TsukuBlog

Those of us involved in trying to have Tsuchiura’s lotus root farmers take down their deadly bird-ensnaring nets have been making efforts to rescue as many birds as possible from slow starvation, until that end is achieved.

We have become, however, metaphorically and quite literally, stuck in the mud. First, there are the technical problems which need to be dealt with. These are: slogging through waist high muck which in this season is covered with a sheet of ice and makes the going very slow and dealing with the entanglements themselves which can be amazingly complex and even more time consuming as we do not want to damage property by cutting the nets.This is exacerbated by the weight of the birds themselves with makes the nets harder to deal with.

Maurice, who drives the long way from Iwama to look for and save living danglers has applied his ingenuity to making our activities more efficient. He has bought chest-high waders, has found tools useful for untangling knots, has found that covering the birds with a sack calms them down, and has developed a sling which takes the birds weight off of the entanglement.

Even for Maurice, the going is still very slow and we need more volunteers. We thought that an article in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper would give some publicity which would help our cause. Even though the reporter showed an interest in the problem and in what we were doing and was generally quite sympathetic, the subsequent article left us highly disappointed in that it didn’t mention many of the crucial points related to the issue. There was also no mention of our volunteer activities.

One reason for this might be that many Japanese are currently upset and emotional about the foreign protesters who boarded their whaling ships. If this is the case, it was very bad timing for us.

Though we have had many disappointments, we are not about to give up. We will continue to push for changing the situation. Many other publications besides Asahi Shimbun have shown an interest in this problem and we will continue to appeal to the public. If you have any good ideas, PLEASE contact us.

Something MUST be done about the senseless and cruel slaughter of birds in the nets around Lake Kasumigaura. And because Maurice, a Canadian living in Iwama has gotten involved, the beginnings of a volunteer rescue movement have started to germinate.

Maurice is an experienced environmental activist whose approach to getting things moving is to engage the farmers in friendly discussion in order to win them over to our side. Then if farmers refuse to or are not available to free birds entangled in their own fields, Maurice takes action, but strictly within the bounds of the law. He has purchased a pair of chest-high water-proof waders, and rubber gloves, and carries tools which are not used for cutting. He refuses to cut any nets in order to free birds (as the farmers themselves would do), because that could be considered an illegal act. Instead, he patiently and painstakingly untangles the ensnared wings legs and necks. He also takes precautions against bird flu by wearing a protective surgical mask. This approach is extemely time consuming, and we were only able to rescue six birds today. I felt impotent, standing on firm ground as Maurice plodded, like an astronaut on a planet with a strong gravitational pull, through the waist deep muck, slowly toiling to free the struggling survivers which he spotted with his uncanny eagle eyes.

Birds are continually being caught. Saving a handful of birds has no effect on the big picture and our ultimate aim is to have the nets come down as soon as possible. However, it was still extremely heartwarming and relieving to see birds that would have hung until starvation set in swim freely out into the lake.

We DEFINITELY need more people to get involved and we need more input and ideas.

Please contact us if you are interested in making a difference and doing THE RIGHT THING.

Thanks alot

Avi Landau
avi[at]tora.email.ne.jp
090-4221-4194

At 1:30 pm on a sultry Saturday July 12th, we gathered in front of the Sakura Gymnasium. The heat was intense and the air itself was like pea soup and seemed to pulsate with life. There were 28 of us in all, nature lovers, who had gathered from near and far to have a look at the cultural, historical and natural treasures of Konda-Dai, which is slated for a complete bulldozing so as to be turned into another DANCHI housing development.

As I have mentioned in a previous entry, this surprisingly large area of unused land located in the very heart of Tsukuba, received a temporary stay of execution when Kayoko Takahashi caught the construction company involved with the project red-handed as it attempted to secretly wipe out a hawk’s nest whose existence she had previously reported to the city office. Because of this incident, Ibaraki Prefecture has given the area a three year lease on life.

Takahashi-san has been working feverishly to make local residents aware and to get the local government to reconsider the future of this remarkably complete ecosystem. This month’s event was organized in order to give anyone interested a look at the richness of the Konda woods, which have made it possible for its resident hawk couple to successfully raise ALL THEIR YOUNG over the past three years. Not an easy feat, and one that shows the ecological strength of the Kondai-Dai woods.

Professor Satoshi Ohori, an ornithologist at Waseda University drove all the way to Konda to have a look at our local hawks, and give us some advice regarding how to go about a grass roots movement to protect the area.

We started with a walk through the village of Konda. As we shuffled along in the cruel heat, the wooded hill where Hanamuro Castle used to stand was directly behind us, while the forest under which the ruins of Konda Castle now rest lay dead ahead. These were wooden fortresses, or palisades, which were built to dominate the area in the Kamakura Period.

We stopped to examine a Batto Kannon Sacred Stone which stands at the head of a path leading to an ancient and beautiful stairway which ascends through a thick bamboo grove. At the top is the site of the old manor which was the residence of the court official who used to oversee this area in the Nara Period. I pointed out the rare sacred stones which are still carefully tended to by the local villagers.

We then headed into the woods where the hawks live. The three chicks are doing fine and fortunately did not seem to mind the large group of intruders. We tried to be as quiet as possible and quickly left filled with the excitement of a dramatic wildlife encounter.

We then returned to the Sakura gym where we had reserved a room for Professor Ohori’s talk. We stressed how it would be possible to save a portion of the woods which would allow the hawks to remain in the area if we got enough people involved, by signing petitions and calling the city and prefectural offices. He said that if enough people raised their voices, some of this forest might be saved.

With those encouraging words Ohori-Sesei rode off into the sunset leaving us with a sense of mission.

We will be having more meetings about the future of Konda-Dai in the near future. If you are interested, or would like to get involved contact Takahashi-san at kayoaro[AT]pd6.so-net.ne.jp or me, Avi Landau at avi[AT]tora.email.ne.jp. (Change the [AT] to an @ sign.)

And yes, that is Mt. Tsukuba in the background in the wood-block print of a bird of prey by Utagawa Hiroshige. It is almost the exact same scene that I see when I watch the hawks from my bedroom window.

At the Tsukuba International Exchange Fair last weekend, there were some people handing out flyers about registering your bone marrow (骨髄, こつずい). When I was handed a flyer, I remembered reading about a fellow foreign resident of Japan who needed to find a bone marrow donor, so I decided to go and get my bone marrow tested and registered while I was at the festival.

The whole procedure didn’t last very long. First, I had to fill out a form with my name and contact information and sign something to say that I did not have any of the listed afflictions. After that, I was given an explanation of what would happen if someone happened to need my bone marrow. The man explained that I would be given plenty of opportunities to say “no” for whatever reason — because I was sick, or tired, or even too busy — after a match is found. If I did eventually decide to donate my bone marrow, I would be in the hospital for about two or three days and all of my hospital expenses would be covered by the Japan Marrow Donor Program.

After the explanation was finished, I went and sat in a room to wait for a few minutes. There were lots of people in the room who had donated blood, and I would have been happy to donate some of my own while I was there, but since I lived in England for a year in the early 1990s, my blood cannot be accepted (because of the mad cow disease scare that happened around that time in England). I was eventually taken to a room where a doctor took my blood pressure and asked me a few questions. Once I passed the blood pressure test, a nurse took a very small amount of blood from my arm and sent me back to the reception area. At the reception area, I picked up my donor card and a present (two tea towels) and went back to the festival. The whole thing probably took about 30 to 40 minutes — but if the festival wasn’t happening at the time, I’m sure it would have been over even more quickly.

Since bone marrow matches are most likely to be found in people of similar racial background, it is important for foreign people who live in Japan to register themselves. Those of us who are not of Japanese descent have a very limited pool of bone marrow donors to choose from, should we fall ill. Since registration only takes a few minutes, doesn’t hurt (except for the prick of the needle), and can be done right in Tsukuba Center, I would like to encourage you to consider doing it. You can have your bone marrow tested and registered in Tsukuba at the Red Cross Blood Donation Center which is located on the second floor (the same level as the pedestrian deck) of AiAi Mall, in between Joyo Bank and Tsukuba Information Center. The Donation Center is open every day, including weekends, from 10am to 12 noon and from 2pm to 5pm. Address: Azuma 1-1364-1-4, Tel: 029-852-7888.

Many people will leave Tsukuba in the next couple of months, so I thought it might be a good time to remind everyone about the possibility of donating used items to various charities. The Tell and Sell Japan website has a list of some places that accept used items. One of the charities on that list is particularly in need of children’s things. I have included the information below.

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Give Kids a Chance
Will accept rehabilitative equipment for children with special needs, wheelchairs, adaptive chairs, foot braces, leg braces, hip supporters, Type A baby strollers (the big sturdy kind), strollers for twins (front and back style), buggy boards, bike toddler seats (with high back and harness). We are sending them to the Philippines to give to kids with special needs in orphanages and to the poor who can’t afford such things. We will pick up around Tokyo and Kanagawa area. Can’t pay cash-on-delivery (chakubarai) fees. We are concentrating our collection around Yokohama and can go as far as Chiba or Saitama. No deadline so please spread the word if you know someone who has any of these items. Give Kids A Chance. rshiroiwa[at]yahoo.com

See some items that have already been donated.

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Often these charities cannot afford the cost of having the item shipped, so you may incur some costs when you send your items. However, the idea that people who really need your used items — people who might not be able to have what you are trying to get rid of unless you make this small effort — are going to be able to make good use of them might help you justify the cost to yourself.

If you know of any charities or organizations that are not on the list, please let me know and I will add them.

An alternative title for this article could be ‘The Taka and Takahashi-san’ (Ms. Takahashi and the Hawk). That is because these are the chief protagonists in what has turned out to be a long and sometimes dirty (on the part of developers) struggle to preserve central Tsukuba’s last remaining tracts of wild land, the home to numerous plants and creatures, including the majestic and protected O-Taka (オオタカ) –the hawk.

Just north of the Sakura City Office, on both sides of the narrow road which runs by it from the Hanamuro intersection, there amazingly remain large areas of almost completely unused land, with brush so thick that in summer it is all but inaccessible, save for the few barely recognizable trails created by the small mammals which find shelter there. These are weasels, tanuki, rabbit and maybe even fox. The area resounds with the calls of pheasants (kiji), bush warbler (uguisu) and at night OWLS.

In the middle of this veritable jungle is Kayoko Takahashi’s tastefully designed house/aromatherapy studio. In her dining room there is always a field scope set up on a tripod. These days at almost any time during the day, if you put your eye to the eye-piece you will be in for a thrill. It is fixed on a favorite spot of the female O-Taka who you will almost surely see waiting for the return of her mate with food for their young. The actual nest sits a few trees away. This week the cry of the chicks is clearly audible.

My house is on the fringe of this same wilderness, and I can just make out Takahashi-san’s roof amidst the trees, from my bedroom window. Just the other day I received a surprise visit from the male hawk. A shadow passed, and I guessed it was just another crow on my veranda. I turned for a look and my eyes almost popped out of my head when, through the curtain, I recognized the large raptor, munching on a freshly caught prey, just a few feet from my bed.

With the TX development project, this area was chosen as the location for the railroad’s employee housing. It was ALL slated for clearing and development. Takahashi-san changed the course of events, however, by alertly informing officials about the annual presence of the breeding hawks and called for a re-evaluation of the project. Within a couple of days a bulldozer from the project’s contractor UR 都市再生機構 (UR Toshi Saisei Kiko) arrived and started to push down all the trees which Takahashi-san had indicated!!!! Lucky for two things, though. First they missed the actual breeding nest and had knocked out only an old nest they had spotted, and second Takahashi-san witnessed and filmed the whole incident!!! An order from the prefectural government was obtained to temporarily halt construction.

What happens next is still up in the air, but as you might know, government sponsored projects are  NEVER scrapped after being approved.For example, It was not  possible to stop the filling in and destruction of Isahaya Bay in Nagasaki Prefecture even  when eventually it was recognized by all parties that the huge project was ABSOLUTELY useless. But you never know, maybe things will work out differently in Tsukuba.

On Saturday July 12th at 1:30pm, we will tour the area paying special attention to flora,fauna and historical monuments. We will then of course  discuss the situation. Anyone interested in these procedings
can contact me at avi@tora.email.ne.jp

Please come and join in the fight to keep Tsukuba GREEN and BEAUTIFUL.

There is a serious animal cruelty problem in Kasumigaura. Birds are being trapped in lotus farmers’ nets and being left to die a slow and painful death. Read more about this issue and what Avi and Maurice are doing about it.

Avi and Maurice have started a group called “Kasumigaura Bird Rescue” to help save the birds. One of their proactive activities is to educate people about this problem by bringing them to the site and showing them the situation and what they are doing to fix it. They meet at the east exit of Tsuchiura Station and then go to Kasumigaura together. The next meeting will be on January 20. If you would like to help, please meet at the station at 10:30am. Call Maurice (090-1691-1590) to let him know that you will be attending and to get more information. (Also, let him know if you have a car and can shuttle a few people to the lake and back.)

Let’s make a difference together!

There will be a Kasumigaura Bird Rescue meeting on Thursday, February 28 from 8:45pm at Hot Stuff. Avi and Maurice will both be there to discuss this problem and look for solutions.

To find out more about the Kasumigaura Bird Rescue operation, please click on the following links.

• Save the Birds

href=”http://blog.alientimes.org/2007/12/bird-rescue-underway-six-saved-thousands-to-go/”>Bird Rescue Underway: Six Saved Thousands To Go

• Kasumigaura Bird Rescue

Though the vernal and autumnal equinoxes have been designated national holidays in Japan (it is around these days that it is customary to visit and clean the family graves), the winter and especially the summer solstices usually go by without any notice. Those with this year’s Japanese calender might notice the characters 夏至 (geshi, summer solstice) on the square marking June 21st, and that is about it. This contrasts sharply with the countries of Europe (especially the northern ones), which host a variety of festivals and ceremonies marking the day with the longest daylight hours of the year. This situation seems curious indeed for a country and a nation which pays such close attention to the flow of the seasons and the progression of natural phenomena.

One reason for this might be that the GESHI falls smack in the middle of the rainy season (梅雨, tsuyu), and is marred almost every year by gloomy, overcast weather. In fact, though there is almost a five hour difference in the length of daytime between the GESHI and the 冬至 (touji, winter solstice) in the Tsukuba area, the sun SHINES unobscured for many more hours on average on the shortest day of the year!

There is now a way to make your summer solstice MEANINGFUL, and certainly more fun than it has ever been for you in Japan before. For several years a movement has been growing which promotes turning the summer solstice into CANDLE NIGHT. As a way to promote energy conservation and environmental awareness, people around the world are asked to refrain from using electricity between 8 and 10pm. There are many ways life can be enjoyed without the help of the Tokyo Electric Power Company. You should try it!

For more information and plenty of ideas check out :
www.candle-night.org/english/

Of course you should conserve energy EVERY DAY ! This festive way of living without electricity for a few hours is a good place to start, especially for giving awareness to kids.

Have a happy 夏至. Enjoy the daylight! IT ONLY GETS SHORTER FROM TOMORROW!

Join ‘March in March’ Next Sunday and make history!

みんなさん、こんにちは！

「生活と権利のための外国人労働者実行委員会」（事務局長：鳥井一平）は、２００８年３月９日(日）の午後１時に渋谷駅の近くにある宮下公園で集合し、「安定した雇用と平等な社会をみんなに」というスローガンで、歴史に残す、２００８年マーチインマーチを行います。デモ行進でもあるが、雰囲気はパレードみたいです。

At 1pm on Sunday March 9, 2008, hundreds of foreigners and Japanese people will gather together in Miyashita Park near Shibuya Station. We will march around Shibuya, including past Shibuya Station, in a protest parade to demand job security and equality for all.

This is the 2008 March in March organized by the Foreign Workers Steering Committee (Chair Ippei Torii).

　「多民族ジャパン」は、もはや現実となっています。そろろろ、女性、外国人、身体障害者、様々な雇用形態で働いている労働者の均等待遇を求めましょう。不公平な競争ではなくて、思いやりや協力に基いた健全な社会を一緒に築きましょう！

Taminzoku Japan (multicultural Japan) is already a reality. It’s time to demand equality for foreigners, disabled, women and workers of all employment types. Together, let’s build a healthy society based on cooperation and compassion not on unfair competition.

　一人の人間が参加するだけで、測りきれないほど大きなインパクトを与えることになります。貴殿は、団体やホームページを運営していらっしゃるなら、このメッセージを掲載するようお願いできますでしょうか。手を組んで声をあげましょう！報道機関のみんなさんも、マーチインマーチを報道して頂けないでしょうか。

You can make an enormous difference just by showing up. If you run a rights organization or a website, please post this message and ask your members to turn out Sunday and turn up the volume. Let’s raise our voices together. If you are a media organization, please come and convey our demands to the public.

では来週、日曜日に、宜しくお願いします。

Thank You and See You Sunday!

Louis Carlet
Foreign Workers Steering Committee
March in March Officer

生活と権利のための外国人労働者実行委員会
マーチインマーチ担当
ルイス・カーレット

For questions, please call me at 090-9363-6580 or email me at
nambu.carlet[AT]ezweb.ne.jp

お質問などがおありでしたら、電話（090-9363-6580）またはメール（nambu.carlet[AT]ezweb.ne.jp）で御連絡下さい。

Okay, so a guy emails me yesterday. He and his wife are in a bind because she has just been diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer. She is 34. He doesn’t have a car, so he can’t take her to the hospital. He lives about 30 minutes away from Tsukuba. We have good hospitals here, so she has to come here for chemotherapy. (At least I assume that is why they have to come here for treatment.) So, I write up a letter to send to a local mailing list that i belong to (TAIRA) and send it out. I sent it after 1am last night. It is now 6:45am. I have already received replies from 7 people who have volunteered to drive them. I have had a “somewhat challenging” week and have been depressed about the state of humanity, what with all the bad news lately. But this is helping to cheer me up immensely.

I am so proud of my fellow Tsukubans today.

There is a second “moral” to this story. If you are a woman, find a way to get tested for breast cancer. Here is an excerpt from his letter to me.

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Even if no one is able to help, there is message worth reading. My partner has breast cancer, and we discovered it a little too late. She is in an advanced stage because it went undetected for about 7 years and has spread to her lymphatic system and sternum. She just turned 34 years old this month. What woman in her twenties thinks she should have breast cancer screening? Every woman should. Early detection is treatable and curable. Treatment for stages III and IV are just life-prolonging measures.

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I believe that Tsukuba City Hall offers a women’s health checkup once a year, but I am not sure of the content of the checkup exactly. The next time I get a notice in the mail, I will check the contents of the checkup and post the information here.

Englishman David, a long-time resident of Japan and father of two children, received some shocking news late last year. He was diagnosed with a rare disease which leaves his bone marrow unable to produce white or red blood cells. His immune system has practically shut down and left him unprotected against all nature of germs and viruses. David was forced to quit his teaching positions at several local universities at the end of November and was hospitalized just before the New Year.

Fortunately, there is hope for David. Put simply, he needs a bone marrow transplant, a procedure which has now become fairly standard. All that is required is a compatible donor. After a transplant operation, the donor’s bone marrow will grow back normally, and David’s life will be saved.

There is a well-organized bone marrow donor system in Japan, but finding a compatible donor is the problem. A suitable donor must meet six compatibility criteria, which means that the chance of two people being compatible is extremely small. Moreover, physiological differences mean that it is extremely unlikely that local (Japanese) donors’ marrow will be compatible with David’s Caucasian bone marrow. As there are currently no donor exchange programs with Europe, America is the only possibility, but the search procedure is likely to be long and costly. In matters such as these, half a year more can be the difference between life and death. The obvious solution is to try and find a donor among foreigners living in Japan.

Read more: HELP DAVID by testing for bone marrow compatibility

You can have your bone marrow (骨髄, こつずい) tested and registered in Tsukuba at the Red Cross Blood Donation Center near Tsukuba Information Center and Nova Hall. Having your bone marrow tested involves a simple blood test. Your bone marrow does not have to be extracted in order for it to be registered.

Second Harvest Japan, a non-profit organization that distributes food to soup kitchens, orphanages, the elderly, emergency shelters, single mothers, the homeless, migrant workers, and many others, is hosting a charity concert this weekend.

For those interested in classical music, the concert will feature Kumiko Oguro (Soprano), Yuko Shinmyo (Alto), Yoshiyuki Sakaguchi (Tenor), Kou Kanazawa (Bass), and Naoko Mizutani (Organ). The program will include Ave Maria, Jesus bleibet meine Freude BWV 147 (J.S. Bach), “Messiah” Hallelujah! (Handel), and Christmas songs.

Date: December 15, 2007 (Saturday)
Venue: St. Alban’s Church, Tokyo (across from Tokyo Tower, near Kamiyacho Station)
Time: 18:00 Open 18:30 Start
Price: 2,000 yen in advance, 2,500 yen at the door
Contact 03-3838-3827 / info[AT]2hj.org for tickets

For more information about volunteer opportunities throughout the year, visit the Second Harvest Japan website.

Tokyo English Life Line (TELL) is seeking energetic, skilled volunteers to assist on several new projects. TELL has been serving the international and Japanese communities in Tokyo and throughout Japan for almost 35 years. TELL’s programs are expanding and there are some great positions available for enthusiastic volunteers who want to gain experience, make new friends or simply give back to the community we live in. All positions are based in Tokyo with volunteers working flexible hours at home or in our Minami Aoyama office.

Current positions include:

• Event management
• PR and awareness assistants
• Administration
• Design and editing of brochures, newsletters and newspaper articles

For more information, please contact Chris Stevenson, TELL Volunteer & Fundraising Coordinator at 03-3498-0261.

Each year a small group of volunteers from Japan is assembled over the Christmas holidays to bring goods and goodwill to Vietnam.

During the two-week mission the group seeks to build bridges of friendship between Vietnam and her friends in the West.

See: Friendship Foundation of American Vietnamese

Elias Pampalk is working on music related research at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). He needs to do some user studies for his work. In particular, he needs to evaluate new tools to explore and discover music collections. He is looking for people who might be interested in participating in some user trials. One of the interfaces he wants to evaluate is “MusicRainbow” (http://staff.aist.go.jp/elias.pampalk/MusicRainbow/).

From Elias:

In the evaluations I would ask you to tryout the user interfaces and ask you some questions. Such an interview shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. It would be great if we could do these interviews somewhere close to Ninomiya House or AIST. The interviews would take place around January-February. I still have to check with my supervisor, but most likely I wont be able to offer any payment for your participation.

Currently I’m trying to find out how many (if any) participants I can find in Tsukuba. Please let me know if you are interested.

Please contact Elias if you can help.

YEH - Youth Ending Hunger Ibaraki
Annual Charity Concert

When:
July 5, Saturdayfrom 6PM to around 9PM,
Doors open at 5:30PM
Venue:
Tsukuba Als Hall
(2nd floor of the Tsukuba Public Library Building)
Tickets:
450yen advance, 500yen at the door

Program:
Part 1 (about 70min)
Opening ceremony
Performances by
- KANADE, String quartet
- Chie Morishima, piano
- Doo-Wop, a cappella

Part 2 (about 60min)
Slide Show
Performances by
- Mukuna Tshiakatumba, percussion and song
- Folklore Aikoukai, Peruvian and Bolivian music by Tsukuba University students

Part 3 (about 40min)
Performances by Tsugaru Jamisen Mugen Juku
Collaborated performance
Closing ceremony

For more information, contact Akiko Shirota of YEH Ibaraki
yeh_ibaraki[at]yahoo.co.jp

Related websites:
Youth Ending Hunger Ibarakli
TsukuNavi