We held an English chatting salon on September 9. There were 8 members who joined our activity. About half of them were new comers who seemed to be a little tensed at the beginning. We first had a small talk about the Dengi fever at Yoyogi park, which spread in Kanto area. Some of them told that they never go to Yoyogi park to avoid the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes. It may be a good idea that we should walk around outdoors wearing the shirts of long sleeves.


As we share some experiences of studying English hard since long, we discussed the issue of how we learn to speak fluent English. We read the article titled “Could EFL approach break Japan’s English curse?” It is generally said that school lessons of English is often grammar-oriented and teacher-centered. Students have no chances to speak English in the classroom. Teachers of English often expect students to write and speak correct English, which prevents students from speaking freely in front of others even making small mistakes. To expect students perfect English sounds like EFL approach. Immigrants in English speaking countries are really expected master natives’ English to survive in those countries.

However, the writer of the article says that they should regard English as a means for communication. Japanese might be able to speak English without any tensed feeling in front of others.
We also talked about Manga retailer’s decision not to post a photo of a suspected shoplifter. It might be appropriate for “Mandarake” not to threaten to expose the shoplifter’s face on the internet. The store’s warning, “Should you fail to come back and return the item to us in a week, we will expose your face” is too much threatening. (August 7, 2014 in The Japan Times) One might say that Mandarake is not a public organization to punish the alleged shoplifter. The shop did a right thing to do in leaving everything to the police. In a democratic society, it sounds reasonable for every shop owner to comply with law and cooperate with the police investigation to promote the voluntary return of the merchandise. (August 7 in The Japan Times)

Finally, we had a debate concerning “Asahi Shimbun’s past stories about “comfort women.” It has been reported in some newspapers that Asahi Shimbun admits ‘comfort women’ errors; Asahi Shimbun retracted all stories going back decades that quoted a Japanese man called Seiji Yoshida, who claimed he kidnapped about 200 Korean women to work at wartime Japanese military brothels. (August 6 in The Japan Times) A famous historian Ikuhiko Hata together with Sankei Shimbun pointed out that there was no hard evidence supporting the account of Seiji Yoshida, who claimed he conducted something akin to “human hunting” on Jeju-do Island in present-day South Korea. (August 6 in The Japan Times) However, each newspaper company has its policy concerning the tone of the press. The Asahi’s argument that most “comfort women” from Korea were forced to work as prostitutes against their will through coaxing or coercion appeal to the mind of the humanitarian. Recent arguments in Japan concerning the controversial issue have left the central question such as basic human right and went off into side issues such as the pro and con of forced recruitment of Korean women at that time. Once the Japanese government admitted that the recruited Korean women lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere, we have to listen to the voices of our Asian neighbors in order to seek opportunities for dialogue and the resolution of differences of historical consciousness between the two countries.


　　　　 Written by Junichi Saito