Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

As part of the author's Japanese to English translation freelance work , he is currently working on transcribing some Japanese interviews into English.  Interestingly, the contents are not of business or mainstream entertainment, as market demand would usually expect, but stories of a niche community of Japanese interested in aspects of the Chicano culture.  For people who do not know, Chicano refers to inner-city Mexican-American culture, a distinct immigrant culture that straddles the supposedly "pure" Mexican and "pure" American cultures of the two countries' cultural mainstream.

It is hard to believe, but Tsuruoka, a coastal city of little more than 100,000 people in Yamagata Prefecture, has been designated a UNESCO City of Gastronomy since 2014.  And the designation really shows in the local food.  From locally harvested rice, fresh seafood from Sea of Japan, to locally branded beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, the ingredients are of top-quality.  They are cooked in what are countlessly emphasized as truly local ways, steeped in local traditions, and supposedly unique and not found anywhere else in the country.  Local chefs and hotel staff are undoubtedly proud of the culinary tradition.

Undertaking a popular political movement against a government backed by military force is often not the easiest of tasks, and the task is particularly difficult if the government is a military junta with no hesitation to use force to keep itself in power.  Organizers of political movements, with no military force of its own, inevitably come up against the barrels of guns when confronting the state, often with devastating consequences that results in endless bloodshed.  The state, fearful of losing moral authority and political legitimacy as murderers of unarmed civilians, would of course like to suppress news of such confrontations.