Rachel's Writing

  The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was written by English writer George Orwell in 1948. Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia, which means a society in which nobody likes to live. It makes us imagine poor, dangerous, devastated societies. Orwell has predicted the dystopia would come in 1984 in his work. The stage of this novel is the world after WWIII. The world had divided mainly into three parts, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, and they are all ruled by dictatorship politically. Oceania includes North and South America, the UK, and Australia.   Eurasia is Russia (Soviet Union) and Europe, the territories of Eastasia are the regions east of the Caspian Sea including China, Korea and Japan. These countries have been fighting with each other. The main character is Winston Smith who is working for The Ministry of Truth in Oceania, and this country is ruled by the dictator called Big Brother. Winston’s job is rewriting every document to adjust the statements of the government. ...

 The armed forces of Myanmar instigated a coup on the early morning of February 1st. Originally, the representatives who had been elected democratically in the national election in November should have been invited to the Diet on this day, but the Military prevented it. They claimed that this election was fraudulent, and restrained the members of NLD including Aung San Suu Kyi. The National League for Democracy is the ruling party in Myanmar, and Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of NLD and the current head of government actually. It was such a sudden incident that nobody could have predicted the coup. We should know about the complicated situations around there both geographically and historically to understand what has happened in Myanmar. Myanmar is located around three big countries, China, India, and Thailand, and they had invaded this area, or meddled politically. There were many nations established by ethnic groups, like Barmar, Shan, and Mon in the Middle Ages. Each country ha...

  Who lived in America before Columbus? It is said the Human race was born in Africa and had moved all over the world, and some of them reached to the continent of North America about 16,000 years ago. Many stone tools for hunting in this period were found throughout America. After the end of the Ice Age, they settled there, and began to cultivate corn, beans, pumpkins, and so on. Their unique culture had been growing from 1,000 B.C. They gathered into small communities of tribes and made villages, and they had chiefs as leaders. Villages traded with each other, and their networks were getting larger. Mississippian cultures The biggest cultures grew in the basin of the Mississippi river. They are called Mississippian cultures, and their center was Cahokia. The ruins of Cahokia in Illinois are registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is Monks Mound in Cahokia, it looks like Kofun, the tomb of the king in ancient Japan. The area of Mississippian cultures was between the Atlan...

Have you ever had Onigiri?  You can get it at grocery stores and convenience stores in Japan.  It’s made of boiled rice with some ingredients like fish flakes, salted pram inside, and wrapped with seaweed.  Generally, its shape is triangular, but it’s called a rice ball in English. Onigiri’s “O” is a prefix for politeness, and “Nigiri” means grasping. That’s because people make Onigiri with their hands and mold each shape, but Onigiri at stores is made by machines. It is said that people began to eat Onigiri over a thousand years ago in the Heian period. It’s said that Omusubi, another name of Onigiri, were served as offerings to Gods at Shrines.  Travelers used to bring dried sticky rice balls as portable food, and this habit became more common for soldiers on battlefields in the Middle Ages. So we usually bring Onigiri for lunch when we have picnics or go hiking still now. People of olden days were managing to preserve food. They tried to dry, bake or mix salt with...