It all starts with a comment on a online feedback section of a news article.
Local councils in Australia have the power to approve or reject any development proposals in their suburbans. In more affluent areas, the councils are more restrictive and loathe to approve any new or large scale development.
So here is the comment: “[Chippendale] is geographically very small with a lot of heritage buildings and a Council that would rather commit hari kari than approve more than a token few high rise developments”
I wonder what a “kari kari” is. Given the context, I suppose it is probably an alternative spelling of ‘harakiri’ aka Seppuku.
The most famous Seppuku, for me, is probably that of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima
As part of the ritual, he requested to be beheaded but his accomplice, Masakatsu Morita, was not able to hack off the head after two trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroyasu_Koga
At this point, I really appreciate the fact that I can understand these Chinese characters. èå° means ‘Barren Land’. You will not get this sense from the romanised spelling, ‘Arechi’.
Does it reflect how he feels about his past?