An American professor is turning Japanese

Columbia University professor of Japanese Studies Donald Keene has been teaching and translating the Japanese language since 1955.

He just retired at the age of 88.

Professor Keene's recent press conference with the Japanese media.

Professor Keene made the news in Japan a couple of days ago when he announced that now that he’s retired, he plans to immigrate to Japan and become a naturalized Japanese citizen.

Some of his friends and co-workers in America expressed concerned that now may not be the best time to move to Japan because of the current nuclear power plant disaster. But Dr. Keene replied that, in his opinion, now is the perfect time to show his support for his intended adopted homeland during this hardship.

What do you think about naturalization? Do you think if someone immigrates to another country, they should become a naturalized citizen? Or is a Permanent Resident Visa enough?
If you immigrated somewhere which would you choose?

The Original Moon Walk

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first and only* manned landing on the moon. *(I’ve been corrected).

On Sunday, 1969 July 20, the world watched on live television as the Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong exited the craft and walked on the surface of the moon and planted the American flag and said his famous line:

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong (RIP August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)

I was born in 1969, a few months after this occurred…so I have no experience seeing it.
How about you? Did you see man land on the moon in July 1969?

***

I didn’t see the Apollo 11 land on the moon…but I grew up in Florida and I remember the first reusable Space Shuttle. It was the “Space Shuttle Columbia” and it flew it’s first mission in 1981.

Since I grew up in Florida, which is where NASA launches the Space Shuttles from, my high school used to have all of the students and teachers go outside whenever a Space Shuttle was scheduled to be launched because we could watch it in the sky from the schoolyard.

Since we were teenagers, most of us were bored of watching every single Space Shuttle launch. So on Tuesday, 1986 January 28, I remember being outside to watch another launch…this time of the Space Shuttle Challenger (which had the first female astronaut and Japanese-American astronaut on board).

It was just another launch to us teenagers…until it exploded in midair!

We all ran inside and turned on the television news.
All seven of the crew perished in that tragedy.

RIP.

(Also, the entire crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia (the original Space Shuttle) died when the craft disintegrated on re-entry in 2003).