Please Write your Answers on the Blank Sheet Provided －配られた白紙に回答を書いてください－

There was a story from Korea this week which makes even Japan’s education system seem reasonable and easy going in comparison. 

Korea’s college entrance exams are notoriously tough.  The students have to sit for eight hours in a single day, being tested in a range of subjects. 

At one testing site, an examiner misread the clock and rang the bell to end the Korean language part of the examination 90 seconds early.  The students noticed the error and complained bitterly at the time, but the error could not be fully corrected.  Some students were apparently so furious and disturbed by the error that they gave up taking the rest of their examinations and went home.  More than thirty students are now suing the examination board for thousands of dollars in compensation each. 

I sympathise with the young people taking the exams, who were pressured by society to treat these exams as the most important event in their lives.  No wonder they felt so cheated by the loss of 90 seconds.  You could quickly scan your paper and correct several errors in that time. 

But how can the education system have gone so badly wrong in Korea that the loss of 90 seconds would make some students give up and go home?  This is hardly good preparation for later life.  Life is full of unfairness and unforseen problems.  If you have a 90 second argument with your husband or wife, should you give up on the relationship and storm out in disgust? 

What is school preparing these students for?  Life is not an examination.  What situation they face later in life will be similar to a marathon eight hour cycle of questions? 

Shouldn’t Korean schools be spending less time drilling facts into students’ brains, and more time teaching them how to build strong relationships, and how to find happiness in a stressful world? 

I’m not the Rogue that I Used to Be —僕はもうかつてのような悪党ではない—

I have a bad cold and a fever today.  So I’ll keep my blog simple. 

These are the lyrics to one of my favourite songs, by an English band called the Kinks. 

The narrator has seduced a sweet girl called Genevieve, and hurt her.  But now he has realised that he loves her and asks for her forgiveness, and a second chance.  Would you put your trust in him?

 

“Sweet Lady Genevieve,” by the Kinks:

“Once under a scarlet sky,

I told you never ending lies.

But they were the words of a drunken vagabond,

Who knew very well he would break your heart before long.

Oh, forgive me, Genevieve.

 

Now I’ve come back to see,

Sweet Lady Genevieve.

This time I’ll give you some security,

And I will make promises I can keep,

So will you come back to me,

Sweet Lady Genevieve?

 

Let me rock you, hold you, take you in my arms,

Forgive me please;

Smile away all your sadness; put your trust in me.

 

Oh, if you come back to me,

Sweet Lady Genevieve -

I’m not the impetuous fool that you used to know.

I know that I used you and I hurt you so;

But that was so long ago,

Sweet Lady Genevieve.

 

Oh, love me, take me in your arms.

Let me rock you, hold you.

Smile away all your sadness; put your trust in me.

 

Once under a starry sky,

I led you on and told you lies.

[I] drank too much whisky on that hot summer night,

I acted so slyly because you were acting so shy.

Oh, forgive me, Genevieve.

 

Sweet Lady Genevieve -

You’re not the child who smiled so innocently;

And I’m not the rogue that I used to be.

So will you come back to me,

Sweet Lady Genevieve?

 

Oh, Genevieve, oh, Genevieve.” 

 

Vocabulary:

to seduce someone – to entice someone into sexual activity

scarlet – of a brilliant red colour

a vagabond – a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job; a tramp

to be impetuous – to act quickly without thought or care

to lead someone on – to mislead or deceive someone, especially into believing that one is in love with or attracted to them

to act slyly – to behave in a cunning and deceitful way

a rogue – a dishonest and dishonourable person

 

A Day-mare Cold —悪昼夢の風邪—

It is getting into winter and the season of colds.  My family and I have been coughing for weeks, unable to finally get rid of a persistent cold.  But things are not as bad as they might be. 

In the 19^th century, a writer called Charles Lamb wrote a letter to a friend to complain about a cold he was suffering.  His cold was so bad that he described it not as a nightmare, but as a “day-mare.”  Here is what he had to say in his letter, which I have edited to make simpler. 

* 

Dear friend, 

Do you know what it is to suffer a day-mare?  It is a lack of desire to do anything or to be anything.  It is a total deadness and distaste.  It is a suspension of vitality.  It is an indifference to where I am.  It is a numb, good-for-nothing feeling.  It is a feeling of my body hardening all over.  It is an oyster-like insensibility to what is happening around me. 

Did you ever have a very bad cold?  This has been for many weeks my fate and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three miles from here to the end of this page.  I have not a thing to say.  I am flatter than a pancake.  I am duller than a theatre stage when the actors are off it.  I acknowledge life at all only by an occasional cough and a permanent pain in the chest.  I am weary of the world; life is weary of me.  My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of candles.  I can't distinguish veal from mutton; nothing interests me.  If you told me the world will be at an end tomorrow, I should just say, "Will it?" 

My brains are gone out to see a poor relative, and they did not say when they'd come back again.  My skull is a cheap attic to let, without a stool left in it.  My hand writes, not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are off.  Oh, if only I could have a toothache, an insect in my ear, a fly in my eye instead! 

Did you ever have an obstinate cold, a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and suspension of hope, fear, conscience and everything? 

Charles Lamb