Japan summer: rough seas ahead

Watching Japan from my garden-terrace, "I often feel like I’m standing on the windswept deck of a boat on the ocean even when I’m standing on solid ground"(1). I see Japan is engaged into a new adventure politically. Probability of rougher seas ahead. Lucky that the vessel is strong and moving on. It goes beyond the only political scene. People expect new dimension and improvement in their daily lives after being seriously stricken by the global economical crisis, being the working hordes as well as the more fragile population, especially aged people and younger generations.

Maybe a good sign came this week, as the first cicada began their summer songs, Japan watchers noticed it has been 15 years since Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko had visited the national shrine in Hawaii. The Imperial couple came to pay respect to the soul and to honor WWII veterans, Americans and Japanese. They laid a ceremonial wreath to honor those who sacrificed their lives in World War II, and while they did, many in Japan were expecting that US president Obama would come to Hiroshima to reciprocate and therefore commit to his denuclearization program with a bow to the civilian victims of atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the civilians killed during the weeks of the horrendous Tokyo bombing, as some Japanese Tokyoites told me. "What's the point of a security coalition if no profound consideration for your partners"?

As I say, anyway, rough seas ahead.

(1: quotes from the traveller page of SD times)