Kim Jong il is dead!

So the N.Korean leader died of a stroke Sunday on his way to visiting areas in his beloved state. The next heir is to be his son Kim Jong-un which is only in his late 20’s. Now, Japan is preparing or lets say the other Asian nation are preparing for the worst and hopeful that the death of Kim Jong-il’s death will not affect the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula. If you ask me, I don’t think his son (Kim Jong-un) will be capable of running a country and if that is true then the people who will be running are the Generals or the Commanders of their large military which can result into a coup. We will just have to wait and see. There was a game not so long ago that foretold that Kim Jong-il’s death will lead into a state of pretty much chaos everywhere. I’ll post this ‘Homefront’ trailer here. Though it seems farfetched, anything is possible.

If you want to read more articles click here and here. Both are Yahoo! news articles.

(picture is from Jprobe)

China urges navy to prepare!!

I was skimming through yahoo news and one the headlines talked about China beginning to prepare their navy for combat. I don’t know what to come up with after reading the article in which particularly states that any country in the world has the right to prepare their military for any form of threat.But, it also states that the U.S has no problem with China building their military power but to do it in a transparent way. So, now I am a bit confused what to come up with the article but one question comes to my mind. “Is this a new war?” I guess we will have to wait and find out. Ill update this blog with more news about this. Thanks for the time reading this post. Also new videos and random stuff on the way !!

＼(￣O￣)

By the way, Ill post a video of China’s first aircraft carrier.

Jose Rizal Day

It is June 20 and it is Dr. Jose Rizal day in Philippines. So let us celebrate this day with a little post dedicated to the hero and a couple of quotes from him.

Jose Rizal (1861-1896) is the national hero of the Philippines. He was by all accounts a polymath, an extremely intelligent man who spoke around ten languages, travelled extensively, wrote two books “noli me tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” which were critical of the manner in which Spain was ruling the Philippines, which had been a Spanish colony for centuries. He was involved in politics and was eventually executed by the Spanish at the age of 35. One of the many countries he visited was Japan, and this bust was erected on the site of a hotel he stayed at in 188

By the way, did you know that Jose Rizal had a Japanese girlfriend?

Usui Seiko, nicknamed “O Sei San”
O Sei San, a Japanese samurai’s daughter taught Rizal the Japanese art of painting known as su-mie. She also helped Rizal improve his knowledge of Japanese language. If Rizal was a man without a patriotic mission, he would have married this lovely and intelligent woman and lived a stable and happy life with her in Japan because Spanish legation there offered him a lucrative job.

If you want more info of about Usui Seiko, I recommend visiting this article page. But it doesn’t really tell us how Rizal and Seiko never ended up together.Click here!
And here is a bit more about Rizal’s other love life. Click here!

Quotes:

He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.
Jose Rizal

He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish.
Jose Rizal

It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.
Jose Rizal

1938 Manila

Ever wonder what Manila looked like during the 30’s?

Get a glimpse on how Manila looked during the late 1930s via this short film entitled “Manila, Queen City of the Pacific”. With all these horses during this era, I wonder where’s the horse manure.

gameops

Japanese war hearing aids

Well this is new. Well figuratively speaking. This was used during world war 2 to hear incoming planes and such.

Japanese Women Warriors

Just an interesting article I stumbled upon last night I want to share. It’s maybe for the girls, hehehe

The Empress Jingu (c. 169 – 269 A.D.) leads an invasion of Korea.

Long before the term “samurai” came into usage, Japanese fighters were skilled with the sword and spear. These warriors included some women, such as the legendary Empress Jingu (c. 169-269 A.D.), pictured here leading an invasion of Korea.

According to the stories, Jingu was married to the fourteenth emperor of Japan, Chuai, who reigned between 192 and 200. After his death, she ruled as a regent for her young son. To pass the time, she invaded and conquered Korea (without shedding a drop of blood, according to the legend).

“Female Samurai”

Linguistic purists point out that the term “samurai” is a masculine word; thus, there are no “female samurai.”

Nonetheless, for thousands of years, certain upper class Japanese women have learned martial skills and participated in fighting.

Between the 12th and 19th centuries, many women of the samurai class learned how to handle the sword and the naginata (a blade on a long staff) primarily to defend themselves and their homes. In the event that their castle was overrun by enemy warriors, the women were expected to fight to the end and die with honor, weapons in hand.

Some young women were such skilled fighters that they rode out to war beside the men, rather than sitting at home and waiting for war to come to them. Here are pictures of some of the most famous among them.

Tomoe Gozen, c. 1157–1247, a Genpei War-era samurai, leaning on her naginata (pole weapon).

During the Genpei War (1180-1185), a beautiful young woman named Tomoe Gozen fought alongside her daimyo (and possibly her husband), Minamoto no Yoshinaka, against the forces of his cousin Minamoto no Yoritomo.

Tomoe Gozen (gozen is a title meaning “lady”) was famous as a swordswoman, a skilled rider, and a superb archer. She was Minamoto’s first captain, and took at least one enemy head during the Battle of Awazu in 1184.

The Genpei War

The late-Heian era Genpei War was a civil conflict between two samurai clans, the Minamoto and the Taira. Both families sought to control the shogunate. In the end, the Minamoto clan prevailed and established the Kamakura shogunate in 1192.

The Minamoto did not just fight the Taira, though. As mentioned above, different Minamoto lords also fought one another. Unfortunately for Tomoe Gozen, Minamoto no Yoshinaka died at the Battle of Awazu. His cousin, Minamoto Yoritomo, became shogun.

Reports vary as to Tomoe Gozen’s fate. Some say that she stayed in the fight and died. Others say that she rode away carrying an enemy’s head, and disappeared. Still others claim that she married Wada Yoshimori, and then became a nun after his death.

You can find more of these here if you are interested.

 

Machine Man intro

Remember this?

hehe…I just thought I’d share another flashback..one of the greatest ^_^

BONE HUNTERS

Sorry guys, no subtitles and the video quality is poor but okay to watch.

Summary of the Documentary:

All over the Philippines , there is a hunt in areas where Japanese soldiers were last seen. Treasures, they are. But not your regular treasures of Buddha, gold bars and coins. These treasures do not shine and glitter. They are bones— bones of dead Japanese soldiers.

At the helm for Northern Luzon searches is Santos Bayucca, an Ifugao bone hunter. Santos belongs to a non-profit Japanese organization whose goal is simple: send these Japanese soldier bones, their esteemed heroes, back to their homeland.

Rain or shine, through rivers and mountains, Howie Severino follows Santos and the bone treasures he and his hunters dig up. These bones are silent testament to war stories of yesteryears.

But in remote Brgy. Wangwang in Tinoc, Ifugao, silence is broken when reports of stolen bones come out. The community is disturbed. Who dares desecrate their dead?

Mariano Cutiyog, a Kalanguya who lost two sets of bones of his relatives, could not point blame at anybody. He’s safe-kept the bones of his dead family in a number of burial caves for years now, and with this loss, he worries on the security of supposedly remote parts of the Ifugao mountains. The old man stares silently at what was left of one of his burial caves: a piece of his aunt’s skull.

Is it possible that Filipino bones were labeled as Japanese soldier bones?.

 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

before and after Japan

Change is sometimes strange

The last Japanese Soldier “Hiroo Onoda”

Okay!! we are going back to history guys…iWitness is a t.v documentary show in the Philippines, and I’m really sorry that this 4 part video doesn’t have subs…So if you can understand tagalog, that will be AWESOME..if not..sorry guys…but ill look through if I can find the video with subs…But for now, here is the summary of the video documentary:

Japan surrendered in 1945, ending World War II. But the war continued for another 29 years in the mind of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese intelligence officer assigned to Lubang Island off Mindoro . When he finally emerged from the jungle in 1974 and returned to Japan , he was celebrated as a devoted soldier.

Howie Severino and his I-Witness team retrace some of Onoda’s steps in the rugged forest of Lubang and imagine his life in the wild. But they also discover some ugly truths about what he did to survive and persist in his mission.

When the Allied Forces returned to Lubang Island in 1945, the Japanese military had no choice but to retreat. Hoping for a Japanese counterattack, Onoda and his men did everything to survive in the jungle and prepared themselves to fight till the end. Surrender was not an option.

For many years since World War II, Lt. Hiroo Onoda and his three Japanese soldiers lived off the resources of the jungle and of the residents of Lubang Island — armed with warrior instincts of survival, force and intimidation. For 29 years, going to the jungle was no easy task for the residents because somewhere in that expanse was Lt. Onoda, the lone surviving Japanese guerrilla who continued to carryout his military orders. For 29 years, some Filipino lives were lost for a war that no longer existed.

Howie Severino and outdoorsman David Tajan enter the jungles of Lubang Island to retrace the trails of Lt. Onoda. How did this environment define the hero that Lt. Onoda now is? And where do the casualties of war, the Lubang residents, fit in a war that is only imagined?

part1

part 2

part3

part4