A Public Interview with Haruki Murakami in Kyoto

I saw Haruki Murakami in one of his rare public appearances in Kyoto, Japan. I was fortunate enough to get one of five hundred tickets.








My impression of Murakami

The audience could see his carefree smile every minute. Murakami told many jokes and made us laugh constantly. On the other hand, he also looked sharp. He is famous for his diligently exercising every afternoon after spending the morning writing. I got the impression that it was not only his training, but his many severe critics that made him sharp.



His comments on why he doesn't appear in public

At first, he said, "Hello, I am Murakami. This may be the first meeting between almost all of you and me, so let me tell you the reason why I'm not in the public eye. This is because I lead an ordinary life. I enjoy hunting for books and vinyls in secondhand stores. If someone asks me, "Are you Murakami?", it makes me embarrassed. I would appreciate if you would treat me like an endangered animal. Be careful, if you approach me or say something to me, I might bite you."

This first speech changed the atmosphere of the room. At first, people expressed a nervous like reverence for one of the world's most famous novelists. After this speech however, people became more relaxed and we could simply sit and listen to this funny guy talk.



The Depth of his Works

Murakami: A man is like a two-story house. The first floor is equipped with an entrance and a living room. On the second floor is every family member's room. They enjoy listening to music and reading books. On the first underground floor is the ruin of people's memories. The room filled with darkness is the second underground floor. How deep is it? Nobody knows. Going down to the first underground floor, people can write novels and music. However, I believe that such works cannot move people's hearts. F. Scott Fitzgerald said; "If you want to tell a story which is different from others, use words that are different from others." Thelonious Monk's music is so unique that we cannot believe he played his music with popular instrument such as the piano. The depth of this kind of art can move people's heart. These artists found a way to go down to the deep underground floor. First underground floor novels are easy to be criticized, because they are easy to understand. Second underground floor novels, however, can touch hearts. The difference between the two is like the difference between a spa and a house bath, or Mozart and Salieri. I would like to go down to the deep underground floor without going mad.

Me: When he told us this, I recalled the episode, "Going down a well", in "Twisted Bird Chronicle"




The transition of his way of writing

Murakami: I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, "Slow Boat to China", when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags. Then, I read Ryu Murakami*'s "Coin Locker Babies", and wanted to write novels like that. I closed my own jazz bar so I could be a man who can write novels as I like. I was pleased about that. This pleasure was connected to the pleasure of writing. After making "collages of aphorisms", I would take up "storytelling" as a way of writing.

*Japanese popular novelist who is of a similar age to Haruki Murakami and is his friend.

Murakami: My first novel on storytelling was "Wild Sheep Chase". The next work "The World's End and the Hardboiled Wonderland", was a mid-long novel, first published in a novel magazine. It didn't have a power to catch readers' hearts, so I connected it with other narratives and rewrote it. It was a way of, "dividing myself". I never made any plan before writing, however I succeeded. I enjoyed writing these two novels with excitement ,"what happen on the next page?

Until that, I was on my second step "OK, so if narratives are narratives, no need for additional values". My third step began from, "Twisted Bird Chronicle". "The World's End", consists of two narratives. On the third step, I wanted to divide narratives into more than two parts. However, I wrote, "Twisted Bird Chronicle" in the first person. It was difficult to write a divided story in the first person. Therefore, many factors were in the novel: memories, letters and dairy entries. They constructed a multi-layered world."

I suppose that I could write my novels as I had wanted to write then from about 2000, with "Kafka on the Shore". Until that, I had many things that I couldn't write, even though I had wanted to write then. Therefore, after 2000, I could then write about the things I wanted to write about.

Me: I convinced with his saying. His works is evolving gradually. Before and after this interview, I think that "The World's End and the Hardboiled Wonderland" and "Twisted Bird Chronicle" is the most important milestone of him because the depth of these two novels was obviously deeper and newer than the former novels.




Network of peoples' souls

Murakami: Some people asked me why I transited my novels from detachment to commitment when I wrote "Twisted Bird Chronicle". The answer is, "I wanted to construct networks of peoples' souls". People can hardly maintain themselves without narratives. Children also need narratives. If you tell a narrative to them, they imitate these narratives. This is how they intake narratives. However, it may be a very simple narrative. Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves. Anyway, do these narratives have depth? If you want them to, you have to make the narratives relative. It is however, difficult to make your narratives relative by yourself. A novelists' work is to provide models to make your narratives relative. If you read my novels then you may feel, "I have the same experience as this narrative", or "I have the same idea as this novel". It means that your narrative and mine sympathize, concord and resonate together. Such happenings produce networks of peoples' souls and make narratives deeper, more relative. I think that it is the same with music, don't you? Excellent music moves our heart. Narratives have the same power, I think. Some readers of my novels ask me, "Why do you understand me?". That's a huge pleasure of mine because it means that readers and I can make our narratives relative.

Me: I was surprised while reading an interview with Oliver Sacks*. He said, "Narratives are critical to human identifying" He is a well-known professor of neurology and psychiatry, therefore he analyzed the importance of narratives scientifically. This approach is different from Murakami's, however the conclusion is the same. It is intriguing.




About his other novels

Murakami: "Moving through a wall" in "Twisted Bird Chronicle" isn't a metaphor. I experienced this. All things in my novels are real for me. Some western critics said that Garcia Marquez's novels are magic realism. However, I believe that Marquez must have experienced everything in his novels.

Murakami: "1Q84" is my first novel written in third person, therefore I could construct many "micro cosmos" in the novel. This is a format of "general novels", I think. When it comes to "general novels", I think of Dostoyevsky's "Demons". You read the beginning part of the novel, but you cannot understand who the main character is.



The interviewer: Do you think that in the 20th century narratives' power wasn't appreciated by novelists and critics in the 19th century?

Murakami: Yes, I think so. I have read "The Brothers Karamazov" four times and "War and Peace" three times. These experiences mean that I was soaked in 19th century narratives. However, in the 20th century, especially from the 1950s to 1970s, narrative literatures were discriminated against.

The interviewer: In those days, people appreciated novels like "What is a human being?" (wry grin)
Murakami: (wry grin) In the 1980s, in narrative literature, John Irving's "The World According to Garp", suddenly appeared. The novel was unique in those days. I (as a narrative story writer) was also criticized frequently in the same age, however I could stand it thanks to my readers.

Me: Actually, the top novels on my want-to-read-novel list are Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and Dostoyevsky's "Demons". I was surprised and now want to read these novels even more.




About the other novels

Murakami: I'm glad to hear that you can't stop laughing after you read my novels and I'm even more happy to hear that you can't stop crying. Crying is personal. On the other hand, laughing is more general . Laughing makes our hearts wider. The best point of my novels, I think, is their humor. I want to keep many my works humorous.

Murakami: I never cry after reading my books. An exception however, was "Underground". I had an interview with a twenty-something year old wife of a victim of the Tokyo Subway Sarin incident*. During the interview, the atmosphere seemed bright for these three hours, I didn't feel dark. Then, in the train on my way home, I couldn't stop crying for an hour. This feeling sometimes emerges while I write my novels.
*In 1995, a cult group released poisoned gas in Tokyo's underground and 13 people died, while 6,300 people were damaged.

Murakami: I always write my novels with music (I don't listened to the music seriously.) Music seems to encourage me. While working, I play only LPs not CDs, because of LPs are hi-fi.



From the 1,500 questions that the organizer of this interview gathered from people before this interview via the internet

Q: What beer do you think the best?

Murakami: Of course it is the beer you drink when you are dying of thirst! Anyway, lately, my favorite is, lately, Maui Brewing of Hawaii's Big Swell. I favor bottled beer over canned beer, but this beer is never served in a bottle. On these beer cans, maker prints a detailed explanation for this policy: Canned beer is better than bottled beer. This beer is very good.



Murakami: I have read all my novels that were translated into English. Reading my novels is enjoyable because I forget almost all the content in them.

What kind of novel can be translated easily? They are novels that have strong power in their narratives and make readers' mind progress further and further. On the other hand, I feel its difficult to translate novels that have are delicately described. For instance, The Great Gatsby.



Murakami: It is my huge pleasure that my novels are translated into languages that are read among small numbers of people. For example, Finland and Iceland have small populations. What's more, young people usually understand the English language well in these countries. In spite of this, my novels were translated into these countries' mother tongues.

I don't meet people spontaneously, but my novel's translators are an exception. I do meet them spontaneously. When I translate foreign novels, I ask about them their works in relation to the original authors. Generally, they answer my questions kindly. I appreciate their kind attitudes, so I do as the same for the translators of my novels.



Murakami: As for playing music, I would practice the piano when I was a little boy. Today, I like to seek the proper chords in the piano for the music I listen to. It is my pleasure to find the proper chords.



At the last moment of this public interview, He said:

Murakami: My last message is… I am really glad for the people who wait and purchase my new book. The value of them is greater than any critic and any number of sales of my books. Sometimes, some readers say, "Your new book is terribly dull, I'm disappointed with it, but I will buy your next one." I love these people. I never want you to love all my books. I don't mind that you dislike my books.

I write my novels personally, desperately and non-negligently. When I write my novels, I think about my novels only, and never do other works. If you appreciate that Murakami does his work enthusiastically, I'm thankful to you. I have little confidence, but I'm serious about my work.


Me: I think that this message shows his gratitude to his readers and gives encouraging words for all serious workers. Throughout this interview, I realized that Murakami is a serious professional through his serious and enthusiastic lecture.

When I left the auditorium of Kyoto University, the place where his interview was held, I saw a beautiful twilight sky. At the beginning of this interview, Murakami said, "I hope you will relax and enjoy this spring afternoon in Kyoto." I remembered this phrase, and then realized that the best spring afternoon in Kyoto of my life, was over right now.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "Great Gatsby"

(This entry was written in 2006, soon after Haruki Murakami's Japanese translation was released.)

[Story]
In 1922, 30-year-old Nick moved to New York. He spent his life frugally, but lived in an area of many mansions. In such an area, Gatsby, who lived next door to Nick, had especially large land and a splendid house. Nick attended his party to know the mysterious neighborhood...

[My opinion]
This is a new Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami. With Murakami's many praises to this novel, I had been looking forward to reading it. In conclusion, this novel certainly met my great expectations.

The Japanese publisher of this new translation labeled this copy "a sorrowful and noble story". Such words fit this work more than other novels, I think. The vanity of luxurious parties, love affairs among men and women, unmeasured indiscretion of people who have power, sudden tragedy and Gatsby's rarefied will and behavior of his will – these factors were described by very classical sentences. This "classical" means high quality, neat and having value that may not be lost overtime. I think it depends on Fitzgerald's original sentences but also Haruki Murakami's spirited translation.

After a long interval, I encountered an overseas novel which I now want to read many times. The intrinsic value and power of this story are deserving.

After reading, I saw the book cover of this novel and felt very sad, even though I never gave heed to it before reading. It is merely a picture of a withered leaf floating in water. This difference of feeling may show the power of this novel.

Hannah Arendt "Eichmann in Jerusalem"

He was a man who proceeded the Nazis' Jewish extermination plan. He escaped from Germany to Argentina after WWII, was then captured by Israeli Mossad, and was executed in Jerusalem. I had limited knowledge about Adolf Eichman, before reading this book.

This book is the record of Eichman's Nazi work, his Jerusalem court trials and Arendt's observation.

After I finished reading this book, at first, I felt sorry for Eichman, partly. He read Zionist's books, was impressed, and seriously considered the extraordinary plan to move Jewish people from Germany and Europe to Madagascar and establish their nation. He felt bad to see the execution of Jewish people. "I moved Jewish people to concentration camps by my boss's command. I only obeyed the command." said Eichman repeatedly in Jerusalem courts. I think it may be true.

On the other hand, his loyal attitude is a good example for workers especially in organizations, I think. Normal organizations don't command murder or execution, but there is a possibility they might command some illegal actions. What do we do when in such a situation?

Arendt comments that Eichman deserves the death penalty in any situation. My conclusion hasn't been decided yet.


My viewpoints points of this book are as follows:

Eichman's position wasn't very high. The reason why his position became more important was that the Jewish problem gradually became more important in Nazi ideology. On this point, I think that many other people are to be punished.

In Germany and her occupying nations, Jewish organizations became the "Nazi's tool". For example, 103,000 Jewish people were moved to an execution concentration camp by the support of the Jewish council. High class Jewish people were the exception, however, they were in "insensible accomplices", Arendt said. I may also be an "insensible accomplices" in some situations without noticing.

There were many variations of responses to the Nazis' Jewish policy in Europe. Danish government clerks told Germany that they would quit their work if Germany asked them to commit any kind of Jewish suppression. In Italy, the government established an exception of the Jewish suppression law for the Jewish people who had family members who belonged to the Fascist Party. The rule covered most of Italian Jewish people. Bulgaria even turned down Jewish Badges for six months. On the other hand, those who supported the Nazis' Jewish suppression in a full scale were the eastern peoples (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and some Russians), even though Nazis thought them also to be lower human beings. In Romania, Jewish people were killed by suffocation by stuffing up to 5,000 people in cargo trains as the trains travelled around the same railroads. Sometimes the bodies were then displayed at Jewish butcher shops.
Why were there such differences? The book didn't have the answer. I understand that this book isn't for thinking over this question, so if I find a book about this problem, I want to read it.

It took more time to read than usual this book because the sentences were difficult to read smoothly. I don't know the reason why is either the original sentences were difficult or the translation was hard. Anyway, this book deserves such time.

Rwanda's Genocide and their population pressure from Jared Diamond "Collapse"

I read this book again. (My former memo: "Twilight at Easter", "One island, two peoples, two histories" and "Martha's Vineyard Island") And I would like to write down another part of the book; Chapter 10 "Malthus in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide" The author Jared Diamond says his theory as follows in this chapter:

Rwanda (and neighboring Brundi)'s 1994 genocide is the second biggest massacre, per population since 1950s, next to Cambodia. There are many presume statistics but many people say the death rate was 10% of the entire population of Rwanda.

Why did many people kill neighborhoods suddenly? Generally speaking, the main factor was the hatred between Hutu and Tutsi (and the ex-host country Belgium's policy to make it). However, we can't attribute all topics to this factor. In the northwest area of Rwanda, Hutu people killed Hutu people. And in other areas, with decreasing Tutsi population, Hutu killed Hutu people. Why?

Admitting this hatred factor and many other factors, additionally, Diamonds mentions Rwanda's population explosion and the destruction of environment as a result of this explosion. In short, high population growth made an agricultural land quite smaller per person. My question was "Is it true killing neighborhoods because of such a reason?"

In Rwanda, after their independence, the government continued their conventional agriculture method and didn't try an innovation to enhance productivity. They also didn't go ahead with family planning. The author's friend found this proceeded environmental destruction in 1984. He saw the lack of basic and important agricultural methods: the whole country land was like banana orchids, not in terraced fields but ordinary fields along the steep land (it was a danger for the fields to be flushed away by heavy rain), not aerating the soil by covering it with grass (which is bad for soil).

As a result, the population density of Rwanda and Brundi is the world's highest, the worst of Africa, ten times that of neighboring Tanzania. Other highly populated countries, such as Holland and Belgium use highly efficient agriculture and have other industries. Bangladesh is transferring from a conventional agricultural method to the new "Green Revolution" method. But Rwanda didn't change their method.


Rwanda's agricultural land per person was 0.09 acres (360 square meters) in 1988 and 0.07 acres (280 square meters) in 1993. In the state of Montana in the USA, one family needs over 40 acres of land. So, you can understand the seriousness regarding the lack of Rwanda's land.

I say it again, the author doesn't say that the population explosion is the only reason for Rwanda's genocide. If this is true, genocide would occur in Holland and Belgium (in Bangladesh, genocide occurred - smaller than Rwanda), but it hasn't. In less densely populated countries - the Third Reich of German and Cambodia - people experienced genocide. However, along with other factors, population explosion can be a big factor of genocide. It is the author's conclusion.

In my opinion, the author's theory gave me some convincing explanation to my question "Why did such a tragedy happen?" after seeing the movie "Hotel Rwanda" and reading "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda" by Philip Gourevitch. But this tragedy is still beyond my imagination. I want to understand it, I need to, but I don't understand.

Haruki Murakami "1Q84"

Spoiler Warning: I didn't reveal the essence / the ending of this story on this entry, but write about some parts of this story. If you want to read Murakami's latest work without any advance knowledge, I recommend you to leave this entry.

For non-natives of Japanese: In Japanese, the pronunciation of "9" is the same of "Q". Why "1Q84?" not "1984"? After you read this book, you'll find the meaning.










[Introduction]
In 1984, Tokyo. Aomame (female), nearly thirty years old, is an instructor at a luxury sports club. She also has another job requiring "expertise and training". Having done the job, she gets out of a taxi on a heavily-congested Metropolitan Expressway, and begins to walk towards the emergency stairway to the ground.
Tengo (male), nearly thirty years old, is a math teacher of a prep school and sometimes submits his novels into contests for new novelists. An editor he knows approaches him to rewrite a prodigious novel "Air pupa" which was wrote by a female senior high school student.


[My impression]
Like other Haruki Murakami's full-length novels, this work made me to want to discuss it with other people who have read this novel. As usual, he never explains to readers the meaning of the curious and heart-swaying story. It is open to interpretation, depending on us. Yes, I understand that many people think that his works don't need interpretation but impression. In both case, I want to ask and tell readers "What do you think about the events / the sentences of "1Q84"?"

Compared to other Murakami's works, this book mentioned many groups that has clear real models (for instance, Jehovah's Witnesses(Wikipedia) and The Yamagishi Association (a agriculture commune) ) and concrete place-names appeared. That adds to the realism and shows up unreal aspects of this story. However, his new style of camera-eye describing which was apparent in "After Dark" isn't found. I think that this work doesn't show Murakami's new frontier - for example, new describing style or new composition of a story, etc. This work is the successor of "Kafka on the Shore" due to the same styles of using two main characters.

Needless to say, for me, this novel is incredible excellent for being a unpredictably page-turner story, simple and wonderful appropriate metaphors, and sentences which has good rhythm and are easy to read. Such Murakami's work's brilliant characteristics have not diminished yet over time. Through fifteen hours of reading, I never felt boredom but felt seamless stimulation. I feel it is difficult to find such novels.

Nonetheless, I am not satisfied with one point. I anticipated his answer to events in this novel: violence to females and kids (not only physically but also mental). Ordinary, a story has a beginning and an ending. However, I feel that this work has a beginning but doesn't have the ending of the events. (This is my feeling, maybe other people have other feelings.) Due to this point and other points (I refrain to explain them in detail now), I think this novel have not completed. There is possibility to release the sequel in future, I anticipate.

Above all, I want to discuss this Murakami's latest work – How do you think / feel about the events / the sentences? When is the English version released?

Geoff Emerick "Here, There and Everywhere"

The Japanese version of this book is "The Last truth of the Beatles Sound", it is a good selection, I think. This is an excellent documentary, biography, and growing-up story of a young sound engineer. The original title "Here, There and Everywhere" is also good for its contents, whose author is one of the few people who can talk about the Beatles' history because he worked with them.

In short, I would like to say that this is one of the best books about the Beatles history. In particular, I strongly believe that people who have listened to their music enthusiastically will enjoy this book. A friend of mine who loves the Beatles said, "I think that this is the book that gives answers to the questions of the world's beatlemaniacs" I agree with this.

For me, the biggest question was about the sound of "Abbey Road". Each of the Beatles' albums were recorded with a unique sound, this was because of changes in musicianship and recording technology. I feel "Rubber Soul" and "Abbey Road" have totally different sounds. I'm disappointed the former, the author Geoff didn't participated in this album, so the question still remains, but for the later, Geoff wrote the answer clearly. I was so impressed (he seems not to like the sound of "Abbey Road", I love it). about their sound and songs were answered by this book.

The value of this book is high because for the documentary of the Beatles' sound making aspect, in addition to this, the aspect about the describing of the people including four beatles is also distinguishing. The important factor for biographies are love and objectivity, are apparent in this book throughly. For instance, about George Harrison, the author didn't hesitate to write about George's poor techniques and ignorable atmosphere in the early days of the band. But on the other hand, he also didn't hesitate to give applause for George's great works in the later days of the band. And about George Martin, the producer of the Beatles, Geoff wrote the truth - there are many great work by Geoff but people have always thought they were George Martin's - without selfish pride. On the other hand, he wrote clearly about George Martin's prominent works, but he also wrote about how the Beatles sometimes alienated Martin in the later days of the band. This book has good balance of "love" and "objectivity" as above examples.

You can also read this book as the story of Geoff Emerick's growth: just after his high school graduation. He was hired by EMI, he met the Beatles, especially after the "Revolver" album, he developed as a professional sound engineer with the Beatles' music development. This point also impressed me. He responded to the Beatles demand as a professional, sometimes produce results that surpassing the Beatles' expectation under heavy pressure. Reading this book, I asked myself how I do my business with eagerness and innovation like Geoff. It is nonsense comparing genius Geoff to me, anyway, this book encouraged me by Geoff's attitude.

I've read many books about the Beatles, this book is the most intriguing and full of good things, I think. I feel that maybe no other book about the Beatles could surpass this book never be written.

At the end, I felt the following point again: the Beatles' magic. As many fans know, the Beatles didn't have unity as a band when they recorded "White Album" and their teamwork was at a peak when "Sgt. Pepper" was recorded collapsed. Of course this book described that situation without allowance. However, for me, "White Album" is one of the masterpieces of the Beatles. Why? After reading this book, the big riddle still remains.

Toru Takagi / The War Public Relations Company

Since the Yugoslavia conflict of the 90s, the international society has thought Serbia as evil. Why do most people think only Serbia as evil, not Bosnia? Why did people have strong concern about the Yugoslavia conflict even though they didn’t have oil and economic power. For the former question, I thought the reason why was, Serbia was the strongest in Yugoslavia. For the latter question, I thought the reason why was, Yugoslavia is in Europe and people are white. However, I have changed my thoughts after reading this book. At least in the Bosnia conflict, it was the power of an American private company labeled that Serbia as “evil” and Bosnia’s Muslims became “Victims”.

Before surveying this book, let me summarize the Bosnia conflict. Yugoslavia union consisted of various ethnic groups. After the strong leader Tito’s death and the Cold War ending, every ethnic group wanted to have their own nations. At first, Slovenia and Croatia became independent. Next, when Bosnia-Hercegovina tried to become independent, a problem arose.

Slovenia consists of Slovenian and Croatia consists of Croatian. On the other hand, Bosnia-Hercegovina consists of 40% Muslim, 30% Serbian and 20% Croatian. Serbian and Croatian dominate the mainland, Serbia and Croatia. However, Muslims have only Bosnia-Hercegovina. If Bosnia-Hercegovina became independent, Serbian people and Croatian people in Bosnia, would become an ethnic minority group because they are isolated from the mainland. So Serbian and Croatian representatives left Bosnia government. After all, Bosnia-Hercegovina was ruled by a Muslim government, even though the country containing two other ethnic groups. However, the “Ethnic minority group” Serbian had a stronger military power than the Muslim’s because of the support of Serbia. This unbalance between “weak mainstream” and “strong branch” became the origin of the conflict.

The first scene of this book is the US visit of Dr. Haris Silajdzic, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Hercegovina. He had the mission: if Bosnia was attacked by Serbia, the international society will be in favor of Bosnia, not Serbia. He succeeded to make the meeting with the Secretary of State Baker and received the following advice; if Bosnia want the US’s power, you need to control the opinion of the US people. A civil-right activist, who was a friend of Silajdzic, introduced him to Jim Harff of PR company, Ruder Finn. PR companies’ works is to generate positive opinions for their client. Jim Harff was the man whose clients were nations.

Harff and the president Finn decided to accept the offer for their company's fame and position among the PR company world. Their committee of ethics didn't forget to confirm that Muslims were the real "victims" and this work had no problems on ethical ground.

Then, Harff started to support Silajdzic all out as a professional. At first, Harff set up many press conferences, because Silajdzic was very good at English. Harff frequently reported Bosnia's tragedies to people of importance, to change the public opinion using the Bosnia-Hercegovina Fax-Update. Healso set up oppoturnities for Silajdzic to appear on TV programs and give interviews to journalists. (After these interviews, Harff and Silajdzic never forgot to write thank you letters to the journalists.) He made "stage directions" for Silajdzic, not as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but as a witness who had just seen Bosnia's tragedy right then. (Actually, he was staying at the US all the time, and didn't go back to Bosnia.) These steady efforts bore fruits and the US people began to be interested in Bosnia.

Meanwhile, a phrase made Bosnia's position among the US public change dramatically.

Harff thought that it was important to get Americans to recognize that Bosnia's problems were concerned with "democracy" and "human rights". Therefore he decided to use the phrase "ethnic cleansing" when he received the news that Serbian had selected and exiled Muslims from their dwelling village.

This phrase was appropriate for stimulating American's human-rights-mind. If this phrase had been "contemporary holocaust", American Jewish people might think the phrase a blasphemy for holocaust victims. However, the phrase "ethnic cleansing" was no problem. In additon, this one phrase was enough to express Bosnia's tragedy strongly. Harff started to use this phrase for most Bosnia reports.

This effort produced much effect. In the May, journalists didn't know the place where Bosnia was correctly, but in the July, some ordinary American people began to declare to adopt Bosnian children who lost their parents. At that time, The UN Secretary-General Ghali (born in Africa) said that there were at least ten places which had more serious conditions than Sarajevo. It was true, but international society criticized that saying intensively. At last, on 9th of July, President Bush used the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to blame Serbia at CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe).

Of course, Serbia didn't keep silent. At the end of July, President Milosevic asked for Millan Panic to be the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia Union. Panic was the man who had sought refuge in the US, established a medicine company and succeed in business. In the US, he made an appeal to the US people tosupporting Serbia using an advocacy ad. Milosevic thought that Panic was useful for changing the evil image of Serbia (At that time, the Yugo Union was almost the same of Serbia.) After his inaugurating the President, Panic gathered his close subordinates who were good at English and sent them abroad to make an appeal known as "changing Serbia". And like Bosnia, he delegated his subordinate to get a powerful PR company on his side. However, he realized Serbia's delay.

The powerful PR companies had already contracted the other Yugoslavia members. Panic's subordinate managed to find a good PR company which hadn't contracted with other nations, but the company replied that they couldn't contract with Yugoslavia Union because it meant being against economic sanctions. For that reason, Panic asked a Serbian in America to make a contract with a PR company for Serbia, and this PR company accepted Panic's offer.

At precisely that same time, the second phrase "concentration camp" appeared. The origin was the news that Serbian made a concentration camp of Muslims. The news was from a New York tabloid and the reporter didn't confirm the information firsthand, only that he had heard that a man had apparently escaped from a camp. Harff understood the importance of this article, he wrote the news on the Fax-Update. This second phrase became popular in mass-media like the first phrase "ethnic cleansing".

Because of this second phrase, the PR company which had decided to contract with Yugoslavia refused the contract. The company told Yugoslavia that they couldn't make Yugo-support-image under such circumstances. Panic on the verge of Yugoslavia's image collapsing, visited Bosnia the Government suddenly by himself with ABC TV reporters, but during the visit, a member of the TV crew was shot and killed, so the meeting between Panic and Bosnia's Prime Minister canceled. On the 22nd of September, the UN exiled the Yugoslavia Union.

These Harff's strategy succeeded for both Bosnia and Ruder Finn. Nevertheless, Silajdzic didn't pay much money (only $90,000) and was in a bad mood whenever paying money. On the other hand, Harff received an award of their PR company world. Ruder Finn got many businesses. The clients were the companies which had defective products, if these companies had made bad decisions without consulting with Harff then the companies would have collapsed.

Now, I admit that if you can make the public opinion of the US be on your side, it means that you make the public opinion if the whole world in your side. A private company can change a nation's destiny – that's American company's power.

I also realized the importance of the ability of English among the international society. Silajdzic was proficient in English, so he could made direct messages to the US media. His English ability meant strong power of their PR plan.

The strongest point that I realized from this case is the power and importance of presentation skills, personal relationships and eagerness in "communication". Harff triumphed based on these factors. His work made Serbia's images worse than reality, I understand some people were blamed for that. However, I also think Harff's work deserves praise. At least, he didn't tell a lie.

After this case, Harff became independent and now he is the CEO of Global Communicators Inc. If Harff had supported Rwanda and Sudan, their destiny might have changed dramatically.

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David Snowdon / Aging with Grace

The world of abbeys is suitable for medical studies. All nuns never smoke and have the same situation of medical treatment, meal and living. Due to the same situations comparative research is easy. Why do some nuns have Alzheimer disease and other nuns not under such the same situations? The author, David Snowdon (Ph.D.), focused on this point and studied it.

The fact he found at first surprised me who know next to nothing about aging. The better educated nuns, the less death rate they have at all age. Research at Massachusetts (of the public) before this study showed the same results. However, this research showed people who graduated only elementary school have higher smoking rate and lower level medical treatment than other educated people. They have the cause. On the other hand, nuns also have the same tendency under the equal environments.

Proceeding the study, the author realized the existence of precious documents for study at abbeys. They are short autobiographies that nuns wrote when they entered abbeys. He assumed that he could research the relationship between Alzheimer disease and nuns' intelligence at their younger age. Then, he turned to Dr. Susan Kemper, who is the specialist for aging and language ability.

Dr. Kemper proposed him the research for "meaning density" of sentences in nuns' autobiographies. "Meaning density" is the number of propositions in every ten words. The author researched the mutual relations of "meaning density" in nuns' autobiographies at their younger ages and the cognition tests results for Alzheimer disease at their older ages. After that, he found clear correlations between the two.

In other words, people who had the high literate abilities to write high "meaning density" sentences tended to have a smaller chance to develop Alzheimer disease.

However, some people criticized the way of this study. They say, such high-meaning-density sentences might be relatively too complex and unintelligible. The unintelligible sentences show writers' low language ability. The author argued that all the autobiographies that they analyzed featured correct grammar and expressed clear thought properly. He declared that high-meaning-density sentences never mean unintelligible.

On the other hand, the author had the question as follows: Hemmingway's sentences are famous for his concise style. If we analyze his sentences, what result do we find? Dr. Kemper's reply: High-meaning-density sentences don't always compose excellent literature.

It surprised me that language ability at younger ages affects everyday life at older ages. It might be natural that we want to do something for our children for their future lives. Dr. Kemper gives us good advice, the answer is read to children. According to her advice, meaning density depends on vocabulary and the ability to read and understand. She said that to increase vocabulary and the ability to read, the best way is to read books to a child when he / she are infant.

Of course, the cause of Alzheimer disease isn't only language ability. It depends on genes, habit of smoking, having enough vegetables. This book gave me a new viewpoint as even the language ability affecting Alzheimer as the same way of other facts.

It was also interesting to me, the way found the results. Not only the author but also the Sisters co-operated in the study. They hand in their writings, tests and their brain after their death. I was intrigued by both the unexpected results and the process of the study.

Collapse: One Island, Two Peoples, Two Histories

This chapter focused on two nations, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in the large Caribbean island of Hispaniola. These two nations embodied this book's subtitle: How societies choose to fail or succeed.

You can find much difference between the two nations. The wooded area of Haiti is only 1% of the area of the whole country, the Dominican Republic has 28% wooded area in the whole country. Haiti is one of the lowest income countries in the world except for Africa. It has one third of the area of the whole Hispaniola island but two thirds population for the whole island. In other words, it falls in a vicious cycle of poverty and high population growth. Social infrastructure still doesn't supply many citizens with electricity, water, sewage, medical care and schooling.

On the other hand, the Dominican Republic's income is five times larger than Haiti, its population density and population growth rate are both lower than Haiti. Many people go to the U.S. to work and send money to their Dominican families, some of them succeed as baseball players. (For instance, Sammy Sosa) Of course, security level is different between the two nations. When I checked out their security information on the webpages of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in December 2007, they told us of travel warnings for Haiti, but no warning for the Dominican Republic.

What made such differences between the two nations on one island? The answer is not simple like the Easter Island case. However, history affected the difference like Easter Island.

On Hispaniola Island, people who were of the same race with Native Americans once lived, but after the Spanish came, they were exterminated with Spanish disease and killing. After the extermination of Native Americans on Hispaniola Island, the Europeans repopulated with slaves from Africa. Slaves were worked hard for sugar plantations.

That was the typical pattern of European ruling of the Americas. After that, the history of Hispaniola Island is not typical: the French occupied the western area of the island while the Spanish checked the other land, for example, for silver mines in Bolivia.

Then, being affected by the French Revolution, people of the western area of the island, Haiti, declared independence and became Haiti, the first black republic in 1804. When I read this part of the book, I breathed a sigh of relief. But this was Haiti's first step to a bad direction. The independent black people burned down plantations and killed well-educated French administrators. Consequently, their doing lost their economic base.

Haiti once occupied the whole of the island, then the eastern area of the island became known as Santo Domingo Republic. (Dominican Republic) Unlike Haiti, people of the Dominican Republic didn't destroy their economic base very much and didn't exclude foreigners. Therefore, the Dominican Republic's motto of "Welcome immigrants and Spanish OK" gathered many immigrants and foreigner's interest than Haiti's motto of "Excluding foreigners and Creole language (mixed African with French)".

As a result, the Dominican Republic could progress modernization and changed living energy from charcoal to hydroelectricity. On the other hand, Haiti's energy is still charcoal. Therefore, Haitian people have been cutting down trees.

These are not only reasons of difference.

Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic have had long period of dangerous dictators than the dictators of Haiti, the dictators of the Dominican Republic seemed to have much more concern about the natural environment. One of them, Trujillo, called for scientists to assess the environment and regulate deforestation in 1937. In the 1950s, he guarded wooded areas which could keep rain water to make hydroelectricity power stations work. His successor, Balaguer, was also eager to preserve wooded areas. He commanded that illegal people who cut down trees be shot from helicopters. When he retired at 94 years of age, he made a law to preserve the national parks against his successor who considered passing a weak national park preservation law. In contrast, the dictators of Haiti, Duvalier and his son, did no such presarvation.

Why were the dictators of the Dominican Republic so eager to preserve the environment? To begin with, why were they, who killed their political enemies and opposition factions, concerned about the environment? Maybe the main reason was economy. However, setting aside the period of Trujillo, in the period of Balaguer, which the nation modernized to a certain extent and established its economy base, why did he do so? I think such doing was merely his own interest.

The author, Diamond, had the same question. Therefore he asked Dominican people why Balaguer was so keen to preserve the environment, and all the answers were different. Some of them said, "Adolf Hitler loved dogs and brushed his teeth, but that doesn't mean that we should hate dogs and stop brushing our teeth." In addition, he recalled that he was about to be killed by a soldier in Indonesia under military control, but the government had a concrete plan to keep national parks' condition good. After all, the author didn't have clear answers, but he brought up that the logic of dictators are evil therefore they are never interested in preserving the environments was incorrect.

Reading this chapter, I learned some theories as follows:
Even a nation that was trampled on by Europe, used European know-how to establish the economy base.
You cannot construct a nation with only anger and pride.
Top-down system is the strongest in any means.

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Collapse: Twilight at Easter

There are no trees on Easter Island except for the trees which someone planted recently. I was convinced that this meant such a tragedy by the book "Collapse: How societies to fail or succeed" by Jared Diamond.

Originally, there were many trees on Easter Island like other Polynesian islands. In 900, people from other island settled on Easter Island and they prospered. Increasing population and communicating with tribes on the island provoked tribal conflicts. People established many moai statues for their demonstrations and many trees were cut down for moving and erecting moai statues.

As a result, all the trees on the island vanished from 1400 to 1600. The lack of trees affected the possibility to grow other plants and animals. This meant a decrease in something to eat, Easter Island inhabitants had began to decline.

At the time, people changed their religions and tore down the moai statues. The author, Jared Diamond, said it as "Easter Islander's toppling of their ancestral moai reminds me of Russians and Romanians toppling the statues of Stalin and Ceausescu when the Communist governments of those countries collapsed." I think it could be symbol of twilight at Easter Island. Although there were still some standing moais on the island when Captain Cook went there in 1774, all moais fall down by 1868.

Tragedy had not stopped with the decreasing food (plants and animals), The islanders also decreased. Until, finally, they begun to eat human bodies. According to excavating results, human bones were found out not only in graves but also at trash sites. The author introduced, "Oral traditions of the islanders are obsessed with cannibalism; the most inflammatory taunt that could be snarled at an enemy was 'The flesh of your mother sticks between your teeth.' " After that, epidemics and capturing islanders for slaves by Europeans made islander population only 111, despite several thousands to thirty thousand at their most prosperous era. (Now there are two thousand islanders on the island, but most of them are half-breeds.


Why did only Easter Islanders take such a destiny? The reason why is that some conditions of the island happened to make it difficult to grow trees. In a dry and relatively cool climate trees grow slowly, inactive volcanoes make non-fertile soils, no high mountains mean clouds don't appear easily and little rain, small island which is affected easily by environmental change, and because the island is located far from other islands, the islanders didn't move from the island.

The author compared the last reason with the contemporary society. Of course, in our society, people, substances and information circulate all over the world unlike the ancient Easter Island society. However, changing the point of view, we can say that Earth in the outer space is similar to the isolated island. We are in same boat. The author admitted this analogy is pushy, nevertheless, he insisted that we have to do something to avoid the destiny like the Easter Islanders. I agree with it.

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

Many people say, "Breeding is more important than birth." Is it true? I wanted to know the answer in detail, so I picked up this book. I've got two things out of this book. Firstly, the actual condition of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, secondly, the eugenics history of the U.S. and the existence of the man who embodied it.


1.The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

The Sperm Bank was established in 1980 by Robert Graham who was a glass maker businessman. His policy was that this system was needed for making excellent humans because too much welfare allows incompetents to have their offspring. Therefore this Bank was free of charge for both donors and receivers.

What was the story of the Bank? This book told us that the bank was irresponsible. The bank required detailed profiles of donors, but they didn't require its proof. The author searched for a man whose profile said his IQ was 160; the man said to the author that he had never taken an IQ test. He merely told the Bank a number they would be glad of. He only wanted a lot of babies (This man registered his sperm with two other sperm banks, what's more, he made a lot of children with ladies in his real life.)
The staff of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank were also generous or irresponsible – they arranged a correspondence with a donor and a receiver family. As for the founder, his eagerness was "true", but the eagerness didn't penetrate into the staff.

In addition to, Graham quit before he could collect the Nobel Prize winner's sperm (Above all, the bank didn't make the Nobel Prize winner's baby) and he begun to collect the sperm of men who were smart, young, sporty and good-looking. The author thought the reason why was that mothers didn't want a smart brain only, they wanted well-balanced babies. After all, Graham adjusted his policy to clients' needs "flexibly". The client mothers were conscious of donors' looks, in particular, they asked donors' heights invariably (Nobody received the sperm of the low-height man.)

Could the Bank make the genius babies? 271 babies were born from this Bank, and the author had contacts with thirty people of the 271. He said that generously they are above average, but individual variation is much. Is that "above average" based on the gene? He said it's suspicious. In short, it was based on the environment. He thinks that all ladies who knocked on the door of the Sperm Bank were keen to have super babies, and they made good environments for babies.

However, the author picked up on the examples of blood ties. For instance, the common points of the donor and his child are as follows:
The child plays the piano, the donor's mother was a professional pianist
The child dreams to be a marine biologist, the donor's father and a grand father were both well-known marine biologists
The child likes to play chess, so does the donor
The child favors Russian composers (i.e. Rakhmaninov) more than German composers, so do a donor
The child resembles the donor
I was amazed at these similarities despite them never having been seen together.
This Bank was closed in 1999 because of the passing away of the establisher, Graham's successor.

2.The history of eugenics in the U.S.

This book told us not only about the Sperm Bank but also a background building up to that. It means that eugenics was popular in the U.S.

The word of "eugenics" was made by Francis Galton who was a cousin of Charles Darwin, but the U.S. people put it into practice. In the beginning of the 20th Century, white people's fear of other races and eugenics combined. In 1907, the law of forcible sterilization for mentally disabled people was passed. In the 1930s, sterilization for ineligible people became compulsory. They say up to sixty thousands people were operated on till the 1960s.

There was such "negative eugenics"(decreasing "ineligible" people). On the other hand, "positive eugenics"(increasing "excellent" people) grew in popularity, then the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank was established.

William Shockley was the man who embodied such eugenics passages. He was the Nobel Prize winner for his invention of the transistor.

I agree that he was excellent for his invention, but I can't agree that he was also excellent to understand human emotion. After he invented the transistor, he realized that a royalty of the transistor is attributed to his company (Bell Labs) and quit his company. He established an enterprise and employed young smart workers, for instance, Robert Noyce (one of the founders of Intel), Gordon Moore (the advocator of "Moore's Law" which describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware.) So far so good. But in the new company, he advocated "an open mind" and put up spreadsheets of all employees on a wall, advocated "the flat system" and exerted influence as a dictator. Employees left the company.

Then, he was open to say his theory. For example, in the U.S., black people's IQ is inferior to white people by 12 points, that is unable to be adjusted by social welfare or education because it depends on a genetic problem. Nazis contributed to decreasing genetic diseases because they did sterilization. And so on. It seems that he felt glad to provide his sperm for Graham's sperm bank.

At any rate, it seems that Shockley is a radical example of a man who is excellent but has problem in the root of humanity.


3.Interested in juicy stories

I personally think the human is a creature who tends to be affected strongly by environments, so I nearly agree that "Breeding is more important than birth." But sometimes juicy stories of genetic affection are interesting to me. For example, Japanese translator's trailer of this book: "I am endlessly interested in irresponsible juicy stories like tabloids: What songs does the child of Paul McCartney and Carole King give us? Could the child of Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt inherit the talent of the blues guitar without his/her parents' indulgence of cocaine?" I am also really interested in such juicy stories.

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The End of Poverty

I have private English language lesson, every two weeks, for two hours. During a conversation at this lesson about a topic of the world's development gap, I commented on the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond as my most impressive book and explained the contents of the book. My teacher then recommended "The End of Poverty" by Jeffery Sachs. I was strongly interested in the book because not only was the introduction written by Bono of U2, but I felt reliance in my teacher. I got this book as soon as possible.

I haven't read this book completely, but I think it will be "the best book I have read in 2007" even though it is just January now. the reason I feel so is as follows:

1. Subject of this book
They say that people should help poor people. Of course, I agree for some time I have been interested in people from very poor countries, for example, Africa. I know that there are many poor people all over the world, even in developed countries. However, I think that there is a vast difference between most poor people in developed countries and poor people in very under developed countries. The point is "they can live and develop by themselves or not". "The End of Poverty" concentrates on these kinds of people.

2. "Calm optimism"
The subtitle of the book is "How we can make it happen in our lifetime". Yes, this book isn't for people who keep grieving the world's problem, but for people who have the will to change it better.
This book has many data and chart (fortunately, they are easy to understand even for people who feel allergic to mathematics like me). They sometimes show tragic present state, sometimes a bright possibility. Jeffery Sachs emphasizes that we can change the world in our lifetime in both cases. Such "calm optimism" is the reason I love this book.

3. Exciting case studies
This book is not just only data, theory, and proposal. Dr. Sachs is an active, practical economist. His career as a consultant for some countries economical politics is broad, beginning in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, etc. These case studies are excellent; both as interesting documentaries and a friendly political economic textbook. I have no knowledge of political economic, but I can feel excited by Dr. Sachs's adventure.

4. New viewpoints and information
I am learning many viewpoints and information on this issue of the world's poverty. I will write about them in detail in my next entry, but the most surprising hopeful information I have learned is that "the wealth of the world isn't constant." Dr. Sachs says that the world economy is developing entirely, not dependent on only depriving the third world's wealth by developed countries. I think it is the fundamental fact of believing in the phrase "change the world", because if the world's wealth is constant, the only solution to make poverty history is to decrease population. We human beings can develop together all over the world –unfortunately, we cannot vanish economic differences among many countries immediately but I think it is very big and good news.

What kind of people are those? An example of Malawi people is introduced in this book. People cultivate crops, but there aren't enough to sell to other people because the amounts are very small, even for family members. To make matters worse, even if they can product enough amounts of crops, they have no road or car to sell them to market.

Reasons of cultivating production shortage are two; The first is the low technique of agriculture. People have less chance of higher education, cannot afford effective fertilizers. The second is epidemic. AIDS massacres adults, malaria kills all ages, even though we have a method to cure both diseases. Such epidemics make desperate cases; Because of dying all sons and daughters, a grandmother is left to raise as many as 15 grandchildren. Under conditions like these, people cannot live and develop by themselves.


New viewpoints and information that "The End of Poverty" brings to me

1. Solutions for economic crisis of developing countries are very similar to clinical medicine.
Dr. Sachs says the reasons for failures while helping developing countries are due to a lack of fundamental viewpoints as follows;

1) The human body (economy) is composed of complex system. There is not only one failure. In addition to, one failure tends to cause other failures.

2) An individual diagnosis is important because of the complex system. Doctors know that fever symptoms have many causes. There are many diagnoses for that, so doctors have a checklist to diagnose precisely.

3) All medical treatments are family treatments. If a doctor treats a child properly, only a diagnosis isn't enough. He / she needs to understand the child's family environment.

4) Observation and feedback are necessary. A good doctor knows each diagnosis is not the final answer but hypothesis. If he / she finds out a failure, he /she changes their treatment flexibly.

5) The doctor is considered specialist personnel.
I was a consultant for call centers to construct or to diagnose them. These five points convince me very much. I find it difficult to believe that the IMF or other organization didn't have such a basic method, because of this, it has been a tremendous tragedy for the world. They are the doctors of the country and its many people.

2. The reason for Africa's poverty
They guess many reasons for Africa's poverty. The two biggest of these reasons are "History of Western countries plunder" and "corruptions of politicians" But both of these are wrong, says Dr. Sachs. Some countries, which have had harsh periods of westerners' plundering, are developing. A good example is Vietnam. According to the research by Transparency International, some African countries are less corrupt than some Asian countries. However, as to economic development, Asian countries are higher than African countries. If these opinions are correct, what is the true reason for Africa's poverty?

The answers, according to Dr. Sachs, are epidemics, droughts and distance from the world's market. Tremendous people have died from AIDS and malaria in Africa. Most of the African people live in rural areas, which have few infrastructure systems. It means they are vulnerable to droughts and have difficulty participating in market – no available transportation. These answers are easy to understand and convince me, as a reader of "Guns, Germs and Steel", whose theme is geographical features have made the world's development gap, not biological gap of human races.

3. The reason for the different results between China and the East European / Russian countries
Dr. Sachs, as an economical politics consultant, managed to plan successful economics growths of Bolivia and Poland, but failed in Russia. (He wrote it in this book frankly, it made a favorable impression on me.)
I had a question in association with this case. Why did Russia (the Soviet Union) fail in and China succeed in developing economics? Both were similar socialist countries. This book has a clear answer about this:

1) The Soviet Union had a huge amount of external debt but China didn't.

2) China had long coastlines that supported an economic development dependent on exporting. However, the Soviet Union and East European countries didn't have such long coastlines, therefore they also didn't have an advantage to access international trading at low costs.

3) China had co-operators who lived in overseas countries and made Chinese communities. They played the roles of overseas investors and became role models. On the other hand, generally, the Soviet Union didn't have such overseas communities.
4) The Soviet Union encountered a steep decline of producing oil at the starting point of their innovation, but China didn't.

5) The Soviet Union proceeded with their own industrialization that depended on original technologies that were not compatible with the West (the USA, EU and Japan). However, China's technologies still stayed at a low level, so she introduced machines and processes to the West easily.

I feel it is an irony that the Soviet's industrialization annoyed their development. To change the subject, personally, I think Stalin's only good deal was the propulsion of Soviet's industrializations. Now that I found out the propulsion was not profitable, what was Stalin's good works?
4. How can we make extreme poverty end?

Dr. Sachs' answer to this question is also clear. He said that wealthy countries should support extreme poverty with countries 0.7% GNP. (Of course, it is important to know not only "how much" but also "how". This entry focuses on "how much". For your information, Sachs said this about "how" - the first priorities to invest in are roads, electric power, transportation, soil, drinkable water, sanitary accommodations and disease control.) If wealthy countries proceed this program till 2015, the cost to support extreme poverty countries will decrease.

How much is lack? The USA has the largest amount of lack for 0.7% GNP, 38 billion dollars. Japan has lack for 13 billion dollars, about 100 dollars per person. For this situation, Dr. Sachs proposed a new tax system for collecting more money from billionaires.

In this book, he wrote nothing like "we shall begin to act for making poverty history personally" Instead, he proposed readers to move governments to support poor countries. I found out that realistic solutions to exterminate extreme poverty are by politics, which is more powerful than people's acts.

The power of this book
I wrote a lot about this book. The biggest impression was that I could realize make extreme poverty end, which was something that weighed on my mind. Dr. Sachs provides hope and a solution to this problem through his calm optimism. I think we will be proud of our generation if it will be the generation to make extreme poverty history.

For that, I have applied to donate money to the UNHCR. Next, I feel the need to watch politicians and reflect on it for the purpose of voting or for signatures. I am an ordinary man who manages to support my family and myself. This book made me solve the problems of poverty.
That is the power of this book.

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From "Collapse" - Martha's Vineyard Island

I read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" everyday. Every part of the book is cool and interesting. Not only its main contents: history, geography, archaeology and biology of many countries and areas in the world but also its sub topics. I learn much information from such sub topics of this book as follows:

Main and sub topics
Diamond contends some reasons why ancient people destroyed their environments and their societies collapsed. One reason, in particular, is a society that relies on another specific society ends the trade relation. He gave us an example of Pitcairn Island in Polynesia. When the island was "found" by westerners in 1790, there were no people on the island, but some ruins showed them ancient human habitation. Why did the islanders vanish? The answer is that Pitcarn was totally depended on the nearby Mangareva island for trade. A massive increase in the population of Mangareva island eventually led to the destruction of the island environment, thus, ending its trade with Pitcarn island and other island. Pitcairn Island is so small and has little natural resources except fine stones for stone tools. For example, it is hard to catch fish because the surrounding sea bottom falls of steeply. Thus, people couldn't live without trade. That's the main topic of the chapter.

As for sub topic, it is the sentence about the small world like Pitcairn Island: "If the small population did ignore incest taboos, the resulting inbreeding may have caused congenital physical anomalies to proliferate, as exemplified by deafness on Martha's Vineyard Island of Massachusetts or on the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha."
I didn't know of Martha's Vineyard Island and Tristan da Cunha. I felt they were interesting so I searched and visited some websites.


Martha's Vineyard Island
The story of this island began in the mid-1600s. Many puritans went to this island from Weald, Kent in England, which was famous for many deafness caused by a genetic mutation. In 1854, according to a survey, the United States national average was one deaf person in 5728, but in Martha's Vineyard it was one in 155. Because the gene for deafness was recessive, such a large number of deaf people meant their parents must have had a common ancestor.

In 1881, a scholar studied deaf people in Martha's Vineyard Island and concluded that the deafness was caused by genes. So he recommended that deaf men don't marry with deaf women in the view of eugenics. His name is Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

But the people of the island were well adapted to such a situation. People had original sign language and all residents, whether normal or deaf, could use it. The last person who could use this language died in 1952 and the language vanished, but this case is still appreciated as a successful barrier-free approach.

A report about Amazon.co.jp

Amazon.co.jp is one of the most popular net-stores in Japan, but it is infamous for their secretive management. They don't accept most interviews, and don't reveal their management data, even the net sales. A documentary writer was frustrated with this situation, so he quit his job as the chief editor of a logistics magazine and got a part-time job for a logistics center of Amazon.co.jp, of course keeping his real purpose for this job a secret from Amazon.

His job is to pick books from many huge shelves and carry them to a packing counter. Amazon promotes rationalization and efficiency in a positive manner, but it is impossible to mechanize this picking process, because all books have their own size. For this purpose, Amazon employs 400 part-time-jobbers at a 900yen(7.5US$,6euro)-an-hour salary. It is the job the reporter had.

Amazon controls the workers with a time tracking machine. The machine tells Amazon and the workers how many books they are picking in a minute. Amazon sets a target as 3 books / min. Because of its difficulty, workers can't be lazy. This simple job goes on every single day. The finishing time of this job changes every day, and depends on the number of orders from customers. Sometimes the staff tells workers to work overtime untill 8 pm at the start, and sometimes he tells them to stop working at 3 pm. 9 / 10 workers quit this job in one year. Workers have no loyalty to Amazon.

The reporter gathered information about Amazon from workers in the center, and interviewed a retired chief executive of the logistics company and rival company of Amazon. He estimates that the last sales amount of Amazon was far and away ahead of rival companies (more than ten folds of rivals), a 70% amount of the biggest bookstore chain in Japan, Kinokuniya. In his opinion, Amazon's strength is based on their corrective logistics demand forecast, and thoroughly "customer-first" thinking (for example, customers can returned books they bought from Amazon any time within 30 days.).

He finds a future society in Amazon's model. It is a workplace that consists of "thinking workers who make manuals and earn a high salary, and non-thinking workers who are controlled by the manual and earn a low salary." His feeling about Amazon is "As a customer, I want to buy again. As a worker, never again."