can afford to a cruise trip for a week-long. Many retired people enjoy cruise trips. It is true. The passengers of the trip, however, are not just retirees. There are varieties of people who one can meet. It is part of the journey's enjoyment.

There is a cruise start around end-October or early November to travel to Mexican Riviera. The schedule includes interesting Mexican resorts such as Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo, Extapa, and Acapulco. On top of these resort places the ship is visiting, the amusement of cruise is enjoying the facility and entertainment of the cruise ship.

When the ship is docked on the starting port, travelers have almost ten hours to board their ship. Even during docking, travelers can enjoy the facility of their ship. Many in ship restaurants are open. Coffee shops are open. One may enjoy movies or games provided by cruise staff. Passenger can relax lying on the bench on poolside. Pools are available before the ship starts its voyage. Yes, there are two or three pools usually. It is not just one pool.

If one's ship starts from San Francisco, the first entertainment will be enjoying views of San Francisco city. The ship goes across the San Francisco Bay north sailing under Golden Gate Bridge. Sunset on the Pacific Ocean is breathtaking, as well.

The ship cruises three full days on the ocean to arrive at the first port of Cabo San Lucas. Do not worry about being bored. The crews and staff will provide travelers of enough entertainment including Bingo games, movies, theatrical plays, or attractions. If one likes gambling, he can gamble for the entire trip in their Casino. Buffet restaurants are available twenty-four seven. Whenever one feels hungry, he can eat. Formal restaurants are open five o'clock in the afternoon. The traveler can order the main course dishes as many as he wants. A friend of mine ordered three dishes of Escargot one night. He ordered two dishes of Osso buco for the dinner next day. Foods and soft drinks are included in the price one pays beforehand. It is better to eat as much as possible.

Nightlife in cruise is fantastic, too. There are bar and disco open all night. Right after information meeting between cruise staff and passengers, they hold attraction shows such as circus acrobats, theatrical plays, comedy shows, or serious drama.

If one were thinking about cruise trip, he would try it. He would never regret it.






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Even a Hunter Does Not Kill a Bird Who Flies Into His Arms

Sean was a website creator. One day he received a phone call from his Japanese friend, Jiro. Jiro wanted Sean to work on his website. Although Sean did not like the pay was not so high, he agreed to work on Jiro's website for his friendship. Sean started work on Jiro's site based on Jiro's specifications. He thought it was not hard. It was 10 pages site. Sean finished the first draft in several weeks. He showed it to Jiro. Jiro did not like his design. Jiro asked Sean to take a design review with his web designer. Sean called his contact for design review and modified the site according to the advices from a designer he had known.

Jiro did not approve Sean's modification. Jiro still did not like the design. Sean was a little upset. He was not paid so much that he was treated like this by Jiro, he thought. Sean prepared his email to Jiro. His email even mentioned that his contract obligation did not bind him to keep modifying Jiro's website, spending for continuous design review. Sean held the website's domain name. He had set the hosting service for the website. Sean thought he would have stopped doing the site for Jiro. Sean could refuse to transfer Jiro's domain names and take down the site.

Sean was wondering why Jiro was not satisfied his web design. Sean had known Jiro to be nontechnical sales manager of semiconductor products. He looked into Jiro's profile. He found Jiro graduated from design academy. Jiro was a designer in his academic background. Sean also found that Jiro's daughter was working for a number one web designer company in Japan. Instead, Sean learned web creation from his necessity for his own website.


Sean thought for a couple of days. He called Jiro. Sean told Jiro that he needed to admit that his web design did not meet Jiro's criteria and expectation and apologized for it. He told Jiro that he did not Jiro studied design. He admitted that he learned web creation from necessity and never studied in-depth. Sean asked Jiro to teach him and guide him to complete Jiro's site. Jiro was laughing. He told Sean he would ask his daughter if she had a suggestion. Sean did not lose the project. He did not damage his relationship with Jiro.

A Japanese saying goes, "Even a hunter does not kill a bird who flies into his arms." With or without knowing, Sean practiced these words of wisdom. Martial Arts teach trainees there are only two safe zones in fighting. One is far position from his enemy so that his enemy cannot reach him to attack. The other is skin touching close to his opponent. If too close, one's opponent cannot attack him even the opponent wants to attack. If you need to address difficult situation, this might be noteworthy advice.




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Do Not Ask God For Help

"Do not ask God for help." This is a part of words of wisdom from Japanese strongest Swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto. He killed a lot of his enemies. It was sometimes necessary to protect own life. Some time he was just trying his strength. Musashi fought sixty times in his life without losing any. In the history of Martial Arts, skills for fighting, many of legendary swordsmen wrote their own record or diary. The most of them seem be truthful. These records are precious testimony to learn inside of these masters of combat skills.

The noteworthy, at the same time common on these masters' records, is that these records shows that these Martial Arts masters became almost like philosophers of human beings' most important subject, life and death. Many principles came from Buddhism concepts. Musashi has his record. He stopped fighting at his age fifty. He lived in a forest. He painted several paintings. All of them are masterpieces. He wrote about his bio, history, and state of mind in fighting. The document is called "Go-Rin No Sho" in Japanese. English translation of the title is "Book of Five Rings".

"Five Rings" represent five basic factors, which forms the universe. They are "CHI - earth", "SUI - water", "KA - fire", "FU - wind", and "KU - sky or emptiness". The book talks about his own life and history in "CHI", basics on sword art skills in "SUI", principles on fighting in "KA", about swordsmanship overall in "FU", and the nature of Martial Arts in "KU".

Musashi did not attribute his winning record to his strength or his own power and skills. He mentioned own history of fighting was his "fate". His winning was only by "God's help". He mentioned that he remembered he would not win any fight if he did not have "God's help". He continued that none of his winning was the result of his strength overcame his enemies. He remembered that he could have lost and killed in any of his sixty times of duels.

Why could he continue to win? He explained that he had "God's help". How can one establish "God's help" to achieve his kind of strength? He continued to teach. He said, "Respect God". He further said, "But, do not ask God for help." His book does not describe exact meaning behind his words of wisdom, unfortunately. Many people have interpreted his words. The closest interpretation would be, "Respect God. Keep one to be clear and pure so that he could establish his relationship with God. Cherish the relation with God." "Do not ask God for help him to bring him a victory." Instead, leave everything to his God. Try to communicate with your God, "All of me is yours. Please take me and bring me whatever He would bring to me." One could call it faith or unconditional trust that one's God will bring goodness to him, always. This could be called as "Unconditional Acceptance". This helps the swordsman to achieve peaceful and stable status of mind. Many masters in history called such status of mind "KU - emptiness".


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A Happy New Year, 2011!

I wish you have a Happy New Year.

May your New Year full of happiness, prosperity,
health of you and your family, and lots of lots of
enjoyment.

Shaw Funami
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@ San Francisco, CA

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Teaching Is the Best Method of Learning

When one belongs to a company organization of medium or large-scale, employee number between one hundred and three hundred, his company may have a self-education system. This method decides one of their employees to be an instructor. All employees come up with a subject in which they wanted the selected instructor to lecture. They meet after hours or one weekend the selected instructor gives them a speech and they discuss the theme.

This lecture discussion usually has the following time schedule:

1) 30 minutes of presentation by the instructor.
2) 45 minutes of question and answer between audience and the presenter.
3) 45 minutes of discussion under the decided theme.

Themes can be anything. If selected by employees, it can be a subject such as; "how to improve productivity", "how to reduce production failures", or "how to improve teamwork spirit'". If their management gives them a theme, topic can be; "what is competitive position of our products in the market place", "what is the newest technology available and how the products can be benefited or harmed", or "how the company can improve customer relationship".

The first constructive speech is the most difficult to be prepared. It can have structure like the following:

1) Current position review and update
2) Problems or needs to be solved.
3) Plan for improvement and evaluation after the introduction of their plan.

Companies adopt the self-education program for improvement of in-house communication and teamwork. It is intended to enhance employees' knowledge base and brush up communication skills.

The question is who would be most benefited by this program. The employee audience who can acquire new knowledge and their colleague's opinion? The company and management who can obtain more knowledgeable and skillful workers? The answer to this question is that the person who benefited most by the self-education program is the one who was selected to be the instructor.

The person, once selected to be the instructor, needs to research and study about the subject given or volunteered. Since the selected instructor does not know who, in the audience, is knowledgeable about the theme, he needs to conduct through research and analysis. He cannot tell the audience what he is not clear. After his research and analysis, the one needs to establish his speech. He needs to consider, decide, and write down what he hopes to convey in his speech. He needs to choose the best way he believes to be effective to delivery. Lastly, he needs to practice his speaking. If he did not speak clearly, all he prepared would be in vain. By the time he became comfortable giving his presentation, he would be a semi-professional on his theme. Teaching is always the best learning method.


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Keep Your Balance Sense

There is an old song in Japan, which sings about Judo. The song goes; "Do not think you are winning. You will lose." It meant that if you hope to win too much, you will be over pressured and lose. This is true. If a fighter thought too much about the result of the coming fight, he would lose flexibility. His body would not function like normal. As a result, he would lose the fight. The question is if the fighter should not think about win or lose at all. The dilemma is that he would not be able to win if he did not hope to win.

Everybody hopes to win in fighting. The point is if one had too much hope, it changes shape to be a desire. The desire takes the form of greed. When one became greedy, the state of mind desiring endlessly, he could no longer control his mind. As a result, he will lose his freedom of thinking and moving. If one does not have freedom of thinking and moving, the one would never be able to win a fight. A fight requires a lot of flexibility and free mind to win.

At the same time, however, if one did not have any hope to win, he would not train him, he would not think on his strategy how to fight, and he would not take pains and effort to prepare for his fight. Under this condition, a fighter will lose. It is as if too much is as harmful as too little.


As observed, too much is not good. Too little is bad, as well. There is a delicate balance point where one can walk on a tight rope stretched in the air. If weighed too much to right, the one would fall to his right. If weighed too much to left, he would fall to his left.

Let us consider an example of Japanese Sword Art, Kendo. When the opponent swings down his sword to cut you, if your head is half an inch far from the tip of his sword, you will not be cut. You are safe. In addition, if you keep your body as close as half an inch to your enemy's weapon, you are close enough to effectively counter-attack. If you are three feet away from your opponent, you are safe, but you are not close enough to strike-back your opponent. This space of half an inch between the tip of sword and your head is the balance point. If you keep the space, you will win.

As this physical example, there is a delicate balance point of mind, too. It is essential to keep the balance point. Hope to win so much that brain and body maintain energy to be ready for a fight. Be careful not to hope too much to become greedy or disparate to win. This theory appears to be useful not just for a martial arts, but also for success in business, academic achievement, and happiness in lives.


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Can Woman Power Revive Lost Japanese Energy?

It has been a while since people started to say that Japan is not as powerful as before. In comparison to new emerging countries, such as China, India, or Vietnam, who are alive and kicking, Japan's birth rate keeps going down. Young Japanese lost their ambitions. They are not interested in overseas' activities like generations before. Its politics are going nowhere. Once challenging Japanese enterprises, which had played a key role in Japanese economic growth, did not seem to have new marketing strategy. Honestly, China is more active in hosting Beijing Olympic, Shanghai Expo, and other international events. India suffered early part of 2000 from so-called "dot-com company recession". More than 10 million Indians were deported back to India from the US, according to a source.

World Class Economic Analysts were talking about the decline of Japanese economy and power. Unless Japan takes an action against decreasing population and working force, demographically, it is inevitable that Japanese economic power will decline, according to their articles. It was not so long ago when Japan was famous for enthusiastic and motivated. The book, "Japan as Number One" was published in 1979. Michael Keeton's movie "Gung Ho" was released in 1986. All the people in the world hoped to learn Japanese language. Everybody loved Sushi. Rocky Aoki became famous as the founder of the world-famous restaurant, Benihana. Traveling all over the world, a Japanese could feel proud to be a Japanese.

Only United Airlines used to have 3 direct flights to Tokyo a day, in later 1980's. Including other airlines, there were so many flights to Japan. Now United flights go to Beijing and Shanghai flying over Tokyo. Did Japan lose its vitality and energy? It appears that Japan is in transit of changing key players. Taking a look at those active in Facebook, for example, the member can find so many Japanese women entrepreneurs registered and active. This tendency is similar in other leading Japanese Social Network Sites. Keywords seem to be "women", "entrepreneur", and "new business concept".

Women business persons do not adhere to an old concept of business. They enjoy anything what they do as their own business. Therefore, they are alive and active. They introduced so many new concepts. They are aroma therapy consultant, cell phone decorator, horoscope-based business adviser, nail dresser, gardening contractor, or farming instructor. There are varieties of business from Flower Arrangement to Floor Decoration.

They are the ones who will revive the vitality and energy of Japanese society and economy. The ancient authorities and old concept of business and society shall not kill their idea, concept, and activities, simply because they are different from what used to be.

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Shinsaku Takasugi, A Revolutionary Ideologist

There are people who appear as if God chose them. These are people who look to be sent by God for missions. These people come into this world suddenly as a thunder runs high in the sky. They disappear as soon as they complete their mission. It looks as if their God called them back. History tends to find these people in difficult changing periods.

Shinsaku Takasugi is his name. It was the middle of 19th century, Japan was in the period of change from Samurai Government to modern democracy. Shinsaku was born in feudal domain of Choshu (Yamaguchi Prefecture, now) in 1839. His parent was from ordinary Samurai class family. His parent and teachers gave him an opportunity to study Japanese sward art and politics. He studied in Edo (Tokyo, now) and North East region of Japan. He visited China also in 1862, whereas he observed colonialism in China.

He became an ardent patriot, thinking how to save Japan from being a colony of advanced countries of American and Europe. Shogun Government opened Japan as requested by USA, United Kingdom, France, and Holland. Under Shogun Government, Japan concluded treaties with these countries under unequal terms and conditions. Shinsaku's feudal domain of Choshu was anti-Shogun Government. They fought against England and utterly destroyed. When Shogun Government attacked Choshu domain, Choshu did not have enough armies to fight against Shogun force.

 Shinsaku formed a squadron to save his homeland, Choshu domain. In forming his squadron, he hired not only lower class Samurai people, but also young generation of farmers, merchants, and craftsmen, who are ambitious to fight for their homeland. This was Japanese first army consisted of both Samurai and non-Samurai people. They called it "Kihei-Tai".

Even in the end of Edo era, Japan was a class society. Samurai was still sitting on the top of the society. Farmers, craftsmen, and merchants needed to knee down and give their ways to Samurai when a Samurai came their way.

It is intriguing that one of Samurai, Shinsaku Takasugi, opened the door of equality for other class people than Samurai. Kihei-Tai was not private army. It was part of formal army of Choshu domain. Formation of Kihei-Tai, equal opportunity army, was not just Shinsaku's experiment. Choshu clan must have had an unusually flexible concept about social classes. It must have been the most updated idea and practice.

Kihei-Tai was not just a disorderly crowd. Shinsaku trained them in the way Samurai army trained their warriors. Fighting against Shogun army, they played a crucial role for Shogun decision makers to determine their army is not enough to fight effectively against the emerging power of the new government.

Legends show that Shinsaku did not wear armor in battles. He wore regular clothes in battlefields. He wore short hair to show that his life is dedicated for modern Japan. Right before the revolution is over in 1867, he died from tuberculosis in the same year. It was almost like his God called him back at his mission completed.








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Ryoma Sakamoto, A Visionary Activist

Japanese historians call Meiji restoration as a non-blood-shed revolution, which is unique in world history for modernization. The historical fact was that there was no brutal civil war in Japan. It was 1867 when Edo Shogun Government resigned and gave the politics back to the Emperor. As a result, both new Meiji Government new regime and Shogun Government, ancient regime could avoid bloody civil war.

Yet, there were lots of killings and bloodshed until Shogun Government gave up its rulings. In their conflict between ancient authorities and newly emerging power, many young, ambitious, smart, and influential people died.

Among those killed visionaries in the emerging power, Ryoma Sakamoto was the one passed before he observed the formation of Japanese New Government. Since he was the most powerful driving force for peaceful change of government, it was ironical and pity that a vicious assassin killed him. It was regrettable that he could not live until the start of new Imperial Government and started its activities. He could make him an unusually respectable statesman with his vision, patriotism, and remarkable power of foreseeing the future.


Ryoma belonged to the lower class of Samurai society in feudal domain of Tosa (now Kochi Prefecture). He was a fearful, shy, and holding child in his childhood. His biography shows that he continued to wet his bed until he became 10 years old. As usual for shy and holding child, Ryoma hoped to train himself to be strong. He studied sward art and politics in Edo (now Tokyo). He became a master of sward art of one of leading sward art dojo, Hokushin Itto Ryu.

There are many episodes about Ryoma. He was a patriot, a dreamer, a romanticist, a visionary, an ideologist, and an activist. He seemed to have 2 driving forces of his activities. They were; i) love and care, ii) optimism, and iii) vision.

i) Love and care; A legend tells that Ryoma was saying he wanted to create a country where people can live happily. He extended his love to his family, friends, people, and his country. He was a true patriot based on his love, which was almost close to God's love.

ii) Optimism; People, who knew him, described him to be a smiling, open-minded, happy, and approachable person. He was always smiling and making others laugh by jokes. Even in the most perilous moment of activists meeting, he broke the ice by making attendees laugh.

iii) Vision; Among activists of modern Japan movement, there were not so many people who had a clear vision what country Japan should be after they overthrew Edo Shogun Government. Instead, Ryoma had a clear vision of Japan, Japanese society, and government after Shogun. They were in his document he wrote as 8 principles of the new government, including the establishment of 2 Congress, election of congressmen, equal treatment treaties with foreign countries, reformation of currency exchange rate.

It was so unfortunate that Shogun assassin killed him in December 1867, right after the end of Shogun government. He had not had a chance to participate in the new government, of which he dreamed.

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