Anna Matsushita

  Our local shrine’s festival resumed for the first time in three years. Streets were once again jolly with illuminated lanterns. Kids were playing wood flute and drums to add festive feeling. They were performing the music in front of train station. People enjoyed the music in the evening.   I assume that the shrine must have planned the festival when the number of corona patients were decreasing daily – at least until June 2022. People must have put much effort into the preparation, looking forward once again to practice the music, drew out the portable shrine (Omikoshi) ready to be carried around the town, and float to carry the music bands.   Before COVID-19, the festival was like these;   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oWNuFH-CIg https://youtu.be/97cu-n3QXrc I watched the children playing music with somewhat mixed feeling. By the time the festival started, the number of COVID-19 patients were increasing at tremendous speed. I was tracking only the daily figure

 New COVID variant is now spreading across Japan. I almost lost track of how many waves passed by, but the media reports that this is the 7 th wave here. The number of positive cases doubled over the past two weeks. Tokyo now sees more than 30,000 patients.   Despite this depressing news, I saw few positive changes.   My former employer, a travel company selling tours from Japan to Europe and Middle East, has brunch offices across Europe. These offices are now hiring some specialists who has experience working for group tours from Japan. It seems that European offices are ready to prepare for incoming tours from Asia.   The company used to handle tours from Asian countries to Europe and Middle East. With COVID-19, I heard that the offices in Japan is half closed, some comes to office for quotation and few tour operations. The employees there have been given temporary jobs at various institutions and organizations. I was relieved to hear that my former colleagues are still

The Japanese government announced that Japan will reopen to tourist from abroad from the beginning of June, allowing 20000 people per day.   This is good news for those who wish to visit and enjoy Japan for the first time in two years. Also, this is a big shift for those in travel industry in Japan. They can finally welcome visitors from abroad – some cities and towns have been relied upon visitors from abroad for years. They have been waiting for this moment for long time – two years are definitely long for some businesses such as restaurants, tourist spots and gift shops.   However, I had a big question: the Japanese government announced border reopening just two months before the scheduled date. And they only allow group tours with guides who control the itinerary and sanitation. I wondered - are the two months long enough to sell group tours?   I believe most of travel companies start selling group tours at least 6 month ahead of the departure dates. Two months are ju

  During COVID-19 restriction, I did another project: writing essays on drinks in mainly in Europe, Japan and Caucasus.   As a one engaged in travel industry, I wrote many writings for my job to introduce European drinks, including wines, beers, whiskeys and liqueurs.   The work involves many research on internet as well as trying the drink myself. I felt it important to experience the drink itself, as I was introducing the drinks to potential Japanese travellers abroad – I did not want to sound fake.   This time, I could spend more time researching the backgrounds of each drinks. It was interesting to learn the history of each drinks and passion of those who made the first drink, and success of the business.   The main reason I wrote this subject was that I wanted to carry on researching food and drinks abroad. When I was working at travel company, the work involved many research. I wanted to carry on with that, in order to keep the antenna up and keep the writing skil

 When I was young, I came across with a picture of two entertainers in Medieval Japan, called Kusemai dancer, and Shrabyoshi.   They were one of the prominent street performers in Medieval Japan, and they were mentioned in a book called “Seventy One Songs on Craftsmen", illustrating various craftsmen which was established at the end of 1500’s   Here is the link to the original painting of Kusemai dancer and Shirbyoshi. (On the bottle left) 狂言・能楽の歴史｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp)   (Kusemai dancer on the left, Shirabyoshi on the right )   能・世阿弥｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp) So, what are Kusemai dancer and Shirabyoshi ? Kusemai, also known as Mai-Mai (Roughly translated as "dance, dance") is a male street dancer, usually paired up with a singer, and dance while holding a folding fan. Shirabyoshi is a female dancer dressed in men’s clothe and sing song while dancing. Kusemai | the-Noh.com | Noh Terminology Shirabyōshi - Wikipedia   In a book of “Seventy

The state of emergency was declared at many authorities in Japan from early .July to the end of September 2021. The number of Covid-19 positive case was high, and it persisted nearly 2 month and half. During this period, I was looking for a job. I briefly worked at a call centre in Tokyo, but I left there due to my lack of high-quality voice, as well as professional speech needed at call centre. Job market was quite fast during the spring of 2021. To be on safe side, I looked for permanent job, or temporary to permanent job, since I will be turning 50 years old soon, and I needed a stable position. While browsing on job agent’s websites and platforms, I came across many temporary position open for young people newly graduated from schools and colleges. It reminded me of recent concern for the job market for young generation in Japan. As far as media reports said, many young college or university graduates in Japan were reportedly struggling to find permanent job. Many can’t get c

 On 10 September, the Japanese government decided to extend the state of emergency in 19 local authorities until 30September, 2021. At that time, the number of newly Covid contracted patients in Japan was around 9,000 per day. The number was still high enough to keep the restriction. 2 weeks have passed since then, and the number of COVID positive patient is now decreased to 2143 nationwide. The number of newly contracted patients in Tokyo and Osaka is still needs to be watched, but it is gradually but surely decreasing. Apart from working from home, washing hands, wearing facemask, limit the number of people when eating out and vaccine – what did we do to decrease the newly contracted patients? I went out today to bigger city in Kanagawa with my friend, and the station was packed with people. It looked just like any other weekend before corona. Only the thing that we noticed was that a department store s restricting the number of people coming in – the floor was already full

 “Wold you go and buy some milk “? My mother stormed into my room while I was having an online job interview. The day before the interview, I informed my parents about my schedule, and asked them to be quiet from 13:00 on. Apparently, my mother needed fight an urge to interfere. She said she knew I will be having something from 13:00. By the clock struck 13:00, she could not help but walking up to my door and say something – and she did. It was an embarrassing experience, but it continued. My friends, who are expert on working from home, suggested to put a notice on my door while I am busy. I told my parents that I will put a notice on my door when I am having an online interview. However, my mother said she can’t be sure if she can keep quiet. “More I am told not to do, I get temptation to break the rule”. What a childish opinion. Later I learned that there is psychological theory called “ Psychological Reactance ”, the tendency for people to react negatively when they feel

 I have been through personal IT literacy revolution within these couple of years. The company I worked 2 years ago was a small company without much information technology. Everything was done in paperwork. Attendance record was kept on paper, and I needed my boss’s signature. I started to work at another company in 2019, and briefly in 2021. The experience between these two years were revolutionary. For the first time in my life, I used online attendance record. Some of the meetings were done by Zoom, which I have also never heard of before. The company still needed to use lot of paper, but it was beginning to be replaced by mobile application. Conversation between branch offices abroad was done on online chat. Phones were replaced by internet phone.   Meeting was announced not by e-mail but by the Outlook invitation. During unemployment, I experienced interviews by Zoom and Teams, as the companies can't let candidate visit their offices. HR were also working from home so

Covid-19 vaccine rollout began sometimes in February 2021. In March, local authorities started to take appointments from elderly over 60 years old. Around May, appointments became available for middle ages (40 – 59 years old). There were varied opinions towards vaccine. Some simply took it. Some denied it, refusing that it didn’t’ go through sufficient clinical trials. When I had my first jab in summer 2021, the doctor said that this vaccination project is the biggest human experiment that world has ever seen.     Around May or June, just before vaccine became available for those between 20 – 39 years old, some media started to report that some younger generation were not positive taking the jabs. According the interviews by media, some younger people expressed their worries about rumour on SNS, the possible damages to their health. Some even mentioned about possible sterilization.  Parents with young children had worries, too – some of my friends were debating if it is right d

  As summer progress, the number of COVID-19 patients started to rise once again at alarming pace. I had a discussion with my friend about the possibility of lockdown in Tokyo. I have suggested positive opinion for the implementation of lockdown. As long as people are commuting across the local authorities and make contact with each other, the number of COVID positive case will keep increasing. My friend said it is a rubbish. She was firmly against the implementation of lockdown. According to her opinion, households with lower income will definitely be affected if lockdown was imposed. Some of the local authorities are too slow to support lower income families. They will deliver food supply to those families in need, only after 1 week from the implementation of lockdown. “What will happen to those families? They can’t go out, they can’t buy food online, and they have to wait for a week for their food! Are you telling them to starve to death? “ I had no idea about such a burea

 Tokyo Olympic games were held between 23 rd July to 08 th August 2021, and  Paralympic games were held between 24th August to 5 th September. As already reported in many medias, there were debates whether it should be held while Tokyo was under the State of Emergency. Every day medias were reporting about the debates on both pros and cons. In the end, the both game kicked off as scheduled. My local area, which is outside of Tokyo, was designated for the site for sailing games. There was a pictogram printed on the staircase of train station. The sailing game took place on the beach, on the left-hand side near an off-shore island.  I went to the beach few days before the game. To be honest, it seemed unrealistic that the game would be held there, as it was very quiet, no atmosphere of welcoming the teams from across the world. One of my old customer participated the Olympics as a volunteer. He used to work at a travel company, attending tours as tour leader. He is well travel

 The summer 2021 in Kanto area in Japan was, as always, very hot and muggy.  Refreshment in the evening was something to look forward to. Especially during COVID, choosing drinks became more fun compared to pre-COVID19 days. One of the popular cocktail in Japan is Lemon Sour (Lemon Spirit Fizz). It is normally made of lemon juice, vodka or Shochu ( one of Japanese spirit) and fizzy water. With plenty of ice cube, the fizzy drink is tremendously refreshing. It is one of the favoured drink at Izakaya (Japanese pub). There are variation using different fruits, such as grape fruits, grape, umeshu(Japanese apricot liquor) etc. As with most of people around the world during COVID days, I had my drinks at home. Going to a supermarket to choose canned sours became favourite routine. Rows of supermarket shelves were filled with various sours. Last year, many beverage companies somehow sold variety of sours, mainly lemon sours. The competition continued on this year as well.   I picked few

 “We are closed again due to the State of Emergency” Says the notice at my ex-colleague’s restaurant. One of my old colleague from the travel company is a manager of a delightful Yakitori (Skewered grilled chicken) restaurant in Sangen-Jaya, Tokyo. He went to Australia after working at a travel company, and he has acquired a taste for wine there. Later on, he started to work at a Yakitori restaurant chain, and was promoted to a manager. He started to collaborate with wineries in Japan, in order to seek for mariage of roast chicken and wine. His restaurant always serve welcome beer with little decoration, and the choice of fine Japanese wines is vast. I used to work at an office near his restaurant. After work, me and my colleagues sometimes went there, and enjoyed scrumptious grilled chickens with glasses of beer and wine. Like many of food service industries across the world, his restaurant had to go through hardship. Every time the state of emergency was declared in Tokyo, he h

 Yet another State of Emergency was declared in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, on 22 April, 2021. There was the fourth wave of Corona virus from April until June. This time Osaka and surrounding area were badly hit. The reason was not clear. It was possibly due to May holiday season. This year we had three consecutive national holiday after the first weekend of May. So we had a 5 consecutive holiday from 1 st to 5 th of May. People might have travelled far compared to last year’s May holiday period.   The tourism industry had a glimmer of hope, because some of the local authorities resumed their own travel campaigns. This campaign is known as GoTo Travel campaign , which subsidize about the half of the cost for accommodation. Each local authorities gave unique names to their own campaigns, such as "Himitsu no Tabi (non-crowded trip) by Fukuoka prefecture, or "Gokan ni Gochisou" (Feast to the five senses ) by Ishikawa Prefecture. Some of them even offered discount

  Our neighbour’s cat came to our garden for an afternoon nap. He has his favourite spot underneath the cherry tomato cage. The roses were in bloom and lavenders were budding. It was fine day, the weather was warm and dry, and everything seemed peaceful. I reflected the past 6 months. Since September 2020, I have been unemployed. The company I worked for needed to lay off 70% of workforce due to COVID19. Somehow, I managed to stay positive while unemployment, with occasional ups and downs. The main reason, I recall, was that I was with my family, also I was in touch with my friends and job advisors through SNS and e-mails. One of the person who supported me was a job counselor. I met my job counselor at his office in Yokohama. He was gentle and always helpful, suggested many job vacancies at stable businesses. My career at travel companies were not in the mainstream of their business. I was working on specialist’s visit abroad. The field of client’s fields were vast, from local or nati

  The State of Emergency was once again declared on 8th January until 7th February in Kanto region in Japan. Areas like Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba once again needed to follow the government’s request to restrict the unnecessary and non-urgent movement of people. This was later extended for one more month, until 21st March 2021. By then, I reckon that people were more used to the phrase “The State of Emergency”. People wore face masks all right, people worked from home, public transportations such as trains and buses were less crowded, schools had implemented online lessons, restaurants and bars were closed – I believe it was more or less the same situation across the world. However, people gradually changed their lifestyle. Many started to go to supermarkets for shopping taking entire family, including babies and small children. I recall that smaller children did not seems to take any precaution against Corona, with their bare faces and touching goods on supermarket shelves, di

 March came. The number of COVID-19 patients now seemed to be under control. Somehow, people seemed to have got used to the situation. One of the thing I noticed during COVID days is that we were not good at keeping social distance. The queue at the supermarket and train station were always packed, not many people seemed to be aware of the rule to keep distance anymore. I reckon it is partly because there is no penalty for rule breaking.  It was difficult to keep distance from the crowd, but you need to go shopping for grocery and take public transport to go to job centre. The number of COVID-19 patients was at one of the lowest in March 2021, with daily about 1,000 patients throughout Japan. Vaccine was gradually on roll out, and essential workers began taking vaccines. All we needed was a blue print when those who are not essential workers can get the jabs. I felt a luck of festivity in this season. We do have celebration of “Doll’s day”, when families with little girls celebrate