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A friend of mine (his company is closed on every Tuesday) came to my home to get a conked out stereo transistor amplifier for repairs. I told him it was a good chance to listen to sounds of "Koetsu" , a state-of-art stereo cartridge. But at the very moment when I put a pickup on the surface of a disc, the sounds from speakers stopped. And the amplifier warned of accidents showing ”PROTECTION” sign on its window. In the world of audio equipments and computers, it is not unusual to happen accents without any sign of them. The only thing we can do is to call service personals, especially from manufacturers. Sony, the manufacturer, replied me that they will send a service staff tomorrow morning. I was impressed by their quick response.
The sixteenth of month is a day of meeting of classmates at our high school held at the office of alumni association of the high school. It is a lunch on meeting taking sushi, noodles, rice and tempura served in a bowl or something like these, tasting good sake which some mates donated the meeting. Without notifying attendance, those who are available get together for enjoying pleasant chats for two or three hours. Seven or eight mates come in average every time.
When I joined them a little late today, Mr. Shigeo Shionoya reported how his last April tour to the Andes Mountains in Peru with Mr. Mitsuo Namiki, a class mate. He said "An ordinary car which was running around city streets climbed up to the mountains of 5,000 meters high from sea level. We did not suffer from thin air because we stayed there for only two hours. When we took night at a hotel of 3,000 meters from sea level next day, we found a few people suffered from high altitude sickness. To shorten time for staying on high altitude will save you from such a trouble." Mr. Molto-o Caraway who stayed in New Deli, India as a first secretary of the Embassy of Japan about forty years ago, told how he liked India and its people. While he was there, he learned Indian languages and tried to be familiar with Indian people. Although they did not say in words, he felt the intimacy of Indian people toward Japanese. He also said that one of the reasons why Buddhism became not popular in India was its denial of caste system based on the equalitarianism. The caste was seemed to be a necessary evil because it kept social order in India. A race, who wear turbans on head, denied the system. So the Indian army recruited many of them because it is quite necessary for keeping order among military personals to deny the system, he said. Mr. Shionoya suggested the most effective measure against few child problem in Japan is to execute heavy tax on bachelors of both sex and to decrease the burden of tax on families which have children. But someone said that no one in the diets or no premier dared to propose such a policy. This is a big problem of Japan, he argued. In such a way, we enjoyed a good flow of ideas and words.
A bottom picture was taken at the September meeting. I show it here for presenting what the meeting looks like.
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