maiko-san

I was a junior high school boy in 1960's. In May I went on a school excurtion trip to Kyoto. I was not interested in temples and shrines. I had an aunt living in Kyoto. I was happy when she visited me at a hotel in front of Kyoto Station. She gave me some Yatsuhashi as a souvenior and told me she was running a small hotel where many foreigners like Westerners and Asians lived. In August I got on a locomotive alone at Tokyo Station and headed for Kyoto to see my aunt again. At first I tried to talk to Elizabeth from England. But she was rather snobbish. In the meantime an Indonesian couple took me to Daimono-ji Burning. But I found it boring to talk with them, because they always referred to the atrocities of Japanese soldiers during the 2nd World War. On the other hand I liked talking with Haque-san from Pakistan, because he spoke good English. His apperance was somewhere between a European and an Asian. I thoght he was exotic. However my aunt was of the opnion that I kept a distan

How I dread doctors. Straight out of university I had a job interview and passed it. Two days later I had a physical check-up. To my surprise the doctor diagnosed me as hypertention. I didn't want to lose the job, so I decided to undergo a complete check-up at a university hospital. The worst part of it was that they were not able find any causes for hypertention. The internal doctor suggested that I see a psycologist. In the course of time I became overreactive to doctors. In my 20's I belonged to a textile division. In my 50's I was transferred to a medical device sales division. My job is to see doctors every day and persuade them to buy our company products. I used to stand straight up with other drug sales representatives at the entrance of the medical office. For we are not allowed to see doctors while they examined patients. Here come doctors from the hospital wing. Everyone approached him in a humble way. A few of them sucked up to the doctors. Others gave away stet

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is UP. It is listed in the dictionary as an adv. a pre. and adj. a noun or as a verb. It is easy to understand UP as meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP. At a meeting, why does a topic come UP. Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car. At other times this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, buy UP tickets, work UP appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special. And this UP is confusing: the drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixe

I once worked for a company in the nortern part of Japan that invovled with sales of medical devices. My job entails renting medical devices to hospitals. At the same time I took care of patients who used our products. One evening I was still working alone in the office. I took a glimpse of my watch. It says 9.00 pm. I said to myself, "It's time I went home now." All of a sudden the telephone on the desk rang loudly. I picked up the receiver. It was a notorious patient, Ichiro. He said, "Something is wrong with the machine. I can hardly breathe. I want you to check up on it righ away." I heard him wheezing a lot at the other end of the line. Immediately I thought of loading up the van with an alternative device. For I was to blame, if I didn't do anything about it. The car rolled along the national highway to an intersection, where I took a right. Now the road is getting narrower. Out of thin air appeared a couple of cops waving a flashlight. I was ushere

Two weeks ago I went to Tokyo to see my sister. She is retired from university, but at the same time she suffered from dementia. Let me read the definition of dementia. "Progressive memory loss is the hallmark of dementia. Initially, only short-term memory is impaired, and the person seems merely forgetful. This can interfere with the ability to interact socially and perform work. Long-term memory may be retained, often in great detail, but eventually fragmented as the disease progresses. The person with dementia may or say something over and over again. In most cases, he or she is probably looking for comfort, sinceriy and familiarity." I took her out to a Japanese retaurant. In the beginning I was relieved to hear her speaking like a real professor who is at the podium. She was so articulate. Having said that she repeated that she became the emeritus professor five times. No, she is not proud of that. That's a symptom that she suffers from Alzheimer's. Moreover she

I am of the opinion that you've got to get to the bottom of western civilization if you want to master English. Simply put, read the Bible. When I worked for a medical device company, I always took the Bible with me. It has nothing to do with the job. Rather I was bored with it. Visiting patients, doctors and nurses every day. I used to drop in a family restaurant before meeting them. There I sat at a table, opened the Bible and read it aloud. "In the beginning when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate...Then God commanded, "Let there be light!"....... I like this "Exodus" part. Out of nowhere appeared an elderly woman and asked me, "Are you a priest or something?" I replied, "Absolutely not." Actually I am not a Christian. I was one of those employees who sits besides the window and waited quietly for the day, when my boss ordered, ""You're fired!" It's interesting to find so many western

I joined a chemical company in Osaka in 1971. Over the years I was transferred to a Japanese-American joint venture company in Tokyo. President was a Japanese. Vice President was an American by the name of Martin Braun. One day Martin came to me and said, "Kinko, you're going to America to attend a world sales meeting". I was on the top of the world, because I had never been to America. The vice president shook his head and went on, "This is not just a sightseeing trip. You've got to give a presentation before your counterparts. Can you do that?" I had mixed feelings. I have neve given a talk before Americans. But the idea of going to America was so irrisistable that I answered, "Yes, I'll do that, Martin." The big day came a month later at a resort hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. I went up to the podium and looked at the audience. I said to myself, "Wow, so many different people in different clothes." It seemed to me that everyone was sta

I have all kinds of birds singing in my ears, sparrows, woodpeckers, parrots, chickens-you name it. It's like I have an orchestra. It's been seven years since I suffered from ear-ringing. I don't know how it started. Maybe it has something to do with a hectic enviroment where I worked for a health care products company. I belonged to a division that dealt with medical appliances for patients who suffered from pulmonary diseases. I was in charge of maintaining that gadget. I had to visit at least four patients a day. Moreover I was on a 24-hour- beeper call for 10 days in a row. If we had complaints from patients, doctors, headnurses or whoever that the machine failed to work, we've got to straighten it out until everything is in order. In the end I burnt out and got depressed. Presumably the sedatives and anti-depressants I obtained from the clinic must have had an influence on the onset of my tinnitus. Other than tinnitus, I think I am in a state of health. I was ab

Five years ago I waited for a taxi at Nuernberg Aiport at midnight. The moment I got on it, I found the driver was not a German, but a Turkish. Immediately I recalled taking a taxi from Chicago O'Hare Airport to a hotel downtown in 2003. He was a big Afro-American. It didn't take a while before the meter was running up faster than I thought. In a nutshell I got a ripped off by him. He charged me 85 dollars. According to my travel guide book, it usually costs as much as 30 d0llars. Since he was a fierce-looking guy, I just paid him the money he asked for and walked out softly. This time I spoke to the Turkish driver in English, "I am visiting Amberg tomorrow to see my friends there. How far is Amberg from Neurnberg?" He didn't answer me. He shut up like a clam all the time. There was an awkward silence. Then I gave it a try to speak to him in German, "Siehst du mal, ich komme aus Japan." All of a sudden he changed his tune and smiled at me and said someth

A woman was sitting in a bar. She was having an "after-work-drink" with her friends. All of a sudden, a well-built extremely sexy good-looking young guy entered the bar. He was soooooooooooooooo sweet that she looked at him uninterruptedly. The young guy noticed that he was being stared at, so he thought he was going to make a pass at her. Before she was able to excuse her bahavior, he leaned over her and said something in her ear, "I'll do everything for 20.00 Euro. And I don't expect any return from ya." She was so excited that she asked what on condition? He said, "20.00 Euro and you gotta tell me what you want in three words ." The woman considered his proposal for a moment. Then she pulled a 20-Euro-bill out of her purse very carefully. She handed him the bill tenderly, together with her private address. She stuck out her tongue and let it run over her wet lips slowly. Now, she put her hand on his thigh. She leaned on him with her outstretched

Today I'd like to tell you about my embarrassing expereince. Last Saturday German school started. The autumn special class begins at 2:00 and ends at 5:15. There are 20 participants. We were packed like sardines in the classroom. A young girl happened to sit on my right side. To my surprise she turned out to be an opera singer. Moreover I was kind of excited, because she had big titties. I was glued to them. But I deliberately talked with a middle aged woman on my left side as possible as I could. It took a while before chemestry worked between the old maid and me. When it came to a self-introduction session, the teacher called on me to inroduce the girl. For German self-introduction is more like a partner introdcution. I told her, "Fire away!" She started asking me a lot of questions. What are my likes and dislikes? What are your favorite colors, animals, drinks and meals and so on. Then she summarised them and told everyone about me. After that I told everyone about her

Today I'd like to talk about how you prepare for the podium. Now that your draft is done. Your edit-reading is also completed. Perhaps what you see is a little frightening, because once again you're dealing with the fear of unknown: I mean the reaction of the audience. To date I practiced my speech in different places. When I attended a sales meeting in the U.S., I had to make one presentation. That was a must. On the night before the speech, I hung up a dozen of Power Point slides on the wall in a hotel room. Using a pointer I practiced my speech by talking at the wall 10 times. My voice was loud enough to embarrass the neighbor in the next room, that a bell boy came up to me and said "Sir, would you mind turning the TV down?" Back to Japan, I often go to a Karaoke bar to practice my speech before the toastmaster meeting. Wow, you could hear the sound of your own voice echoing. That made me feel like a real speaker at the podium. If I have no time, I practiced my spe

Today I'd like to show you a beautiful disc, I obtained it from a German teacher who made a speach on "Fairy Tales, Myths and Dreams". A headstone robber happened to find the disc on the central hill in the eastern part of Germany in 1999. You can see it on disply at Sky Visitors' Center in Nebra, Leipzig. The disc is 3,600 years old and was produced presumably in the ancient Bronze Age(1600 BC). It is made of gold, bronze, tin and copper and represents fantanstic craftmanship in metal-work. The disc is 30 cm in diameter and weighs 2 Kilo grams and 4.5 mm thick at the center. It is an illustration of the full moon, the sun, the lunar crescent and stars that include a cluster which is interpreted as the Pleiades. They used the disc not only for the solar calendar but also for the lunar calendar. They manipulated these two canlendars and were able to anticipate the Vernal Equinox Day and the Autumn Equinox Day as well. Thus they succeeded in seeding in spring and harves

Today I'd like to tell you about my best friend at elementary school. His name is Kazu who lived in the upscale Yamanote residentail area in Tokyo. Soon we became friends. On my way back home I saw him in front of the school gate. He asked me, "Kinko, why don't you drop in my house today?" I knew he lived close to Nishiogikubo Station. Well, I thought that was a good idea as the station is located one stop away from Kichijoji on Chuo Line. Then I headed for the bus stop. He said to me, "What's the hell are you doing? We don't need a bus. I have a chauffeur with me." I was surprised to see him standing next an American black car. It was a Ford. The car rolled off. I looked at the speedometer from the back seat. It says 40 KM/ hour. But I was wrong. Actually we were doing 40 miles per hour! In 20 minutes or so the car came to a halt in front of a mansion. His house is as big as 3000 Tsubo: it has a large Japanese garden, a pond and a zoo. I enjoyed wat

I just watched Internet News in Facebook the other day. The title is about "Increase of Ku Klux Klan Membership in Colorado." They attributed the KKKs growing membership in part to "white" low birthrate. We're losing them to white homosexual relationships and they don't produce and interracial marriage and abortions on demand. On the contrary Latino population grew 40% between 2000-2010. Alone in Denver Colorado more than 30% of the population is Latino. As the Latino population surged, so did anti-Latino hate crime dispropotionately to other hate crimes between 2004 and 2008. A study found that the number of radical groups including hate groups, Patriot groups and nativist groups rose from just three crimes between the years of 2006-2009, to four in 2010 and 19 in 2011. My Facebook friend gave a comment. "When the time gets tough, the KKK crawls out of the ground."