Tokyo Olympics 1

We are lucky enough to have Tokyo Olympics 2 in 2020. How many people here remember we had another Tokyo Olympics almost 50 years ago? Yes, it was 1964 when The TO 1 was held. I was an elementary school boy at that time. And I saw a very shocking scene there.

Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow toastmasters!

It was the final match of the Judo tournament. Open weight division, which was the most important for the Japanese Judo athletes, because all the other 5 divisions were already won by Japanese Judo athletes. There, Japanese Judo champion, Mr Kaminaga, who had become a legend in the world of Judo was completely defeated by Mr Anton Geeshing from Holland. It was not a close match. It was Mr Geeshing's one-sided winning..

Until that time, in the world of Judo, Japan is "God", almighty, in a sense. In the World wide Judo champion ship tournament which had been held every year, the champions, the first prize winners are almost always Japanese Judo athletes. There was no exception at all. And the Tokyo Olympics 1 was the very first exception.

After that final match, Mr Anton Geeshing became a "Hero" national as well as international. When Geeshing came back to his home country, a big welcome back party was held in honor ho him. The prime ministers and some noble persons were present at the party. He created another legend in Europe's Judo World.

Later Mr Geeshing established a new company for new Judo uniforms which was a big success. After that he founded some companies and became the president. One company he founded was the one that produce professional wrestlers which proved to be a great success. Yes, he had a big talent as an entrepreneur.

Mr. Kaminaga remained one office worker for Japan's company for the rest of his life.  After a big success, Mr Geeshing passed away in 2010. Mr. Kaminaga also died some years before Mr Geeshing. That was the end of one story.

There is another drama, which had been kept secret, behind the first story. It was about Mr. Kaminaga's life. Mr. Kaminaga worked for a company in Japan and he was also had a special work in Kodokan. He worked for Kodokan as a chief of international section of Kodokan, because he could speak some English.

Before the Tokyo Olympics 1, all the international Judo tournaments was dealt with by International Judo Association. But the Tokyo Olympics was completely different and bigger event. From all over the world more than three thousand Judo people came to visit Tokyo. The section of international affairs of Kodokan had to handle every chores like Visa, plane tickets, hotels, accommodations, and of course, suitable food!.

How many people were there in the international section of Kodokan then. You never believe if I tell you the truth. Just 5!! and two of which were part time workers. This means that Mr Kaminaga should take all the responsibilities for that matter, and he did!

Six months before the Olympics, Mr Kaminaga didn't go back home, staying almost all day long at Kodokan, doing those chores. What made the situation worse was that those works prevented him from having a spare time to go to judo dojo and do his own practice.

I am very sorry to say that there was another accident just one month before the Olympics. He was involved in a traffic accident and had a very severe ligament injury in his left leg. Ligament is a stream of muscle around here and if you have injured here severely, you cannot walk. So was Mr Kaminaga.

In the final match, that was the truth. The result? That's what all of you already know.

Mr Geeshing was the winner of Judo tournament, and he was also a successful entrepreneur. He died as such. His death made a big headline on major newspapers. On the contrary Mr. Kaminaga's  death was reported in a very small article on newspapers.

Yes, Mr Geeshing was a winner. But does that mean Mr Kaminaga was a loser?

I don't think so.

Mr Kaminaga devoted his whole life to the development of Judo. He never think of himself or his reputation before and after the Olympics. Whenever Mr Kaminaga was asked about the final match with Mr Geeshing, all the words he said was "He was strong".

Mr Kaminaga didn't speak about his own result of the match, and he never let the people around him say anything about it, including his situation and physical injury he had before the match.

Was Mr Kaminaga a Loser?

No. He was the winner of his Life.
As a Japanese, I am proud of having him as a great Judo master, and one of the Last Samurai's.

Life is much easier than it was 500 years ago.

Thanks to the scientific and technological advancement today, the life now seems to be much easier to live than the old days. But I am afraid that is not true at all.

What is essential element to make our life easier? Sometimes it might be something very concrete such as the transportation system, or communication system, or basic infrastructure to support the society from the base. In this sense life is really becoming much easier.

Today public transportation system is almost almighty that it could take us to almost any place we would like to go. The Internet service has enabled us to have an immediate contact with the people living in the opposite side of the earth.

The news from different countries instantly arrives to our study and office. We are supposed to respond to them as soon as possible. That situation seems to have broken the physical distance which separated the people on the earth in the former days.

The superficial availability and convenience seem to have made the life quite easier. But a man live not for food, but for the "meaning" of life as well. Even if the superficial convenience seems to be enough, it does not give us the basic meaning we need to live our life.

Then what will give us the basic meaning of our life?

There seem to be so many answers to this questions. But the thing common in those answers is the real existence that gives us the ultimate answer to our life is something "beyond" the life. Something like religion, thought, new way of thinking would make it worth while to live a life.

Five hundred years ago, in the last phase of medieval period, and at the dawn of Renaissance time, the life was quite under control of church in the western countries. The dominance of the Church of course had many disadvantages but at the same time the Church gave us the ultimate and very vivid meaning toward life.

Like Dr Frankl's  experience in the concentration camp of Nazi, at the Auschwitz, we cannot live life without meaning and the meaning makes even the most fruitless life worth living. In this perspective the life now cannot always be said easier that it was 500 years ago.

Scientific and technological advance is always good.

The term "always" is very controversial. In this world nothing continues forever and there is no thing whose value is "always" true to "everything". So ninety-nine percent of the  matured persons would consider this topic as "false", just because the word "always"  is used there. But is it too superficial, isn't it?

Yes, it is true that all inclusive term is rarely properly used in the human world. it is, though, "an over-riding principle" and "There is no rule but has an exception". So here attention should be paid to the "exception".

Now some consideration should be given to the usage of the word "good". According to a dictionary at hand, the term "good" is defined as something or some situation that do us something advantageous. So something is being "good" when and only when the thing gives us what is wanted. So the next step is quite clear. What do you think about what we would like to have, in other words, what we would like to have from the bottom of our heart?

In the study of psychoanalysis, they use a technical term "the pleasure principle" which means that we human beings act according to subconscious instruction to go to something pleasurable. Let us think this way: if we made up our mind to learn from everything around us, from all the experiences including good and evil,  from the past experience as well as our expectations in the future, then can we conclude that everything is good?

If we apply this principle to "scientific and technological advance", then can we say safely that scientific and technological advance is "always" good?

As we all know scientific and technological advance could be sometimes very dangerous and gives us a great damage like FUKU-1 nuclear power plant accident. If we can learn a lesson from the accident and try our best not to repeat the case, isn't it at least an acceptable experience?

Only when we think this deeply, the topic today "Scientific and technological advance is always gool"?

It is acceptable for parents to use physical force to discipline their children.

These days we can see many pieces of news report on the newspapers concerning the child abuse by their own parents. Sometimes the contents of the news seems to be too much for almost all of us to see them directly. A child was beaten so hard he had a bone fracture on the skull which caused a very severe aftereffect. Another child was thrown into very hot water only because she took a defiant and a bit disobedient to the parents. As a result the child got burned so severely and even though was brought to the hospital soon she lost her life.

Reading those verious articles on the papers we usually feels it should be prohibited even for the paretens to use physical force under any circumstances towards their child(ren). There is every reason to think it to be banned by the law.Yes, the attitude is very correct and proper.

But is that to be a panacia to ban physical force from the side of parents?  Looking around the society, is it also the reality that there are so many examples of juvenile delinquency here and now? Some of them is more wily and dirty than we can expect of the minors. Some years ago some high schoo-driven-away students were reported to rape and killed a high school girl after more than one month's incarceration in one of the boys' house.

The key term here we have to bear in mind comes up: "Education" should be remembered at any moment of teaching discipline to the children or students at home as well as at schools.

Children are like "angles" when they were so young and parents sometimes forget their role as a socialization-teachers. When the children were infants, it OK to give them complete freedom and later on, as there are supposed to be "socialized", their freedom and liberty naturally would be limited. It is the parents and teachers who are responsible for their proper socialization.

So this speech would be concluded by pointing out the clear cut range for the allowance of physical force towards the children. It should be acceptable for the parents to use physical forct to the children as long as it is strictly limited within the range of "education" for the proper socialization of the children.