Rachel's Writing

  The annual historical drama series, The Giraffe is Coming ( Awaiting Kirin : Japanese title Kirin ga Kuru) is broadcasting on NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation. The main character of this drama is Akechi Mitsuhide, and it is an exceptional explanation of Japanese history. That is because he has been described as the betrayer to Oda Nobunaga, who had been a highly rated warrior and politician. It is told that Nobunaga finished the warring state, Sengoku period, and tried to unify all of Japan. Nobunaga is very popular, he generally has been said to be a charismatic, handsome, smart and fair person, even though he also was a cruel tyrant with a very short temper. Mitsuhide belonged to Oda’s clan, and was promoted by Nobunaga. However he killed Nobunaga in 1582 in what is called the Honno-ji incident. After the Honno-ji incident, Mitsuhide was killed by Hashiba Hideyoshi, who was also in Oda’s clan, and he succeeded Nobunaga’s project. According to history, Mitsuhide has ...

  I like watching YouTube videos, because it is convenient to kill my time and efficient for English learning. So I would like to introduce my favorite channels in English. Firstly, I pick Drew Binsky’s channel, it is so popular with over 3.3 million subscribers. Drew is a 28-year-old YouTuber, and has been trying to travel to every country in the world since 2012. He says he dreamed of visiting every country when he had gotten a globe on his 10th birthday. And he went to South Korea as an English teacher after university. He has visited 191 countries up to now, and posts short videos on his channel almost every single day. They introduce us various things about heritage sites, history, food, culture, interviews with local residents, or how to travel on a low budget. I’m impressed with his point of view, because he is always optimistic and not emotional, even though he reports terrible situations like riots, war, discrimination and poverty. His narration is clear and understan...

  When I visited Malacca while I worked in Malaysia, I felt relaxed when I saw the beautiful scenery of the Strait of Malacca. But I didn’t know about the difficult background behind it. Malacca straight has been a “choke point” throughout world history. “ Choke point” means it is a very narrow sea lane, and it has important geographical advantage. Shippers have been going through the Strait of Malacca. Especially Chinese and Arabic merchants were getting rich trading with each other. There had been some fishing villages in Malacca, initially. The Prince of Srivijaya built the port and converted to Muslim to deal with Arabic merchants. He became the Sultan Iskandar Shah. It sounds strong, doesn’t it? He is still a hero in Malaysia now. Sultan means the King of an Islamic region. So, this area is called Malacca Sultanate. He also married with the princess of China to forge a strong alliance with them. Malacca got the powerful support on both military and trading. And they star...