Memorable Moments - Part 4

Let me introduce you to some of my special friends who had big influences on my life as well as my way of being:

Steve is one of my oldest university buddies. His will to explore the unknown part of the globe took him to all sorts of place, but he liked P.R. China the most as a place he got to know outside of his own hometown in Olympia, Washington (USA). In China he became a popular television personality that demonstrated his guiding skills in English. He is here seen with his co-host, back in the early 1990s.

Naoki-san is another old friend and a grand senpai of mine who taught me the significance of logical thinking. He is an economist and a humanist educator with a big-wide heart who hates insincerity and other kinds of vice. He is a proud "Edokko"!

Scott is the best American brother-friend of mine! We discuss all sorts of big issues that concern human existence and well-being. Scott is an educator, researcher, and a sincere activist who can always put himself in a state of reflection. I very much respect his personal integrity, and his infinite appetite for spirituality. I should add that he is more Buddhist than any Buddhists I have ever known.

Gerardo and his wife Esperanza (two on the left side of the top snap) have occupied a special place in me since we first encountered each other in 1991. They are my Mexican friends and educators. Esperanza's family has as its hometown a local farmland in southern Michoacan, where I was taken to experience the joy of farming alongside Esperanza's older brother Beto (bottom left). Those smiles of kids in the neighborhood (bottom right) were typical of those who, albeit being considered part of an impoverished population, shined with reverence for life!

David and his partner Arsad have been my best Canadian buddies since 1992. David and I spent our time together in a doctorate program at a university in Vancouver. We sought our dreams of becoming cultural anthropologists, and we both accomplished these dreams of ours pretty well, I think. His ethnographic fieldwork is situated amidst the Vaturanga people of the Solomon Islands. ...What a place to be for a cultural anthropologist, eh?! Poached eggs that he often cooked for me when I visited his place were just terrific!! Now in Tokyo, some few-thousand miles apart from him, I very much miss his big heart and his committed friendship near me!

Matt (center) used to lead a popular jazz band in Montreal. We met somewhere along my research on pop/folk music. He is another warm-hearted person who transformed my approach that was initially oriented in research interests into an everlasting friendship. He is energetic enough to fly all around Canada in order to conduct his continuing mission/work as a musician, artist and a producer. Shown next to him in this picture (right) is Laurie, a former music-station host and a current newscaster.

Nerandra is my good professor-friend from the state of Pune in India. His positive attitude toward life encompassed kindness, thoughtfulness, and playfulness. His Hindu-Buddhist conscience offered me a short but delightful opportunity to be around!

Helena and Claudio are mis compan~eras Marxistas who taught me the importance of struggle - the struggle against all odds in order to achieve an ever-meaningful life for oneself and an ever-better state of being for anyone who deserves it. Their experiences from North- and South America in 1960s, 70s, and 80s were rich, powerful and realistic enough to awaken a young idealist-brat such as myself to the fact that the ongoing pursuit of utopia by intellectuals and activists is necessary and meaningful for humankind.