Adventure in LC

Blog Assignment

2006-12-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

It was fun for me to create blog. Since we were allowed to write anything we want, I could enjoy writing something and putting pictures. Not only the topic but also the frequency of posting was appropriate. It was comfortable for me to post once a week. If it were more than once a week, it would be too hard, and I would hate writing. In my opinion, this assignment of posting blog was good practice of writing English. However, the only what I want to claim was that our writing should have been corrected by native speakers. That was because, if not so, nobody would not review our writing and would not realize our mistakes. Therefore, this assignment of posting blog would be better for AES students if their writings were corrected.

Humanitarian Intervention

2006-12-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

Humanitarian Intervention:

Objection to Coercive Military Intervention

Satoshi Kikuchi

Lewis and Clark College

AES 220 (01)

December 13, 2006

Abstract

Humanitarian intervention is extremely controversial because two significant values are in conflict: state sovereignty and human rights. This issue was at stake during NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo War in 1999.

People who endorse humanitarian intervention emphasize on human dignity, and they assert that human rights have priority over state sovereignty. Thus they claim the right to use military coercive intervention for humanitarian emergency.

However, humanitarian intervention is not only almost impossible to use successfully in its operation but also likely to cause international disorder. Therefore, humanitarian intervention should not be allowed. There are several reasons to support this idea. First of all, international order owes its stability to the respect for the equality of state sovereignty and principle of nonintervention. Second, there is no agreement or any possibility of agreement about what is “just” because of the plurality of the society of states. Finally, humanitarian intervention is not appropriate because no states have the responsibility or duty to intervene in the domestic affairs of another state, so when they do intervene it is always with an agenda of self-interest.

Humanitarian intervention is the coercive interference in a sovereign state by other states or groups in a humanitarian emergency. There are several definitions of humanitarian intervention depending on scholars. First of all, it could be either coercive or non-coercive. Coercive intervention means interference in affairs in another country without any consent or agreement. Non-coercive intervention is interference based on consent. For instance, the government of a failed state may ask another country or international organization to send its armed forces to support governing. Next, humanitarian intervention could be either military or non-military. Military intervention is interference with armed forces. On the other hand, non-military intervention includes diplomatic and monetary interference. In this paper, coercive and military interventions are going to be discussed.

The concept of humanitarian intervention is extremely controversial because two significant values are in conflict. The two values are state sovereignty and human rights. State sovereignty is the exclusive right inherent in a state to govern its own territory and citizens. Also, Robert Jackson, who is a professor of international relations at Boston University, defines it as “a legal institution that authenticates a political order based on independent states whose governments are the principal authorities both domestically and internationally” (2005, p. 74). It is the core concept of international law and society of states and Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations requires states to follow this principle. Human rights are essential rights inherent in human beings regardless of the law. These two concepts—sovereignty, the supreme right of a state, and human rights, the essential rights of human beings, can conflict. It may not sound like a controversial problem because, needless to say, human rights should precede the rights of the state. However, if the intervention in another state were permitted, states could invade and launch wars against other countries. In addition, international order would completely collapse, and human rights could no longer be protected. Therefore, this issue is very controversial in international relations.

NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo War in 1999 ignited controversy about humanitarian intervention. In this civil war, Slobodan Milošević, the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, committed genocide against Albanians. The mass media of western countries reported this issue on a large scale with the catchphrase “ethnic cleansing.” Public opinion came to agree with the intervention in Kosovo. Then, because the peace negotiation failed, NATO carried out a bombing campaign against Serbia to stop the ethnic cleansing. Since this intervention was carried out without a resolution of the United Nations, it was clearly illegal. It violated the value of sovereignty. However, although this was a military campaign, which is usually criticized by those on the left, many liberals supported this intervention. That is because this action seemed to accomplish a just result. In other words, this campaign seemed to have as its goal rescuing Albanians. Thus, two values, sovereignty and human rights, were in conflict. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, which was established by the Prime Minister of Sweden, Göran Persson, to provide an independent analysis on the conflict in Kosovo, concluded that NATO’s bombing was “illegal but legitimate” (2000, p. 4). That is to say, the objective of the intervention was just, though the way of accomplishing it was illegal. Thus, the debate on humanitarian intervention became a remarkably controversial issue through NATO’s bombing of Serbia.

As explained above, the idea of humanitarian intervention raises an unresolvable conflict between sovereignty and human rights. To avoid serious collapse of international order such as occurred during the First and Second World War, international law should be respected. Therefore, humanitarian intervention should not be allowed because it would bring international disorder by violating the fundamental principle of state sovereignty and non-intervention, imposing one viewpoint of justice on international society, and being conducted arbitrarily by powerful states.

People who insist on using humanitarian intervention usually appeal to human dignity to support their actions. They state that military intervention should be utilized to forcibly protect civilians whose human rights are threatened by genocide, mass killing and ethnic cleansing. To endorse humanitarian intervention, Nicholas J. Wheeler, who is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Wales, focuses on changes made in the United Nations Security Council. According to Wheeler, since the 1990s, the Security Council has changed its policy to regard humanitarian emergencies inside a state’ borders as a menace to ‘international peace and security.’ This would suggest that “the principle of non-intervention is not sacrosanct if it permits governments to massively abuse human rights within their borders” (2004, pp. 32-34).

However, this argument is not persuasive because military intervention is ineffective to protect civilians from human rights abuse and is impossible to be executed with justice because interveners have to win the battle, avoiding political, economical, financial, material and human damage, while the nations which are the recipients of intervention might resist in illegal ways. When humanitarian intervention is executed, interveners are required to succeed in the operations without violating jus in bello, which means laws concerning practices during war. A failure of the operations and also violation of laws would be regarded as acceptance of injustice. Since humanitarian intervention is executed under the name of justice, actions of interveners have to be in accord with those rules. However, this is extremely difficult because as Simon Caney, a professor of political theory at the University of Birmingham, points out, there might be resistance to intervention from some of the citizens of recipients nations (2000, p. 126). In the case of the Kosovo War, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia to protect Albanians’ human rights and their loss of life from genocide by Serbians. However, humanitarian intervention also was accompanied by the death of both citizens and soldiers. NATO also killed a lot of Yugoslavs because it bombed from airplanes to avoid NATO soldiers being killed by resistance. Although NATO troops went there to protect human rights, they invaded others’ human rights by bombing. As an additional example, in Somalia the United States troops sent as the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces failed in their operation. They encountered resistance from Somalis, and 18 Americans were killed and 73 were wounded in an 18-hour battle. To fight back against this resistance, the U.S. troops killed 500-2000 Somalis (“Battle of Mogadishu,” 2006). Thus, the protection of human rights cannot be accomplished by humanitarian intervention.

State sovereignty

As mentioned above, the core value of international law and society of states is state sovereignty. State sovereignty is “the most important constitutive principle that shapes contemporary international relations” (Little, 2005, p. 768). The allowance of humanitarian intervention on a large scale would cause massive wars and threaten the independence of states because international order owes its stability to the respect for the equality of sovereignty and nonintervention in the affairs of another country.

The values of state sovereignty and nonintervention are supported by international law. This principle was established in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which is the treaty that concluded the Thirty Years’ War. Before the war, the idea of sovereignty did not exist in the world. Because of that, the big Houses such as Habsburg, Bourbon, or Vasa in the Holy Roman Empire fought against each other to get power. To prevent war, they divided the Houses into states, separated their territories, gave them sovereignty, and established the doctrine of nonintervention in the affairs of another country. According to Jackson, the Peace of Westphalia brought secular rules and order into anarchical international relations displacing Christendom. “Europe was now independent and supreme governing authority. What had been a political–theological universitas became an international societas of sovereign states” (2005, p. 83) Then, this doctrine provided stability to Europe, and has developed without radical change of the core concept in spite of changes of international circumstances.

In addition to stabilizing international society, sovereignty plays a role of saving political independence of states. “Sovereignty is the basic norm upon which a society of states ultimately rests. Sovereignty thus a precondition of international society properly so-called” (Jackson, 2005, p. 75). In the society of independent states, basic notions are state sovereignty, nonintervention, norms of self-defense, reciprocity, and so on. Then, according to J. L. Brierly, a former Chichele Professor of International Law and Diplomacy in the University of Oxford, basic norms of sovereignty are “self-preservation, independence, equality, respect, and intercourse” (as cited in Jackson, 2005, p. 75). These ideas have enabled states to secure independence against imperial attempts.

According to Jackson, as circumstances of international relations change, the practices of state sovereignty must change. In the beginning, sovereignty was dynastic and imperial. Then, it changed into populist and nationalist. In the latter half of the twentieth century, it became anti-imperial in a lot of parts of the world. After 2001, the idea of imperial sovereignty returned in the relation to the U.S.-led war on terrorism. “The particular manifestations of sovereignty changed over time but the core notion as political independence remained the same” (2005, p. 77).

Although sometimes this doctrine has been violated and has resulted in big wars on the whole, it has kept stability of the international order very well and secured the independence of states so far; therefore, it should be respected and observed strictly. If even one specific class of intervention were allowed, the doctrine of sovereignty would fail and chaos would result.

Justice

People who endorse humanitarian intervention argue that “there is agreement in international society about what constitutes a supreme humanitarian emergency and legitimate act of intervention” (Bellamy, 2003, p. 324). However, this observation overlooks the plurality of the society of states. There is no consent or any possibility of consent about what is “just” because the sense of justice is constructed within a specific cultural context and is not universal in the world.

The sense of justice varies by culture, so countries hardly can decide common values in international society. According to Jennifer M. Welsh, a University Lecturer in International Relations and a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, sovereign states do not tend to agree on what is justice or injustice in internal affairs (2003, p. 64). Hedley Bull, a Professor of International Relations at Australian National University, London School of Economics, and University of Oxford, has insisted that there is “not only an unwillingness to jeopardise the rules of sovereignty and non-intervention…but also the lack of any agreed doctrine as to what human rights are” (as cited in Welsh, 2003, p. 64). Furthermore, when one or more countries intervene in another country to stop military conflicts, they cannot help taking the side of one of the combatants. To stop one military attack, they have to take the other side’s position. In the case of the Kosovo War, NATO took the Albanian position because it was said that Serbians were committing genocide. However, it is usually very hard to decide which group’s cause is right or just in countries which are at war or experiencing genocide. (Albanian radical group also attacked and murdered many Serbian civilians.)

People cannot agree on what real justice is although the purpose of humanitarian intervention is to accomplish justice. Execution of humanitarian intervention requires deciding what justice is and as a result, taking the side of one of the combatants. Moreover, it could jeopardize international order because it ignores the pluralism of international society.

Responsibility

People who endorse humanitarian intervention state that state sovereignty is no longer an inherent right but depends on concomitant responsibilities for the protection of citizens (Wheeler, 2004, p. 37). This suggests that sovereignty is conditioned on minimum respect for human rights. Moreover, if this responsibility is not fulfilled, other states have to protect the citizens there. However, humanitarian intervention tends to be executed when particular interests of the intervening nations are to be served.

Essentially, humanitarian intervention should be executed for purely humanitarian reasons. However, this is rare because no state has the responsibility or duty to help other states’ citizens. Even if a sovereign state had a duty to protect other states’ citizen, “’duties’ are not things that exist apart from agents and actions” (Nardin, 2006, p. 463). There is no institution which performs such a duty (Welsh, 2004, p. 52). Intervention always accompanies a risk to the intervening state’s troops and monetary costs are very high. Therefore, no countries participate in intervention for just a humanitarian reason. According to Bellamy, “intervention relates to both conflict prevention and post-conflict rebuilding” (2003, p. 331). Sovereign states might try to repay their expenditures of money and personnel through post-conflict rebuilding. The interventions executed by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War are clear examples. They intervened in several countries and tried to change their regimes appealing humanitarian emergency. Furthermore, as Jerzy Zajadlo, a chair in the Center of Human Rights at the University of Gdansk, points out, it is not reasonable not to intervene in Chechnya and Tibet regardless of Russian and Chinese human rights abuse (2005, p. 659).

Sovereign states do not have duty to intervene in another state. They do not become involved unless they can meet their interests; hence, conflicts are sometimes chosen arbitrarily by leading countries. Therefore, humanitarian intervention is not fair and would be against justice, and should not be sanctioned.

Humanitarian intervention should be banned in international law to keep a stable world order. To support that view, some problems of humanitarian intervention have been mentioned above. The most complicated but important issue is violation of the core value of international law: sovereignty. This would cause really serious consequences. The second problem is the difficulty in deciding what justice really is. The last barrier is the problem of motive for intervention. Unfortunately there are an increasing number of conflicts, genocide, and wars in the world. To solve these problems, several values clash. The most serious one is the conflict between sovereignty and human rights. Human rights are essential values for us. However, the protection of human rights is postulated on a stable world order. Therefore, to avoid the collapse of international order, humanitarian intervention should not be practiced.

References

Battle of Mogadishu. (2006). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved November 30, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu#U.S._and_
UNOSOM

Bellamy, A. J. (2003). Humanitarian responsibilities and interventionist claims in international society. Review of international studies, 29 (3), 321-340. Retrieved November 13, 2006, from ECO database (02602105S0260210503003218).

Caney, S. (2000). Humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty. In A. Valls (Eds.), Ethics in international affairs (pp. 117-133). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Independent International Commission on Kosovo. (2000). The Kosovo report: Conflict, international response, lessons learned. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

Jackson, R. (2005). Classical and modern thought on international relations: From anarchy to cosmopolis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Little, R. (2005). Sovereignty. In M. Griffiths (Eds.), Encyclopedia of international relations and global politics. (pp. 768-776). London and New York: Routledge.

Nardin, T. (2006). International political theory and the question of justice. International affairs, 82 (3), 449-465. Retrieved November 13, 2006, from ECO database (0020585010.1111_j.1468-2346.2006.00544.x).

Welsh, J. M. (2004). Taking consequences seriously: Objections to humanitarian intervention. In J. M. Welsh (Eds.), Humanitarian intervention and international relations (pp. 52-68). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wheeler, N.J. (2004). The humanitarian responsibilities of sovereignty: Explaining the development of a new norm of military intervention for humanitarian purposes in international society. In J. M. Welsh (Eds.), Humanitarian intervention and international relations (pp. 29-51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zijadlo, J. (2005). Legality and legitimization of humanitarian intervention: New challenges in the age of the war on terrorism. American behavioral scientist, 48(6), 653-670. Retrieved December 12, 2006, from ECO database (0002764210.1177_
0002764204272570).

Modern Japanese Dinner

2006-11-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

In this week, we had the Thanksgiving Break from Thursday, November 23 to Sunday, November 26. During this break, not only the school cafeteria, Bon Appetit, but also the school shuttle bus which goes downtown was closed. So, the students who stayed at the dormitories during the break did not have means to get foods unless going downtown with a public bus. That’s why most students including me went to Fred Mayer to get some foods the day before Thanksgiving day. On Saturday, November 25, I tried to make the typical modern Japanese dinner with foods from Fred Mayer and from my parents in Japan. The typical modern Japanese dinner means a combination of Western and Japanese traditional dinner.

As you can see in the picture at the top, there were four dishes. First of all, one at the left of the bottom was Japanese sticky rice with Japanese traditional pickles. Both of them were sent from my parents. Also, one at the right of the bottom was sent from my parents, and was Japanese traditional soup, Miso soup. These were the essentials of Japanese traditional meals. Since I can hardly eat these foods, I really appreciate my parents’ sending them to me. Next, the two dishes at the top were bought from Fred Mayer. The left one was “Healthy Choice Complete Selections: Classic Grilled Chicken BBQ.” The right one was, as you see, salad with dressing. Both of them were better than my expectation.

In modern Japan, a family usually eats such kind of dinner which is a combination of Western and Japanese styles. My dinner was composed of instant foods, but I was happy to eat kind of modern Japanese dinner.

Argument Paper

2006-11-15T21:54:00.000-08:00

Prohibition of Humanitarian Intervention

Humanitarian intervention is the forcible interference in a sovereign state by another country or group in a humanitarian emergency. This concept is extremely controversial because two significant values are in conflict. The two values are state sovereignty and human rights. State sovereignty is the exclusive right inherent in a state to govern its own territory and citizens, and is the core concept of international law. Human rights are essential rights inherent in human beings regardless of the law. Thus this issue can be regarded as a conflict between the supreme right of a state and the essential rights of human beings. It may not sound like a controversial problem because, needless to say, human rights should precede the rights of the state. However, if the intervention in another state were permitted, states could invade and launch wars against other countries. In addition, international order would completely collapse, and human rights could no longer be protected. Therefore, this issue is very controversial in international relations.

NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia in the Kosovo War in 1999 ignited controversy about humanitarian intervention. In this civil war, Slobodan Milošević, the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, executed genocide against Albanians. The mass media of western countries reported this issue on a large scale with the catchphrase “ethnic cleansing.” Public opinion came to agree with the intervention in Kosovo. Then, because the peace negotiation failed, NATO carried out a bombing campaign against Serbia to stop the ethnic cleansing. Since this intervention was carried out without a resolution of the United Nations, it was clearly illegal. It violated the value of sovereignty. However, although this was a military campaign, which is usually criticized by those on the left, many liberals supported this intervention. That is because this action seemed to accomplish a just result. In other words, this campaign seemed to have as its goal rescuing Albanians. Thus, two values, sovereignty and human rights, were in conflict. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, which was established by the Prime Minister of Sweden, Göran Persson, to provide an independent analysis on the conflict in Kosovo, concluded that NATO’s bombing was “illegal but legitimate” (p. 4). That is to say, the objective of the intervention was just, though the way of accomplishing it was illegal. Thus, the debate on humanitarian intervention became a remarkably controversial issue through NATO’s bombing of Serbia.

The idea of humanitarian intervention includes an unresolvable conflict between sovereignty and human rights. To avoid serious collapse of international order such as occurred during the First and Second World War, international law should be respected. Since the equality of sovereignty and nonintervention in the affairs of another country are the core values of international law, humanitarian intervention should be prohibited as a general rule.

People who insist on using humanitarian intervention usually appeal to human dignity to support their actions. Humanitarian intervention is demanded to protect human rights as mentioned above. In the case of the Kosovo War, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia to protect Albanians’ human rights, their loss of life, from genocide by Serbians. However, humanitarian intervention also is accompanied by the death of both citizens and soldiers. NATO also killed a lot of Yugoslavs because it bombed from airplanes to avoid NATO soldiers being killed. Although NATO troops went there to protect human rights, they invaded others’ human rights by bombing. Thus, the protection of human rights cannot be accomplished by humanitarian intervention.

The allowance of humanitarian intervention on a large scale would cause massive wars because international order owes its stability to the respect for the equality of sovereignty and nonintervention in the affairs of another country. These values are supported by international law. This principle was established in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which is the treaty that concluded the Thirty Years’ War. Before the war, the idea of sovereignty did not exist in the world. Because of that, the big Houses such as Habsburg, Bourbon, or Vasa in the Holy Roman Empire fought against each other to get power. To prevent war, they divided the Houses into states, separated their territories, gave them sovereignty, and established the doctrine of nonintervention in the affairs of another country. This doctrine provided stability to Europe, and has developed without radical change of the core concept. Although sometimes this doctrine was violated and caused big wars on the whole, it has kept stability of the international order very well so far; therefore, it should be respected and observed strictly. If one specific case of intervention were allowed, the equality of sovereignty would fail and chaos would result.

It is impossible to judge which group is right. When one or more countries intervene in another country to stop military conflicts, they cannot help taking the side of one of the combatants. To stop one military attack, they have to take the other side’s position. In the case of the Kosovo War, NATO took the Albanian position because it was said that Serbians were committing genocide. However, it is usually very hard to decide which group’s causes is right or just in countries which are at war or experiencing genocide. There is often limited information, and it is usually biased. In addition, the sense of justice varies by culture, so countries hardly can decide common values in international society. That is to say, people cannot agree on what real justice is although the purpose of humanitarian intervention is to accomplish justice.

Humanitarian intervention tends to be executed when particular interests are to be served. Essentially, it should be done for purely humanitarian reasons. However, this is rare because nobody has the responsibility to help other states’ citizens. Intervention always accompanies a risk to the intervening country’s troops and monetary costs are very high. Therefore, no countries participate in intervention for just a humanitarian reason. Countries do not become involved unless they can meet their interests; hence, conflicts are sometimes chosen arbitrarily by leading countries. Therefore, humanitarian intervention is not fair and would be against justice, and should not be sanctioned.

Humanitarian intervention should be banned in international law to keep a stable world order. To support that view, some problems of humanitarian intervention have been mentioned above. The most complicated but important problem is violation of the core value of international law: sovereignty. This would cause really serious consequences. The second problem is the difficulty in deciding what justice really is. The last barrier is the problem of motive for intervention. There are still a lot of conflicts, genocide, and wars in the world. To solve these problems, several values clash. The most serious one is the conflict between sovereignty and human rights. Human rights are essential values for us. However, the protection of human rights is postulated on a stable world order. Therefore, to avoid the collapse of international order, humanitarian intervention should not be practiced.

Reference

Independent International Commission on Kosovo. (2000). The Kosovo report: Conflict, international response, lessons learned. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.

Ancient Forests

2006-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I went to ancient forests near the coast in Oregon as a College Outdoors’ Activity from Friday evening to Sunday evening. The title of activity was “Ancient Forest Clinic.” It was my first time to take part in College Outdoors.

The forests we went were really old. There were a lot of tall and big trees. According to the instructor of us, some of the trees were more than 400 years old. The trees in the forests were conifers, which mean trees that have leafs like needles, so they were very tall. Since Japanese forests are usually not coniferous forests, they were amazing and exciting for me. Although I was expected to see a flying squirrel because the instructor said I might see it, I could not see even a regular squirrel.

Instead of squirrels, we found various species of mushrooms. Some of the mushrooms were also huge. One kind of mushroom we found looked like the mushroom we can see in “Mario” series (see the picture). It was so creepy but funny. In addition, I learned some vocabulary from our conversations. One of them was “slimy,” which expresses the condition of wet and slippery like a snail. I was impressed by this word because it expresses well such condition in one word. So, there were a lot of “SLIMY” mushrooms.

Because the forests were along the coast, we could see very beautiful scenery of ocean from forests. Although the forecast had said that weekend would have been rainy, the weather was good on Saturday. Even though it was rainy on Sunday, the scenery was so nice. As a whole, I enjoyed that trip so much.

Japanese Food

2006-11-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, November 4, I went downtown to eat Japanese food with my friends. It was very good. I guess all Japanese students in Lewis & Clark miss Japanese food. “Bon food” is so different with Japanese food that I’m often reluctant to eat it. Although Bon Appetite sometimes offers “Japanese food,” it’s absolutely different. Since non-Japanese students usually know only Sushi among Japanese food, I’ m worrying whether people regard Japanese food as tasteless. So, I want to recommend the Japanese restaurant we went on Saturday.

The name of the restaurant is “Koji Osakaya (Japanese=こうじ大阪屋).” It is located very near from the shuttle bus stop of Pioneer Square. If you get off a shuttle bus, cross the avenue and go down. If you walk about 30 seconds, you can see the restaurant on your right hand. At this restaurant, you can eat not only Sushi but also various kids of Japanese foods. Because some cooks are Japanese, the taste of dishes is definitely same as what I eat in Japan. People who don’t like Sushi usually cannot eat raw fish. If you go to this restaurant, you can enjoy Japanese food without raw fish. For instance, I ate “Tempura-don,” which is usually called “Tendon” in Japan. “Tempura” is Japanese traditional fried foods. The ingredients are usually shrimps, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, carrots, or a variety of fish. “Don” means a rice bowl. So, “Tempura-don” is the Tempura on rice in the rice bowl. Tempura is very popular in Japan. There are even fast food chains of Tempura in Japan. Therefore, please try to eat Tempura at Koji Osakaya. If you are Japanese, it will remind you Japanese taste. If you are not Japanese, you can enjoy new taste of Japanese food.

Jack-o'-lantern

2006-10-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, October 28, I did some activities related to Halloween with my friendship family and Yoshi. According to Wikipedia, the origin of Halloween is the Pagan Celtic harvest festival “Samhain” among the Celts in Ireland, Britain, and France. As Halloween activities, we went to pick up and curve pumpkins and cooked caramel apples.

First of all, we went to Liepold Farms to get pumpkins. It took about one hour from Lewis & Clark by a car. They had a lot of activities in the Farms. As soon as we arrived there, we tried the Corn Maze, which was a big maze made of tall corn field. Because it was huge and complex, we enjoyed it very much. On a bridge in the maze, we could see beautiful scene of fields, woods, and Mt. Hood. After we enjoyed the maze, we chose pumpkins one by one. The pumpkins were huge, and I had never seen such big pumpkins.

After we went back to the friendship family’s house, we started to cook caramel apples by ourselves. The family taught Yoshi and me that caramel apples are common treat at Halloween. According to Wikipedia, that is because “the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest.” To make caramel apples, we prepared apples, caramels, and butter. First, we washed apples, and spread butter on a sheet which would be put apples with melted caramel on. The butter is used to make easy to separate caramel apples from the sheet. Next, we melted caramels in a pan with heat. After caramels melted completely, we put caramel on the apples and put them on the sheet. Then, the apples were put in a refrigerator to cool and harden. Because it would take long time, we had a dinner.

After we had a dinner, we began to make “Jack-o’-lantern.” Jack-o’-lantern is a pumpkin decorated for Halloween. According to the family, Jack-o’-lantern in front of the house is a sign for giving candies if children come to the house. First of all, we draw a draft on the paper to decide how we would curve pumpkins. Second, we draw faces on the pumpkins. Third, we cut the top of the pumpkins with knives and remove the inside (seeds and strings) with spoons. Fourth, we started to curve faces at last. After we finished to curve, we put candles in pumpkins. That was the completion of making Jack-o’-lanterns! They were very good when we put outside in the dark.

Finally, we ate caramel apples! The caramel around the apples hardened in the refrigerator. Everyone ate one caramel apple. It was very sweet and delicious although it was hard to eat because the caramel was so sticky that it stuck on teeth. Since it was easy to cook, I want to try to cook in Japan again.

I could experience one of the big and famous American cultural events on this weekend with my friendship family. I recognized that the idea of Friendship Family was very good for international students to experience American culture. I appreciate invitation and kindness of my friendship family. I’m looking forward to seeing them again next month.

BAR!!

2006-10-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

At the night of last Friday, I went downtown in Portland with two of my friends, Natsuko and Bakheet. We had a great night there in spite of some troubles. Natsuko and I could get special experience which any other Japanese AES students cannot do. Bakheet took us three very good places.

First of all, we went Japanese Sushi restaurant named “Sushi Land” < http://www.sushilandusa.com/>. This sushi restaurant is different type with usual one. There is a small conveyor belt in the restaurant like factories, and dishes of sushi are delivered automatically on the conveyor belt. We can take our favorite sushis from it as many as you want. In Japan, this type of sushi restaurant is called “Kaiten-zushi回転寿司”, which means “rotated sushi.” It is very popular style of sushi restaurant because it is a kind of fast food of sushi restaurant; hence, the price is usually much cheaper than original style. I was very surprised and impressed that I could go to “Kaiten-zushi” in the United States!

After going to eat sushi, we went to Pioneer Place to watch the movie < http://www.pioneerplace.com/html/movielisting.asp#>. The title is “The Departed” <http://thedeparted.warnerbros.com/>. It is directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. It is a kind of action movie, and conversations in it are humorous. However, it was very hard for me to understand story because of my English ability. By the way, I was so surprised the size of popcorn and drink which I bought before entering the theater. They were bigger than Japanese L size in spite of S size. It was too much for me to eat alone.

Finally, we went to a bar near Pioneer Place because all of us are above 21 years old. Most Japanese students are 20 years old and cannot go to a bar although they can drink legally in Japan. Therefore, it was special experience. Because it was first time for me to go to a bar in the United States, I was very happy to go there. The atmosphere of the bar was pretty good. Although we did not have enough time to stay there, we enjoyed the American bar!

Unfortunately, we missed a last shuttle bus to the college. We called a taxi, but we waited about one hour outside. In addition, to my surprise, the driver did not know L&C. Anyway, we could barely get back our room. Despite some accidents, the night was very much fun. We owed our pleasure to Bakheet. Thank you, Bakheet!!

Response to the Short Film

2006-10-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

The short film we watched in our class is a TV commercial by a swimwear company as some students have indicated. The scene we watched finished at the moment when the man faced with a big shark. If the shark ate the man, the commercial would be very boring. It should be unexpected story. I guess the shark give some present to him and make friends with him. Then, they swim and play together.

Introduction!

2006-10-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!! I am one of the international students at the Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, the United States. This is my first time to have my own website as well as weblog. I got opportunity to start this blog as an assignment for English writing class.

I’m from Saitama, Japan, where is a suburb near Tokyo. In Japan, I am a junior at one of the huge universities. I came here, Lewis & Clark College, to improve my English skills and to gain multicultural perspectives to inter-national, inter-state or inter-cultural relations, which are hard to get my home country.

I live in on-campus dormitory named Akin Hall, and I have a roommate. He comes from Saudi Arabia, and is very nice guy. He loves sleeping and listening to music loudly. In addition, he likes Japan and Japanese people, and is very interested in Japanese culture. I have explained Japanese culture a lot.

My favorite sport is soccer. I have played soccer during elementary and junior high school. Even now, I often play soccer for fun, but do not belong to specific team or club.
Furthermore, I usually go swimming with my friends as taking a rest during doing my homework. I can be relax very much be swimming.

My major is international relations and philosophy. I want to bridge these two fields because we should deliberate what international relations “ought to be”, instead of talking about what international relations “are.” Philosophical method is essential to think about “ought to be.” I think Lewis & Clark College has very good circumstance to study my major because of their multicultural orientation. This college is offering me a lot of useful implications.

Anyway, I want to try to have fun and to experience something new a lot!!!!!