Let’s say good-bye to the miserable past and welcome the new year of wonder. May this year be a more magical, more wonderful, more marvellous, more fabulous, more beautiful, and more glorious one. I sincerely hope all the people in this country live in peace and stability.
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Annus Miserabilis
The year 2011 would be “annus miserabilis” (a miserable year) for Japan. This year will go down as one of the most appalling in Japan’s history, due to the dreadful first-in-1,000-years earthquake and tsunami and the consecutive nuclear plant damage in Fukushima on 11 March.
On the day the earthquake struck our land, I was working at the office in Tokyo as usual. At the very moment the quake occurred, I was walking on the stairway and saw everything begin to swing. At first, I thought it was because I had a dizzy spell from my high blood pressure, but soon I realised it was the land swaying, as I saw a string suspended from the ceiling, along with other things. Then the amplitude of the tremor grew larger and larger. It reminded me of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake I experienced in 1995 while living in Nishinomiya. I felt the quake last for one or two minutes, but I couldn’t do anything but let it take its own course.
After it ceased, I entered the office, where everybody was shocked. Some escaped under the desk, and some stood still holding the books on the shelf so that they wouldn’t fall. The telly in the office was turned on. Every TV station was broadcasting the breaking news on the earthquake. The government announced tsunami alerts nationwide, but I didn’t think that a tsunami would cause so much damage even if it came, because a similar situation had just happened one year before, when an earthquake happened in Chile, followed by a tsunami, which came to the Sanriku area but didn’t hurt it at all.
However, about an hour later, I saw on the TV screen seawater overflowing over the banks and coastal roads into the rice fields, washing away cars, buildings, and everything that was there. I felt like watching an action film, as the scene was too far from reality.
On that day, I had to stay in the office until midnight because the Tokyo area was suffering a great deal as well. There were no trains or public transportation available, and some networks in the Tohoku area were damaged, so we had to fix them. At midnight, trains started moving again, but they were very crowded with millions of people rushing home, so I returned home on foot. It took about an hour to get back home.
After the disasters, most roads were clogged with thousands of immovable cars in the first two days. After the roads were clear, petrol was running short. Many cars had to queue up in front of petrol stations to have their tanks filled. Thank god my car’s fuel tank was almost full because I had filled it up one week before.
I was not so troubled with my everyday life after the disasters. Bath tissues were running low, but I had bought 30 rolls at Costco one week earlier, so they were quite enough for a single household. The PET bottles of drinking water disappeared from convenience stores and supermarkets due to concerns that tap water may be contaminated with radioactive materials. However, the tea and soda pet bottles were still on sale. My inconvenience was negligible compared with the survivors who were forced to stay in evacuation facilities.
In the first few weeks after the disasters, people all over Japan were united. They considered the disasters as a national issue, not a Tohoku-specific local one, unlike the Hanshin-Awaji case. They all cared for survivors in the affected area and did their best to save them through donations and volunteer work. Their minds were beautiful, one of the Japanese virtues to take pride in.
On the last day of this year, it’s time to reflect on what I did and experienced. Though this event is unforgettable, my end-of-year review will focus on more positive aspects.
The keywords of the year 2011 are: a car, British culture and China.
I purchased a car in January. Having my own car was the first in three years. Driving a car with a manual gearbox was the first in 17 years. I reviewed how to drive on educational videos posted on YouTube to get used to manoeuvres early.
British culture is what I experienced deeply this year, as well as in the last four years. This year, I was able to enjoy the British Hills in Fukushima, which I had long wanted to visit.
The last one, China, is that I visited Shanghai in January for business and Hong Kong in November for personal purposes. It was the first time visiting mainland China and the first time in six years to Hong Kong. Actually, I wanted to visit Beijing in March, but I gave it up because of the disasters.
The year 2011 is really “annus miserabilis” for many people and me in Japan, but I hope the next year will be “annus mirabilis” (miracle year).
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Off to Hong Kong
I’m going to Hong Kong tonight. I last visited there six years ago. I’ll be back in Japan on Sunday, 6th.
Action items in Hong Kong: to get a SIM-lock-free iPad 2 and, if possible, an iPhone 4S in Mong Kok; to register a new address and passport number for my HSBC account; and to do some sightseeing in Stanley, Aberdeen, and Lamma Island.
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National Azabu Supermarket Closed
National Azabu Supermarket in Hiroo, where imported foods, groceries, books, toiletries, and stationery were available, has terminated operations as of today due to the age of its building.
The Hiroo neighbourhood is one of the places I visited very frequently because the training centre of the company I worked for was in that area. I visited there from time to time to have an English test or training for English writing or business skills when I was a young worker. Every time I had classes there, I dropped in on the supermarket to see the shoppers coming from abroad, mainly the United States, who looked rich enough to afford the imported products sold there. To see such successful people encouraged me to do my best to learn English and business skills for my success.
However, several years later, the training centre was closed and moved to another place. Most of the products sold in supermarkets are available online for the same prices as in their home countries, without paying extra at imported grocery shops. Besides, the United States is no longer the goal for successful persons, given its current circumstances.
The supermarket was a dream for me, and a wonderland that offered me a space of extraordinariness, but it ended its role as a symbol of success with the change of the times. Without the supermarket, I will visit the Hiroo area more rarely than ever.
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Play
When I studied at university, attending classes in the “liberal arts” was mandatory for the first two years. There was a wide variety of subjects to choose from, from English, German, chemistry, mathematics, and economics to Chinese history, Japanese literature, and Japanese linguistics. Most of them had nothing to do with my major (engineering), so I thought that taking them was a waste of time, and the university should teach us more practical techniques focusing on our major studies. I even thought I should go to a professional school because they might teach only the professional skills necessary for my future.
Nevertheless, I found out, when I had started my career and had some job experience, that culture would win in the end. Acquiring practical knowledge and skills related to jobs is, of course, a matter. Your worth is determined by how cultured and skilled you are. For example, in an English class, I read about Tristan and Isolde’s tragic love story, originally written by Gottfried von Strassburg and later set to music by Richard Wagner, in which a knight named Tristan fell in love with a king’s wife, Isolde, and they were ruined by their illicit love. When I attended the class, I suspected if the story could contribute to my future career. Still, now I know that it is common knowledge among general people, especially in the Western countries, and ignorance of it is regarded as uncultured.
Your culture is cultivated not by hard work but by play. Play is the space in which a mechanism moves or, in more comprehensive words, the emptiness in the activeness. It may seem like a waste, but it can sometimes broaden your horizons and deepen your insight. As it is often said that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, play is indispensable for everything. Who dares drive a car with a steering wheel with no play?
Play is important during vacation. Doing nothing is the right way to spend a vacation because the word “vacation” derives from “vacant,” which means empty. Wasting time is an extreme luxury. Many people, however, trying to make good use of holidays, go to crowded spots, resulting in getting more tired than before. In particular, Japanese people are so conscious of eliminating waste that they feel guilty about wasting time. They are so obliged to waste no time on holidays; their vacation, ironically, ends up wasting time and energy rather than saving them.
In the midst of your career, play sometimes helps guide you better. Studying a different field, seeing people do different types of business, and even meditating in your room would be useful, in addition to throwing yourself into your work. They are not directly related to your current work, but they may give you some hints for your future career.
There is nothing wasteful in your life in the long run. As long as you are alive, what you are doing is helpful in something, even goofing off in bed.
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My Current Views in English
We Japanese know that English is the world’s de facto standard language; everyone in the world needs to learn to communicate with each other in this fast-globalising society. Mastering English is, nevertheless, one of the greatest hardships for most Japanese people who were born in Japan and raised by Japanese parents there. They learn English as a mandatory subject in middle school, high school, and even college for up to eight years, but very few of them have a good command of it.
Quite a few analysts have commented on why most Japanese people are weak in English. Some say it’s because English’s structure of language is quite different from that of the language they usually speak. Others point out problems with Japan’s English education policies, which rely too heavily on teaching translation techniques from English to Japanese rather than on communicative English.
It is also said that English isn’t necessary for Japanese people’s everyday life. Even if English is taught in school, it’s what they can forget after managing to pass the entrance examination of their highest education facility at long last. Once they finish studying for exams, they can do without English for life as long as they stay within Japan. Rather, showing off English is considered in many cases as rude, affected, and disgusting behaviour by other average Japanese, especially older people who have less chance to learn English.
Why do average Japanese living in Japan hate such people who speak English fluently, though they may neither feel rude, affected nor disgusting to good painters, professional musicians, skilled karate masters, or those who are good at something other than English? Japan has been subject to America’s control in business, economy, military, culture, and everything else since WWII, and various kinds of things have been brought into Japan. People in Japan have been mesmerised by such American-style things and, because it has been noised about especially for the last 15 years that all examples in America are the global standard they should follow, they have done their best to try to incorporate them in their daily life. However, a few things are what they can’t manage to do it—English is the one. Affection to what they try to get in vain turns into hatred over time and the hatred will be expressed at those who successfully have it. Due to such nature of Japanese people, most of them don’t or pretend not to speak English well so that they won’t generate unexpected resentment among people. Because it’s considered affected to show off speaking English in public, they have less motivation to use it.
In my humble opinion, one important attitude to master English is to stop admiring America too much. English is not a language for Americans only, but a lingua franca that people around the world learn, whether or not they are native English speakers. You’ll find out that American English, mainly taught in Japan, is not dominant in the world if you travel to countries in Europe, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, where British English is widely used in conversation and signs in public. People in the UK, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia use their own local English. Even within the United States, you’ll see various kinds of people from businesspersons to hotel clerks, taxi drivers, and newsstand workers who speak in various kinds of accents. Nothing is right, and nothing is wrong. Nothing is fashionable, and nothing is dowdyish. They are all in English.
We should be a master of English, not a slave of it. We should learn it not so much as one of American cultures as an interface language to get our views across to anyone in the world, regardless of their mother tongue, representing the nation we stand for. The more Japanese people who can do it, the more they can influence the world, benefiting our country.