There was an incident called "High school girl murder filled in concrete" about ten years ago. Recently, I read an article in a newspaper that some of the criminals were released from jail and began to work, and some of them got married. I was quite surprised that they were released in such a short time. I even thought that they may be in jail forever. Then I read an article, "Mass media and a wrong image of youth becoming vicious" on the newspaper, Asahi on August 24.
Recently there are full of information that crimes committed by youth has been increasing. And it is frequently insisted that the Criminal Law for Youth should be revised and punishment should be more severe. According to the article, however, murder committed by youth has not been increasing based on the statistics. It has rather been decreasing comparing to 1960's when the crimes by youth was peaked. This situation is totally different from that of other developed countries. Number of victims has also been decreased to approximately one forth since 1960's.
There are two main reasons why the situation generally said and the fact are different. Firstly the National Police Agency sometimes announces "increasing" comparing to the year when incidentally there were less crimes. Secondly, these years mass media sensationally report crimes that are quite rare. But actually youth is becoming more moderate.
The feature of these 30 years is a decreasing of the rate of re-committing crimes. It can be concluded that current system of the Criminal Law for Youth has worked well. In Japan the rate of re-committing crimes of twenties are very low comparing to other countries. In the article regarding revising the Criminal Law for Youth the author declares that it is a folly to follow the system that was built in countries where crimes are occurring much more than Japan.
So I was relieved, as I read that article. Murders by high school students has not increased. And if people who once committed vicious crimes are rehabilitated now, they can be out of jail, live ordinary life and we should accept them.
Part I
I suppose I had a weak digestion in my high school days. I did not go to school frequently due to bellyache. But it was recovered around lunch time. So it might not be physically weak.
Real stomachache had begun in university days . One day I could not stand the pain and I went to a doctor several years later after the graduation. A doctor told me it was a duodenal ulcer. He also told me that it was natural to get ulcer as my favorite foods were hot stuff like Kimchi (Korean cabbage pickles), mustard, wasabi, etc. and I had drunken several cups of strong coffee a day, drunken like a fish and smoked two packages of strong cigarette a day. He said since my stomach acid seemed strong, I could possibly get ulcer due to irritant food. Then, to avoid redevelopment of ulcer, he showed me the alternative;
"To stop to have irritant foods, or to stop smoking"
Then I decided to continue to smoke.
Then I started to keep the relationship with the ULCER. I stopped to have irritant foods completely. ( It should be up to cigarette itself not me that I can stop irritant foods but can not stop smoking, because stopping irritant foods could be the evidence of my strong will. ) It came to stomachache when I got tired due to insufficient sleeping hours, drunk too much for several days or caught a bad cold. Sometimes stomachache caused backache. Anytime I felt even a slight pain, I took medicine or took sufficient sleeping hours to prevent chapping of stomach wall proceed. It was important to watch on the turn of the seasons when stomach frequently went wrong. By this sort of care, I could prevent ulcer, even though chapping occurred.
These years Helicobacter Pylori has gotten into news. They say that 70% of Japanese over 40's carry it and it is one of causes of stomach or duodenal ulcer. Some years ago, it had been believed that it was caused by "stress". In my home medical books that I bought about 10 years ago, it is declared, "Stomach ulcer is caused by stress and the reason why it occurs frequently in Spring is because of reorganization in company or class." Although it seems that medical treatment like carrying out a lavage of stomach has not been authorized yet in Japan, I have heard a rumor that it is done in US.
But this Spring, I changed a medicine of hay fever to a stronger one, had a lot of chance to attend drinking parties, had insufficient sleeping hours for weeks, and furthermore, had foods that contained a lot of garlic or spicy stuff at a Japanese style drinking bar that is run by a company which Nagayama-san whom I have recently worked with belongs to. Here came an unusual pain. It was a pain of ulcer that I have forgotten for a long time.
I made up my mind to go to a doctor. ( I have a principle not to go to hospitals. ) I thought that I would try a treatment for Helicobacter Pylori .
Part II
Using the Internet, I found a hospital that conduct pylori treatment where I could go within 30 minutes. A doctor there told me, "It could be most likely an ulcer", after several questions. (So I came here.) Endoscopy was scheduled one week later. This hospital served no-pain endoscopy. I expected comfortable endoscopic test without pain while inserting a tube into stomach. They collected my blood on that day.
Pylori is a bacterium formally called helicobacter pylori that lives in the stomach and the duodenum. It used to be thought that the stomach contained no bacteria due to gastric juice. But the bacteria live in a layer of mucus that protects the stomach wall from gastric juice. I was told that pylori itself releases alkaline liquid to neutralize gastric acid. Recently they have learned it should be a cause of various troubles of stomach and finally it should cause an ulcer. Stomach and duodenum ulcer recurs frequently. But many cases are reported it would not recur if pylori is removed.
Yogurt against pylori is available. Once some doctor tried to test pylori in mouth. But he failed to cultivate pylori in that mouth. He found it has a sort of lactobacillus in its stomach and pylori was not cultivated due to the lactobacillus. Recently yogurt that contains this kind of lactobacillus has been on the market. I tried it then. Now I have them on breakfast and dinner.
As a matter of fact, I had concern on the day of endoscopy. Blood collection a week ago seemed not appropriate and I had subcutaneous bleeding around the injected point. Furthermore a doctor in that hospital looked gloomy and spoke not crisply. I was nervous. But I decided to have endoscopy anyhow.
No-pain endoscopy was actually no pain because I fell asleep in five seconds after anesthetic injection directly to vein. It passed almost one hour when I was awake. The doctor showed me photos. He said there was duodenal ulcer and pylori possibly lives on the spots that were paler color. He collected stomach organ while testing. It would be sent to some research center and two weeks later he would receive the result of examination. ( Actually my wife heard from him instead of me, because I was dizzy by anesthesia. ) I received stomach medicine for two weeks and pylori treatment would start next time.
Final Part
Two weeks later, I received four kinds of medicine for Pylori. Two is for treatment of bacterium infection, one is for ulcer and one is for curing mucus of stomach. For two week dosing, 90% of patients remove pylori and can avoid recurring of ulcer. But each medicine has risk causing eczema, diarrhea, inflammation in mouth, dizziness, constipation, stomach upset, bleeding from small intestine, and so on. If I am lucky, nothing would happen. I decided to endure a sort of side effects in order to have coffee or kimchi that I have not had for nearly 20 years.
The result is good. Pylori in my stomach seemed to be removed completely and my stomach is very fine now. I do not have pain in my stomach when I drink ice coffee on hot summer day or have kimchi in yakiniku-ya (berbecue house). But actually I had some side effects while I had medicine. They are;
1. This is not a side effect of medicine. I had pain at the right side of throat after I awoke from the anesthetic. That doctor must have injured my throat with endoscopy device. The pain continued on following day.
2. On the first and second nights, I had pain in my belly. It might be caused by bleeding from small intestine. I had to take strongest medicine four doses a day. I stopped to take the fourth one. The pain was gone.
3. A couple of days later, I had eruption on my thighs. In the beginning I had small red spots sparsely. Then one third of thigh became red. When I went to a doctor, he said that it did not seemed to be caused by medicine but he was not sure (he also said that it might be due to fungus.), and he wanted me to go to a dermatologist. When I went to a dermatologist, he said, "it is just an eruption." He gave me ointment. It was gone in one week.
4. On the second week, I was surprised that the color of my tongue became brown. I did not go to a doctor. After finishing dosing, it was gone in a couple of days. I felt bitter in my mouth while my tongue was brown.
I have no idea whether followings are related to medicine or not. I had two changes in my body.
5. I was sleepy. I am sleepy for about an hour after I wake up because my blood pressure is low. But I used never to be sleepy during daytime after that. For a month since I started the treatment I got to be sleepy when I was working at my office. It was hard to be awake in boring meetings. Now it is OK.
6. I felt my eyes hazed for about a month. I had poor sight for long distance. I thought I would change my glasses. Recently it returned.
Anyway trouble of my stomach has completely cured. But my wife sometimes feel pain at her stomach. Her analysis is that pylori suffered from antibiotics and moved from me to her while we were sleeping.
The end.
For your information : Helicobacter Foundation
About pyramid. I like this kind of stories and I have read books regarding mysterious archaeologic stories. Since I read "Fingerprint of God" of Graham Hancock, I have been interested in it more and more. When I visited New York, I bought a book called "The Complete Pyramids" of Mark Lehner. I am now studying it a little bit academically.
That means that 26 stones were set in one hour. That is, they set a stone more than 2 tons every 2.3 minutes. I feel it would take a couple of minutes for a field director to say "OK, folks, are you ready ? Let's raise it., etc.". Once I discussed with my wife regarding this issue. We thought it would be reasonable to set a stone every one hour. Then,
This means that it would take 525 years to build it. Pharaoh who ordered would possibly have gone when it would be completed.
Anyway, it just makes mysterious more. I just started to read "The Complete Pyramids" of Mark Lehner. I will report again when I read the part of how to build pyramid in the book.
We Japanese encounter "Eigo" (Japanese word for English) in Junior High School for the first time. In the class usually they first listen to a tape that natives, who are Americans not English, read the text book. And a teacher and students recite the text book with the tape, then look over the meanings of the sentences.
Reciting the text book with the tape is like this;
"What is this ?" "Howatto ezu jisu ?"
"My name is Tom." "My nehmu ezu Tomu."
"Is this a pen ?" "Izu jisu a pen' ?"
"Yes, it is." "Yesu, itto ezu."
They pronounce the sentences adding vowel to every consonant with flat accent. Basically English and Japanese are totally different language. We can not transcribe English pronunciation in Japanese. But in this way, Japanese transcribe English in Japanese. Therefore we have full of strange "Eigo" words. When we visit English speaking countries, it is rather funny that they never understand "Maku-do-narudo", "Ken-tackie", "Sebun-irebun", "Metoro-poli-tan'" and so on. ( Pronounce these words putting accent to every vowel.)
This situation might start after the war ended. (the war is Fifteen Years War 1931 - 1945, that is from Manchuria incident to Pacific war.) I never believe that it was same as that of Meiji era, 1868 - 1912. We can find examples in older "Eigo" words, like "'meriken" (American), "wai-shutsu" (white shirts) "Siran-purie" (Sit down please) "Uchu hasamu te ?" (Would you have some tea ?) and so on.
Anyway "Eigo" that we are learning in the school education in japan is far from English. (As much difference as that of "Yakyu" and "baseball".) Therefore many Japanese spend too much effort for English or patiently wait for coming of the days when Japanese economy would overwhelm all over the world and the Japanese could be the standard language in the world.
Japanese speak slowly with flat accent. This is the very way of Japanese language pronunciation. So, when some Japanese do not understand what you talk, speak slowly, not speak many different expressions in your speed. Now on the street there are full of English staff like movies, music, beer, cokes, cloths, cosmetics, etc. We are becoming familiar with them. Someday Japanese realize that the language is for communication not for just an exam, and they will start to speak English not "Eigo" in Japanese.
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