According to Wikipedia, “Yurie Omi (born July 27, 1988) is a Japanese female announcer, television reporter, television personality, and news anchor for NHK. Omi is one of the hosts of NHK morning news show NHK News Ohayō Nippon. She is also the co-host of NHK television series Bura Tamori aired from April 2016.”
I’ve been a big fan of Yurie Omi since the beginning of this year when I sat in front of the TV by chance at my parents’ house and watched her for the first time in Bura Tamori (I had rarely seen it before, though). This program is a travel show where NHK’s broadcaster strolls Japan’s particular town or area with Tamori, one of Japan’s renowned TV personalities, and a geophysicist, a local historian, or a curator, to investigate the place’s topics such as terrain features, history, culture, and civil engineering.
Why do I think she is so attractive? I think the reason is three-fold. Firstly, she sometimes shows goofy behavior in her TV programs, although she is actually very smart and good-looking. She wore her dress back to front in the news show. In Bura Tamori, she read the thermometer incorrectly. (She said the temperature of hot spring water was 940 degrees Celcius while it really pointed 94.0 degrees.) Such slight weaknesses mean imperfection, which is what Japanese people value in tradition. This mentality makes the Japanese regard her weaknesses as charming. Secondly, she acts or speaks less highhandedly than average so-called “joshi-ana” and TV personalities. They often show off, but she doesn’t. They often speak aggressively, but she never does it. Her attitude like this gives a favorable impression to many Japanese viewers. Thirdly, most of her personality looks so similar to mine that I find something congenial in her. I don’t think she is such a personality that is good at thinking on her feet and speaking off the cuff with a ready wit. Rather, she looks genuine, and she can only do diligently what she has to do with simple honesty. Such characteristics are just like mine.
For those reasons, I got fascinated by her. I watch every TV program she appears in. I get up at five in the morning on weekdays to watch NHK’s morning news show she hosts. In Saturday evening I watch Bura Tamori to see her traveling with Tamori.
In addition to watching her on TV, I had a chance to see her with the naked eye. One day I got the information that she was going to hold a lecture presentation at Nagoya on September 30 and was requesting for audience. I applied for it because it might be my once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet her up.
May our Imperial nation prosper! May the people have a happy New Year!
皇国の発展と国運の隆昌、そして 国民皆が新年（２０１４年、平成26年）を無事に過ごせますように。
地元の西宮・広田神社での初詣。
I was born in 1973. Let the year be the first year for me. The next year (1974) becomes the second year for me, and the year 1975 the third year. Likewise, this year is the 42nd year in my life. It is believed in Japan that a man who lives in his 42nd year (and a woman in her 33rd year) is the most likely to be suffered from an accident, disease or disaster.
今年は数え年42歳、本厄です。
I visited the Mondo-yakujin Temple to have a special prayer to have such mishaps driven away by Yakujin-myô-ô (a mixture of Rāgarāja and Acala), which helps us prevent disaster, disease and other misfortunes from coming to us.
I think this ritual tells us to live very carefully as such a man that is at a turning point in his health. Safe driving is the best option to prevent from accidents.
Today falls on setsubun. On this day, we grill sardines, which means to drive out devils by their smoke. We eat an eho-maki roll as well. It has been our custom since the old days, biting into a big sushi roll looking at the annual lucky direction without speaking any words until the finish. Besides, we eat parched soybeans. We eat one more bean than our age counting in the old Japanese way according to our hometown’s rule.
I love stewardesses, or female flight attendants working on the aeroplane. As is often the case with Asian airlines, Japan’s airlines such as Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have many attractive-looking stewardesses because of the history they once hired such women as flight attendants.
Nevertheless, I love them not only because they look good. It goes without saying that they aren’t so much “the waitresses on the plane” as “the security staff” who maintain the security of the aircraft cabin. To satisfy passengers in normal or emergency conditions, they need to have hard training and pass tests to be qualified as flight attendants. Even after they manage to become stewardesses, they should have and pass periodic tests to avoid being disqualified. Their attractive smiles, dignified attitudes, and graceful behaviour on the plane backed up with their pride in strict training, mesmerise us very much. They are really noble and saintly women, differing from similarly good-looking women like newscasters of telly stations or campaign girls in pits of motor racing circuits.
Their brave and cool-headed actions often save many passengers. When the ANA 857 aeroplane was hijacked at Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, Japan on 21 June 1995 by a desperate banker, a flight attendant was captured by him, being got a full nelson with a knife pointed at her, and taken in hostage in the cabin for tens of hours with the passengers and the other crew. After police and all the passengers released had captured the criminal, she attended a press conference. She had an interview with the press corps, talking calmly in front of TV cameras about what had been going on in the cabin at that time. She behaved like a real professional. A standard young girl would’ve been too shocked and mentally damaged to appear in public and talk in front of press staff if she had experienced such tough circumstances. The crew members were so calm, disciplined, and strong-minded that the criminal didn’t get so much furious, resulting in killing or injuring no personnel until arrested.
When it comes to strong-minded actions in a dangerous situation, policewomen and military servicewomen may have such professionalism as well. They don’t enchant me, however, for police officers are the person who controls us, regulates us and exercises power over us, and the soldiers, sailors, and airwomen don’t appear in our daily lives, so they aren’t familiar to me.
For me, flight attendants offering us their best service on board are the best women. It’s the happiest time for me that, on the taxiing aeroplane preparing for takeoff, I catch the eyes of a stewardess sitting in the jump seat facing me and when our eyes meet we smile at each other.
As a passenger, I always respect them. When getting aboard, I don’t forget to say hello to the greeting crew at the entrance door. When I lift my heavy luggage to stow it into the overhead stowage, I do it by myself instead of making her do it. I order food or drink in a polite attitude, and when she serves me and clears the table, I always say thank you to her with a smile. Of course, I say thank you and goodbye to them to show my most gratitude when I’m getting off the aircraft at destination.
Needless to say, annoying the cabin crew is absolutely unacceptable. Deplorably, there are such idiots that smoke in the lavatory, use a mobile phone in the cabin, yell at her for trivial matters, or even use violence or pervert actions on her. Such vulgar passengers should get off the plane, as they don’t reach the level of class to be qualified to use it.
An aircraft cabin is a salon for sophisticated ladies and gentlemen. The noble hostesses will smile at only such cultivated persons that can prudently enjoy travel.
