I'm in Okinawa

At the moment, I'm in Okinawa which is one of southernmost islands in Japan.

The photo shows banana trees which look like being planted in the tiny backyard of a house.

I came back from Fiji

Last month, I came back from Fiji, where I worked for 6 months.

Over the recent 6 years, I have been mostly living outside Japan. So I feel a bit like a stranger here.

Also, as expected, my Japanese language skill has got worse.

I was in Tonga for 9 months.

Believe it or not, I was in Tonga for 9 months until this May,
and this is a photo of my luxurious house there.

There are lots of banana trees around the house,
and heaps of funny insects inside the house.

Do Australians realise they are a bit arrogant?

From a newspaper article,

***********************************************
Papua appeasement backfires: ALP
TRYING to appease Indonesia with tougher asylum seeker rules has backfired on the Federal Government, Labor says.
...
the Federal Government should have insisted Jakarta respect Australia's existing asylum seeker laws, he said.
...
(The Australian: April 19, 2006)
************************************************

Probably, he is right and most Australian seem to agree with him. However, by the same token, I would say "The Australian should respect Indonesia's existing drug smuggler laws."

In the middle of the Mekong Delta

This is a footbridge over one of numerous rivers in the Mekong Delta. Amazingly the rivers are always muddy. Probably many people here have never seen transparent rivers.

But,surely, people depends heavily on the muddy rivers for their entire lives such as growing rice, catching fish, transport and swimming. Definitely rich rivers.

Get ready for bombing. (Vietnam)

Not surprisingly in Vietnam, dogs can take the position for protecting themselves from bombing. Because of the long bloody war, their ancestor had leant how to do it. Then it has been handed on to the next generations.

Sorry for my silly joke.

Divide up Indonesia?

I’m wondering if Australia and U.S. are trying to divide up Indonesia, which is located right next to Australia and have about 200 million people and a significant amount of natural resources, by using the same tactics as what they used for East Timor.

It seems to me that Australia and the U.S. are making propaganda claiming there are human rights violation and genocide in Ache province, West Papua, West Timor and so on. Their aim may be to make the regions become independent to reduce Indonesia’s potential power.