Japanese people enjoyed the spring equinoctial week which is called OHIGAN in 
Buddhism. However, the weather report always says cautions about avalanche and the 
increase of river flow by snow melt.

KUMI KOUNO and CHIWAKO MUKAI: we're grad of your attendance and willingness to 
talk at every session of the meeting. 

Report of the 44th meeting;

Today's Guests;
Ms. Nueno, Ms. Miura and Mr. Kai

Opening thought: by TM Konishi

Suspicious two fishing boats was sailing the Japan Sea on Tuesday. TVs and radios 
announced all the night reported how the related agencies coped with this accident.

Today's word: by TM Konishi

She introduced "coincide with" form the news paper article, used in the situation two things 
or accidents happens at the same time.

Table Topic session: by TM Komata

"landscape"
 There're lots of beautiful scenery with traditional buildings in our country like Kyoto City, 
Kurashiki City and some of them stated the regulation for landscape. The word 
"landscape" (Keikan in Japanese) inventoried to Japan in the Meiji period from German 
word "landschaft", which means view or scenery.
 We talked about the favorite scenery of our neighborhood and realized that the beautiful 
scenery should be sustained in the future. Most of us are doing something to contributing 
for making beautiful landscape close to our houses.
 Guest Ms. Nueno pointed out that there should be a word "city-scape" for urban area I 
order to perform its functions.

 GUEST Mr. Wennberg proposed the topic.
 Today's unemployment rate is over 5%. It's hard for people in the 50's to 60's to find new job 
opportunities. Life long employment was common and most employees got leaving 
allowance when retirement in general.
 But today employment terms are changing rapidly and younger generations are getting 
jobs for a few year's contracts.
 "Which do you prefer getting certain amount of money for retirement or getting them on a 
monthly basis?"
 Several members introduced their job experiences and GUEST Mr. Kai told what kind of 
job he wants to take after graduation.

  TM Mukai gave her ice breaking speech; "Bullying". 
 Bullying which is called "ijime" in Japanese is becoming a serious problem these days at 
school. She pointed out the major problems when the teacher dealing with it and explained 
what she'll do if she were a teacher of junior high school.
 She'll promise the bullist that try her best to investigate the cause and hear his / her 
opinions frankly. Sometimes, mother tends to exaggerates the case when her child has been 
bullied. She suggested that parents should give discipline to their children to overcome 
with any problems.

 TM Osaki spoke about "Y2K problems " for her fifth speech.
Year 2000 is near at hand and problems related to the miss-operation of computers have 
been widely discussed. In Japan, only 40% of the small / middle sized companies meet its 
problem now. If the medical system cannot work properly in the New Year, that may cause 
great effect to people's life. 
 Computer companies checked and simulated the software so many times for Year 2000. 
But nobody knows what will happen actually.
 "Watch out folks, but don't panic!", she concluded.

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