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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Monday, October 14, 2002 |
 Around nine o'clock, I biked to Poplar to get bread for tomorrow's breakfast.
Near the park, there was a little old man outside his house. Doing his washing. In the dark. In just his underpants.
The less said, the better...
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Web sites worthy of mention...
Blogmints
A site that displays the highest commented posts on blogs currently appearing on weblogs.com. Given that the Breakfast Show no longer accepts comments, it's never likely to make an appearance on Blogmints, but nevertheless, it's somehow fascinating to see what people are reading and commenting on.
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It was interesting to hear the chairman of the group of families of the kidnapped people; he stated- entirely understandably- that the families don't see a temporary return without families as in any way the end of the matter. But one thing crosses my mind- will the five survivors want to return to Japan after all this time? The trauma of being kidnapped to North Korea must have been horrific, but even so it was twenty-four years ago now, and so it wouldn't be surprising to find that the five have by now made the best of a bad situation, and rebuilt their lives.
I wonder, though, whether the families here have considered this; I can see them not taking something like this well at all...
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The main item on the news this evening- understandably enough- was that the five surviving Japanese who were kidnapped by the North Koreans will be arriving back in Japan tomorrow, and meeting their families for the first time in 24 years.
24 years! This is a quite unbelievable span of time; it's one thing to have made a decision to move away, with all the time for mental preparation, saying goodbye, and so on, that is therefore possible, but to be kidnapped- and moreover to be kidnapped to a country alien in both language and culture- and kept there for nearly a quarter of a century- I find it quite impossible to imagine just what they must have gone through. Some of the survivors have been in North Korea for longer than they've been in Japan, and they've even been given Korean names. What has been done to these people (especially considering how young some of them were when they were kidnapped) really does seem an almost unfathomable evil.
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Yet another long weekend, the third in just over a month. Today is Taiiku no hi, which is translated into English as 'Health and Sports Day'. Entirely inappropriate for me, then: I feel ill, and I have no intention of doing any sport- not today, anyway.
I hate to moan (actually, I quite enjoy it), but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, I think. These long weekends were fun to begin with, but their attraction is fading...
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Fair enough. It wasn't the last posting after all. I'm still here, just about...
It's good to have a day when you can just relax and read. It would have been even better had my neck and head not been aching... I can't decide whether I feel better than yesterday, or whether I'm still on death's door...
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:47:41 pm.
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