maiko-san

In my hand I have several photos that show different kinds of colorful teadrinks. You can see respectively  at far right Matcha Latte , in the middle Gyokuro and far left Bubble Tea. They are all from the eastern part of Asia. What fancy brand names they've got!  They call "Pink Milk Tea". "Ginger Latte"　and "Matcha Taro". When they drink, they stir colorful ingriedents like "Popping Baba" and "Rainbow Jelly" . They dispense with sugar. These Asian drinks are now in fashion in Europe and America as well. Starbucks Coffee Shops will be soon replaced with Matcha Tea Houses. Especially European teenagers are fond of Bubble Tea. The key is they don't drink at home but out in the tea-bars and coffee lounges. For a start the Germans built tea-bars and coffee lounges in Berlin, because they craved for something exotic. After that it became in fashion in the cofffe towns, Viena. It looks like everyone in Europe is getting tired of cof...

Today I'd like to talk about "Preparing the Way for the Final Speech." Now that your draft is done and your edit-reading is completed. Perhaps what you see is a little frightening, because once again you're dealing with the fear of unknown; I mean the reactions of the audience. As far as I am concerned, I practiced my speech in all different places. Firstly when I attendeed World Sales Meeting in Atlanta, U.S.A., making a presentation was a must. I stayed at a cozy resort hotel. It was nice of Michel, a French salesperson, to lend me a pointer. In my room I hung up Power Point Slides on the wall. Pointing at each slide I practiced my speech 10 times. It looks like that my voice was loud enough to have embarrassed a customer in the next room. A bell boy came up to me and said, "Sir, would you mind turning down the TV? A neighbor is complaining." Secondly when I was a Master of the Evening for Toastmasters English Speaking Club in Osaka, I practiced my spee...

-Why does "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing? -Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there? -Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting? -Why is called "after dark" when it really is "after light"? -Why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposite? -Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite? -If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? -If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right? -Why is bra singular and panties plural? -Why everyone calls me "pussy-whipped", when my wife is not Hilary Clinton?

sources: "Delivered From Evil" The Saga of World War 2 by Robert Leckie "Incredibly, three dictators-Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin- all three the sons of devout, doting mothers at whose knees they learned to recite their prayers, all three educated in church schools, and all emerged as atheists and persecutors of religion. But Soso was clever enough to shield his true beliefs from the Russian fathers who replaced the Gerogian teachers in 1890, when he was eleven. Generally he had his teachers' esteem as a superior student, and his years at the theological school were formative and without major incident. There was one near-tragic accident: Soso fell beneath a horse-drawn carriage and lay close to death for some time. Blood poisoning complicated his condition, but again he survived: this time with a malformed left arm two to three inches shorter than the other. Stalin was always deeply conscious of this deformity, as he would be of his height when he joined the compa...

In the Year 2000 I began to work for a medical company in Nagaoka. I left my family in Tokyo and relocated to Nagaoka alone. The company was involved with sales of oxgeon concentrator machine for patients who suffered from COPD(Chronic Oppressive Pulmonary Disease) for example, emphysema, asthma and bronchitis. Actually I was in charge of 20 hospitals and 200 patients. According to the company policy, believe it or not, we were allowed to visit  hospital wings where we demonstrated the correct way to handle the machine.The company also enlarged interpretation of sales person's job descriptions that entailed a visit to pateints' house without doctor's permit. Sounds strange?  But that's how Japanese home -care medical business was carried out. One day I was working alone overtime in the office. My watch says 9:00 pm. I said to myself, "It's time I went home now." As I was about to switch off lights, the telephone on the desk rang loud a...

Today I gave a lesson on "personal experience speech" to 8 participants. Utilizing "Speech Communication" by Cambridge Publishing Co as a textbook, I told them how to fill out "Personal Experience Preparation Worksheet." The trick is that you give a speech on the unforgettable event in your life, as if you relived the incident. I'm sure that would make the audience relive your experience at the same time. If you want to talk about a happy moment in your life, make them happy. If you want to refer to a sad incident in your life, make them sad, too. Now I'd like to show you how the preparation worksheet looks like.                                                                ...

in 1971 My father bought me a Mitsubishi Colt 1000 Fastback. It was a compact white sedan with a 50 horse-power engine. I asked a Mitsubishi salesperson when he brought the car to my house, "What's the advantage of owning this car?" He replied politely, "Young man, forget Toyota Corolla 1100 or Nissan Sunny 1000. This car is equipped with the most endurable engine for this class. We are proud of the fact that we won the Southern- Cross- Rally  in Australia 5 times in a row. In short, you can drive up to the top of Fuji-san. It's piece of cake." I wondered if there were any hilly off-roads in Tokyo. But it doesn't matter. After all my father paid for the car. In summer my father asked me to take him for a drive to Nagano. He was supposed to give a lecture on German philosophy for local school teachers. At that time there was no Central Highway. So I took the route 20 and headed for Kofu Basin. It was a hot and muggy day. As the car was small, air-con...

Is Japan, which stands on the three interfaced tectonic-plates in the Pacific Ocean, allowed to operate nuclear power plants independently? About 10% of the total earthquakes in the world occurs in Japan. We have already built 55 nuclear power plants. For better or worse none is in operation since the Great East Japan Earthquake. But it is expected one nuclear power plant will operate again.. I suggest that Japan stopped operating nuclear power plants. It would take 10,000 years to destroy plutonium.  On the contrary German Prime Minister Merkel decided immediately  to stop operating seven nuclear power plants in Germany just after learning the catastrophy in Fukushima. On top of that  she's determined to abolish all nuclear power plants by the year 2022. She's a physicist. She knows what she is doing. In stead of atomic energy Japan should develop solar engery, wind energy and geothermal energy. For the t...

Every month "German Movie Evening" is held at the German consulate in Umeda Sky-Building. I happened to get a free ticket last week. So I dropped in the building to see a movie, entitled "All About Friedrich von Schiller". Schiller is a German poet, playwright and historian, comparable with the greatest artist, Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Upon entering the consulate a  blond chick gave me a onceover and checked my body and a briefcase with a detector. I felt as if I was at the customs at Osaka Airport before going on board the airplane. Besides there were already many German people in the wide open room waiting for the movie to begin. The movie  started with Schiller's life as a medical officer in the military academy in Stuttgart. It's a shame that they provided the Japanese audience with only German subtitles. At first I was nervous, because I didn't catch what actors were talking about.  But I rememebered  German lessons in which a Goethe I...