Hi:
   This is yacc speaking. Merry Christmas !

(Ha, this is a long mail. But be sure this is the whole of what I know of
Japan by now. I spend almost the whole morning in my office to compose it.
It's often the case that no one cares about me for the whole day, I can do
any thing I want during these times.)

   The experience in Japan is purely new for me. I have to go shopping make
food myself everyday. I have to go to work on time. And I have different
kinds of people around me. But except for the people around me can not
understand my chinese, I had no special feeling these days. Any way, we are
still yound and can easily get used to new life. 

[Culture, Economic and Politics]
   Japanese wholely adoped Chinese culture 1500 years ago. So almost every
Japanese tradition can be traced to the counterpart of China. Japanese used
a lot of chinese characters, this made easy for me to read. Most traditional
festival of china is also celebrated in Japan, though they are getting less
popular. SanGoYanYi, SuiHuZhuan,XiYouJi is very popular here. And Japanese
traditional clothing is Tan-dynasty style. But be sure that only true to
traditional ones. Now everything is being replaced by what derived from
American. Ha, that seems to be a tendancy these decades everywhere of the world.
   Japanese are famous for their serious. You can see no sign of this
characteristic from the young generation. A lot of young Japanese are
hippie. They are squandering what their parents achieved with difficulty.
Still most of the Japanese work overtime. But this don't mean they can't got
enough time to finished their work. Work overtime is a just tradition. On
the contrary, I doubt the efficience of their work. At least, I don't think
IBM Japan works efficently. Poor Japanese, it seems they will lose their
glory next centure. I am now reading a book named "Japan The Comming
Collapse", it is said in this book that it hard for the Japanese to carry
out reform though the current system is obviously unsuitable, but once they
are faced with serious chanllenge they would gather together and be all out
to change itself. This is true for Mingzhiweixing and postwar Japan. I don't
know would it be true next centure.
   The Japanese I met are kind. When describing The Great Wall, they say
"China,great". One of them said: Japan,small--Japanese heart,narrow; China
large, Chinese heart--wide. That's sounds good to us. I believe most
Japanese know the truth of their cruelty during World War II. You can see
books about NanJingDaTuSha in the library. And there are a lot of
exhibitions about that war hold by some nongovermental groups. They tells
the truth. I have attended one of them. You can see the same pictures we
have seen in china. So those who deny the truth is just cheating themselves.
   I can get a lot of chinese books from the local library. Most of them are
issued from Taiwan and Hongkong. So they are mostly reactionary. I have read
a book named "Personal life of Maozhedong" written by who is said to be
Mao's privite doctor. A absolutely reactionary book. In his discription, Mao
is excessive and Zhou is just a lackey. I don't like this book though I
belive some of it was true. The author is looking upon a great man using the
eye of the little capitalist class.

[Trivial]   
   Japanese woman are good at smoking and drinking. Japanese food are quite
expensive but other goods are reasonable. Japanese products is good to use.
KaraOK is populat in Japan. I have joined several times. But poor me, I have
to take English as my mother language whenever I can not find chinese songs
from the catalog. 
   Japan is really a small island country. You can never imagine how narrow
it's road can be. But still it is packed with a lot of cars. So cars here
will never be fast. 
   I hate the Japanese grammer. It's too complex and made me still be quite
poor at Japanese till now. How I wish I can understand what others saying. I
wish I could achieve this after 2 months. 
   There are few news for Japanese this year. (Though it may be this is a
good news for us.) The stock keeps low. Many large banks and stock brokers
broke. And exchange rate is decreasing.(I don't like it because this means I
get less.) It seems that Japanese economic is in a mess. The only thing that
can make the Japanese happy is they get ticket for France world cup. This
caused me to have seen the scene of the match between Japan and Iran team
millons of times on TV this month.
   Another news is about He Zhili, she won the Champion of Japan for the
sixth time since she came to Japan. It seems she got this without
difficulty. But her apperence is ugly.
 
Ha, are you bored by all those above? Have a good rest on the new year break
then. And I wish you can tell me your experience.

May you have a great new year. 

Zheng Haoqiang
Last Name: Zheng          First Name: Haoqiang
Email : haoqiang@hotmail.com