A Sand Century
"The beginning of an end" is an oxymoron, like "Agree to oppose" as a Japanese comic character Tensai Bakabon (Moronic Genius)'s dad sometimes cries out. The list can run the whole gamut from "absolutely unsure," "abundant poverty," "academic fraternity" to "young adult," "young sixty," and "zero deficit" (see OxymoronLlist.com). When the Soviet brand of communism ended, computers, net surfing and a new century came around, we thought a new era had started; the past was behind us and that was it; all we had to look to was, we presumed, what good was in store for us?
But, alas, it was still not "an end, period." It was in fact just a beginning of a whole big commotion toward an end. Everything has begun crumbling, rendering it only impossible to foresee the end result of it all, to take anything for granted. Modernity built for us seemingly secure platforms for peace, prosperity, rights and freedoms. We may, however, by letting our every whim corrode it, have finally triggered cave-ins here and there. It was like the Chinese warlords thoughtlessly destroying the Yang-tse embankment. Inundation spelled just out-of-handness of this world. The grand end has just been beginning. In other words, we are dead in the middle of oxymoronic days.
With technological singularity near, we are destined to find it too tough to keep abreast of technological advancements run amok; fossil-fuel-use-induced climatic climax (the Tipping Point) is over the horizon; distorted demographics are threatening social security and thus our post-retirement life, hitherto considered peaceable ever after; the sheer prospects of chromosome mapping and iPS cell-based body-parts duplication are sparking radical shifts in our life perspectives; digital duplication and transferring technology are threatening the very basis of the concept of possession. The list just goes on.
The brave new world that's still to take shape is definitely of quicksand nature.
Dedicated Housewife 
Masami has always called herself a "bad housewife." She likes working outside the house, rather than handling chores at home. The year 2007 has seen her at home the whole year; at least she didn't go out to work. As we were all made to realize last year, she is still a test- and diploma-geek. She got her Architect and Interior Coordinator certificates last year. Her game this year is the Art Lumiere Master Diploma. She just began testing its water, but, just before Hideaki could say Jack Robinson, she stayed hard at it and filled the house with her works. See the sideboard door Sam decorated. This was the clincher for her grabbing the certificate.
Besides her artistic activities, Sam kept bent on choosing which junior high to send Seika and finding how to successfully make him pass their entrance exams. If being a housewife means fostering a smart kid, Sam does pass muster. Neither Masami nor Hideaki expected a few years ago that they would get involved in Japan's (or East Asia's, more generally) notorious infernal entrance exam to such a deep extent. Masami stays up until after midnight doing chores after tutoring Seika. Cross your fingers their efforts will pay off.
Soaked in story-telling and studies
Rakugo story-telling has long been Seika’s passion. Ever since he performed for two consecutive years a funny story of his own making on stage at his school’s send-off for school-leaving sixth-graders, he made up his mind to become a professional story-teller in the future. He reads tons of rakugo books at home, listens to rakugo mp3 files on his trips to juku, and nightly searches for websites dedicated now-dead old rakugo masters and enjoys seeing their pictures and listening to streaming sounds. Wikipedia Japanese is the portal he frequents for indepth rakugo tips. At one time, he was asked to perform a classical story to his peers in a class adjacent to his by its teacher, and did. At another time, on his way back from his juku, he happened to be in the same train coach with his former classmate. He remembered Seika's funny stories and asked him to perform one then and there. Seika accepted his request and began staging the requested story while sitting next to him. Some fellow passengers, though complete strangers, began by eavesdropping and finally got completely absorbed in Seika's performance. They were heard chuckling from time to time in the middle of his story, and at its end, delightedly gave him a hand, though not big, in honor of other passengers, in the same coach but not near enough to be listening.
Seika is also bent on studies. Soon to finish his elementary school, he is supposed to, say, have learned to write more than 1000 Chinese ideograms. Yes, clever enough, he has learned them all and more, though his handwriting is clumsy. Some call his letters idiotgrams. Besides compulsory elementary school, he goes to juku cram schools on Monday-Tuesday and Saturday-Sunday, a 15-minute and a 45-minute train ride each trip, respectively. He comes home after nine and reviews what he learned that day and makes preparations for the next session, only to go to bed with mom near midnight. He participated in a three-day summer intensive study session at a plush hotel in an upscale resort Naeba. He studied, made worthy friends and got braced for further studies. In November, as the school-finishing six-graders, he and his school pals went to Hakone and Kamakura on a school journey. The Big Buddha was what he found impressive.
Hideaki
If the ordinary and mundane days of this year of his are six of one, even the most extraordinary exciting days of this year of his were half a dozen of the other. In other words, nothing much happened to Hideaki.
Well, if you insist, he did go out of Japan, on duty along with his students and other teachers. The destination was Sydney, Australia. The time was in November, its early summer. Fun? Well, so-so. The class he went along with went whitewarter-rafting and to the Manly Beach resort; the whole group went to the rainy Blue Mountains with no views seen, and to the cloudy Bondi Beach, noted for its "Bondi blue" waters and skies, finding only leaden stretch of waters and low-hanging clouds (one student got bitten by a jellyfish, to boot). If there was one thing exciting and worth mentioning, it was his walking alone across the Harbour Bridge on the final day. 
Why not so much fun? Well, for him, there's nothing like traveling with Sam and Seika. He feels lonely without them every moment. （See more Sydney photos here)
As the yearend nears, one thing nags him. He loves them, alright, but Masami declares that next spring, when Seika finishes elementary school and gets free at last, they will together fly to Sydney or Cairns and "dispense with Hideaki." Why not go with him? Well, Sam defends that Hideaki has been to three Australian cities ---Brisbane in 1999, Cairns in 2005 and Sydney this time --- and that both Seika and Sam deserve the trip and relaxation, as "Seika studied hard and Sam helped him do so assiduously." This justifiably leaves Hideaki speechless.
Family trips
It was not exactly a family trip in the strict sense, but in spring, Seika and Masami went to Osaka. Towards the end of March, Hideaki had to go to Kobe on business, as High School's baseball club participated in the High School Invitational Baseball Tournament. Masami as one of its alumni came up with a plan to go and root for her Alma Mater team. Seika went too. They stayed at a hotel in an adjacent city of Osaka, famous for its bustling Dine-Till-You-Die Doton-bori street. Seika enjoyed his stay to his stomach's content. 
Hiraizumi is an ancient city in Japan's Tohoku (Northeast) District that flourished in the 11th-12th centuries. With Seika busy with his studies, the family gave up this year on their annual overseas travel and settled for a one-day train-and-bus tour of Northeast Japan, towards the end of July. See the picture of the Hall of Light.
Families
Masami's mother Hideko tended to be confined in their apartment, after her internal organ problem was revealed in a medical checkup. The treatment that started in early summer has proved effective; her doctor says her conditions have taken a turn for the better in late fall. Now she goes out on her own for a walk. Teruaki, partly due to his age and partly to Hideko's illness, quit his part-time job at long last in August. Now he is a dedicated househusband, dedicated to chores and his wife.
Masami's sister Yuko still lives in Hong Kong. Her husband Masatoshi is always busy, leaving home early in the morning, coming home late at night. Shunsuke their son is now a football bum. When they came home to Japan, Hideaki gasped at Shunsuke's erudition about the world soccer.
Hideaki's parents Yoshifumi and Kiyoko are weakening but fine. Yoshifumi drives and they can go out shopping on their own. Kiyoko sometimes becomes bed-confined for no serious reason. She's just invalid.
Hope and courage
20th-century American analyst Erik Erikson crystallized the human's earliest-stage developmental task as "hope." He also says, however, the power newborns get from hope is not an independent and absolute value but the positive balance of good minus bad. The point is that hope should outweigh disappointment, not that there be no disappointments; there should be.
A 19th-20th-century Japanese poet Takuboku Ishikawa likened his life difficulties to "a grip of sand." Well, life is growing difficult these days. It seems as hard-to-grasp as sand. But, as we mentioned last year, if courage is something we pluck purely spontaneously and not what naturally comes in the course of necessary process, what is wrong with sand being hard to grasp, or life being difficult? This very unwieldiness is the spice of life, something we should enjoy overcoming. Like sand, life has never been easy to grasp. If it seemed so for a period of time recently, it was just a figment of imagination effected by mysterious modernity. That is where courage comes in and we step out.
(On December 23, we had our year-end party. Share some of our fun and food.)
May you all have a Merry Christmas and a tight grip on a Happy New Year!
Masami, Seika, & Hideaki
