日本文が後ろに続きます。
I’m going to Hong Kong tonight. I last visited there six years ago. I’ll be back in Japan on Sunday 6th.
Action items in Hong Kong: to get SIM-lock-free iPad2 and, if possible, iPhone4S at Mong Kok; registration of new address and passport number for my account of HSBC; and sightseeing at Stanley, Aberdeen, and Lamma Island.
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日本文が後ろに続きます。
National Azabu Supermarket at Hiroo, where foods, groceries, books, toiletries and stationery imported from abroad were available, terminated operation as of today due to the age of its building.
The Hiroo neighbourhood is one of the places I visited very frequently because the training centre of the company I worked for was in that area. I visited there from time to time to have an English test or training for English writing or business skills when I was a young worker. Every time I had classes there, I dropped in on the supermarket to see the shoppers coming from abroad, mainly the United States, who looked rich enough to afford the imported products sold there. To see such successful people encouraged me to do my best to learn English and business skills for my success.
However, several years later the training centre was closed and moved to another place. Most of the products sold in the supermarket has become what I can get online for the same prices as in their home countries, without paying extra money at such imported grocery shops. Besides, the United States is no longer the goal for successful persons, seeing the current circumstances of it.
The supermarket was a dream for me, and a wonderland that offered me a space of extraordinariness, but it ended the role as a symbol of success with the change of the times. Without the supermarket, I will visit the Hiroo area more rarely than ever.
輸入ものの食品や日用品、本、文房具、化粧品などを売っている広尾のナショナル麻布スーパーマーケットが建物の老朽化のため本日をもって閉店しました。
広尾地区は、会社の研修センターがあった関係で、けっこうよく訪れる場所でした。若手社員のころ、ＴＯＥＩＣのテストやら英文ライティング研修やらビジネススキル系の研修やらでちょくちょく研修センターに行っては、帰りにはここのスーパーに立ち寄って外国人の買い物客を見に行ったものでした。だいたいがアメリカ人で、仕事で成功しいっぱい稼いでこういうスーパーで買い物できる身分になっているのを見るにつけ、これから仕事頑張ろう、英語頑張ろう、頑張ってこういう人たちみたいに成功者になりたい、と思ったものでした。
そうこうしてるうちに、何年かたつと研修センターが他の場所に移転してしまい、またここのスーパーで売ってる輸入品も、今ではネットで現地価格で買えるようになりました。何よりも、アメリカの今の状況を見るにつけ、アメリカが必ずしも成功者の目標でなくなったということがあります。
このスーパーは私にとって非日常の空間を与えてくれた夢の場所だったんですが、時代の移り変わりとともに、成功のシンボルとしての役割は終わったのかもしれません。このスーパーがなくなった今、もう広尾に行くこと自体、あまりないでしょう。
日本文が後ろに続きます。
When I studied at university, attending the classes for “liberal arts” was mandatory for the first two years. There was a wide variety of subjects to choose from, from English, Germany, chemistry, mathematics, and economics to Chinese history, Japanese literature, and Japanese linguistics. Most of them were nothing to do with my major (engineering), so I thought that taking them was a waste of time and the university should teach us more practical techniques focusing on our major studies. I even thought that I should go to a professional school because they might teach only professional skills that would be necessary for my future.
Nevertheless, I found out, when I had started my career and had some job experience, that culture would win in the end. Acquiring practical knowledge and skills related to jobs is a matter, of course. Your worth consists of how much cultured besides skilled. For example, in an English class, I read Tristan and Isolde’s tragic love story, which was originally written by Gottfried von Strassburg and made operatic by Richard Wagner, that a knight named Tristan fell in love with a king’s wife, Isolde, and they ruined after illicit love. When I attended the class, I suspected if the story could contribute to my future career. Still, now I know that it is common knowledge among general people, especially in the Western countries, and ignorance of it is regarded as uncultured.
Your culture is cultivated not from hard work, but play. Play is the space in which a mechanism moves or, in more comprehensive words, the emptiness in the activeness. It seems to be a waste, but it sometimes broadens your horizons and deepens your insight. As it is often said that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, play is indispensable for everything. Who dares drive a car with a steering wheel with no play?
Play is important in spending vacation. Doing nothing is the right way to spend a vacation because the word “vacation” derives from “vacant,” which means empty. Wasting time is an extreme luxury. Many people, however, trying to making good use of holidays, go to crowded spots resulting in getting more tired than before. In particular, Japanese people are so conscious of eliminating what is wasteful that they feel guilty about wasting time. They are so obliged to waste no time on holidays; their vacation ironically ends by wasting time and energy rather than saving them.
In the midst of your career, play sometimes helps you guide in a better way. Studying a different field, seeing people doing different types of business, and even meditating in your room would be useful, besides throwing yourself into your work. They are not directly related to your current work, but they may give you some hints for your future career.
There is nothing wasteful in your life in the long run. As long as you are alive, what you are doing is helpful in something, even goofing off in the bed.
大学に通っていたころ、最初の２年間はいわゆる「一般教養」の授業をとらなきゃいけなくて、英語や第二外国語や化学、数学から、東洋史学、国文学、国語学までバラエティーに富んだ科目がありました。ほとんどは専門（工学）とは関係ない授業ばっかりで、こんなの取って何の意味があるんだろう、そんなこと教えるぐらいならもっと専門の実用的な科目を教えてくれればいいのに、まだ専門学校のほうが実学を教えてくれるだけましなんじゃないか、と思ったものでした。
でも、社会に出てしばらくして、「人間、最後には教養がモノを言うんだな」って気づいたわけです。実用的なこととか、仕事に関係のあることを身に付けるのは当たり前のこと。それ以上に教養が人間の価値を決めるんですね。
大学の英語の時間に、教材にヨーロッパの宮廷恋愛の話を使っていたのがありました。
ゴットフリート・フォン・シュトラスブルクの原作で、のちにワーグナーという人がオペラにした話なんだけど、トリスタンっていう騎士と、国王に嫁いだイゾルデという妃がお互いに恋する。当然、妃のほうは人妻なのでこの恋は”不倫”になるわけで、人目を忍びながら逢瀬を重ねるんですが、最後にはお互いが破滅するという形で終わる、というストーリーです。
「そんなのオレの専門に関係ないじゃん」って授業受けてたときはそう思ってたんですが、この話は特に欧米では常識みたいなもので、知らないと恥、というより、常識を疑われたりするんですね。
一見、無駄だと思えるようなことが、人間の奥行きを広げてくれるってことは、けっこうあるもんだな、と思うのです。これを、機械でいう”遊び”、英語に訳すと”play”、可動部分の中のすき間部分のことをいうんですが、人間にもこの”遊び”の中から教養が生まれたりするんですね。ハードワークだけが人生じゃないし、無駄をなくすことが善、というわけでもないんです。
たとえば、休日。私たちは、せっかくの休みだからついつい”有意義に過ごそう”として、わざわざ行楽地に疲れに行ったりしてしまうことがよくありますが、休日って英語で言うとvacation、つまりvacant（空）なものであって、vacationというのは「何もしない日」っていう意味なんですね。休日というのは”何もしないでぼーっとする”のが正しい過ごし方であって、”時間を無駄に使う”ということこそ最高の贅沢なんだと思うんです。
日本人って、そこのところをあまりにもなおざりにしすぎたんじゃないかな〜と思うんです。”無駄を省く”ことに躍起になってしまって、”無駄”な贅沢を楽しむことに罪悪を感じる人が多いというか。でもその”無駄”こそが”遊び”であって、重要な部分だと思うんです。
キャリア形成でも、”遊び”が将来のために役立つことがあったりします。本業に打ち込むだけじゃなく、違う分野について勉強する、異業種の人と会う、あるいは部屋の中でぼーっと考えるだけでも、仕事と直接関係なくても、将来のヒントになるかもしれません。
長い目で見れば、人生で無益なところなんて何もなくて、ただボケーッとしてるだけでも、生きてる限り、何かの役に立つこともあるんだと思います。
日本文が後ろに続きます。
Last weekend was happy days for me because I deeply experienced a British taste last Saturday and Sunday. From the beginning, I preferred the USA to the UK or other English-speaking countries. Still, my affection has been shifting to England for years since I happened to read Kaoru Mori’s Emma, a romance manga about a maid in England in the Victorian Era who falls in love with a member of the gentry.
先週は、イギリスにどっぷり浸かってきました。
もともとはアメリカ一辺倒だったんですが、森薫の「エマ」と出会って以来ここ数年はむしろイギリスのほうに興味がシフトしていってまして、まずは初日は毎年恒例の國學院栃木高校の文化祭「國學院祭」のミュージカル部公演「Ｏｌｉｖｅｒ！」を見に行きました。
On the first day, the first thing I did is to see Oliver! by the Musical Club of Kokugakuin Tochigi High School playing for the school’s cultural festival held this weekend. Oliver! is, as you may already know, an English musical based on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist. It’s the story that Oliver Twist, who has missing parents and is in a workhouse, is forced to get out of the workhouse and gets involved in a group of pickpockets. He tries to pick a pocket of a well-off lady, who finally takes him in and brings him up, and then he gets happy.
「Ｏｌｉｖｅｒ！」は、以前にも書いたとおり、イギリスのチャールズ・ディケンズの小説「オリバー・ツイスト」をもとにしたミュージカルで、孤児となって救貧院に入れられていたオリバー・ツイストがスリの一味に引き入れられながらも、財布をすろうとした相手の金持ちに拾われて幸せになるというお話です。
今年も講師の三枝幹音センセイはお元気でいらっしゃいました。
ということでまずイギリス気分に浸ったあとは、クルマを走らせて福島県のブリティッシュ・ヒルズに向かいました。
ブリティッシュ・ヒルズの旅行記はフォートラベルに書いてあります。以降は英語だけです。
https://4travel.jp/travelogue/11722398
I parked my car in the car park and took my iPhone to tweet in Gowalla, but the iPhone couldn’t connect to the 3G network because Softbank wasn’t in service in this area, whilst my Blackberry, where NTT DoCoMo’s SIM card was installed, was okay.
I got out of my car with all of my luggage and walked to the reception desk, following the signs put on the roadside.
The reception desk was in the Manor House. A Caucasian receptionist accepted my check-in. She gave me a room key and a brochure where my name and dates of stay were printed and gave a detailed explanation of the building where I was supposed to stay, as well as each of the premises in British Hills. Unlike the people you may see in the countries other than Japan, she behaved in a manner as polite and gentle as Japanese clerks would do. She also advised me that a handbell was available at the reception desk and anybody who was walking in the nature trail of British Hills should carry it in hand so that its sound might scare bears which might appear in front of the walker.
This is the guestroom I stayed in. It was a gorgeously furnished suite room.
It wasn’t air-conditioned so as to meet the taste of a Medieval British house, but I could cool off by an electric fan put in the room.
This is the bathtub made of the fabric imported from the UK. The amenities (shampoo, conditioners, soap, and body moisturiser) are imported from the UK as well.
After putting my holdall in the guestroom, I went out to walk around the grounds around the buildings. Unlike US military bases, you could go and walk wherever you wanted, although some “No Entry” zones for staff only were only exceptions.
Every building was built in an ancient British manner, from Yeoman to Stuart, Georgian, and Tudor styles.
Each guest house was named after a historical person popular in the UK.
This building is named “Wren,” who was an astronomer in Oxford making a great contribution to the reconstruction of London burnt down by fire in the 17th century.
This is the Turner, where I stayed. Turner was a landscape painter in the 18th century.
This is the Drake, derived from Francis Drake, the first British sea captain who sailed around the world in the Elizabethan era.
This is the Henry II, the first King of England.
I dropped in on the Ascot tea house to have a tea set. An Englishmen and some Japanese girls served me there.
This is what was served at Ascot: tea with a scone, a quiche, fresh cream (not clotted cream), and strawberry jam. They had got an afternoon tea set or a high tea set with more scones and sandwiches, but I didn’t order them because the dinner time was coming soon and I didn’t want to be stuffed there.
This is the Ye Shoppe, a souvenir shop selling tea leaves, mugs, shortbread, sweets, letter sets, bookmarks, keyrings, pens, toiletries, and other items imported from the UK. I found a gorgeous feather pen used in ancient times, so I bought it with a bar of English soap, bottles of bath foam, and a key ring celebrating the marriage of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Then I dropped in on the reception to borrow a handbell and walked the nature trail. It was a 2-mile long unpaved footpath around the building area, with many ups and downs. It was a good exercise for me.
I had got a viewpoint and special places to see on my way of the trail. Fortunately, I saw no bears or any other scary wildlife, but I had got a heavy thunderstorm while walking, so I gave up walking all of the trails and went back to the guest house halfway through the walk.
Dinner time began at 6:30 pm at the Refectory dining room. It was the main dining room modelling a refectory of British traditional public schools. It had dress codes and no admission for casually dressed personnel. I changed clothes into a suit with a tie before going there.
It was a full course dinner starting from pumpkin & yoghurt veloute, followed by salmon terrine, consommé soup, sorbet, and the main dish in the above picture. This is some slices of the roast beef marinated with gravy and horseradish sauce. When serving it to me, the chef of the Refractory himself came to me and carved from a chunk of beef. Of course, it tasted excellent! It was a bit too luxurious for me, as I always eat simple foods daily.
After dinner, I went to the pub next to the Refectory and got a glass of 1-pint beer. A Canadian girl sat next to me, so I talked a bit with her. She said she was a staff member of the Refectory and she was coming to drink there because that day was her day off. After a while, a group of the staff finishing the work at the Refectory and changing their clothes more casually came to her and invited her to the inner seats to talk together. She went and joined them. Then I made a little conversation with a Japanese bartender, drank some dry martini, and played darts with him a bit. He told me that many more foreign staff members usually worked there and made merry in the pub every night, but in those days there were less because many of them were returning to their home countries to renew the working visas expiring in that season.
The next morning it was very foggy, and it was hard to see even ten yards ahead.
It’s breakfast at the Refectory. It was a buffet style. I thought it would’ve been perfect if there had been baked beans.
While eating breakfast, a supervisor came to me and asked me to have a guided tour in the Manor House if I had time. When checking out the hotel, I told her I was ready for the tour. Then she took two young girls to me and told them to guide me as attendants. They were just college students studying the hotel industry and were coming there for one of the education programmes of the college.
They took me inside the Manor House and explained the history of the Manor House, how and why those kinds of houses had been built in the Medieval times, with what fabrics the rooms were furnished, in what manner the walls and the ceilings were decorated, and more. They explained a bit falteringly, but with all their might.
One of the most instructive pieces of knowledge from their explanations was why the level where there was the main entrance was called “the ground floor” and the upper level called “the first floor” in the UK or the British Commonwealth. According to their explanations, the downstairs wasn’t considered as a residential area because it was used just for a butler who greeted incoming guests, judging whether the guests were going down well with the master or not. Only the guests judged as welcome persons could be shown upstairs by the butler and arranged to meet the master at the upper hall like the picture above. That’s why the place was on “the first floor,” whilst the downstairs hall was on “the ground floor.”
In this picture above, you can see in the middle the gorgeous stained glass weighing 1 tonne specially crafted at Scotland, Queen’s and King’s rooms on the right side, and the left, a library of more than 1,000 volumes of old books stored in the bookshelves. Of course, Oliver Twist was one of the collections.
On both sides of the aisle were the portrait pictures of the people who had made a great contribution to the UK and Japan, including former Emperor Hirohito and his Empress, as well as Emperor Meiji, the first east Asian person on whom the Order of the Garter was conferred.
It’s the Queen’s room named “Her Majesty,” modelling the private room of the mistress.
The King’s room called “His Majesty,” the master’s private room. The furniture had a fierce-animal-shaped decoration in many parts to show off his power and strength. Prince Hitachinomiya actually stayed in this room when he visited British Hills. The attendants said even an ordinary person could stay here for 250,000 yen per night.
The last place they guided me was the snooker room, where snooker was available as well as drinking brandy at the bar counter. Snooker looked like billiard, but they said snooker used a wider table and smaller balls than billiard, and it was much more difficult to play.
I enjoyed the stay until noon on that Sunday. The staff members were very polite, well trained, and had much elegance and hospitality. I thought it would’ve been better if the uniforms of the staff had been like those of British maids and footmen :-p as everything in British Hills was modelling the ancient British cultures. Apart from that, that “theme park” is my No.1 recommendation that is good for taking a rest if you get tired of your routine days. I think that the company I’m working for, trying to get involved in global business, should arrange a few days of English lessons in British Hills as an education programme for encouraging the employees to be more skilful in English.
Although I’m now active on Facebook or Twitter rather than this blog, I want to tell you that I’m still alive.
It was a big headache to me that the page design of this blog’s home page had been wrong for a few months. Flickr’s thumbnail pictures on the top of the page and the sidebar hadn’t been displayed. But today I’ve restored it! The reason is straightforward. I tried to comment out a </div> tag into <!– /div –> but I forgot to add two hyphens before the greater-than symbol and it looked like <!– /div>, so it affected the page design after that tag.
このごろFacebookやTwitterばかりでこのブログはすっかりごぶさたですが、生存報告です。
さてここ数ヶ月、英語版のブログのトップページのデザインが変になってて、Flickrのサムネイルやサイドバーが見えなくなっていたんですが、今日解決しました。理由は簡単、</div>タグをコメントアウトして<!– /div –>にしようとしたところ、間違えて<!– /div>になっていたのでそれ以降のページデザインに影響していたのでした。
I bought Blackberry Curve 9300 in the middle of June for my main mobile phone I’m using daily and switched an account from b-mobile into NTT DoCoMo again by the Mobile Number Portability service. The b-mobile SIM card was what I got together with an iPhone 4 Hong Kong version. Still, the iPhone 4 was not so good for a telephone because its voice quality was not satisfactory and the manoeuvre was a little bit complicating. It’s just for web browsing, taking pictures and motion videos, playing games, and other utilities, not for talking. I think the best device for voice calls is that of Nokia, but Nokia doesn’t sell any mobile phones in Japan any longer. Out of the phones available in Japan, Blackberry is for me. That’s why I’ve got Blackberry again.
Another reason why I chose Blackberry again is that it has a real QWERTY keyboard on the device, not displayed on the screen. You can type the keyboard to enter text, and doing this is much easier than touching the virtual keyboard on the screen. So I’m gonna use it for text messaging and email writing besides talking on it. Text messaging will be much more convenient because sending SMS to other carriers will be available next Wednesday.
Although the iPhone is not so good for a telephone, it’s best for a camera and a communicator with plenty of applications. I’ve got a Softbank SIM card too, so I still use iPhone4 used so far on the main basis with the Softbank SIM card inserted in it.
Now I’ve got three mobile phones carried with me —- Blackberry Curve 9300, iPhone 4, and a mobile phone, my employer, tells me to keep. Next, I want to have some tablets like iPad or Galaxy Tab 😉
日本文が後ろに続きます。
I’ve made up my mind to have my own car again. Two years and nine months have passed since I parted with the last car in May 2008 and then moved to a house much closer to central Tokyo after I did it. The place where I currently live is so convenient that you can live without owning any car. Nevertheless, without a car, it’s difficult to go on a slight outing late at night, to buy bulky goods from Costco, or to drive a car aggressively to get rid of your stress! 🙂 To do them you can hire a car at the nearest rental car shop, but it’s less convenient than having a car you can do as you like. That’s why I’ve decided to get my own car even if it’s much more costly.
To find an appropriate car, I checked Yahoo! Japan, Goo-net, or other websites listing up used cars and shops after I got a bonus last December. Of course, I had no choice to have a brand-new car. I wanted to have a small-sized, 5-speed stick shift car instead of a large automatic saloon because I wanted to do as Englishmen did (most of them drive stick shifts rather than automatics). I thought that manual transmissions were better for small cars giving more pleasure to drivers and that it would be the last chance for me to drive a stick shift as almost all cars to be released in future would, petrol or hybrid, have automatic or continuously variable transmissions.
At the end of last December, I found a car that I felt to be nice at a small used car shop in suburban Tokyo. It was a 2002 Peugeot 307 Style (1600cc petrol), costing just 380,000 yen! I decided to buy it without hesitation.
It took much time from the purchase to the pickup. In Japan, you must register a car you buy to the government before owning it, and before the registration, you must settle a parking space and have the garage certificate from the nearest police station. To have a garage, you must sign a contract with a local real estate company offering car parks in the area where you live. The trouble is that the real estate company and the police station open only on weekdays, so I had to take a day (or some hours) off to do those things.
The average parking space rate in the area I live in was about 30,000 yen per month, but I found a car park renting a parking space for 26,500 yen per month.
Anyway, all of the procedures to have the car had been done and I picked it up today.
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日本文が後ろに続きます。
I returned from Shanghai Tuesday night. I couldn’t see so many things there because it was completely a business trip, not a private sightseeing trip, and I had a lot of work there. But I found out how exciting and mysterious that city was.
I’ve updated a set of the trip on Flickr though I couldn’t take so many pictures.
It was my first time to visit mainland China other than Hong Kong and Taiwan. In some points they were similar, but in other points, they weren’t. Oncoming cars in Shanghai didn’t stop even when we were crossing the street on a zebra crossing. In mainland China, cars have the right-of-way, so pedestrians have to give way to them when crossing the road, not to disturb the flow of traffic. When we caught a taxi cab, the driver honked at an old pedestrian pushing a cart and beginning crossing the road and ran into the crowd of pedestrians crossing the crosswalk. It was amazing.
There were plenty of tall buildings in the Pudong area, and gorgeous floodlights illuminated all of them. I was surprised at those floodlights which were so showy that you couldn’t have seen in buildings in Japan.
Foods tasted very good, and they were much cheaper than in Japan. It was amazing that even if I had eaten plenty of garlic and spicy Hunan foods for dinner, I didn’t upset my stomach and my mouth didn’t smell bad at all!
Security measures seem to be more advanced than in Japan. Luggage scanning and body screening were mandatory at every metro station and most of the major building entrances. Officers did screening very roughly though.
Anyway, Shanghai is very close to Japan, so I wish to revisit it in a warmer season. It was so snowy and chilly there that I couldn’t walk around the city very much.
火曜の夜に戻ってきました。今回は観光旅行ではなく出張だったのであまり街をいろいろ見ることはできなかったですが、なかなか怪しくて面白いところでした。
ということであんまり写真はないですが、Flickrに写真をアップしたのと、フォートラベルに旅行記を書きました。
香港や台湾は以前行ったことがありますが、大陸は行ったことがありませんでした。似てるところもありますがそうでないところもありました。上海では歩行者が横断歩道を渡っていても横から車が突進してきます。大陸では車優先で、歩行者が横断歩道にいようが車は減速すらせず、歩行者のほうが車の流れを見て渡らなければならないようです。タクシーに乗ったときも、運ちゃんは道を横断しようと荷車を押していたおばあちゃんに激しくクラクションを鳴らしてどかせ、横断歩道を渡っている歩行者の集団に突進していってました。
浦東地区は高層ビルがいっぱいで、どれもド派手なライトアップ。日本じゃ見られないようなイルミネーションがいっぱいでした。
食べ物は美味しくて、しかも日本よりずっと安い。辛い湖南料理にニンニクを大量に食べても、次の日腹を壊さずしかも口も臭くならなかったのはびっくりでした。
セキュリティチェックは日本より進んでいるようで、地下鉄の駅の入口や大きなビルの入口には手荷物検査とボディチェックがありました。ただボディチェックはかなりおざなりにやってましたが。
ともあれ、上海は日本から近いし、もうちょっと暖かくなったらまた行ってみたいです。今回はちょっと寒すぎて歩き回れませんでした。。。
I’m going to Shanghai for a 100% business trip this time. It snowed very much near Narita Airport when I was coming in the Limousine Bus, but it’s fine now.
今から上海に行きます。今回は完全に仕事の出張です。成田に来るときは大雪でしたが今は晴れています。
I wonder if I will be able to use the Internet in China because I hear Twitter and Facebook are all blocked there…
さて中国でマトモにネットができるかどうか疑問です。TwitterもFacebookもブロックされてると聞いてるので。。。。