THE BAD, THE GOOD AND A NEW KIND OF VICTORY

From Worldometer (new deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732        1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835       130

Sept     9     1208     6222        1136      1168        82

Oct     21     1225     6849          571       703        85

Nov    11     1479     10178        564       550        60

           25     2304    12025         620       518      118

Dec       1     2611     11891         697      500      109

             9     3265    12342         848       337      142

           15     3538     13535        968       357      166

Summary:  The bad?  Worst day in new deaths ever for the USA and World.  This is just the result of the Thanksgiving holiday.  A longer one is coming for Christmas and the New Year, so we can expect another worst ever a week or two before Joe Biden's inauguration.

The Good?

• The Moderna vaccine is expected to be approved today.
• The second floor of 15 Craigside, our hospital area, is expected to soon be vaccinated.
• Not sure about the other residents, but a slight delay to absolutely confirm that this vaccine is truly safe is not a bad thing.
• The U.S. Congress will someday soon approve a $900 billion pandemic package linked to running the federal government.  Missing will be direct aid to state/local government and immunity for companies.  Those in desperation will be covered for four months, meaning that President Biden will need to orchestrate passing another measure within  100 days of his leadership.
• Say you do contract COVID-19.  Here is a medicine developed in Japan that will improve your chances of dying by a factor of six:

TOKYO -- An American research team has reported that ivermectin, a medication used to treat head lice and other parasitic infestations, is effective in reducing the mortality rate of the novel coronavirus.  According to the team, the death rate of coronavirus patients declined to about one-sixth, compared to the rate of death in those who did not use the medication.

The developer is Dr. Satoshi Omura, who has won more awards than you can count, including the medical equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

• I drafted three NBA teams.  Tomorrow I'll focus on how you might do the same.

A new kind of Victory?  My favorite song #28 is Wellington's Victory.  Usually I play this piece after I  have had a major victory.  This all started as I was headed for a PhD.  When I passed my language requirement, that was a pivotal point in my life.  

Never having taken French in my life:

• I brazenly selected this language only because I always thought it was fascinating.  
• Very dumb move, as several classmates I knew never got their PhD because they never could pass any language.  Some tried eight times.
• Spanish was supposedly the easiest.  
• The only language with which I had any experience was Japanese, and it was not allowed.  But didn't matter because I really didn't know it much.  
• The difficulty is that you're competing with B.A. graduates in French taking this exam to get into graduate school.  You need to do better than the average score.  What are the odds of passing?
• Some take courses in that language.  Several.
• I took a one-month course on how to pass the Graduate Record Exam in French.  They told us not to guess, for there is always one question in that list that is there to fool you.
• I guessed, a lot, for I've never not completed an exam.  I passed.  The most amazing thing I've done in my life.
• By listening to Wellington's Victory, I set a pattern for the rest of my life.

So to go on to what happened yesterday:

• Picked up my four free items from 15 Craigside's Manuahi Market:

• Joined John at the Ala Wai Golf Course.  My pulse/blood pressure machine ran out of battery life so I only very leisurely golfed, skipping more holes than usual.  I did walk 12 holes, which is more exercise than MWF for one hour in our Wellness Center.
• Dropped by Marukai to buy a few items and splurged on $118/pound Japanese Wagyu Beef from Miyazaki and the fattiest tuna I've ever seen.  Also the most expensive:  $90/pound.  Where have you ever seen that for a piece of fish?  I also saw a double rainbow:

• Driving home I caught a glimpse of a gorgeous blooming of what looked like a gold tree at the Harris United Memorial Church.  But how can that be, as it normally flowers in the Spring or sometimes Fall?  So I turned around to take photos.  The flowers looked exactly like the Gold Tree, the first I've ever seen blooming in December:

• Coincidentally, the morning paper had this photo of another type of yellow tree, a gingko in Japan:

• Three years ago I visited the Hokkaido University campus and took these two photos:

• When I returned to 15 Craigside, there was another rainbow:

I then had a gin and tonic with my bath.  One of the songs that came on was Wellington's Victory.  So I convinced myself that this was a victorious day, and should have both the wagyu beef and otoro for dinner:

The wine was the recently arrived Stanford Cabernet Sauvignon from Smith-Madrone, and the glass was a Schott Zweisel, also new.

Today, I enter my top ten with #10, Yei Lai Xiang by Yoshiko Yamaguchi (also known as Li Jianglan and Pan Shuhua in China) and Teresa Teng of Taiwan.  The song has an interesting history, similar to Lili Marlene, a German love song from just before World War II, but more popularized by the exiled Marlene Dietrich on the allied side.  

Yamaguchi Yoshiko was born in 1920 of Japanese parents living in Manchuria, but received various Chinese surnames from godfathers.  Under Li Xianglan, she became an actress featured in Japanese propaganda films in China.  She moved to Shanghai as Pan Shuhua, and became a famous singer, but arrested at the end of the war as a traitor to her supposed country, China.  However, she had a Japanese birth certificate, and was able to move to Japan to again become a popular entertainer.  She was Shirley Yamaguchi in films made for English audiences.  She married the Japanese ambassador in Burma and spent much of her time working for reconciliation with China, particularly acknowledgement and compensation of comfort women.

Her biggest hit was Ye Lai Xiang, the Chinese name of the tuberose flower, said to have aphrodisiac powers.  This is a sad song melding all those factors.  Composed by Li Jinguang in 1944, it is made popular by Pan Shuhua in China, then re-popularized in Japan as Yoshiko Yamaguchi in a 1951 film, which was censored in China.  In Taiwan, Theresa Teng is known for this song.

I perhaps identify most with Teresa Teng's version because on one of my trips to Taipei, I shopped around, and found a CD by her singing Yei Lai Xiang.  When I returned to my hotel room, one of the zippered pockets was open.   My wallet and passport were gone.  I was supposed to leave the next day.  How could I get a new one?  I searched frantically, and, alas, found it in another zippered pocket.  

Teresa is referred to as Asia's eternal queen of pop.  She was the first Chinese artist to connect with Japan.  She released an album a year and sold 22 million copies, with an additional 75 million pirated.  Unfortunately, she returned from a trip to Thailand and passed away at the age of 42.

More recently in 2015, Joanna Wang, born in Taipei, but raised in Los Angeles, resurrected Yei Lai Xiang.  Her albums are popular in the Orient.  You might remember hearing this song in Crazy Rich Asians, a 2018 film.  This is the Li Xianglan version.  -