Big event celebrating Matsuo Basho opens in Iga
A big event commemorating Japan's most famous haiku poet Matsuo Basho, called the 'opening of the door of the repository of Iga, the treasured land of Basho-san, in the 360th year since his birth,' opened on May 16 in Ueno City and six other municipalities in Iga area, Mie Prefecture. Basho, who was born in 1644 in Iga area in the early part of the Edo period (1600-1868), is known for his new style of writing haiku that touched people's hearts. Traveling every part of Japan, he composed many pieces of haiku and travelogues comparing life to travels. Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) is his representative work.
In the event, more than 100 functions will be featured and local residents, prefectural government and seven municipalities in Iga area cooperated from the planning stages to work out the functions. Under the theme of 'people,' 'travels,' 'nature' and 'affluence in heart,' the functions will take place on four different occasions during the six-month event lasting until November 21.
URL http://www.iga2004.jp/
Osaka team wins championship in Robocup Japan Open
A robot named 'VisiON' created by a group of industrial and academic members for the Dream Team Osaka has won the Humanoid Soccer League Championship in the Robocup Japan Open 2004 Osaka. Among four contests of walk, pass, free performance and PK, VisiON came out on top in the competition except for PK. VisiON will participate in the world robotic soccer championship scheduled for June in Lisbon, Portugal.The Robocup, an international project , is to promote the robotics industry and research on artificial intelligence using soccer as a subject. VisiON, equipped with an all-directional sensor, is capable of walking autonomously with its two legs. With assistance from the City of Osaka that rates robot industry as one of core business operations into the next generation, it was developed by an industrial-academic group composed of the Ishiguro Laboratory of Osaka University, Systec Akazawa, Vstone Corp. and Robo Garage.
Matsushita to build world's largest PDP plant in Japan
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (based in Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture) has announced a plan to construct the world's largest scale plant for reinforcing its plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturing capability in Amagasaki City in Hyogo Prefecture. The construction will begin in September this year with operation scheduled to start in November 2005. It will establish the output system aimed at 250,000 units a month and more than 3 million units a year, respectively, in terms of 42-inch screen-size panels as the basis for calculation. The amount of investment will total about 95 billion yen.The new production base will be set up as the third domestic plant for Matsushita Plasma Display Panel Company Ltd. (MPDP) with its head office in Ibaraki City, Osaka Prefecture, which is a joint venture firm established by Matsushita and diversified chemical group Toray Industries, Inc. (based in Chuo Ward, Tokyo). MPDP, which also operates a plant in China, trains its sights on becoming No. 1 in the world market for flat-screen television sets by further reinforcing start-to-finish production system with the annual output by the four plants totaling 4.5 million units.
Demand for PDPs is on a growing trend in markets centering on Japan, the U. S. and Europe, with some people predicting the number will exceed 10 million units and the amount totaling the range of 3 trillion yen in 2008.
URL http://www.matsushita.co.jp/
SEI develops revolutionary HTS wire production process
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (SEI: based both in Chuo Ward in Osaka City and Minato Ward in Tokyo) has succeeded in quality and substantial enhancement in productivity of bismuth based high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire by developing an innovative technique named 'controlled over pressure sintering process.'It will utilize the technique previously described as the 'dream technology'and launch high-temperature superconducting business.SEI will be the first in the world to mass produce high-temperature superconducting wire through the newly developed method, which has such distinctive features as (1) improving critical current by morethan 30% (from 100 A to 130 A), (2) enhancing mechanical strength by more than 50%, and (3) achieving long length exceeding 1000 meters, among others.
SEI plans to swing into full gear in high-temperature superconductor business in the future in such applications as (1) HTS power cables that are in high demand in the U.S., (2) motors, transformers for trains and other propulsion systems for vehicles or ships where downsizing, weight reduction and high efficiency are required, and (3) high-magnetic-field magnets with a wide range of applications.
URL http://www.sei.co.jp/
Historic Kansai:Hiranogo in Osaka retains vestige of old Japan
By Junzo TanakaI kept wishing I could visit Hiranogo again. It had been quite sometime since I last visited there. A European woman who lived in Osaka and was active on a global scale as an audio artist held a joint performance with performers of 'Kawachi ondo'(dance and song) at the Dainenbutsu-ji temple. Kawachi ondo is stirring folk song music that originated in the Kawachi plain in the southeastern part of Osaka City. There are a number of schools of Kawachi ondo. It was unusual for members of different schools of Kawachi ondo to join together. The woman's friend who learned that the event was scheduled invited me and I went to the temple with excitement.
I was moved by the performance. The word 'moved'was the only word that I could use to describe the action. It was really impassioned presentation that seemed to shake the big roof of the main hall of the temple. A large crowd of fans formed a circle and started dancing. Several dozens of foreigners who came to watch the performance soon joined the ring of dancing people. Some foreigners said the tempo of the music was fast and that their bodies began moving spontaneously.
I wish I could give at any cost a detailed report to our readers on the excitement I received but since the space is limited I am going to write about the strange fascination of the area called Hiranogo.
Many Japanese urban districts were razed to the ground by air raids during World War II. Those which survived the bombings have lost their old images due to rapid developments of cities in postwar years. People thinking of visiting sites with historical legacies are often betrayed. However, Hiranogo in Hirano Ward of Osaka City has a legacy of history.
On an early summer day, I rode a train on the JR Yamatoji Line from Tennoji on the southern outskirts of Osaka City, and got off at Hirano Station. When I walked to the front of the station, I felt like saying 'good heavens!'Nothing had changed from the last time I was in the area. There were full of old customs, yet they were accompanied by an air of warmth. The place was obviously different from other regions. Many old wooden structures remained intact. There were dark pillars and walls and imposing tiled roofs lay one upon another. The Dainenbutsu-ji temple was right near the station. It is the biggest wooden structure in Osaka Prefecture and is the headquarters of Yuzunenbutsushu, a Jodo sect of Buddhism that says prayers to the Buddha by its followers can merge with those of disciples of other sects. It did not show any sign of an affected style. People walking in the street were free to come as they stepped into the precincts of the temple, bowed their heads in prayer and strolled through the gardens. I walked past the gate to the town and saw many temples. Kumata Shrine was to my left. It, too, had spacious precincts. It was nice walking around not only temples and shrines but also the whole town. Local residents are pressing ahead with a campaign to make museums out of the entire town.
Some volunteers are opening up their houses and welcoming guests as distinctive 'town museums.'There is, for example, an 'Ukiyoe and pottery museum.'Others include a 'candy store museum,''Hirano medicine museum,''Hirano film museum'and 'newspaperagent museum.'Even the Dainenbutsu-ji temple serves as a 'ghost museum'because it possesses a number of hanging scrolls of ghosts and opens them to the public on a fixed date.
Hiranogo progressed as self-governing territory and a free city along with Sakai in Osaka without having been under control of any one during the period of civil strife from 1467 to 1568 when rival warlords fought among themselves. It was a city within a ring of deep moats that protected it from enemies from other regions in the country. A Catholic missionary who came to Japan was said to have described Hiranogo as a 'beautiful town.'Men of great initiative emerged in Hiranogo and many of them went to countries such as the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to conclude trade agreements until immediately before the Tokugawa Shogunate issued a decree isolating Japan from the rest of the world in the 17th century. Such history drifts around the town as a whole. Those who may wish to look for history in an ordinary Japanese street may find it worthwhile to visit Hiranogo.
Kansai in Focus: American female coordinator for international relations goes full steam working for Kobe
'I taught a Japanese 'Oba-san'(woman) English at that time and in return learned 'kappore'(comic dance),'she said. From the looks of the sky on the final day of the Kobe Festival on May 16, it threatened to rain. The sky was dark and the trees along the street somewhat failed to display fresh green leafage. The festival's main event, the 'Omatsuri Parade,'set off at 1 p.m. from the Higashi Yuenchi Park on the flower road. The colorful theme float decked with a variety of balloons emerged after the first two preceded them. Mayor Tatsuo Yada waved his arms from the float and so did Miss Seattle who came from Seattle, Washington that maintains a sister-city affiliation with Kobe City.I looked for Jessica Langbein, a 23-year-old coordinator for international relations at the Kobe Municipal Office. 'I think I am going to be on the float,'she said while preparation for the festival was under way. However, I could not find her. She must have blended in the midst of shouts of jubilation and heated atmosphere.
Interest in animation
I met her in late April in the office of International Division on an upper floor of the No. 1 building of the Kobe City Office. The Higashi Yuenchi Park stretched under our eyes and waters on the sea level at Kobe Port shone dazzlingly beyond the park. 'How did I come to be interested in Japan? Animation. When I was 15 and in high school, I watched such animation programs as 'Sailor Moon'or 'Dragon Ball.'They were very interesting. I started studying Japanese myself. She laughed aloud a lot. She was cheerful and vivacious, apparently reflecting the locality of Florida from where she came. Fascinated by animation, Miss Langbein became involved in Japan. Surprisingly, there are many people like her. At any rate, animation is 200 billion yen market in Japan and more than a 10 trillion market in the world. Animation fans especially in the United States have a 'Japanimation'Web site on the Internet.
Jessica majored in 'research on East Asia'at prestige New York University. Her classmates totaled 100, the number considered smaller compared with those in classes on other subjects. Her graduation thesis was a theory on works of Japanese novelist Fumiko Enchi. When she was a junior, she studied Japanology for a year at Stanford University's Kyoto Japan research center in Okazaki in Kyoto City. 'I taught a Japanese 'oba-san'(woman) English at that time and in return learned 'kappore'(comic dance),'she said. Kappore is public dance that became popular in the closing years of the Tokugawa Shogunate military government in the mid-19th century with music band members saying in chorus 'kappore, kappore, amacha (hydrangea tea) de kappore.'It was welcomed at drinking feasts and on the street. The dancers'action was amusing and comical. I thought it was interesting to just imagine that a young unsophisticated American woman danced to the chorus of 'ah, kappore, kappore.'
Diverse work
She came to Kobe last July as she had wished after successfully passing a difficult test. It is extremely difficult for coordinators for international relations to get assignments at places they want to be. She must have had excellent records. Her work at the municipal office is diverse. Once every two months, she edits with Japanese staff eight-page 'ajisai'A4 size paper containing living information for foreigners residing in Kobe City. Work related to the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake still continues. She and Japanese employees of the city office translated early this year enormous volumes of a proposal from the Kobe City Restoration and Rejuvenation Promotion Council. In addition, she has served as a tour guide to high school students visiting Kobe from its sister city Seattle, helped prepare the Kobe Festival and recorded an English voice for a videotape publicizing Kobe City.
Incidentally, her voice is also heard in subway cars operated by the municipal government. It says in part: 'If you find a suspicious package...'At any rate, Jessica is busy. She is going full steam working for the municipality. (H)