A letter

 

Hello. I am a woman, born in the year 1970 AD in the city of Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture, in a country that is presently called “Japan.” Many politically significant events have happened in the time that I’ve lived. However, most of the information distributed through school education and mass media does not portray important matters as if they are important. I have therefore lived my life with rather optimistic outlooks on the world. Surrounded by things like my clothes, my house, everyday life, anime, TV talents, and school activities, I grew up not having much doubt on anything specific. Even though I did feel a vague sense of unease about the “superficial lack of problems,” I could not find anyone to share this sense of discomfort with until when I became an adult.

 

On March 11, in the year 2011 AD, a huge disaster and a nuclear accident struck the northeastern part of Japan. Since then, I started to see, in many ways, what had actually been happening underneath the superficial peace in Japan. I started to understand that there were many serious problems that could not be regarded in any way optimistic, not only within Japan, but also in terms of various international relationships. How would these problems—such as financial and energy crises, nuclear issues, and possibilities of wars—develop from now on and influence our future? I found myself living the present with numerous unavoidably pessimistic outlooks.

 

Whoever is reading this letter many come from a cultural sphere that I am not at all familiar with. I cannot imagine how you might have grown up, how you might think, and what kind of a time you might have lived in. But I do hope to cast this letter—capsuled in a bottle—as far away as possible, so that it can reach someone distant from me. And I hope that whoever picks up this bottle can cast it far away again. I am not sure if it can be useful for anything, but hopefully, it can at least create a small current.

 

December 8th, 2014 AD  Natsuko Tezuka