Remembrance Day

Many countries have a special day to remember those that fell in their wars. In Japan, we have an anniversary of the end of World WarⅡon the 15 August. In 1945, the Emperor Showa (know as Hirohito at America and UK) told people that Japan had lost the battle on the radio. Of cause, we cannot forget the days which dropped A-bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well. Those days, we place our hands together and pray that wars will never be repeated the same mistake again. The British Remembrance day is held on the 11 November every year. This is the day that World War One ended in 1918. World War Ⅰ, called Great War left a deep scar on people. They keep quiet for 2 minutes at 11am. The royal family and government officials gather at the Cenotaph. The ceremony for consoling the war dead are hold and paraded by former servicemen. One poem called 'For the Fallen' is often read aloud on the occasion.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
It was written by Laurence Binyon(1869-1943).

I think that people, especially Japanese innocently take peace for granted. So we must not allow our memories of war to fade away. Then we must thank for everything.
　

＊Virgin Snow (Hatsuyuki no Koi)＊

The story I am going to introduce here is called ‘Virgin snow’. It is a Japanese-Korea love story. The scene was taken in the beautiful Kyoto city where the views give you an elegant feeling.

The movie is made by director Han Sang, and is cast by Aoi Miyazaki(宮﨑あおい), Aoi is new-generation actress in Japan, apart from the ‘virgin snow’ she was involved in a lot of other movies, ‘Nana’ which is another well-known movie taken in 2005 and ‘Tada Kimi wo Aishiteru -HEAVENLY FOREST’ taken in 2006. Another main character in this movie is Lee Junki(李準基), another famous actor in Korea, he is seen as the ‘most beautiful man in Korea’. And this is his second time to be involved in Japanese-Korean movie. He is also famous as a singer. And this is his second time to be involved in Japanese-Korean movie.

Kim Min moves to Japan from Korea and met with Sasaki Nanae at the shrine in Kyoto where nanae work as a Miko (virgin consecrated to a deity) and soon he falls in love at the first sight. When Kim goes to his new school on the first day, Kim finds that Nanae was studying at the same high school. Since the first day at school, Kim tries so hard to talk to Nanae. One day, he accidentally drops her painting tools into the river, soon he found that the tool was actually really expensive and determined to get nanae a brand new one to express his sorry. Nanae didn’t like the idea at first but soon succumbed to Kim’s enthusiasm, and agree to receive it.

This incident brings their heart close to each other. One day, Kim tells Nanae a lovely Korean traditional believes, which is that the Korean believe if a couple date on the first day of snow, the couple shall be happy forever and imply that they should date on the first snow day. But what Kim doesn’t know is that Nanae has a problem in her family which drives her to leave Kim, to leave Kyoto.

One day Nanae vanish without saying anything but a pouch which Kim’s grandmother has it. No one knows where she is, and why she do it, much to the disappointment of Kim, he find that there is no reason for him to stay in Japan without Nanae, so he decide to leave Japan and go back to Korea.

Some year later in winter, Kim’s grandmother discovers there was a letter inside the pouch, when she realizes that the letter belong to Kim, she handed it to him. When Kim find out the truth, he determined to reunion with Nanae, at last, they meet each other and kiss. And it was on the first of snow.