月: 2021年11月

Three Japanese were named in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2021. For one of them, it was her third time on the annual list.

The Time 100 was revealed on Sept. 15. Time separated its list of 100 people into categories: icons, pioneers, titans, artists, leaders and innovators.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka appeared on the list for the third straight year, her second time as an icon. She was praised for sharing her struggles with mental health.

Shohei Ohtani was also listed as an icon on the list. “His skill on the mound, coupled with his dominance at the plate, is unparalleled throughout the major leagues,” read the blurb for the Los Angeles Angels two-way player.

The third Japanese on the list was architect Kengo Kuma. He designed the new National Stadium in Tokyo, the center of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (The Japan Times)

アメリカ人のALT.ステファニーさんと話す機会があった。英語教育にとても熱意がある人だ。

「小さな子供に外国語を教えるには一方的な指導では絶対にダメ、子供たちを参加させないと」と熱弁を振るうステファニーさん。

その点は僕も同意できる。しかし問題はどうやってやるかだ。

そこで彼女が取り組んでいるのが「プレディクト」つまり子供たちに予測をさせるのだ。

一例を挙げよう。おさるのジョージが街を歩いていてパン屋の前で立ち止まる。中を覗くとおじさんが小麦粉(dough)をこねて釜に入れ、焼こうとしている。

そこで注文の電話が鳴り、おじさんは配達に出かけることになった。しばしの間パン屋は誰もいなくなる。

そこで絵本を読むのをやめ、先生は生徒に尋ねるのだ。さてこの後ジョージは何をするつもりでしょう?

子供たちは口々に言うだろう。「きっと小麦粉をこねるんだよ。」「いやお店に置いてあるパンを食べるんだわ。」「おじさんが帰ってくるまでお店の番をするんだよきっと」

答えは何だっていい、要するに子供たちに考えさせることが大事なのだとステファニーさんは言う。

これはいい勉強になったわい。早速僕の塾でも取り入れててみよう。

気に入ればすぐに真似して取り入れる。まるで俺はおさるのジョージ。

驚きの電話が来た。

今まで大手の英会話学校に子どもを通わせていたが、そこを辞めて野村塾に行かせたいとのこと。ついでになかよしのお友達も一緒に辞めてこちらに来ることになった。

こんなおっさん1人の塾に来てくれる、しかも大手を辞めてまで。とても光栄なことだ。

喜んでばかりもいられない。大切なお子さんを預かるわけだからしっかりと教えなくては。

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the value I place on certain items.

For example, if my house were to go up in flames, which items would I try to save?

Let’s pretend that each item weighs the same and is easy to carry, but that I can pick only one thing to bring with me.

Would it be something that brings me joy, like the snowboard I bought just last year or the television that I’ve relied on to keep me entertained during the pandemic?

Or would it be something more practical, like the new and ever-so-slightly-fancy fridge my wife and I bought a couple months? Perhaps it would be something that is practical but also boring, like a washing machine.

There are also numerous sentimental items that might be on my shortlist.

But — thanks to digital storage — I don’t think our photographs would make the cut.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some photos of family, friends and travel experiences that I cherish, but thankfully all of them are backed up digitally.

That’s undoubtedly a good thing. I suspect if I was pondering this question 30 years ago, prized photo albums would be at or near the top of my list of items to save.

Still, despite the benefits of digital storage, I have to wonder if it has caused me to devalue something that I might have once held dear.

We take so many photos in our day-to-day lives that it’s easy to forget how valuable each picture used to be. A century ago, getting a single portrait was an event. Even as recently as the 1990s, photos came at a premium, with film rolls limiting you to a couple dozen pictures that took time and money to have developed. Now, I can take 24 pictures and upload them to the web before I’ve even had breakfast.

Recently I was reminded that photos still hold a lot of value. With our first baby due in less than two months, my wife and I decided it was the right time to have maternity photos taken at a professional studio. No selfie sticks required!

As one might expect, this was not a cheap endeavor. I think my jaw dropped when the final bill was presented to us. But once I got over the price tag — and saw the quality of the images compared to the ones taken on our smartphones — I was incredibly happy we spent the money.

Of course, the first thing we did when we got home was upload the images onto the cloud to make sure they can’t be misplaced or damaged.

If only I could do the same for my snowboard

この10月に行われた英検の結果がまとまりました。

高校2年　Sさん、2級合格

中学3年　Sくん. 準2級合格

中学2年　Mさん、3級合格

中学2年　Fさん、3級合格

小学6年　Hさん、3級合格

小学6年　Nさん、4級合格

以上ですみんなお疲れ様、そしておめでとう。

旭川工業高等専門学校に通うRくんが興奮気味にやってきた。普段はおとなしくてクールな彼がいったいなぜ？

彼は自他共に認めるロボットマニア。将来は人の生活に役立つようなロボットを設計したいという夢がある。

高専に入学が決まった時、即座にロボットクラブに入部を申し込んだほどの熱意。

つい先日、高専ロボットコンテスト北海道予選が行われ、釧路や函館、苫小牧の高専と技を競いあった。

最高得点をたたき出し、全国出場が決まった瞬間「ヨッシャー」と声をあげ、部員同士で抱き合って喜んだとのこと。

よかったなあ。

全国大会終わったら、英語も頑張れよ。(本音)

The Line messaging application has been a mainstay during the pandemic. Thousands of businesses, local governments and individuals across Japan use it to keep the public informed. Fittingly, it was developed in response to another national emergency: the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.

When telecommunications were disrupted after the earthquake, internet company NHN Japan developed Line as a way for people to communicate, releasing it to the public in June 2011. It gained 50 million users within a year. By comparison, it took Twitter and Facebook over three years to achieve similar numbers.

What made Line so successful was its understanding of the Japanese market. It achieved fame in Japan early on for its stickers, which people used to make their messages stand out. The stickers’ cute and varied character designs endeared the Japanese public to the social network, and by 2013, Line was the country’s most popular messaging app.

Line has also striven to become a fully comprehensive social network. As early as 2012, it introduced its Home and Timeline features, similar to features in Facebook. Other profitable services include Line Manga and Line Play, a platform for mobile games like 2014’s monumentally successful Disney Tsum Tsum. And Line Pay remains one of the most commonly used money payment applications in Japan.

Line hasn’t been without its failures, however, and many of its extra features have been discontinued, including Line Taxi, which was established as a competitor to Uber, and Line Mall, an e-commerce service similar to Mercari. Also, during its 10-year history, Line has been no stranger to scandal, and has already been subject to several data breaches and hacks.

Outside Japan, Line has become the No. 1 messaging app in Taiwan and Thailand, but isn’t well-known in other countries, including many where competitor WhatsApp reigns supreme. What’s more, China and Russia have both prohibited Line, and there is no sign they will reverse their decisions.

But in its place of birth, Line is here to stay. It has quietly become part of the glue that holds Japanese society together and is used by people from all walks of life. It’s more than just an app. Line provides us with the most essential of human needs: communication — with just a dash of cute too.

Once every fortnight, my friend Audrey has at least a few hundred eggs delivered to her doorstep. They sit neatly in trays, arranged according to weight and type. As you may have guessed, not all of them are for her family. After checking that the order has been correctly filled, she snaps a picture and sends it off with a text message: “Eggs are ready for collection!”

The message is to neighbours in her block and a few blocks of flats nearby. The group of about 70 households keeps in touch via a group chat on the WhatsApp messaging app. They take turns to host regular group buys — mass orders of anything ranging from frozen food to fresh bread. Everyone benefits from splitting the delivery costs. Sometimes they even get bulk-order discounts.

Audrey started hosting the group buy for eggs shortly after the pandemic struck. Instead of going to the market or supermarket, which could get very crowded, she ordered her eggs directly from a vendor, who delivered them to her doorstep. Audrey asked her neighbours if they would like to tag on their orders, and many expressed an interest.

It has been more than a year since Audrey started doing this, and she has now developed her own protocol for a fuss-free group buy. Her neighbours text her their orders, and she keys in the data on a spreadsheet before placing an order with the vendor. Upon delivery, she pays the vendor via bank transfer. Her neighbours transfer their own payments to her after collecting their eggs from her doorstep.

嫌な気がする人はこの世にいません。中学生によるオンライングループレッスンが終わった後、参加者全員がありがとうございましたと言うようになりました。

20代の頃横浜で海運関係の仕事をしていました。いつも大変な作業を無理強いしていたので、港湾作業員の皆さんは私を見るたび嫌な顔をしていました。

でも作業が無事に終わって船が出た時、「ありがとうございました。おかげさまで助かりました」と言うとみんな怖い顔が緩んでにこやかになったのを覚えています。

言葉って人の気持ちを変える力があるんだな、と強く感じた瞬間でした。「ありがとう」大事にしたい言葉ですね。

高二の〇〇さんから喜びのLINEが来た。英検2級の1次に受かったという。

市内でも有数の進学校、英検2級は受かって当然という雰囲気がある。それだけにプレッシャーが大きいといつも話していた。

しかし2級の壁は厚い。5級から準2級までストレート合格してきたが昨年春、２級を落ちた。

生まれて初めて見る不合格の文字、悔し涙を流したね。

なんとか元気付けようと自分の失敗話をした。高校に落ち、大学に落ち、社会人時代は詐欺にあい、有り金をなくした。

そんな自分を戒めるため、1日の食事をコンビニおにぎり1個だけにした。そんな生活を3ヶ月続けたら体重が10キロ減りズボンがゆるゆる。でかい顔が小さくなった。職場の同僚に「あなたは誰ですか」と言われたこともあった。

こんなくだらない話なのに、笑ってくれる生徒がかわいい。いつの間にか涙がひっこんでしまった。

そうだそれでいい。1度や2度の失敗がなんだ。焦らないで地道にやろう。事態はきっと好転する。

さぁ次は二次試験だ。頑張っていこう！