Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

For the Japanese and foreigners alike, Japan is known as a land of hot springs... Perhaps too many hot springs. In a land where people have too few holidays and young workers faces decreasing starting salaries and increasing uncertainties in their job security, coaxing more people to far away from major cities even for a weekend trip is proving more and more difficult. And for those who are looking for an ideal dip in naturally warm waters, there are just too many hotels and hot spring towns fighting for attention using ever more ingenious ways.

As the coronavirus rages on both in China and across much of the world that the Chinese have frequent contact with, there has been an increasing emphasis on how the general public can avoid catching the virus just from going about their daily lives. While the talks of the need to arm oneself with proper tools and behaviors for isolation from potential carriers has led to shortages in everything from surgical masks to rice and toilet paper, even the hardiest isolationists must concede that in a global economy that depends on international movements of goods and people, people locking themselves indoors for weeks on end simply is not feasible.

It is funny how situations can change so quickly when it comes to a spreading virus. Just a week after this blog praised Japan for its relative calm despite having the largest number of cases outside China , the country is making a gradual but visible descent into increased concern and vigilance about the virus at the grassroots level. As several pieces of news about growing infections in Japan, the general public is becoming visibly irritable.

It has been several weeks since the coronavirus epidemic broke out of the central Chinese city of Wuhan. As China went into crisis mode, with the government struggling to stop a virus that has now infected tens of thousands and killed hundreds, Japan, as the next-door neighbor, inadvertently faces the pressure of how to prevent similar mass infection. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the number of people who travel between China and Japan, Japan has now become the country with the largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases outside China.

I thought the assassination of General Qassem Suleimani was the pinnacle of how a superpower can display its unhindered political power. Here it is a sovereign country A murdering a top military official of sovereign country B, entirely within the territory of sovereign country C without any sort of explicit agreement from elected officials of said country C before the event taking place. Complaints from C's officials are almost entirely ignored by their counterparts from A on the ground of national security taking precedence over respecting sovereign rights.

Global media outlets and government institutions are going into overdrive to spread information about a new strain of coronavirus originating in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. With more than 800 people infested, dozens dead, and cases already spreading to eight countries, there is clear urgency for significant measures to be taken globally to ensure that necessary precautions and medical resources are in place to prevent it from becoming a global-scale epidemic in the coming weeks and months. The Chinese government, for one, has taken dramatic measures to lock down entire cities to prevent the disease from spreading.

The sudden escape of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn from house arrest in Tokyo has captured the attention of the world, however briefly, of how the Japanese justice system works. Unfortunately, the attention has been a largely negative one, seen from the Japanese perspective. In so many words, the international news outlet has expressed mild sympathy for Ghosn, who they see as destined for a lengthy legal battle that he cannot possibly win fair and square, given Japan's 99% conviction rate and a prosecution system that can repeatedly arrest released suspects whenever new charges emerge.