The unfortunate Bobbitts, and how not to rescue a drug addict －不幸なボビットさんたち、それから麻薬中毒患者を救うときの間違ったやり方－

“I feel sorry for these guys.  I was an alcoholic and I could have become homeless.  Anyone could become homeless.  All it takes is the right girl, the right friends, and the right bar.”

“Some people say ‘Don’t give them any money.  It’s probably for drugs or alcohol.’  Well, yeah.  Drugs are pretty important to a drug addict.”

Both from 1990s comedian, Bill Hicks

I recently read a book by Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson, in which he gave some interesting advice.  He said, “Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does.“  At first glance, the advice seems a little harsh.  If people need help, then how can you pass by without trying to rescue them?  But perhaps the following story supports Peterson’s view.

An American woman’s car ran out of petrol and she didn’t have money to fill her tank.  She was at a loss for what to do.  But a passing homeless man offered her his last 20 dollars to buy petrol.  So she accepted the gift.  After that, she and her boyfriend started an internet crowd-funding campaign to reward the homeless man for his charity.  They had a target of raising 10,000 dollars to give to the man.  But they collected more than they had expected – over 400,000 dollars.

What happened next is disputed.  The homeless man, Mr. Bobbitt, claims that the couple kept most of the money for themselves, paying for holidays and a new car.  The couple claim that whenever they gave Mr. Bobbitt money he just spent it on drugs.  They told a newspaper that he spent 25,000 dollars on drugs in just 13 days.  So they kept some of the money back and planned to start a trust fund and hire a financial adviser for him.  The case will go to court soon.

In any case, the story seems to show that helping people is not just as simple as giving them a pile of money.

Another thing which struck me about the case was the name of the homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt.  The only other people I have heard of called “Bobbitt” are John and Lorena Bobbitt.  They became famous in the early 1990s after Lorena cut off John’s penis while he was asleep and drove away with it, throwing it out of her car window.  The poor Bobbitt clan never seem to appear in any positive news stories.

Vocabulary:

to rescue someone – to save someone; to help someone in need

at first glance – Judging from only a brief look

to be at a loss – to be unsure what to do; to be in trouble and confused

to be disputed – of an incident, for people to disagree about it

Learning to survive in a compensation culture －賠償文化の中で、どうやって生き残るか学ぶこと－

An acquaintance of mine was recently involved in a minor road accident.  She was cycling her bike and failed to notice a car which was idling ahead of her until it was too late.  She collided with the back of the car and slightly injured herself.  When she went to apologise to the driver, he demanded her contact details in case she had damaged his car.  She gave him the details and continued on her way.  He is now threatening to sue, not just to get compensation for supposed damage to his car, but for his “medical bills”.  He was sitting in a padded seat, wearing a seatbelt, and was protected by the metal frame of his car.  Just what kind of injuries could he have sustained in a slight bump with a bicycle?  Perhaps it was psychological trauma?

Minor bumps and scrapes used to be considered unfortunate accidents.  Now, it seems, they are fantastic opportunities to make money!

Compensation culture is taking over the world in other ways as well.  You have just been dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend?  Why not demand a break-up payment from them for the emotional damage and wasted time they have caused you?  According to an article I read a few months ago, this custom is becoming popular in urban China.  It is not legally binding, but couples which break up sometimes agree upon a sum of money to be paid by the person who ends the relationship.  It is a bit like a divorce settlement.  In one case, a woman who dumped her boyfriend tried to calculate exactly how much he had spent on her in restaurant bills, cinema tickets and so on while dating.  She sent him an itemised list of estimated costs, and gave him the same amount in cash.  I hope that she was more romantic during the relationship!

Perhaps we all just have to get used to living in a compensation culture.  Keep all your receipts, and the number of a good lawyer

Vocabulary:

an acquaintance – someone that you know

to sue – to take to court

a bump – a minor collision

a scrape – the rough rubbing of one object against another

to dump (passive, to be dumped) – to end a relationship with someone

a sum of money – a certain amount of money

All in the mind – The magical powers of children －すべて心の中。こどもの魔力－

A young boy of around 9 finds a candle, a candlestick, a ruler, and a book of matches.  He places the candle in the candlestick on a desk in front of him.  He uses the ruler to ensure that his eyes will be exactly 16cm from the flame.  Then he strikes a match and lights the candle.  After that he just stares.  He stares long and hard into the flame, focussing on a black spot at the very centre.

A young girl of around 13 climbs the stairs of her two-storey house.  When she reaches the second floor she stands in front of the banister which separates the second floor from a long fall to the ground.  She lifts one leg carefully over the banister, then the other.  Balancing gracefully on the other side, she closes her eyes to focus her mind.  She lifts her arms like a swimmer on an Olympic pool’s diving-board, and jumps.

What is going on in these two scenes?  The boy in the first one is me.  When I was a child, I read a story by the writer Roald Dahl in which a man trains himself to concentrate on a single object for so long that he is able to access the hidden powers possessed by his sub-conscious mind.  In “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” the hero stares hard into a candle flame placed exactly 16cm from his face for hour after hour, day after day, month after month, until his magnificent mental powers begin to appear.  The fictional method seemed quite logical and plausible to my young mind.  And so I was trying to make the method work for real.

I heard about the girl from a friend this week.  Perhaps influenced by children’s fiction in which characters can fly if only they believe hard enough, the young girl jumped from the second floor of her house in the belief that she would be able to fly in real life.

And the results?

After spending a day or two in a darkened room, I got frustrated with the time it was taking for my superior mental powers to appear.  A child next door to me had come to believe, after watching “Back to the Future,” that he could time-travel if only he could make his bicycle go faster than 88 miles per hour.  I knew that this wasn’t true, but riding our bikes round and round the neighbourhood was more fun than the candle, so I wandered off and helped him with his experiment instead.

The girl’s experiment had a less happy ending.  She realised that she was unable to fly when she fell to the ground and badly injured herself.  She had to spend two months in hospital before making a full recovery.

I can see two lessons in these stories of childish innocence.  The first is that without an adult’s many experiences of being lied to, cheated and exploited, a romantic and dreamy child can be quite impressionable.  Perhaps we ought to be a little more careful about what children watch and read, especially when they can find just about anything if they have internet access.  The second lesson is this: If you think you can fly, try taking off from ground level first.

Vocabulary:

a book of matches – matches which are not kept in a box, but a small folded card

to stare – to look long and hard

two-storey – having two floors or levels

a banister – the railing at the side of a staircase

sub-conscious – of one’s mind, below the level at which you are aware

plausible – believable; possibly true

to be exploited – to be unfairly treated or used; to be taken advantage of

Fixing your emails, and texting the professor －Eメールを直すこと、スマホから教授にメールすること－

I once received this email from a student:

Teacher, 

Physical condition not good.

[Student’s name]

*

What a great email!  I think what she meant to say was:

Dear William,

Good morning.

I am terribly sorry but I will have to cancel today’s lesson.  I am not feeling well.

I will email you to book another lesson when I am feeling better.

Regards,

(Student’s name)

*

Of course my former student was not a native speaker of English.  It is understandable if she did not know how to structure an email in her second language.  I was pleased that she took the time to write something in English, instead of simply failing to turn up to the lesson.

Here is a simple structure to follow if you have to write an email in English:

1 – “Dear [William],” or, “Hello [Will],” if you want to be more casual

2 – Simple greetings, such as “Good morning,” or “I hope you are well.”

3 – State simply the purpose of your email.  For example, “I have to cancel today’s lesson,” or, “I would like to take a trial lesson.”

4 – State simply any more specific details, or ask any more specific questions.  For example, “I will email you when I’m feeling better,” or, “Are you free on Saturday at 11am?”

5 – Finish the email with a polite phrase to say goodbye, such as, “Regards,” or, “Thanks,” if you want to be more casual.

6 – Write your name

According to an article I read this week, even many native speakers of English do not feel comfortable writing emails like the one above.  Many young people have grown up with smartphones and text-messaging.  A professor at the University of Ontario claimed that students under the age of 22 feel that emails are too formal.  Emails recognise the status and possible seniority of the person you are addressing.  So she gives her students her mobile phone number and encourages them to text her with questions about coursework instead of emailing.

It sounds like a terrible idea to me.  If the students are too casual then they will feel less guilty about coming late or unprepared.  They are getting a formal education, after all, not going to a beach party.  And does the professor adopt the same casual attitude to the lessons?

“i’ll b l8 for today’s lecture. Just chat amongst urselves for 20 mins.

xxx

The professor”

Vocabulary:

to book something – to reserve something; to arrange a time and place to take a service, such as a lesson or meal at a restaurant

to structure something – to arrange the order of something, or decide how it is put together

to turn up – to appear; to go to something you are expected to go to

specific – not general; relating to small details

“l8” – “late”

“urselves” – “yourselves”

“xxx” – “Kiss, kiss, kiss.”

Sweet and sour foot-in-mouth －口に詰め込んだ酢足－

“It is my invariable custom to say something flattering to begin with, so that I will be forgiven if by any chance I put my foot in it later on.”

The husband of the British Queen, Prince Philip, at a speech in 1956

We all put our foot in it from time to time.  We might not know all the important facts.  We might attempt a joke, when a joke will not be well received.  We might simply let the wrong word slip from our mouth, which is accidentally insulting.

I remember putting my foot in it at a Japanese restaurant in Scotland.  One of my Scottish friends took me out for a meal there, along with some of his Chinese-Scottish friends.

“Will,” said my friend.  “You have lived in Japan.  What do you think of this Japanese food?”

“Well it’s not very authentic,” I said.  “It doesn’t taste much like the Japanese food I ate in Japan.  It’s more like a Chinese meal that they have called Japanese so that they can charge twice the price.”

“I haven’t introduced you to the man sitting across from you.  His family runs this restaurant.”

“Ah.”

My mistake was not knowing all of the facts.  The British Foreign Minister, Chris Hunt, got into trouble this week by letting the wrong word slip out.  He was in China, giving a speech to important Chinese politicians and business leaders.  He wanted to curry favour with the room by letting them know that his wife was Chinese.  But somehow – he claims it was because he had been chatting in Japanese a few minutes earlier – he accidentally told the room that he had a strong connection with China because his wife was Japanese.  Oops!  He probably managed to make not only the room angry, but make his home life difficult too.

At least Chris Hunt is not the first politician or world leader to put his foot in it.  He might take comfort from remembering some other famous diplomatic gaffes.

At the G8 summit in 2006, George Bush suddenly started to massage Angela Merkel’s shoulders.  The shocked German leader flinched and pulled quickly away in a very awkward moment.

In 2008, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described US president Obama as “young, handsome, and tanned.”  Nobody was quite sure if this was intended as a compliment or a racial insult.

During a visit to Japan in 2015, then London Mayor Boris Johnson took part in a children’s game of rugby and roughly knocked a ten year old boy to the ground as he tackled him with force.  Well at least the child didn’t die.

During an official visit to Papua New Guinea in 1998, Prince Philip addressed a British student who had been trekking in the country.  “You managed not to get eaten then?”  Let’s hope the cannibals weren’t listening.

“If it has four legs and it is not a chair; if it has two wings and is not an aeroplane; if it swims and is not a submarine: then the Cantonese will eat it,” said Prince Philip at a speech on animal protection in 1986.

Thinking about these examples of famous gaffes, it seems to be better either to avoid them altogether, or to make lots of them.  Certainly George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, Boris Johnson, and Prince Philip have had long and successful careers despite regularly putting their foot in it.  Perhaps if you do it often enough, people stop being offended and just find it funny.  I wonder if Chris Hunt will follow this example and have a long and happy career insulting people?

Vocabulary:

invariable – unchanging

flattering – of a comment, tending to make the listener sound good

to put one’s foot in it – to put one’s foot in one’s mouth; to accidentally say something inappropriate

insulting - offensive

authentic – real; genuine

to curry favour – to try to get a good relationship with someone in too obvious or undignified a way

a gaffe – a blunder; a remark which accidentally insults or causes embarrassment

to flinch – to instinctively jump slightly

tanned – having skin temporarily darkened by strong sunlight