We’ve got you on file －お前は記録されている－

Is there anyone who could get through a long life in the modern world without committing a crime?  Even if a saint were to walk the Earth, would he make it from the cradle to the grave without once parking his car in a no-parking zone, or copying and pasting something off the internet without carefully checking its copyright status, or without renting a dvd and then forgetting to return it?

The trouble with writing down a set of laws is that while they look good on paper, it is impossible to predict all the random circumstances which might come together to prompt someone to break one of them.

In the Bible, perhaps the most famous Commandment, or law, is “Thou shalt not kill.”  In modern English, that would be “You must not kill.”  And yet the punishment for breaking this law in normal circumstances was to be executed.  So there must already be one exception to the law.  “Thou shalt not kill, unless you are the public executioner.”  And what about self-defence?  War?  Accidentally causing someone’s death through reckless behaviour like drink-driving?  It would be a tough bureaucracy which treated all of these circumstances exactly the same, and rigidly applied the letter of the law.

That’s why I couldn’t help but laugh at a recent story from America.  A man in North Carolina was driving his daughter to school when he was pulled over by the police.  They stopped him because one of his brake lights wasn’t working correctly.  When they asked his name, they ran a computer check on him and found that there was a warrant out for his arrest, which he hadn’t known about.  He had rented a VHS (the big tapes we used to watch movies before DVDs) in 2002 and had failed to return it.  The video rental store had in the meantime gone bankrupt (presumably not just because of this one lost tape).  So the criminal mastermind, Mr. James Meyers, was taken in handcuffs to the local court to face charges.

Mightn’t this be an example of a bureaucracy trying to rigidly apply the letter of the law, rather than applying common sense and taking account of the circumstances?  Mr. Meyers probably broke the Commandment “Thou shalt not steal”, but was it really in the public interest to put him in handcuffs?

Perhaps the most worrying aspect is the way a minor crime was kept on record and used against him 14 years later.  We live in the computer age now.  Every little crime you commit, from accidental copyright violation to unpaid parking tickets or unreturned library books can be kept on record and used against you.  Since even a saint would struggle to get through life without breaking the law in some circumstances, if they want to get you for something, I’m sure they’ve got something to get you with.  Let’s hope the authorities are always willing to show a little common sense and decency.

And promise you will never tell anyone about that book I borrowed from the boy scouts in about 1990 and never returned.

 

Vocabulary:

a cradle – a bed or resting place for a baby

to prompt – to cause or encourage

a Commandment – In the Bible, God gave 10 Commandments, or strict rules of behaviour

a bureaucracy – an organisation for dealing with laws, rules, paperwork etc.

rigidly – strictly; unbendingly

the letter of the law – the law exactly as it is written; a literal or strict interpretation of the law

a warrant – a document giving the police permission to arrest someone

a violation – of a law, rule etc., a case where it is broken or not correctly followed

 

 

A Spartan education versus cotton wool －スパルタ教育 v.s. 綿花の優しさ－

I was listening to a sports programme on the radio recently.  Some former professional players were discussing how differently young players are treated these days, compared to previous generations.

These ex-pros were complaining that modern youngsters rarely had a tough mentality.  They might be as skilful as former players, but tended to react badly to pressure.

Twenty years ago, managers would shout at the players when they were losing, and criticise them harshly when they were performing poorly.  Before they became successful members of the first team, they were expected to show their dedication and work-ethic by cleaning the boots of the older players.

According to these ex-pros, the modern young players are mollycoddled.  They aren’t exposed to harsh criticism, and have teams of experts looking after their diet, media relations, contract negotiations and so on.  It is like being wrapped in cotton wool, always warm and safe.  Then when the cotton wool eventually slips and, say, the team is on a bad losing run and is facing heavy criticism from the fans and media, the players aren’t able to handle the pressure.

The discussion made me think of the wild swings in Japanese educational policy, from wrapping the kids in cotton wool one day to Spartan education the next.

“Spartan education” is a term used in Japan to mean severe education, with the purpose of turning out tough kids.  One manifestation of this is the crazy lengths, or rather heights, schools often go to in sports festivals.  In these events, many schools have the children form extremely tall human pyramids.  Some primary schools form pyramids of nine tiers.  Some junior high-schools have the children form pyramids of 11 tiers.  That is as high as the third floor of a building, and students at the bottom are estimated to be supporting the weight of 4.2 children.  Clearly, this risks causing accidents.  I found an article from 2012 which said that in that year alone, there were 6,533 accidents in schools whilst trying to form human pyramids.  In the ten years leading to 2012, there were 20 serious accidents caused, leading to permanent injuries or disabilities.

The opposite of Spartan education is “Yutori kyoiku”, or easy-going education.  Following this policy, many schools in Japan tried to take pressure off students to the extent that they only had to learn that the mathematical constant pi was 3, rather than 3.14 (or to greater detail).  In many sports events, there are effectively no losers.  If there are eight students in a race, then they all win a medal at the end.  The person who finishes eighth is merely the slowest winner.  It is no wonder that when these kids graduate and start working, they burst into tears when they are criticised for doing something wrong.

No doubt the ideal is somewhere in between the two extremes.  Learning how to react to tough conditions and pressure is important, and there is nothing wrong with losing on occasion.  But if I were asked to climb an 11 tier pyramid, I think I might have a cold that day, or a conveniently twisted ankle.  “Sorry, coach.  Why don’t you climb up instead?”

 

Vocabulary:

a work-ethic – an understanding of the value of hard work; a hardworking attitude

to be mollycoddled – Especially of a child or youngster, to be over-protected from harsh realities or difficulties

cotton wool – a soft, white sheet of cotton, used in a variety of applications such as cleaning the face

to turn something out – to produce something

a manifestation - an embodiment; a physical example of something abstract or theoretical

No coffee please, I’m British – Thoughts on elegant and vulgar caffeine －イギリス人ですから、コーヒーは結構です。上品なカフェインと下品なカフェインについて。－

“If you feel a bit under the weather,

If you feel a little bit peeved,

Take Granny’s stand-by potion,

For any old cough or wheeze. 

It’s a cure for hepatitis,

It’s a cure for chronic insomnia,

It’s a cure for tonsilitis,

And for water on the knee.

Have a cuppa tea...”

From “Have a cuppa tea”, by the Kinks

I always write my blogs on a Thursday after meeting a friend in a local coffee shop.  She read out a pamphlet to me which had been left there, explaining the benefits of drinking coffee.  It got me thinking of the different cultures of coffee drinking and its great rival, tea drinking.

An English gentleman drinks tea.  Nobody seems to know quite how it is supposed to be prepared: some say that the milk is added after the boiled water, and others swear blind that the milk must go in first.  Some add sugar, or lemon.  Some take it black.  But few are in doubt that Britain is a land of tea bags and cuppas.

In the English speaking world, it is the Americans who dominate coffee.  Their Seattle based coffee empires sweep the world, avoiding local taxes and adding so much sugar, cream and chocolate to their coffee that you wonder if the people who drink it actually like the taste of coffee at all.

In Britain at least, coffee has an image problem.  It is not that we don’t drink coffee.  As I suggested above, our high streets are filled with chains of American coffee stores.  We probably drink, as a nation, about the same amount of coffee as we do tea.  It’s just that we don’t respect coffee in the same way.

Tea is drunk with ceremony.  The precise ceremony might differ from household to household and from person to person.  But in a crisis situation, a cup of tea will be a calming influence.  If important guests come round, the expensive china teacups will be brought out to show how important their visit is to you.  Tea drinking can be very elegant.

Who has expensive coffee mugs for special occasions?  Well, actually, my wife does.  But she’s Japanese and so doesn’t count.  In a crisis, who would make everyone a cup of coffee to calm them down?  Not many people, since coffee is a strong stimulant.  It will simply increase everyone’s nervous energy and tension.  Tea, of course, also contains caffeine, but much less than in a typical cup of coffee.

Perhaps it was this stimulating effect of coffee which made the British king try to ban coffee houses in 1675.  Coffee houses were vibrant places where social classes mixed, people discussed politics and exchanged rumours.  It might well be politically dangerous to get people angry at the government, and then fill them with a restless, caffeine-fuelled energy buzz.  You could call coffee the more vulgar of the two drinks.  It’s hard to be so angry when drinking from a dainty little china cup.

And so both coffee and tea have their place.  My blogs are often angry complaints about what’s going wrong in the world, or my life.  Coffee is the perfect drink for a blog writer.  But there’s a refreshing cup of tea brewing to calm me down when I finish.  I’ll have mine black please: no milk and no sugar.

 

Vocabulary:

under the weather – a British slang expression, meaning feeling unwell

peeved – angry or upset

a wheeze – the condition of having difficulty breathing, when one makes a noise breathing in and out

chronic – about a problem or illness, persistent or recurring

insomnia – the medical term for being unable to sleep

to swear blind - a slang expression, meaning to absolutely insist that something is true or correct

a cuppa – British slang for a cup of tea

a stimulant – a drug, drink etc. which makes people feel more energetic

vulgar – rough, inelegant, unsophisticated etc.

dainty – delicate; small and fragile

 

 

Save me a good seat in the Underworld －あの世で良い席を取っておいてください－

Are any of my students going to Hell?  I can think of one or two likely candidates.  There are those who ask a difficult question about one minute before the lesson ends, knowing that I will have to go over the lesson time to explain the answer!

Well, no matter.  I am not angry.  I just want to ask you to find me a nice spot in Hell if you get there before me: somewhere not too close to the Mountain of Needles, please.

I don’t intend to stay too long in Hell, mind you.  I have been learning recently that mortals are occasionally able to travel in and out of Hell, if they are especially clever or lucky.

A famous Irish writer and translator called Seamus Heaney died recently and I read a little of his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, written two thousand years ago in the Roman era.  Below is a short, edited extract.  This is from an older translation, describing the beginning of one hero’s descent into Hell to have a chat with his dead father, Anchises.  Perhaps he needed to find out where his dear dad had hidden his cash-box?

After that I’ll offer a comparison with a Japanese idea of Hell, and a way to escape.  It is an edited extract from “The spider’s thread” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

*

An edited extract from Virgil’s “Aeneid” (circa 19 b.c.):

“One thing I pray for:

Here the gate opens, they say

To the King of the Underworld’s realms, and here

In these shadowy marshes where the River of the Dead floods

To the surface, grant me one look

One face to face meeting with my dear father.”
 

“Son of Anchises,

It is easy to descend into Hell.

Death’s dark door stands open day and night.

But to retrace your steps and get back to upper air:

That is the task, that is the difficulty.

Only a few have succeeded.” 

An edited extract from “The spider’s thread”  (1918) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa:

One day, the Buddha was strolling alone along the edge of a lotus pond in Paradise.

After a time, the Buddha paused at the edge of the pond and from between the lotus leaves that covered it saw a glimpse of the state of things below.  Now this celestial pond just happened to lie directly over Hell, and peering through that crystal-clear water was like looking through a magnifying glass at the River of Death and the Mountain of Needles.

The Buddha saw there, in the depths of Hell, a single man writhing along with the other sinners.  This man was named Kandata and had been a notorious thief who had performed murder and arson and other acts of evil.  In his past, however, he had performed just one good deed: whilst walking through the forest, he had raised his foot to avoid needlessly killing a small spider.

Looking down on the captives in Hell, the Buddha recalled this kind act.  On a lotus leaf beside him, the Buddha saw a single spider spinning out a web of silver thread...

Kandata was floating and sinking along with the other sinners in the Lake of Blood at the bottom of Hell.  It was pitch black no matter which way he looked, and the occasional glimpse of light that he would see in the darkness would turn out just to be a glint of light from the terrible Mountain of Needles.  How lonely he must have felt!  The great thief Kandata could only squirm like a dying frog as he choked in the Lake of Blood.

But one day, raising up his head and glancing at the sky above the lake, in the empty darkness Kandata saw a silver spider’s thread being lowered from Heaven...

*
There are a few things in common between the classical Greek and Roman legends of Hell, and the Japanese one presented by Akutagawa.  You enter Hell by crossing the River of Death.  And on your way out of Hell, you never look back!  I hope you are paying attention, Kandata.  I said, “As you climb out of Hell, don’t look back.  Kandata, are you listening?” 

Vocabulary:

circa – Used before dates: about; approximately

a realm – a land; a kingdom

a marsh - an area of land that is constantly or regularly flooded or covered by water

to retrace one’s steps – to go back the way one has come

celestial – Heavenly; in the Heavens; in the skies

to writhe – to twist one’s body, as when in extreme pain or discomfort

a sinner – someone who has committed immoral or bad acts

notorious – famous for being bad or evil etc.

arson – the crime of deliberately starting a fire

a captive – a prisoner; someone who has been captured

pitch black – completely black, like tar

to squirm – to writhe; to twist one’s body in discomfort

Magical thinking －マジカルな考えー

Do you believe in magic?

Of course not.  We are living in the 21^st century.  We know that the witches burned hundreds of years ago were really just old women who were disliked and feared by their neighbours.  Perhaps they didn’t smile much, and were an easy target for others to take their anger out on when life seemed unfair.

We know that dancing doesn’t make the rain come.  We heard the weather forecaster on the tv say something about areas of low atmospheric pressure.

Okay.  So you say you don’t believe in magic.

Now imagine that you have a really important exam today.  It will be crucial in deciding your future.  Your mum says she’s sure you’ll do well, and you know that what she really means is, “You had better do well after all the money I spent sending you to cram school.”

So on this most important and stressful of days, what colour of pants are you wearing?

If they are red then, my friend, you were lying to me.  You do believe in magic.  And you are probably Chinese.

If you are Japanese then you may have eaten “katsudon” the night before.  So don’t try and tell me that you don’t indulge in magical thinking.

I read quite a fun article this morning about the superstitious practices followed by students in various countries to help them pass exams.

Red is of course a lucky colour in China.  And, according to the article, wearing red underwear is especially lucky.  If things work out really well for you in China, people around you like to ask, “You aren’t wearing red pants, are you?”

Katsudon is considered an appropriate food in Japan when attempting something difficult, like playing in a sporting cup final, or sitting an exam.  That is because the word “katsu” in Japanese means “to win.”

Interestingly, superstitions are not confined to human beings.  Animals have been shown to exhibit superstitious behaviour too.  In a series of famous (and rather cruel) experiments done in the 1940s, behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner demonstrated that pigeons performed something like rain dances too.

Skinner left the birds hungry and had a gate to their food open at short, random intervals.  Nothing the birds did could make the gate open any faster.  But soon they began performing some actions like rain dances in the hope of making the gate open.  Some birds wiggled their head in a set pattern.  Some birds spun their whole bodies round in a circle in front of the closed food gate.  It seems that they were expecting, or hoping, that their ritual had the magic power to open the gate.  So maybe superstition has a long evolutionary history.

Or perhaps it is too simple to say that behaving superstitiously is like believing in magic.  You might put on red pants to help you to focus your mind on the exam, rather than to tap into the mystical power of red underwear.  Eating katsudon might make you feel good and give you confidence, even though you know that it will not whisper the answers to you whilst digesting in your stomach.

Lots of studies have shown that taking dummy medication can make patients feel better.  The ritual of swallowing a tablet can be as powerful as the chemical effect of the drug.  So maybe putting on those red pants really did help you pass your exam.  It’s not less superstitions we need.  It’s just a better understanding of how to turn them to our practical advantage.

Good luck to all students sitting an English test soon.  Putting 2,000 yen in my hand is a powerful lucky charm which will greatly improve your chances of success.  Applications by email.  Skype charms also available.

 

Vocabulary:

crucial – extremely important

(a) cram school – a school for extra tuition, usually after regular school has finished in the evening

to indulge in something – to treat yourself by doing something, especially if you should not do it (like drinking alcohol, eating chocolate etc.)

to confine – to restrict; to remit

cruel – very unkind

to wiggle – to move something back and forward a little in a repeated slight movement