after watching oshin (a long long morning drama series aired in japan in 1983, total 297 episodes), started to think about the misery of poverty mentioned constantly in the show. really lack of money can turn people away from their relatives, to hate their siblings, to sell their daughters, and betray their friends. one of the central theme of the show is the fear for poverty, for oshin, for her brother shoji, her husband ryuuzou, her son hitoshi, etc etc... everybody is striving to avoid poverty, to crawl up from the bottom of poverty, to fight off poverty. money is good, and the show says that if you really have a goal in your life and try to get it, your will power will aid in your success. but the show also says that there is something more important than money (however, be reminded, the show is not idealistic, it's about reality, and that is the reason a lot of people were touched by it, and made oshin their role models), by giving negative examples like kawamura (oshin's son, you's comerade in the army, who later became a money lender and "not believe in anything but money") and hitoshi whose failure essentially come from his pursuit for money and money alone.

nevertheless, after all, oshin's world is far away. the poverty in her memory is from the beginning of 20c, more than 100 years ago. the time when most japanese in the countryside ate radish rice and remained illiterate for life. but what made me want to write this entry, is today, i discovered a closeby example-- my cousin. he is quiting high school, and works in subway (the sandwich shop) to support himself. i mean, working is great, i have worked in stores and restaurants too, since i was 13. but i never took those part jobs just for the sake of money. money is good, even the little earnings from waitressing were useful. but i always thought of working as a social experience, like a process of being out there and know the world. i know i have something more i wanted to do as a career and means to support myself. from what i hear, my cousin is very excited about working and earning his own money, so he can buy this and that, which somehow stroke me. he is not quite in poverty-- his parents have respectable jobs with good income, but his movement reminded me of something desparately trying to crawl up from poverty. i can't pinpoint the different between him working in subway and i working in jiyuuken the noodle shop, but maybe it's the fact that he's quit high school that makes the difference and makes me unsettling.