Can Money Buy Real Alliance? - 2

Did Money buy the alliance for Kanetsugu Naoe? The historical fact was it did. Kanetsugu, 19 years old that time, succeeded in negotiation with Takeda Clan and allied with them. It changed entire local civil war situation. As a result, Kanetsugu's lord, Kagekatsu defeated his enemy brother Kagetora and became local lord as successor of Kenshin Uesugi.

I talked about "Gi" before in my previous articles. I translated this Japanese to be "Ultimate Righteousness" in English. I do not know if my translation is good or not good, but since this is a concept in human mind, it is not easy to define.

It might be "Gi" for Kanetsugu Naoe to realize ally with Takeda to lead his own lord to win the civil war to protect his country and people, otherwise his country would have been occupied by enemy countries. On the other hand, most of the "Samurai" would have believed that using gold or money for buying an ally with money was not right thing, not "Gi".

Judging from the result, succeeded in forming an ally and winning the local civil war, Kanetsugu's strategy was right saving his lord, country, and people. Therefore, we may be able to call it "Gi". It looks like the general, Kanetsugu Naoe was a strategist who could use flexible campaign, focusing utmost purpose, even without being influenced by how other people think about his strategy, campaign, and himself.

The lesson here is that we must focus on our utmost goal without being influenced by and too much worried about nature of actions, completeness, how will be others reactions.



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Can Money Buy Real Alliance?

This story today has relation to my yesterday's post "Write without Visual Aid". I was not sure how accurate I can write about the historical fact happened and convey the message, asking you the question. Especially my 2nd language, English, not my original.

It is about the general I wrote in the article "The General Who Prevailed "Love" in Japan's Dark Age". His name again is "Kanetsugu Naoe" When this worrier was 19, he was engaging in civil war involving who became the local lord after "Kenshin Uesugi" (refer to my post" "GI" was this local king's driving force") died. Kenshin had 2 step sons. Both were from his enemies and both loved Kenshin, trusted him.



Left : Kanetsugu Naoe's Armor. The Character on his Helmet is Chinese - Japanese Character means "Love".

Right: Portrait of Kanetsugu Naoe. He looks more religious people than a general or worrier. He was an excellent governor, premier.

Copyright Notice:
Copyright (c) 2009 Shaw Funami.Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this documentunder the terms of the GNU Free documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".




But still they ended up fighting over Kenshin's successor to be the local lord. Ones name is "Kagetora", the others "Kagekatsu". Earlier, Kagetora was almost winning to be supported by 2 powerful neighbor countries "Hojo" and "Takeda". Kanetsugu was closest subject of Kagekatsu who is almost losing. Kanetsugu advised Kagekatsu to ally with Takeda. Takeda fought against Kenshin several times but could never have decided who was the winner. Kanetsugu advised Kagekatsu to give 2 counties close to Takeda territory. But Takeda was not moved. Kanetsugu needed to do something to realize this alliance.

Takeda was fighting against other enemy for more than 10 years then, and their treasury was almost used up. Kanetsugu brought 1 Million Dollars worth gold and met Lord of Takeda. In Japanese culture, or any culture of Chivalry, using money to buy enemy is one of the worst strategy and being avoided. The one offered money used to have felt insulted. Kanetsugu's lord, Kagekatsu was not sure if Takeda's honorable lord accepted it.

As imagined, Takeda refused the offer and alliance. Then Kanetsugu told Takeda. "There was a time when Kenshin sent salt to Takeda when Takeda was cut the supply from enemy countries (Takeda's territory was mountain country, not having access to sea and could not produce salt in their territory that time). This gold is same as salt that time. Especially gold, or money, can change the value, vice or virtue depending on how it will be used. In this sense it all up to you if it can be vice or virtue."

Do you think Kanetsugu succeeded in allying with Takeda? How do you think Kanetsugu's strategy to give money to form a friendship and alliance? Did I make the point? Is this article clear and understandable? Please let me know.

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Write without Visual Aid

Do you blog, article writing, or write a book, or just simply keep diary? Are you engaged in anything to write regularly? If you are, you may have same experience I have. I write this blog, 1 x English blog, and 2 x Japanese blogs. In addition, I am one of article writers in a Japanese News Site. My challenge is always this Japanese News Site. I need to write once in a week regularly. And this site does not allow me to use any illustration, pictures, videos. No image. For example, I wrote about San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive in this blog. I used maps and pictures to visualize. But, in the News Article, I cannot use any of these.

However, I found this is very useful to brush up my skill of explaining things without visual aid like images. I need to visualize what I want to say and I hope to convey to the readers, first. Then I write down the image using the best words and sentences I could think of. Finally, I need to re-read or proof read what I wrote makes sense and visualize the contents for the people who read. Sometimes I am not sure if I correctly visualized what I wanted to write, so I ask my wife to read and explain what I wrote in her words.

It looks relatively easy to explain this way, but if I do not use any visual aid for an article I write, it takes me double the time or sometimes 3 times of time I write with visual aids. Some authors, professional writers, novelists are very good at it. Orson Wells is good at it. Edgar Alan Poe is good at it. Some more English or Japanese authors are very good at it. What you visualize may be different from mine, but still people can clearly visualize the scene as if we are there watching it.

Quite recently my mentor gave me an advice I should speak slowly to convey the message. I apply same principle in writing. I try to use simpler, easier words, terms, sentences to describe in case I cannot use visual aids.

Having said that, I still like using visual aids. It is not only simpler to take images to show, but also make an article colorful or sometimes dynamic, even not directly showing what I am writing about. Illustrations or literally Image help writing an article a lot!

Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
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Our New Family Member "Xue Er" -Snow- House Breaking

3 days passed since "Xue Er" -Snow- came to our home. We held her and took her out to downtown for the first time. She cannot walk on the street since she has not finished Rabies shot. Everybody liked them. My wife and I took her to my wife's bank and all counter people came out to look at her and touch her.

One of the customers there took "Xue Er" picture with his cell phone camera. She is 6 weeks old and just 3 days in our home, but she knows other family members and kisses our cockatiel's (her name is "Goldy") wing to recognize her as a part of our family. Goldy is a little bit afraid of "Xue Er", since she is a lot bigger than Goldy, but it looks like they can get along okay.

Please enjoy her video:

"Xue Er" -Snow- 3rd day of Shaw Funami Family, House Breaking:



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Our New Family Member

Since my wife and I do not have any child, it has been long thought if we should have a dog. We have almost had a dog before, we always decided not to for variety of reasons. There are reasons such as I was assigned in Japan for an employment and I was not sure when I will be able to come back to US. We started our own business and we are not sure how successful it could be, etc...

My wife and I both love animals. We love any animal from ants to elephant. So there have been always good reasons to have a pet. We both agreed that if we had a pet, we would have a dog. My wife wanted white dog badly. There are so many different kind of white dogs out there, but I recommended "Japanese Spitz". Quite recently, I have not had a chance to come across Japanese Spitz in Japan. Spitz were idealistic pet dog for Japanese people for long time. When I was an elementary school student, there were 3 neighbours who kept Spitz. Spitz have long pure white long hair and cute like an angel. I had a feeling that they were noisy, but the training for a dog is not usual that time.

This time, moving in a first house for us in US, we diligently looked for our dream white dog. I did not find Japanese Spitz for long time, but I finally could find it in a website. And today, the poppy came to our house. She was jumpy first, and she run behind her crate whenever she heard some noise, such as car went by, airplane landing, someone screaming in TV, etc...

But how soon young dog can adopt herself to new environment. She was walking around in our house after we showed him all the corner of our house with not yet so strong legs, played with us with my rubber balls, hide behind her crate, and extended her neck so that she could see what we were doing. So cute. So adorable. We SKYPEd our parents in China and Japan. Everybody loved her. We name her Xue Er meaning Snow in Chinese.

Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
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Memory of Mr. Enoki

I like watching English Learning TV Program in Japanese Channel. Especially NHK, (Nippon Broadcasting Corporation) has provided very good English studying programs traditionally. Now they have one of more modern and talk show style, English studying program. There are a show host, young American who speaks fluent Japanese, 2 male students, 1 female student, and a guest. The guests are usually famous people who are active in international community in various field. Sometimes United Nations, sometimes sports, sometimes business, or entertainment.

I enjoy improvement of regular students and stories from guests. But, I enjoy most is the male student whose English is somewhat broken. He was asked to try to take an American girl out for dating in US, the girl he talked was nice, but still she needed to ask him to brush up his English and ask again. However, it is not his broken English I noticed. I noticed no matter how many times he has made mistakes, he has never given up. The people who were laughing at him started to be serious helping him. And he is definitely making his progress!

This student reminded me one person who I have worked with in my job experience. He was a Senior Engineer from my previous employment. His name was Mr. Enoki. He and I worked together for License of Technology. There are several American visited us for the license. Alas, he could not speak English so well. He depended me on English translation and business matters. We were good team and worked together in American and European accounts. Whenever we had visitors from abroad, I started to notice something. Despite his limited ability of English, the visitors admire him, appreciate what he did for them, remember him very well.

I took closer look at what he did. He was the one who make sure that his guests stay in proper place and they are comfortable in not only business but also general stay. In addition to his engineering capacity to prepare for visitors will go back with some result, even not an agreement, he was the one select their hotels, transportation, and meals. He sometimes visited hotels to make sure his visitors' stay would be comfortable. When one of our guests was sick, he took the patient to a hospital and stayed up all night to make sure he is okay.

Mr. Enoki died from heart attack about 20 years ago. I remember I felt like I lost my own father. He was the one who taught me that language ability is nice and convenient tool to have, but it is not everything. What is more important is one's heart for loving, caring, and people oriented. Even if you find one who could speak perfect English in Japan, if he was selfish and cold hearted, and just business like, you would not feel like speaking with him for long time, wouldn't you?


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San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive -10

Taking Sunset Boulevard North, you will drive back into northern part of San Francisco. Sunset Boulevard will go across Lincoln and come into Golden Gate Park. This Park may be comparable to New York's Central Park or Hyde Park in London. The park is full of green trees and lovely flowers. Golden Gate Park is something like residents' relaxing and recreational center. There are museums, Japanese Garden, Outdoor Theater. People can enjoy events here. In the weekend, you will be able to greet to the jogging people or people ride on bicycles. Or you can lie on the green and just relax. Driving in the park surrounded by green makes feel good. Feel better apart from fears, anxieties, or angers from daily life.

After coming out of east gate of Golden Gate Park, the drive will head toward south again. Driving up the hill, you will reach to quiet neighbour residential area on the top of the hill. This is Twin Peaks. You can pull up the car around the top of the hill and enjoy the view of the central San Francisco as picture right.

Driving south east of the city along Castro Street, ride on Interstate 280, highway, the drive will take you to Business District and eventually to the starting point, San Francisco Civic Center.

I hope you enjoyed San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive. When you are in the city, take one day to try this drive. You will not regret it.

Related posts:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-9.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-8.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-7.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-6.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-5.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-4.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-3.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-2.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-1.html

Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
http://vur.me/shawfunami/main
http://vur.me/shawfunami/SF
http://vur.me/shawfunami/zi

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shaw@zhenintl.ws
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San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive -9

Now the drive takes you to south part of the city. Let me bring up the San Francisco map once again to give you an idea where you are driving right now. I did not mention this, but you can click the map and get the bigger image so that you may see it better or print it for future reference. Here I am putting up a little bigger map (below left) to show you south part of the city. But you can do the same to the map I uploaded in Part-1, though it does not show the south of San Francisco like this time.

We have driven down the ocean side "Great America Parkway", enjoying Pacific Ocean view to your right. Passing San Francisco Zoo to your left, you drive down to Lake Merced (Picture below left). Whenever I am driving either this 49 miles Scenic Drive or any other route, I am always amazed by the fact that San Francisco has a lot of places to relax. This lake has amusement of boating, fishing, and gun shooting. Or you can just relax your eyes like I usually do when I am there.

After driving to the south side of the Lake Merced, the Scenic Drive now turns to North in Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard runs North - South and one of main road of West San Francisco. In South Part of the Boulevard, there is campus of UC San Francisco, whereas lots of young people are hanging around. I believe San Francisco - Bay Area people are very much education oriented surrounded by famous universities such as Stanford, Barkley, UCSF, etc...

Now the drive brings you back to North part of the city.

Related posts:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-8.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-7.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-6.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-5.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-4.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-3.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-2.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-1.html

Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
http://vur.me/shawfunami/main
http://vur.me/shawfunami/SF
http://vur.me/shawfunami/zi

Feel free to contact me:
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San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive -8

Getting out of Presidio, you will see Greek or Roman Style buildings in the foot of Golden Gate Bridge. This is Marina District and here you find hands-on style science museum here called "Exploratorium". Inside of the museum, there are lots of science experiment that visitors can try and see what happens, how it happens, and why. This is great place to take your kids, though we do not have any kid. Since 1985 when I first visited here, I have not got inside, so unfortunately, I cannot show you pictures of inside "Exploratrium". So, let's continue the drive.



Now the drive route continue to take west. Finally you start to see Pacific Ocean. When I first see this East side of Pacific Ocean, I was really moved, because I used to go visit West end of Pacific in Tokyo. It was great feeling standing the beach of opposite side of Pacific Ocean and watching waves come and go. I remember I started to be excited driving the route and ocean started to appear when my car started coming down the hill.

The Drive Route finally take you to the beach of Pacific Ocean. In the beach, there are families to play kite, walk dog, running with small kids. They are almost identical to what I had seen in the other end of the Ocean. But I was on the other side. It was exciting experience. The picture right was taken in the beach last year. The last picture below is "Cliff House". This "Cliff House" was guest house for the President of US and other famous, important people. Original Cliff House was burned down twice and now it is restaurant and souvenir shop.

Related posts:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/04/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-7.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-6.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-5.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-4.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-3.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-2.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-1.html

Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
http://vur.me/shawfunami/main
http://vur.me/shawfunami/SF
http://vur.me/shawfunami/zi


Feel free to contact me:
shaw@zhenintl.ws
Shaw Funami
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San Francisco 49 miles Scenic Drive -7

Continue taking Leavenworth Street toward north. When you reached the top of the hill, you start to see San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz Island. Fisherman's Wharf is close from here. I posted several articles on Fisherman's Wharf including "Crab Lunch". I have never seen this place without sightseers. No matter which day of the week I come to Fisherman's Wharf, this place is crowded by the people. When I come to this place, I can always come across something interesting, something funny, something new, etc... So, I cannot visit this place without bringing digital camera. This day, I saw sightseeing car (cart?) going on Jefferson (above left).

Keep going west passing Fisherman's Wharf, you will pass Fort Mason and reach to Entrance of Presidio. Fort Mason was the half city and half park whereas Beijing Olympic Torch runner was running instead of scheduled and announced road, due to protesting movement. Presidio Park is Navy Base historically, like the movie. What I like about Presideo Park is it is like forest and old but big, nice looking houses. The other reason I like this area of Fort Mason and Presidio Park is the fact that I can enjoy very good view of Golden Gate Bridge. The picture right is one of the picture I took. Also the heading of this blog was Golden Gate Bridge taken from Presidio Park.

North center part of Presideo Park has walking and bicycle access to the Golden Gate Park. I have never tried to walk across Golden Gate Bridge. But I would love to try some day. The last picture in the post below left is the toll gates of Golden Gate Bridge, which can be seen from Presidio Park.

Related posts:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-6.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-5.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-4.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-3.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-2.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-49-miles-scenic-drive-1.html



Check my websites to find out what I am doing:
http://vur.me/shawfunami/main
http://vur.me/shawfunami/SF
http://vur.me/shawfunami/zi


Feel free to contact me:
shaw@zhenintl.ws
Shaw Funami
Fill the Missing Link