A German student and an Austrian philosopher

The other day, one German student came to my office to join our Health Insurance. When I was explaining our policy to him, I noticed he had a book about Wittgenstein in his hand, apparently, the memoir written by Ray Monk. So, I asked him if he studies philosophy, and told him that I have read that book when I was a student. He seemed to be very surprised by my question, I don’t know he was surprised either because I have read his book or because I know his name. To my surprise this time, he showed more astonishment to know there are Japanese translations of his works.

When I was at his age, there was time when I was deeply into this doubtlessly ingenious Austrian philosopher, who was famous for not only his scintillating acumens on the world, but also countless anecdotes of his eccentric character and his life. I had a gut feeling that I shared the same metaphysical questions, but alas, I couldn’t sharpen my philosophical instinct enough to penetrate his convoluted works. I tried to read analytical books written for students or general public to understand his general idea, but to no avail. Nonetheless, his piercing eyes were branded in my brain and still I keep my respect and ambition that someday I will understand his works.

Although we didn’t speak much about him at our health insurance counter, that small chatting made my day. I get lots of complains from residents at my workplace everyday, and I have tons of complains about my workplace. But, such a small conversation with people is really rewarding to me, sometimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein

I don't mix Britain with England,by the way.

I spotted the job advertisement for British Council the other day. It says that the wanted position is Press & PR Executive, which is to promote Britain as a wonderful holiday destination. Yeah, it’s quite interesting! Let me check it more.

What kind of person are they looking for?
“Previous PR experience is required”
Well, I have an experience for 4 years in editing and producing a community newspaper, so I cleared this requisition. Don’t tell on either that its circulation was just 21,000 issues or that actually nobody was reading, five-sec garbage bin stuff!.

“Native Japanese speaker and fluent in English”
Well, although all the songs I sing when I go to Karaoke are English songs, such as Living on a prayer, where the streets have no name, Sunday, bloody, Sunday, and Dancing Queen, I still believe I am a native Japanese speaker!
And, as for English, oh, this largely depends on who you ask! Fluent? Am I fluent? That is arguable. But let’s be positive now!

“A good knowledge of tourism products in Britain”
Jeeezzzz!!!! A good mother f**king knowledge of tourism products in Britain!!!

Well, as somebody knows, I have been to Great Britain seven times, but I have NEVER gone outside Heathrow. Whenever I went to Europe, I always just flew over that wonderful country to get to their neighbor country, which I have been more attracted to for over past years. I have been to Northern Ireland four times, so I can claim that I have been to UK, but I am thinking that when they are trying to promote Britain as a good tourist destination, what they have in mind is such as Cotwolds, Canterbury Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, typical tourist spots, rather than Belfast’s Samson and Goliath, thought-provoking and unnerving murals, or Giants Causeways.

On top of that, I would tend to call the second largest town in Northern Ireland just Derry, not Londonderry. Wow, this must be crucial point in interview. (But, this is my true feeling that Northern Ireland is a good place to go. It’s not as dangerous a place as some ignorant Japanese would think whenever they hear the town’s name. Furthermore people in Northern Ireland or British government or whatever, they don’t advertise nor promote Northern Ireland enough to encourage people to come there, not the least to attenuate such a misunderstanding. I would strongly stress that point if I got an opportunity).

Recently, I am really interested in British culture in general, partly because of so many good comedy shows, and partly because of such good British people I have met here. If I got an opportunity, I really would like to draw Japanese people’s attention to “Land of Hope and Glory” country. I want to put me into more competitive situation,and I want to use my English on business!
Oh, dear, I need to study tourism products in Britain now!!! So if you have good question or quiz regarding UK, please let me know!

By the way, this job chance is mine, don’t steal it. Please!

This is a bit old, but one of my favorite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5P9J1wCgNM

Mr. Abe

I know that I should be careful when I speak or write English, making sure to avoid any misunderstanding due to my limited English ability. Especially, when I talk about politics, I need to be extremely mindful of what I am going to say, because the views on touchy issues easily offend other people and your ideas about political matters would be critical factor through which people understand what kind of person you are, even though it is not crucial. So here I am talking about politics, I should be very aware of that.

As for our prime minister, Mr. Abe, he is, I would say respectfully, a fucking arsehole. I don’t know much about English words, but I would tend to say politely, he is conceited, pompous, self-righteous, suburban, small-minded, chauvinistic, curtain-twitching snob. All the things he has done so far as prime minister are crock of shit.

Whenever he opens his mouth, he talks about the beautiful country. To make Japan a beautiful country is his watchword. Although I have never TOUCHED it, he published the book, “Toward a beautiful country” last year, which immediately became the best-seller. But how could you make your country beautiful by whitewashing your own history?

The other day, Minister of Education has publicized their screening results for new textbooks, which will be put on use from next April at junior and senior high schools. The most contentious point is that screeners virtually ordered the authors of history textbooks to delete all the phrases that said that the Imperial Japanese Army forced residents of Okinawa to commit mass-suicide during the World WarⅡ.

It is a historical fact that during the war about 200,000 people, including 12,500 U.S soldiers, died in Okinawa, which constituted almost one-quarter of the population. This is widely considered as the result of Army’s strategy that Okinawa needed to be sacrificed to delay American invasion into Japanese mainland. It is also a historical fact that the Army indoctrinated their subjects not to fall into enemy’s hands, rather to choose the death when the time comes in order to avoid any humiliation. “Never be subject to humiliation as the captives” was our cardinal slogan at that time. In some cases, they handed out hand grenades to local residents for final moment, and in other cases, they coerced residents into small caves and threw grenades into them. At lease, that’s what I learned in school.

Here is an example for their trick.

・ (original) “Japanese forces made residents commit mass suicide and kill one another using hand grenades that the Japanese forces has distributed.”

・ (after screening) “Using hand grenades that Japanese forces had distributed, mass suicide and the killing of one another took place”.

・ (original) “There were many incidents in which prefectural residents were forced to commit mass suicide and infants were killed by Japanese forces because they were considered an impediment to military combat and …(prefectural residents) were killed because they were suspected (by Japanese forced) of being collaborators.”

・ (after screening) “There were many incidents in which prefectural residents were driven to mass suicide because they were considered an impediment to military combat and…infants were killed by Japanese forces and (prefectural residents) were killed on suspicion (by Japanese forces) of being collaborators.”


When students read this sentence in their textbook, they would wonder why Japanese forces had distributed hand grenades. So how would you answer to that question?

According to The Japan Times, screeners assessed the textbooks from the viewpoint of whether specific Japanese army units issued concrete orders for mass suicide. Oh! Give me a break! Who has a power to hide or burn or conceal or whatever such documents? If there is no concrete evidence, would you ignore voices of survivors or brave ex-soldiers who stepped forward to depict what they had done or what they were ordered?

By taking the narrowest approach to contentious issues and trying to extenuating or even sugarcoating our unfavorable history, our current government is taking the exactly same path regarding Okinawa as Sax-slavery issues. While they claim that there is no evidence “in a narrow sense” that the Imperial Japanese Army coerced women in other countries into sax-slaves, they announced their sincere sorry for the victimized women. How could you be trusted through this insincere way?

Governing a country is not something like domestic chore, I think. You can’t clean up and make it beautiful by whitewashing your history, nor get any trust from your neighbours. As long as Mr. Abe couldn’t get that point, my vocabulary will be piling up to the ceiling, only certain kind of negative words though.

"We are very regretful..."

Today, I got another letter from the company which I applied for job.
“We are very regretful to notify you of…”. Five sec garbage bin.

I used to work for personnel department of School Board, being responsible for recruitment. So I know that sometimes decision of who is hired and who failed is quite arbitrary. Still, it is very disappointing to be declined by somebody, regardless by lady whom you asked out or company that you applied. It is as if I am said that there is no room for someone like me in highly competitive zero-sum world. Today is not a good day.

"Garp"

“In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody’s wife or somebody’s whore----------or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you don’t fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you. But, she thought, there is nothing wrong with me.”


Such a brilliant manifestation!
Strong, powerful, and compelling protestation, isn’t it?. Whether you agree or not, I think this sentence has such convincing power that people can easily understand what others are thinking, even though that other is living in imaginary world.
With these mere three or four sentences, John Irving completely defines exact character of Jenny Fields, a mother of a protagonist of “The World According to Garp”.

Yes, I started reading “Garp” again.
If imagination is something which gauges novelist’s talent, John Irving is nothing less than genius. All of his works are full of eccentric stories, but this one, “Garp” is extraordinary by far. Have you ever wondered how far human-being can think, or where our limitation of thought is? You would be surprised to know our sphere of imagination is much furtherer that you would guess, it is going to in outrageous direction though.

about John Irving...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving