Essay of My Wonderful Life,

It was quite a long time ago, when I had a business trip to New York and Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. It was just before the default at the end of 2001. It seriously hit the economy. However I had such impression that sooner or later this country would face some serious situation. The Government of Argentina paid an effort to keep the dollar pegging system, which was one dollar = one peso. However even for the viewpoint of our travelers, it should be so difficult. For example, the hotel charge was so expensive. I could stay even the first-class hotel in New York by paying the same amount of charge. I felt that one peso should be one dollar. Therefore I anticipated that the economy of Argentina should collapse in near future.

I walked around the city of the Buenos Aires. I felt that it was moderate atmosphere, although most of the buildings were considerably antiquated. In the coffee shops, the citizens enjoyed themselves. Most of them looked happily. As a whole, I felt as if I was walking around some old European city, such as Paris.

However in the end of 2001, the moderate atmosphere of Buenos Aires city should drastically changed. Argentina suddenly announced the default. Also the Government prohibits the citizens to withdraw more than 250 US dollars. The foreigners and foreign companies who bought the bonds of the Argentina Government were shocked to see that their bonds had mo more value. The citizens who drank tea in the cafe also suffered much more. Especially the middle class people, who could not afford change their money into dollars in advance, faced more troublesome. Although they had no money and salaries, they had to get daily bread. The newspaper reported that they had sold out even pots and kettles in the kitchen.

I met a Japanese scholar, who studied about Argentina. He gave me much useful information about Argentina. He said to me, "Did you know that this country is the first developed country, who had declined to the under developing country?" Yes, Indeed! I was so impressed by this expression. To begin with, this country is fertile land, which is suitable for the wheat production. Additionally, it is a stock raising nation that the number of cows is more than the number of men. Just when the beef market was greatly expanded in Europe, the frozen cargo ship was invented, which could make Argentina export beefs to Europe. Around this period, Argentina accepted many immigrants. Both industries and population had drastically expanded from the end of the 19th century to the 20th century. At the beginning of the 21st century, Argentina was one of the most wealthy and developed countries in the world.

We, Japanese, cerebrate centennial anniversary of the Russo-Japanese War in this year. About 100 years ago, Japan and Russia were finding for battle ships. At that time, it is known well that Argentina helped Japan by transferring the ordered two battleships "Kasuga" and "Nisshin". We should appreciate to this country.

After World War II, the president Peron took the policy to change from the agricultural industry. He forced the industrialization policy. However it was so radical. He faced the huge deficit of the government revenue and hyper inflation. Also he conflicted with the Roman Catholic. He was forced to resign. Since then the military regimes were born and disappeared several times. In 1983, the civil administration transfer was done. Once the nation was thrown into confusion, it seemed to be difficult to recover. In the Falkland battle, Argentina was defeated completely by England, which was really unnecessary battle. The worldwide hero Maradona of soccer is now a fat man of the middle age and arrested by abusing the drag. Recently, Argentina was notorious for the default of 132.1 billion dollars at the end of 2001.

To tell the truth, after you have heard such abuses on Argentina, you might be misunderstand that Argentina might be a useless country. However it is completely wrong, I dare to say. I think that Argentina should be very wonderful country, because she produced the Argentina tango dance and the dance music. This is the splendid contribution to the world's dancing art. Therefore if Argentina might make some mistakes, we should be generous to this country.
The　Ｃａｍｉｎｉｔｏ　Ｓｔｒｅｅｔ

It was the bar at the Caminito that I saw the dance of the Argentina tango for the first time. This is the place at the port Boca, where the Argentina tango was born about 100 years ago. When I saw the tango dancing, I was so excited, because the dancers' upper body were gracefully moving, but the down part, such as legs are drastically moving like another animal's legs. The unbalance created some excitement and also it implied the nature of this dense.

The birth place of tango is located at the downtown of Buenos Aires. It was the place, the atmosphere of which was dull and lonely. Maybe formerly it was the same as now. Tango was born at bars near the port. The port workers, who finished hard job, relaxed themselves there through drinking and girls and tango was naturally born under such circumstances. Therefore tango was once prohibited for the reasons of obscenity. Although tango has had such a twisted history, it has been improved to an artistic dance today. On the other hand, the tango music was assumed to be born in the Academia of capital Montevideo in Uruguay on the other side shore in the La Plata River. These tango dense and music have been developed and have artistic lyrics nowadays.

It was no wonder why I was so impressed and fascinated by the tango, because it was my first experience for me to see at the birth place. So I wanted to see it again. One day I happened to find the advertisement of the performance by the Orquestra Jose Colangelo "Dansing Tango Argentino". Thinking the price of the ticket and the performance place, it might not be the first class. But I thought that it was a good chance for me to watch. So I bought the ticket.

I was very satisfied to listen and watch tango dance. The music were such as Ra Cmpalsheta, ell Chocro, Mironga of my love, and other famous pieces. The band master was Mr. Jose Colangelo, who was 65 years old, whose visit to Japan was the ninth times. He was so energetic, performing as the conductor, the concert master and the piano performer. The band was the five duets, that is, the piano, the violin, the cello, the bandoneon and the contrabass. In addition, the number of dancers was eight, which meant there were four couples. All of them danced moving around with showing energetic movement. We audiences were so satisfied to watch their dance and listen to music. Every time when they finished their performances, we naturally gave big applauses to them.

(June 23, 2005)

(Source) Music(Musica Midi)