China’s obsession with English dates to the establishment of foreign-language schools and translation centers—mainly for English—along China’s coast after the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, says Yang Rui, director of the Comparative Education Research Center at the University of Hong Kong. And while Russian was the official second language during the 1950s, English again took primacy when Deng Xiaoping launched economic reforms in 1978 and China was eager for technology and investment from the West. (Yang learned English by secretly listening to banned Voice of America broadcasts during the Cultural Revolution, when speaking a foreign tongue could land you in jail.)
Urban children usually begin studying English in the third grade, and it is one of three core subjects throughout elementary and high school, along with math and Chinese. Regardless of what field one chooses, passing an English proficiency test is required to get into university and graduate school. Academics who want to be promoted to a full professorship have to pass English examinations. Language training schools including New Oriental and Global Yasi School have opened branches across the country to meet the demand. “English has become more important not only in schools but in society as well,” says Wang Xiaoyang, product director of the Higher Education Research Institute at Tsinghua University. “Now it looks like China’s English fever has reached a high point.”
しかし、政府としては安易な英語使用を批判し、大学入試でも英語の配点を下げる計画があるようです。
The integrity of the Chinese language is being damaged by English, argue editorials in the state press. That concern has sparked the latest calls for linguistic purity: Chinese media were told to start using a list of official Chinese translations for English abbreviations and acronyms including GDP, IQ, and AIDS that was released last September. Two more catalogs of required translations are to be released. “Mingling foreign words in Chinese has harmed the purity and health of the Chinese language,” warned the People’s Daily in April, criticizing the common usage of Wi-Fi, CEO, and MBA.
Over the last three decades, English has risen in importance in the crucial zhongkao and gaokao, the annual high school and college exams held in early June. English is given equal weight with math and Chinese. Now the Ministry of Education plans to reduce the points allotted to English from 150 to 100 in the college exam, while raising the points for Chinese.
The role of private English-language schools will expand if the public-school curriculum stresses English less. But high tuition fees could put these private schools out of reach for China’s poorer students, exacerbating an already severe gap in educational resources between urban and rural China. “If we are not careful with this English gaokao reform, then it may create new inequalities in the system,” says Xiong Bingqi, vice president at the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a Beijing nonprofit that focuses on equity in education.
Chinglish buzzwords gain ground online By Qu Zhi | April 24, 2014, Thursday Gu is among an increasing number of young people in China who like to use the new buzzword on social networks. This Chinglish origin phrase was included in the Urban Dictionary on January 15.
It means “if you don’t do stupid things, they won’t come back and bite you in the ass. (But if you do, they most certainly will),” according to the dictionary.
No zuo no die was a line from the Japanese animation series “Gundam Z” and was coined by a user of Baidu Tieba, a popular online community platform.
そのUrban Dictionaryのエントリーは以下です。 no zuo no die This phrase is of Chinglish origin. Means if you don't do stupid things, they won't come back and bite you in the ass. (But if you do, they most certainly will.) Zuo /zwo/ is a Chinese character meaning 'act silly or daring (for attention)' A: Some dude baked cookies shaped like iPhone, held it by the mouth when driving, tried to mess with traffic cops. B: Did he pull it off? A: Cop was pissed and ran his name through the system. Turns out he's got speed tickets unpaid! B: No zuo no die. by Evergreen712 January 15, 2014
BUSINESS power follows economic power. In the 1920s British firms owned 40% of the global stock of foreign direct investment. By 1967 America was top dog, with a 50% share. Behind those figures lie cultural revolutions. The British spread the telegraph and trains in Latin America. American firms sold a vision of the good life, honed by Hollywood and advertising. Kellogg’s changed what the rich world ate for breakfast, and Kodak how it remembered holidays. The next corporate revolution, as we describe in our special report this week, is happening in Asia. This too will change how the world lives.
では、アジア企業はどのように変化しようとしているか簡潔に述べているパラグラフは以下です。Asian firms are having to become brainier, more nimble and more globalと一文でまとめていますね。
For Western firms, Asia’s shortcomings have been a relief. The iPhone shows why: although it is made by the hands of Chinese workers, it is the brains behind it, at Apple and at high-tech component-makers in the rich world, that take nearly all the profits. Now, however, the rules that have governed Asian capitalism for the past two decades are changing. Asian firms are having to become brainier, more nimble and more global.
Business in Asia How to keep roaring Over the past two decades Asia’s companies have enjoyed huge success. But now they need to reform to become brainier, nimbler and more global, says Patrick Foulis May 31st 2014 | From the print edition
Rafael Nadal’s High Aces Sean Gregory/Monte Carlo @seanmgregory May 22, 2014 The world’s top ranked player is chasing tennis history—and trying his hand at high-stakes poker. Will his body--and his luck--hold out?
Come again? Rafael Nadal, one of the most maniacally intense athletes on the planet, famous for pounding his body on every point, lacks aggression? Well, if anyone can learn how to ramp things up–in poker or go fish or any other game–it’s Nadal. From the moment he burst onto the global sporting scene, winning the 2005 French Open at age 19, pundits wondered how long the hard-driving Spaniard could last. His perpetual snarl–Nadal plays with a chip on his face–expressed a manic drive that was sure to wear him down over time, some analysts said. Rafa would just be a passionate flash.
“All my career, I’ve been listening to that song,” Nadal tells TIME while lounging in the corner of the casino after the poker game. “That I will not have a long career because my movements are too aggressive.” But here we are, nearly a decade and 12 more Grand Slam victories later, and Nadal is still No. 1 in the world. No less an authority than Andre Agassi recently called him the greatest player of all time.
今回の記事で初めて知ったのはナダルがポーカーにはまっていることでした。その共通点とは。。。
Tennis and poker, it turns out, are complementary, each reinforcing mental habits needed to succeed in the other. “One big thing is concentration,” says Rebecca Symes, a U.K.-based sports psychologist. “Tennis is an individual sport, which means you’re trying to be in control all the time, which is actually quite similar in poker.” Then there’s the matter of coping with dumb luck. In tennis it may be an umpire’s bad call, a freak gust of wind; in poker you can calculate all the probabilities and make the right decision, but the cards often move against you. “One of the biggest things in poker is not letting swings get to you,” says James Blake, a retired American tennis pro and poker enthusiast who believes the card game helped him remain steady and focused on the court. Uncle Toni doesn’t disagree. “In poker, always there is tension,” he says. “It’s the same in sport.”
上記のNadalの動画を見て、一瞬スペイン語でも話しているのかと思ったら英語でした。あのような英語をTimeはNadal says in his sometimes fractured Englishと表現しています。
With the French Open looming, however, Nadal’s focus is on his court game. The knee remains a problem. “I’m still having pain a lot of days,” Nadal says in his sometimes fractured English. “The only thing I wish is that the pain is only minding me when I’m competing. Because I really like to enjoy the rest of the time of my life.” If there are people who question Nadal’s chances of catching Federer’s Grand Slam record, count Nadal among them. “I doubt about myself,” Nadal says. “I think the doubts are good in life. The people who don’t have doubts I think only two things–arrogance or not intelligence.”
それにしても最後にある“I think the doubts are good in life. The people who don’t have doubts I think only two things–arrogance or not intelligence.”（疑いは人生には良いことでしょう。疑いを持たない人は、傲慢か知的でないかのどちらかだと思います）はかっこいい言葉ですね。
One of my favorite pieces of advice comes from one of my favorite college professors, professor named Thomas Gilovich at Cornell who’s done research about regret. お気に入りのアドバイスのひとつは大好きな大学教授によるものです。コーネル大学のThomas Gilovich先生で後悔についての研究をしています。
And basically the research shows that in life people tend to regret the things. In the short term they regret things they do. So errors of commission. And in the long term they regret things they don’t do. 基本的にこの研究が示しているのは人生において人は物事を後悔する傾向があるということです。短期的にはやったことを後悔します。行為の誤りです。長期的にはやらなかったことを後悔するのです。
So it means, you know, people would say “I shouldn’t have asked that woman out.” You know, she said no. It was really embarrassing. But when you look back on your life, people say things like “I wish I had asked the woman out. She might have been the love of my life.” つまり、「あの女性を誘わなければよかった」と言うのです。断られて、恥をかいた。しかし人生を振り返ると「あの女性を誘っておけばよかった。人生の伴侶になっていたかもしれないのに」のようなことを口にするでしょう。
And this is true, business decisions, too. So I try to let the research guide me. When I make decisions, I try to push myself harder, challenge myself so that I don’t regret not trying things later. ビジネスでの意思決定でも当てはまります。ですから、この研究に従うようにして、決断を下す際には自分を追い込んで、後で挑戦しなかったことを後悔しないようにします。
こういう例は分かりやすくていいですね。助動詞の使い方も学べます。
“I shouldn’t have asked that woman out. “
“I wish I had asked the woman out.”
I wishに関してはI wish I couldという丁寧な断り表現としてTOEICでも使われますが、should have（すべきだった）のようなものは過去の行為を責めるためかTOEICではほとんどみかけませんでした。
DIED Viktor Sukhodrev, 81, Soviet interpreter who played a central role in Cold War summits, serving as a personal interpreter for every USSR leader from Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mr. Sukhodrev was often trusted as the sole interpreter between leaders at summit meetings at the height of the Cold War. As Khrushchev harangued foreign diplomats at a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow in 1956, it was Mr. Sukhodrev who indelibly rendered Khrushchev’s words into English as “We will bury you.”
We will bury youに関してはウィキペディアで項目として立っていますし、「歴史的な誤訳」として紹介しているサイトもありました。ただこの件は文字通り訳したとしても失礼な言動であることには変わりないと思うのですが。。。
（ウィキペディア） We will bury you "We will bury you!" (Russian: "Мы вас похороним!", transliterated as My vas pokhoronim!) is a phrase that was famously used by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956.[1][2][3] The phrase was originally translated into English by Khrushchev's personal interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev.
As it turns out, a better literal translation of his words would have been, "We will be present when you are buried."
This was actually a pretty common saying in Soviet Russia. What Khrushchev really meant was, "We will outlast you." It was just the usual "communism is better than capitalism" posturing that went on all the time in the Cold War, but thanks to misinterpretations like the one in a Time article, Americans thought Khrushchev was threatening to literally bury us in the rubble of a nuclear attack. And he didn't clarify his statement for three whole years. While the U.S. operated under the assumption that Khrushchev was chomping at the bit to kill us, we watched as the U.S.S.R. launched both Sputnik and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, and we consequently went space missile crazy ourselves. Would we have landed on the moon if it hadn't been for our misunderstanding of Khrushchev's bluster? We'll never know.
KALB: Well, you know, it's terribly important what kind interpreter you have. Sukhodrev was capable of not just translating the words of the Soviet leader, but conveying the personality of the Soviet leader. He conveyed the ebullience and the excitement of Khrushchev and the rather dour, quiet conservatism of Brezhnev. And you got the true quality of the man because Viktor was such a complete pro at what it is that he was doing. I mean Viktor was the best.
通訳のエピソードを紹介してくれるものとして2005年のニューヨクタイムズの記事が面白かったです。普通に読んでいても通訳を無意識にしてしまうというのです、So again, it might be an effort when you are just starting out, but then it grows on you and it becomes part of you and then you are not making a conscious effort. It just comes naturally. というのは外国語学習にも大切なことでしょうね。
Sometimes when he is reading, he said, he catches himself unconsciously translating passages. "It's very annoying."
And when he talks, it is deliberately and with precision, as if he were processing and translating the thoughts that come into his head.
"That is your life, that is your profession," he said. "So again, it might be an effort when you are just starting out, but then it grows on you and it becomes part of you and then you are not making a conscious effort. It just comes naturally. You slip into that role. You could analyze it through Freud somehow."
Somehow, through a process he does not understand, he finds himself unconsciously speaking perfectly with an American accent to an American and with a British accent to a Briton.
"I would not be play-acting," he said. "I would adapt without noticing it, because when I'm speaking to a person I want to be on the same wavelength. It's something in the brain."
政府首脳の通訳ですから、求められる通訳のレベルは最高級のものでしょう。相当なプレッシャーであることが伺えるエピソードが以下です。 He found that the interpreter, as cool as he may seem, is often sweating much harder than the men on either side.
There at the pinnacle, where every nuance has a nuance, the mind is a constantly whirring computer, empty of thought, making instant decisions. "You cannot stop to ponder,"Sukhodrev said. "You just can't. If you do, you fail. You simply stop."
There is no margin for error; only perfection is acceptable.
"An interpreter at that level cannot - not 'should not' - simply cannot, make a mistake," Sukhodrev said. "He cannot. No way. Well, if he did he'd be out, and rightly so."
Sometimes after interpreting at the Kremlin and writing the required memorandum of all that had been said, he would come home long after midnight, his head still full of words, unable to sleep.
As he looked back over a life very well spent, the great interpreter revealed a secret. The man in the middle is not, after all, as self-effacing as he seems.
"You are the one," he said, remembering those heady moments when the world was watching. "It all boils down to, you are the one that they are understanding, not your boss who speaks in an unknown tongue.
"It is you they're reacting to. If you get applause, it's you who are getting applause."
So there really is an ego hovering there between the statesmen, and sometimes stealing their applause lines.
"Well, yes," he said. And their punch lines as well. "That's why when you are translating a joke, you've got to make the other guy smile. That feels pretty good."
There are not great roles for women in Shakespeare, you know, after 50, let’s say. And if you love Shakespeare which I do, and you’ve done a lot of Shakespeare, you have a certain, not a facility but you know, at least, had experience with it. You want to do more of it.
Your career started with Royal Shakespeare Company. It’s about the work, something that you feel very at home with.
Yes. I guess. You know. I don’t want to say I feel at home with it because you’re always learning with Shakespeare. And the disadvantage of doing a film is you don’t get to do the same speech nigh after night the same role and therefore learn and develop and change it. And that’s a great advantage of doing Shakespeare in the theater. Every night you learn more about the material.
On the other hand, you have great advantage of the close up where you can express your emotion, you know, with your eyes, with just small expression. On the stage, you know, you’ve only got your voice.
Yes. I guess. You know. I don’t want to say I feel at home with it because you’re always learning with Shakespeare. And the disadvantage of doing a film is you don’t get to do the same speech nigh after night the same role and therefore learn and develop and change it. And that’s a great advantage of doing Shakespeare in the theater. Every night you learn more about the material. そうだと思いますが、落ち着くとは言えないです。シェイクスピアからは常に学ぶ事があるからです。映画の不利な点は、毎晩同じ役の同じスピーチをしないことです。そうすれば、学び、発展させ、変えていくことができるのに。これこそがシェイクスピアを劇場で行う素晴らしいことのひとつなのです。毎晩素材から多くのことを学ぶのです。
PROSPERO: Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. （宴は終った。この役者たちは前にも話したように、みな精霊だ。今では空気のなかへ、薄い空気のなかへと溶けてしまった。そして、この幻が礎のない建物であるのと同じように、雲を頂く塔も、豪華絢爛な宮殿も、荘厳な寺院も、巨大な地球そのものも、地上のありとあらゆるものも、すべていずれは消滅し、今消えていった実体のない見せもの同様、跡形も残しはしない。我々は夢と同じ材料でできている。この短い人生は眠りで包まれているのだ。）
The Modern Slave Trade On the spectrum of abhorrent business practices, buying and selling humans, especially children, remains the gold standard. Yet modern abolitionists say it happens all the time. “This Nigerian eruption is a chilling and unusual form of trafficking,” says Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT-USA, an organization that fights child trafficking. “But I can tell you definitively that the sexual exploitation of children takes place in every country.” Many nations are simply in denial about it. “I’ve learned, after 22 years of working on this issue, the first conversation in any new country starts with, ‘But we don’t have that here.’”
It may not look like the slave trade of old–no country legally protects the institution of slavery anymore, and the shackles are economic or psychological rather than physical–but the trade in humans is a thriving 21st century business. Finding people to enslave is not that complicated. The most fertile ground shares three main attributes: a heavy mantle of poverty, a cluster of especially vulnerable people and only trace amounts of the rule of law. Much of the world fits that description.
“The sex-trafficking industry is hugely profitable,” says Grono. “The annual profit margin on each woman is about 70%. Highly successful companies such as Google have a profit margin of around 22%.” Because it’s so lucrative, traffickers have found myriad ways to conscript new women. Sometimes victims are kidnapped, and sometimes they’re simply hoodwinked by false offers of a better life through training, education or a low-level but legal job in a wealthy, faraway land. Some girls are wooed by boyfriends who turn out to be captors. What they thought was a ticket to paradise takes them instead to hell on earth.
Being female and Nigerian is, in fact, one of the less lucky human conditions. According to the UNODC, Nigeria is one of the top countries of origin for human trafficking. There’s a particularly active corridor between that part of West Africa and Italy. Some estimates suggest that 60% of the prostitutes in Italian brothels hail from Nigeria.
Indeed, the Chibok girls’ case is not even the most extreme example of Nigerian child trafficking. In May 2013, 17 pregnant girls ages 14 to 17 were rescued from a so-called baby farm, an orphanage in Imo, in the southeast, where they had all been impregnated, reportedly by the same man. The infants they bore were being sold off for adoption, forced labor or worse. This is not the only baby farm Nigerian police have uncovered. UNICEF estimates that at least 10 children are sold daily across the country.
また、強制的な結婚をすることが慣習になっているそうです。
By most definitions, forcing a child to marry is another form of sex trafficking. But activists who work with communities where child marriage is customary say parents sometimes believe they are doing the best thing for their daughters. “As girls get old they might get harassed as they go to school, so parents will marry them to protect them from that,” says Janoch. “Not getting married at all has really dire consequences.”
この後はナイジェリアの経済、貧富の格差、そして、米国でのHuman Traffickingの取り組みなどに触れてくれていますが、最後のパラグラフIt’s no accident that the best solution for the challenges faced by the Nigerian girls–and nearly all those who are sexually trafficked–is education,とあります。
It’s no accident that the best solution for the challenges faced by the Nigerian girls–and nearly all those who are sexually trafficked–is education, the very thing Boko Haram wishes to “rescue” them from. Many women who get coerced into prostitution all over the world do not see themselves as victims. Their brothel becomes their home, their pimp family. Without a viable alternative future, a lot of those rescued from sex work return to it. This is especially true in countries where poverty is endemic and women are not valued. But it’s not untrue even in the wealthiest nations. “I’m telling you sincerely this is not just a Nigerian problem anymore,” says Sister Rosemary. “This is happening everywhere.”
Although berries and beans may be separated by a subtle sound within a language, the larger space between like words in different languages is just as hazardous. Two words that seem to indicate the same state may mean the opposite. In English, the spiritual guy is pious, while the one called spirituel in French is witty; a liberal in France is on the right, in America to the left. And what of cultural inflections that seem to separate meanings otherwise identical? When we have savoir-faire in French, don’t we actually have something different from “know-how” in English, even though the two compounds combine pretty much the same elements?
ここで上記の本について考察するのですが、ウォーフの言語相対論を見出します。エスキモーは雪についての言葉がたくさんあるということで有名なやつですね。 A spectre haunts this book, however. It is the spectre of Benjamin Lee Whorf and the theory of linguistic relativism to which he gave his name. Whorf was an amateur American linguist in the first half of the twentieth century who be- came obsessed with the idea that the sys- tem of tenses in the Hopi language gave the Hopi a different view of present, past, and future. (His understanding of Hopi grammar turns out to have been rudimentary.) Whorfianism came to refer to a larger idea derived from this notion - the idea that our language forces us to see the world a certain way, and that different languages impose different world views on their speakers. It’s a powerful idea in the pop imagination. It sounds right when you say it.
In recent years, there's been some empirical support for mild versions of the Whorfian idea. Given more color names - aqua, teal, and periwinkle, in addition to "blue" - we do seem to respond to more colors, or at least to group the colors we're shown more finelv. In m other words, having many words for shades of blue helps you tag the memory more easily and retrieve it faster, though it doesn't mean that you really see more shades than the next guy. (Common sense tells us this already about, say, wine tasting: when we're given new terms - there's tar, tobacco, and rosewater here - we're more likely to say, "Oh, yeah, I smelled that!" than "Oh, now I smell something new.") The names help us sort the steady perception into manageable bits. Similar studies have helped rehabilitate Whorf, at least a little.
この著者はwe are citizens of our languages.と見ているようです。「言語を存在の家」と呼んだ哲学者に近い立場なのでしょうか？いずれにしても僕にはピンときませんが。。。
We are not captives of our tongues, but we are citizens of our languages. And citizenship is a broad concept that includes behavior and rituals. We approach the secret life of another language more intimately on first approach than after we have married into it. Learning a new language is like learning a new city: you see things you’ll never notice, or need, once you go to live there and are habituated by routine.
Back in the social sciences, there are studies to support our sense of such differences - not in cognitive view but in cultural flavor. Bilingual people, for instance, seem to narrate stories very differently in their two languages. Russian emigres to America seem to use more collectivist nouns when they re speaking Russian, more individualistic ones in English; bilingual French-English speakers tend to tell the same stories with an emphasis on "achievement" in English, and on "aggression toward peers" in French. (The English story is "I done it!"; the French version is "And the bastards tried to stop me.")
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The New York Times announced today that Dean Baquet has been named executive editor, effective immediately. Mr. Baquet, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has been managing editor at The Times since September 2011, succeeds Jill Abramson.
In making the announcement, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of The New York Times and chairman of The New York Times Company, said, “There is no journalist in our newsroom or elsewhere better qualified to take on the responsibilities of executive editor at this time than Dean Baquet. He is an exceptional reporter and editor with impeccable news judgment who enjoys the confidence and support of his colleagues around the world and across the organization.”
Mr. Baquet said, “It is an honor to be asked to lead the only newsroom in the country that is actually better than it was a generation ago, one that approaches the world with wonder and ambition every day. The talented journalists of The New York Times make it the greatest news operation in history and I look forward to working with them to deliver the world’s most engaging and enterprising journalism.”
Mr. Sulzberger continued, “Jill Abramson has my sincere thanks for not just preserving and extending the excellence of our news report during her time as executive editor, but also for inspiring her colleagues to adjust their approach to how we deliver the news. Her leadership helped further The Times down the path to our digital future, particularly with her embrace and oversight of new platforms and products like The Upshot, NYT Now and NYT5.”
Ms. Abramson said, “I've loved my run at The Times. I got to work with the best journalists in the world doing so much stand-up journalism. Holding powerful institutions accountable is the mission of The Times and the hallmark of my time as executive editor, whether stories about China, government secrecy, or powerful figures and corporations.”
Ms. Abramson continued, “We successfully blazed trails on the digital frontier and we have come so far in inventing new forms of story-telling. Our masthead became half female for the first time and so many great women hold important newsroom positions. Dean has been my partner in all this and he will be a great executive editor. I thank Arthur, who has been a steadfast protector of our journalism, for the chance to serve.”
I think the only real news here today is your graduation from this great university. First of all, congratulations.
A couple of students I was talking to last night after I arrived, they know that I have some tattoos. One of them asked me, “Are you gonna get that Times ‘T’ that you have tattooed on your back removed?” Not a chance.
Very early last Thursday, my sister called me and she said, ‘I know dad would be as proud of you today as he was the day you became executive editor of the New York Times. I had been fired the previous day, so I knew what she was trying to say. It meant more to our father to see us deal with a setback and try to bounce back than to watch how we handled our successes. “Show what you are made of,” he would say.
Losing a job you love hurts, but the work I revere, journalism that holds powerful institutions and people accountable, is what makes our democracy so resilient. And this is the work I will remain very much a part of.
What’s next for me? I don’t know. So I’m in exactly the same boat as many of you. And like you, I’m a little scared but also excited.
「show what you are made of」というメッセージが肝のようで、命をかけてジャーナリズムに関わっていることを誇りに思っているようです。
Graduating from Wake Forest means you have experienced success already. And some of you – and now I’m talking to anyone who has been dumped – have not gotten the job you really wanted or have received those horrible rejection letters from grad school. You know the disappointment of losing or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of. I was in China recently, and some of you know the New York Times website has been blocked by censors there for more than a year. That means in China that citizens cannot read the most authoritative coverage of their country. Every time I reflexively tried to open the New York Times website, I got the message that said, “Safari cannot open the page,” which made me become more and more furious.
While I was I Beijing, one of our Chinese journalists, Patrick Song, was detained for hours by authorities. The government meant to scare and intimidate him. Why was he detained? Simply because he worked as a truthful journalist. So what did he do? He came right back to work and quietly got on with things. “I did what I believe, and that makes me fearless,” Patrick told me after his ordeal.
You know, New York Times journalists risk their lives frequently to bring you the best report in the world. That’s why it is such an important and irreplaceable institution. And it was the honor of my life to lead the newsroom.
ケネスブレナーがニューヨークでマクベスを公演するようです。ニューヨクタイムズが大々的に取り上げていました。It will have bloodとタイトルにありますが、これはマクベスのセリフでもあるようです。Youtubeはイギリスでのもののようです。日本語訳は松岡和子さんのものです。
Act 3, Scene 4 It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood. こういうことは血を呼ぶと言う。血が血を呼ぶのだ。
マクベスの劇ではbloodが使われたセリフがいくつかあるようです。今回のセリフを以下のように説明してくれているサイトがありました。 Blood in Macbeth:
In the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, "blood" has several different meanings rather than just fluid that circulates in the principal vascular system of human beings.
"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood." ~Macbeth
-Blood having blood is a continuous system. What Macbeth is saying in this quote is that his killing may become a habit and his guilt will not all of a sudden come to a stop. They will both be continuous actions.
The play moves from the supernatural weirdness of the first scene straight into the narration of an epic offstage battle. But in this production, the battle is shown onstage: a fierce, wet, muddy, bloody, intricately choreographed extended fight that takes place inches away from the audience. (Unlike “Rocky,” across town, it has no referee.) Audience members in the front rows, sitting on either side of the transverse stage down the middle, sometimes get sprayed with dirt, fake blood and water from the rain machine.
“I’m not a fight choreographer, but I drew the pictures just like I would design a dance, and I used my sense of how to build something as you would build a number in a musical,” Mr. Ashford said. “It has to start with something, go to something else, go to something else. And then all of it has to go toward a final moment. You can’t keep the same pace the entire time or show 20 guys battling the entire time. You have to get everyone on board, and then show the specifics.”
It Will Have Blood (Mud, Too)のタイトルの意味は何てことはない、「劇では血や泥が飛び交いますよ」ということを、有名なマクベスのセリフに合わせて伝えていたのですね。泥をかぶることになる観客の反応はそれほど悪くないようです。
“The idea is of using the mud and rain to get the pagan and earthy quality,” Mr. Oram said. “You get the sounds and the smell and the immediate experience of a play drenched in blood and mud.”
At first, he said, he was nervous that audience members seated in the “blood and water zone,” as he called it, would resent being splattered by battlefield byproducts. “It’s not like a theme park, where we’re going to hand out plastic ponchos,” he said. “But then we realized that everybody was kind of into it, like it was a badge of honor.” Some audience members even returned for a second bout, wearing their dirtied clothes from the time before.
“Mr. Branagh’s muscular, bloody, fast-paced Macbeth” begins with “a fierce, wet, muddy, bloody, intricately choreographed extended fight that takes place inches away from the audience,” signaling a “headlong rush of breathless action, [with] each scene blending rapidly into the next.”– THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 18, 2014
Shakespeare’s classic tale of ambition and treachery gets a thrilling new life in the U.S. premiere of the electrifying production by Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh, following its acclaimed sold-out run at the Manchester International Festival in England. Kenneth Branagh, in his first Shakespeare performance in more than a decade, is joined by Alex Kingston, in their highly-anticipated New York stage debuts, as the once great leader and his adored wife, who incites him to sell his soul in the quest for greater power.
Utilizing the Armory’s unique space and military history, this audacious staging brings to life one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies in an intensely physical, fast-paced production that places the audience directly on the sidelines of battle. Blood, sweat, and the elements of nature can be directly felt as the action unfurls across a traverse stage, with heaven beckoning at one end and hell looming at the other.
The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency. Need a response for a Russian nuclear missile launch? Check. Have to rescue a U.S. ambassador kidnapped by drug lords? Yup, check, got that covered. How about a detailed strategy for surviving a zombie apocalypse? As it turns out, check.
Incredibly, the Defense Department has a response if zombies attacked and the armed forces had to eradicate flesh-eating walkers in order to "preserve the sanctity of human life" among all the "non-zombie humans."
Buried on the military's secret computer network is an unclassified document, obtained by Foreign Policy, called "CONOP 8888." It's a zombie survival plan, a how-to guide for military planners trying to isolate the threat from a menu of the undead -- from chicken zombies to vegetarian zombies and even "evil magic zombies" -- and destroy them.
Military planners assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska during 2009 and 2010 looked for a creative way to devise a planning document to protect citizens in the event of an attack of any kind. The officers used zombies as their muse. "Planners ... realized that training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan," the authors wrote, adding: "Rather than risk such an outcome by teaching our augmentees using the fictional 'Tunisia' or 'Nigeria' scenarios used at [Joint Combined Warfighting School], we elected to use a completely-impossible scenario that could never be mistaken for a real plan."
Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for Strategic Command, acknowledged the document exists on a "secure Internet site" but took pains to explain that the zombie survival guide is only a creative endeavor for training purposes. "The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," she wrote in an email. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."
ゾンビが流行しているからか、CDCもゾンビを注意を呼びかけるポスターなどに使用しているようです。
Make A Plan. Get A Kit. Be Prepared. Zombies are a scary thought, but so are hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters that could actually happen.
Prepare your family by visiting http://emergency.cdc.gov/
記事では、CDCより早く、ゾンビに注目して、しかも計画を立てていたとちょっとちゃかしています。
This isn't the first time zombies have been used to inspire trainers or the American public. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) built an entire public awareness campaign for emergency preparedness around zombies. "Get a kit, make a plan, be prepared," one CDC poster warns as a dead-eyed woman peeks over a blanket.
But the military appears to have come up with the idea first. And of course, should there be a zombie apocalypse, the military indeed has a plan.
(U) PLAN SUMMARY Plan Summary CDRl 'SSTRATCOM CONPLAN 8888-1 1 (L) PLAN SUMMARY 7. (V) Statement:'' (11) This CONPLAN is a contingency oriented plan designed to be used as a basis/point of departure for Crisis Action Planning (CAP). (U) PURPOSE '2. (U) Purpose:' 1 his plan fulfills fictional Contingency Planning Guidance (CPG) tasking for USSTRATCOM to develop a comprehensive JOPHS Level 3 plan to undertake military- operations to preserve "non-zombie" humans from the threats posed by a zombie horde. Because zombies pose a threat to all "non-zombie" human life (hereafter referred to as "humans"). USSTRATCOM will be prepared to preserve the sanctity of human life and conduct operations in support of any human population-including traditional adversaries. The objective of this plan is threefold: a. (U) Establish and maintain a vigilant defensive condition aimed at protecting humankind from zombies b. (U) If necessary, conduct operations that will, if directed, eradicate zombie threats to human safety c. (U) Aid civil authorities in maintaining law and order restoring basic services during and after a zombie attack
Three years ago this March, a 9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever known to hit Japan, created a tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people outright, displaced hundreds of thousands more and removed entire villages from the map. By triggering the failure of the Fukushima nuclear plant, it also left the landscape contaminated and led to Japan’s curtailing of its nuclear-power system.
I was living in Beijing when the quake hit, and I saw Chinese coverage shift from its normal churlish outlook on Japan to growing respect for the stoic discipline with which its people bore hardship. One photo ran on TV and front pages across China. It was an aerial shot of the Japanese, very young to very old, forming a long, snaking but always orderly line for disaster supplies. The amazed Chinese reaction was: Imagine a society in which people would patiently wait their turn for hours rather than rushing pell-mell to the front.
David Pilling, who from 2002 through 2008 was The Financial Times’s bureau chief in Tokyo, also learned of the earthquake in Beijing, his new post. He quickly returned to Japan to report on the disaster and its consequences. He conceived of this book, whose ambition, he says, is “to create a portrait of a stubbornly resistant nation with a history of overcoming successive waves of adversity.”
Pillingさんは被災地で取材をしていますので、その部分をまず褒めています。
The ground-zero disaster reporting will command the attention of any reader. Pilling vividly recreates the waves of different sorts of destruction. First the earthquake itself, which “went on for a time-stopping six minutes.” Then the tsunami, which was not the single cresting “Great Wave” famous from Hokusai prints but a rise in sea level of as much as 130 feet in some areas. Pilling describes a multistory gymnasium where townspeople were waiting out the tsunami. Water filled the building, and more than 60 people were trapped and drowned. Pilling arrived in Tohoku in time to witness the next stage, in which survivors walked across a flattened landscape searching for any sign of the people, belongings, entire neighborhoods that had disappeared. For me, these scenes powerfully recall John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” — and although the causes were obviously different, in each case the longest-lasting source of damage came from radiation.
この本はそれだけではなく、逆境を乗り越えてきた日本の歴史も考察しています。その部分の書評です。
The analytical chapters between these opening and closing sections include some dutiful survey history of Japan’s long record of warily attempting to embrace, and then fearfully or resentfully backing away from, a series of outside powers. The first was China; then the colonial-era, industrialized West that had brought the rest of Asia under its control; then through the past 60-plus years, Japan’s conqueror and ally, the United States; and recently its neighbors in Asia. Most of the themes and illustrations here are familiar, from Japan’s fetish for its uniqueness — “British rain and Japanese rain are quite different,” a professor in Tokyo tells Pilling — to the consequences of its post-World War II strategy of “embracing defeat,” which was the title of John W. Dower’s celebrated 1999 book on that subject.
Japan declineは神話に過ぎないというPillingの主張は、日本人には嬉しい事ですね。
The first, and probably the most surprising for American readers, is that after its decades of “failure” and stagnation, modern Japan is a rich, creature-comfortable, economic and technological powerhouse. China has recently passed it in total output, but with a 10-times-larger population. Japan’s economy is the third-largest in the world, the size of Britain’s and France’s economies combined. Japan’s car companies, Pilling reminds us, are “now considered the best in the world.” In almost any advanced industry, from biotechnology to electronics to aerospace, crucial components come from Japanese firms. “They talk about Japan’s decline,” a Japanese friend tells Pilling. “But there’s no potholes on the street, there’s good quality cars, no violence, clean air. It’s O.K.”
On Friday, Uniqlo will open an outpost at King of Prussia Mall, an upscale shopping center just outside Philadelphia. It’ll be the 21st Uniqlo store operating in the U.S., where the Japanese fashion giant has grand plans.
By 2020, parent company Fast Retailing — Asia’s largest retailer — aims to run 1,000 Uniqlo stores in the U.S.
この記事の最後の以下のようにあるUniqlo US CEO Larry Meyerさんの動画もありました。
Uniqlo US CEO Larry Meyer met with Forbes at Uniqlo’s Soho, New York flagship to talk about the brand’s universal appeal, its comfortable clothes and a new partnership with the man behind this year’s pop hit ‘Happy’, Pharrell Williams.
Our store execution and store service is premised on Japanese mode. We are very proud of those standards and we want to enforce that and have that same sort of standard on a global basis including US. Currently we have 20 stores as we opened three new stores this past weekends.
Our customers… our store relate to everyone. We are about classical fashion. The products we have here. Polo shirts and over there Gulf pair of pants They are all about what you can wear casually or to work.
We work with the Japanese organization to evolve Global organizations. Global, in a sense our products appeal to global customers. We have a relatively consistent assortment across the globe. We transfer information back and forth. That’s what makes Uniqlo terrific. We change the color and we will change somewhat silhouette and because we’ve been focused on these products on a consistent basis.
Our production efficiencies get better and better. There’s difference in sizing to some grade. Grading systems are somewhat different. Different products will sett at different pace given different tastes. Overall assortment is very similar.
We are very pleased with affiliation we have with Pharrell Williams. He’s having a great year with all three songs that he’s been involved with, especially “Happy.”
In my mind, it’s sort of what we want Uniqlo customers to feel our clothes, in my mind, make you life easier to live and make you happy. Because it’s so easy to wear the products. So relaxing and such great quality.
Product is remarkably consistent from the point of view it’s what you’ve worn probably all your life. You know, a polo shirt or golf pair pants. You’ve worn that, if you are a Forbes reader.
Believe me, the price is wonderful. And the quality is better than most of the other people you buy a shirt from.
Let it goでLet the storm rage on.の部分について、そういえば日本語でも世間の厳しい批判を受ける場合には「風当たりが強い」とか「逆風にさらされる」とかいう表現を使いますよね。
（バイリンガールのちかさんの解説） Let the storm rage on. 嵐も吹き続ければいいわ（→言わせておけばいいわ）
The cold never bothered me anyway. 寒いのが嫌なんて一度も思ったことないし（→どうってことない）
英語のstormもrageも人間の感情が激しく揺さぶられる状況をさすようですね。
（ロングマン） storm a situation in which people suddenly express very strong feelings about something that someone has said or done: American English The governor found himself at the center of a political storm. storm of protest/abuse/criticism etc American EnglishGovernment plans for hospital closures provoked a storm of protest.
************ rage written to feel very angry about something and show this in the way you behave or speak rage at/against He was sorry he had raged at her earlier. 'How was I to know!' Jenny raged.
「風当たりが強い」や「逆風にさらされる」の意味も出せるようにLet the storm rage on.を訳すとどうなるかな、と考えていたときに浮かんだのがこの曲でした。
我ながら「いいイメージが浮かんだ！」といい気になっていたのですが、高橋 知伽江さんのLet it goの訳詞を改めて確認してみると。。。。
（ロングマン） road rage [uncountable] violence and angry behaviour by car drivers towards other car drivers: Road rage seems to be on the increase. a road rage attack
ケネディ大使が福島原発を視察したそうです。「名前が書かれた防護服」とNHKでは語っていますが、AP通信はwearing a yellow helmet and a white protective suit with her last name emblazoned on itのように表現しています。TOEICでもprotective clothingやprotective gearは使われるので慣れておきたいですね。with her last name emblazoned on itなんて表現はなかなか思いつきませんが。。。（汗）
Kennedy, wearing a yellow helmet and a white protective suit with her last name emblazoned on it, toured the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant for about three hours with her son, Jack Schlossberg.
ケネディ大使 It's very hard to visualize and understand the complexity of the challenge when you just read about it, so this was a very informative visit. I am grateful to all of those who are working here every day and to those who showed us around.
大使の息子Schlossbergさん I hope my peers, my generation in the United States will keep Fukushima in mind and understand that there is still work to be done and we can all do something to help.
大使の言葉It's very hard to visualize and understand the complexity of the challenge when you just read about it（単に読むだけでは問題の複雑さを想像したり、理解するのはなかなか難しいものです）はいろいろなものに当てはまりそうです。
フォーマルなやり取りが参考になるのは東京電力のプレスリリースでしょうか。Today, we were honored to have Her Excellency Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Japanと視察の感謝を述べています。
本日は、キャロライン・ケネディ駐日米国大使に、福島第一原子力発電所の廃炉作業の最前線を熱心にご視察いただき、当社社員ならびに協力企業の皆さんへ心のこもった激励のお言葉をいただきました。 Today, we were honored to have Her Excellency Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, join us to visit the decommissioning operation at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and we were gratified to hear her warm words of support.
日々厳しい現場で働いている職員一同にとって大きな励みとなり、改めて、今後の廃炉作業をしっかりと進めて行かねば、という思いを強くした次第です。心から感謝申し上げます。 Meeting the Ambassador and hearing her words of encouragement means a great deal to our employees and cooperative workers, who are working hard and making progress in what, as Ambassador Kennedy noted, is a "daunting task."
ケネディ大使の声明抜粋（英語・日本語） 東京電力のサイトではケネディ大使のコメントも読めます。I am grateful to XXX for making this visit possibleという表現は汎用性がありそうです。
Earlier today, I visited the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station. I am grateful to the Tokyo Electric Power Company and relevant Japanese government authorities for making this visit possible. 本日私は、福島第一原子力発電所を訪れました。今回の訪問の実現にご尽力いただいた東京電 力と日本政府の関係機関にお礼を申し上げます。
I was struck that more than three years after the tragic events of March 11, 2011, the destructive force of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the resulting tsunami are still visible. TEPCO and Japan face a daunting task in the cleanup and decommissioning of Fukushima Dai-ichi. Decommissioning will take years of careful planning and arduous work, under difficult conditions. Today, I was able to see firsthand these challenges, and I gained new appreciation for the dedication and determination of the workers at the Fukushima site. 2011 年3月 11 日の東日本大震災から3年以上が過ぎたにもかかわらず、あの巨大地震と津波の 破壊力が今も鮮明に見て取れることに、私は衝撃を受けました。東京電力と日本は、福島第一原発 の除染および廃炉という困難な仕事に取り組んでいます。廃炉は厳しい条件の下、綿密に計画を立 て、長い年月をかけて取り組まなければならない難しい仕事です。本日私は、こうした課題を目の当 たりにしました。そして現場で働く作業員の皆さんの熱意と強い意志をあらためて感じました。
The popular manga series “Oishinbo” came under fire again Monday after a character based on a real-life former mayor refers to Fukushima Prefecture in its latest issue as unlivable because of the radiation leaking from the ruined power plant there.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government fired back at the publisher the same day, saying no health problems have been reported as a result of the release of radioactive materials from the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
**********
Manga pushes ahead with antinuclear storyline 1:11 am, May 13, 2014 Jiji Press Japanese gourmet manga “Oishinbo” went further down its antinuclear path in the most recent serialized chapter released on Monday, after sparking controversy with the previous chapter on fallout from the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
In the latest episode in Shogakukan Inc.’s Big Comic Spirits magazine, characters warned against living in Fukushima Prefecture.
ウィキペディアには「美味しんぼ」という言葉についてThe manga's title is a portmanteau of the Japanese word for delicious, oishii, and the word for someone who loves to eat, kuishinbo.と説明があります。「美味しんぼってどういう意味」と食い下がって聞かれたら、この説明が使えますね。
(Wikipedia) Oishinbo (美味しんぼ?, lit. "The Gourmet") is a long-running cooking manga written by Tetsu Kariya and drawn by Akira Hanasaki. The manga's title is a portmanteau of the Japanese word for delicious, oishii, and the word for someone who loves to eat, kuishinbo.[1] The series depicts the adventures of culinary journalist Shirō Yamaoka and his partner (and later wife), Yūko Kurita. It has been published by Shogakukan between 1983 and 2008 in Big Comic Spirits, before resuming again on February 23, 2009,[2] and collected in 110 tankōbon volumes, currently making it the 8th longest manga released. The series was a perennial best-seller, selling 1.2 million copies per volume,[3] for a total of more than 130 million[4]
(Wikipedia) 明白かつ現在の危険（めいはくかつげんざいのきけん、clear and present danger）とは、表現の自由の内容規制に関する違憲審査基準の一つ。明白かつ現在の危険の基準ともいう。アメリカの憲法判例で用いられ、理論化された。違憲審査基準としては非常に厳格な基準であり、対象となる人権（表現内容を根拠とする表現の自由の規制）の制約を認める範囲は、著しく限定的である（自由の制約が違憲とされやすい）。
オックスフォードの学習英英辞典にも載っているほどなので、この際覚えてしまいたいですね。
（オックスフォード） clear and present danger the expression used by the US Supreme Court to indicate a situation in which complete freedom of speech is not a person’s legal right. No one has a right to say something that would cause a clear (= obvious) and present (= immediate) danger to other people. As an example, the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment does not allow a person to shout ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre.
（オックスフォード） falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater the example used in 1919 by the US Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes to show that in certain circumstances free speech should be limited, although he greatly supported free speech. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. Oliver Wendell Holmes
What is water worth? May 1, 2014: 7:00 AM ET Farmland is parched. Companies are worried. The global demand for water will soon outstrip supply. What's the solution? Simple, say some business leaders and economists: Make people pay more for the most precious commodity on earth. By Brian Dumaine, senior editor-at-large
Woolf, a third-generation farmer, grows tomatoes, onions, and garlic that typically end up as ketchup, salsa, and other products made by Heinz, P&G, and other big names in the food industry. Her choice was to farm only half of her land. "Customers are asking for our produce," she says, "but we can't deliver because we don't have the water." Officials say that more than 500,000 acres of otherwise rich, arable land in Central Valley will likely be left fallow this year. Acres of fruit and nut trees will die from lack of water. And in keeping with the laws of supply and demand, food prices have already risen.
Customers are asking for our produceという農家のコメントはTOEIC学習者ならproduce=農産物となりますね。直前にWoolf, a third-generation farmer, grows tomatoes, onions, and garlicとあるので、produceが農産物であることは想像できますが。。。最後のthe laws of supply and demandという部分も「需要と供給の法則」は英語だとsupplyが先になっています。実例にたくさん触れて実感する作業はとても重要なことだと思います。
"We've always thought about how water was important for beverages or chemicals," Goldman Sachs (GS) senior investment strategist Abby Joseph Cohen tells Fortune. "But how many other industries depend on water in the supply chain, for their workforce and production and to maintain a healthy environment around where they're operating?"
The answer may be virtually all of them. Which is why legions of business leaders, economists, and think-tankers are coming to reclassify water as a kind of buried treasure: "blue gold." Willem Buiter, Citigroup's chief economist, sums up the thinking of many these days: "Water as an asset class, in my view, will eventually become the single most important physical commodity -- dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities, and precious metals."
現在は水が無料で手に入るので、市場メカニズムを使うことを提唱する人がいるそうです。Let the invisible hand do its job, and water prices will rise, demand will fall…と市場メカニズムをthe invisible handというおなじみの比喩で表現しています。
One could argue that the answer to water scarcity is simple: Let water's price swim closer to its value. Let the invisible hand do its job, and water prices will rise, demand will fall, and this precious resource will be saved. If water's price were truly reflective of its value, the argument goes, investors would pour in capital for projects ranging from desalination plants to gray-water recycling systems to repairs on leaky municipal water pipes. These would help us increase the global supply of freshwater as the world's population soars.
But supporters of the idea say you can have both human protections and Adam Smith: Preserve a certain amount of water for everyone for free (or at almost no cost) and have a mostly free market for the rest. "Water needed for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene as a basis for survival must be available even for a person unable to pay," wrote Nestlé chairman Brabeck-Letmathe on his blog. But "there must be limits: Water to fill a private swimming pool or to wash a car, for instance, is not a free public good; rather, it should be a normal commercial good covering at least the full cost of infrastructure, not subsidized or even distributed for free."
It may be a $600-billion-a-year industry, but companies have had a tough time making money in it. In fact Siemens (SI) last year pulled out of the water business. Says Goldman's Cohen: "There's no market price for water. Decisions are made by politicians on how water should be priced, which makes doing business tough."
One challenge with investing in water is that there's no global market for it as there is with oil, copper, and other commodities. The reason? It's expensive and difficult to transport. China is in the midst of building an aqueduct to move water from the Yangtze River, in the south of the country, to the water-starved north. Some 2,700 miles long, it is expected to be one of the most expensive civil-engineering projects in history. The price tag? Upwards of $60 billion.
Back in the Central Valley, the land is still parched, even after some late-April rains. And the ground is sinking under Sarah Woolf 's feet. It is the result of sucking out water from her own property wells. Her family began using well water some decades ago, but after a while there was a problem. In a classic case of the tragedy of the commons, they and other farmers in the area were drawing so much water from the aquifer that the soil started dropping about a foot a year. Since the 1930s, the ground level at her farm has dropped 80 feet. "You're depleting a natural water source that can be replenished only if you take small amounts out," explains Woolf. "If you take water out fast, the pockets in the aqueduct that hold the water collapse and you can never get that aquifer back." Furthering the destructive cycle, the sinking ground plays havoc on the wells themselves, which can cost half-a-million dollars each to dig. Woolf has three on her farm.
このパラグラフではtragedy of the commons（コモンズの悲劇）がさらっと登場しています。
(Wikipedia) The tragedy of the commons is an economics theory by Garrett Hardin, according to which individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource. The concept is often cited in connection with sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the debate over global warming. "Commons" can include the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, national parks and any other shared resource. The tragedy of the commons has particular relevance in analyzing behavior in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation, and sociology. Some also see the "tragedy" as an example of emergent behavior, the outcome of individual interactions in a complex system.
DAVID: It is, in many ways, a remarkable film, I think, and it's interesting that Eric Lomax told this story because so many of the men who went through that terrible experience in World War II never talked about it but he wrote it down. MARGARET: A lot of guys come back from that situation and don't talk about it and that's, I think, a lot of the problem. But what I thought about this film is it's incredibly emotional because, you know, my family history is Burma Bangkok Railway, fighting in New Guinea. DAVID: So you had a personal connection. MARGARET: I was overwhelmed by it, I've got to tell you. It really cut deep with me. But I also think that Nicole is developing such wonderful maturity as an actress. I think she's fantastic in this. DAVID: I think they're both very good actually.
評者の一人がmy family history is Burma Bangkok Railway, fighting in New Guinea. と語っている通り、オーストラリアではニューギニアで日本と戦ったので、興味の度合いが違うのかもしれません。
The fact that I have had and am raising children is not a résumé item. It’s not something I “gave up” my life for. It’s sure as hell not a competitive act, one in which I somehow get to beat out every person who isn’t female or doesn’t have kids for best and most. And I don’t appreciate messages that seem to build women up while essentially telling them that nothing they can achieve in life matters more than having babies. You want to thank women, want to show women they have value? Close the wage gap. Challenge the insidious rape culture that exists in the military and in our colleges. Join the fight for our reproductive rights, so we can decide when and if we choose motherhood, safely. Don’t pat us on the head and minimize our contributions outside of the domestic sphere. You think motherhood is thankless, hard work? So is feminism. How about you celebrate that?
ニューヨーカーのコラムは、時代的な母親像を紹介しながら、今回の広告がbaseless perceptions of women as less reliable in the workplace, low expectations for fathers at homeであると厳しく指摘しています。
During the women’s movement of the seventies and eighties, some ads depicted the Ideal Mother as a powerful multitasker, endlessly capable of balancing work and home. In a 1980 television commercial for Enjoli perfume, a woman transforms from career gal to mother to seductress, over the lyrics: “ ’Cause I’m a woman, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man.”
All of these ads share two qualities with “World’s Toughest Job”: first, they present child-rearing as primarily the responsibility of mothers, and second, they reflect and reinforce contemporary assumptions about what motherhood entails. Our current parenting culture of taxing schedules, organic snacks, and profound emotional involvement—motherhood as a contact sport—pressures women to perform to impossible standards. Of course “World’s Toughest Job” went viral: these are challenging times for parents, and its message of praise for mothers seems, on the surface, to acknowledge these challenges. But the particular ideal of motherhood the ad presents—mom as superhuman, capable of physically impossible feats, all “with a happy disposition”—isn’t actually helpful to women (another feature that the video shares with ads that have used moms to sell things throughout history).
Mother's Day Turns 100: Its Surprisingly Dark History By Brian Handwerk for National Geographic UPDATED MAY 8, 2014 As Mother's Day turns 100 this year, it's known mostly as a time for brunches, gifts, cards, and general outpourings of love and appreciation.
But Jarvis's success soon turned to failure, at least in her own eyes.
Storming Mother's Day
Anna Jarvis's idea of an intimate Mother's Day quickly became a commercial gold mine centering on the buying and giving of flowers, candies, and greeting cards—a development that deeply disturbed Jarvis. She set about dedicating herself and her sizable inheritance to returning Mother's Day to its reverent roots. (See National Geographic's pictures of motherly love.)
Jarvis incorporated herself as the Mother's Day International Association and tried to retain some control of the holiday. She organized boycotts, threatened lawsuits, and even attacked First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother's Day to raise funds for charities.
Mother's Day Gifts Today: Brunch, Bouquets, Bling Today, of course, Mother's Day continues to roll on as an engine of consumerism.
According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend an average of $162.94 on mom this year, down from a survey high of $168.94 last year. Total spending is expected to reach $19.9 billion. The U.S. National Restaurant Association reports that Mother's Day is the year's most popular holiday for dining out.
As for Mother's Day being a hallmark holiday, there's no denying it, strictly speaking.
Hallmark Cards itself, which sold its first Mother's Day cards in the early 1920s, reports that Mother's Day is the number three holiday for card exchange in the United States, behind Christmas and Valentine's Day—another apparent affront to the memory of the mother of Mother's Day.
About 133 million Mother's Day cards are exchanged annually, according to Hallmark. After Christmas, it's the second most popular holiday for giving gifts.
アメリカと日本は母の日が５月第２週ですが、国によって母の日の実施日は随分と違いがあるようです。
Mother's Day Gone Global The holiday Anna Jarvis launched has spread around much of the world, though it's celebrated with varying enthusiasm, in various ways, and on various days—though more often than not on the second Sunday in May. In much of the Arab world, Mother's Day is on March 21, which happens to loosely coincide with the start of spring. In Panama the day is celebrated on December 8, when the Catholic Church honors perhaps the most famous of mothers, the Virgin Mary. In Thailand mothers are honored on August 12, the birthday of Queen Sirikit, who has reigned since 1956 and is considered by many to be a mother to all Thais.
Britain's centuries-old Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday of the Christian period of Lent, began as a spring Sunday designated for people to visit their area's main cathedral, or mother church, rather than their local parish.
(Wikipedia) The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: 関ヶ原の戦い; Kyūjitai: 關ヶ原の戰い Sekigahara no Tatakai?) was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) which cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu. Though it would take three more years for Ieyasu to consolidate his position of power over the Toyotomi clan and the daimyo, Sekigahara is widely considered to be the unofficial beginning of the Tokugawa bakufu, the last shogunate to control Japan. Japan had a long period of peace after the battle
On his deathbed, Hideyoshi, places Ieyasu in command until Hideyoshi's true heir—his young son, Hideyori—will rule. When daimyo rebels challenge Ieyasu's control, Tokugawa Ieyasu's samurai armies defeat them at the Battle of Sekigahara. The victory brings to Ieyasu the title of shogun.
動画ではthe battle that changed the course of Japanese historyと関ヶ原の戦いを説明しています。この英語表現を「天下分け目の戦い」の訳として当ててもいいですね。
43分あたりから Victorious at Ogaki Castle, Ieyasu's troops now pursued the rebellious daimyo and their armies. They faced off in a narrow valley just west of the village of Sekigahara. This would be the battle that changed the course of Japanese history. Ieyasu set up his command post atop a hill overlooking the valley, waiting through the night for the rest of his armies to arrive. At dawn, Ieyasu's attendant physician hastily noted in his journal...
PHYSICIAN: Slight rain. Dense fog in the mountain valley. Can't see. Barely made out enemy banners. On horseback, Lord Ieyasumade out their positions. Estimate distance at 2½ miles.
CHAMBERLAIN: Ieyasu was outnumbered, with only 50,000 troops challenging his enemy's 80,000. He waited for his son to arrive with reinforcements. But at 8:00 in the morning, the fog suddenly lifted and the two opposing armies found themselves within striking distance. Ieyasu could wait no more. Rallying his troops, it was said he sent them forward with his famous battle cry.
IEYASU: There are only two ways to comeback from the battlefield-- with the head of an enemy, or without your own.
CHAMBERLAIN: Ieyasu watched as his troops faced what seemed insurmountable odds. Then, suddenly, the tide turned. Several enemy daimyo and their armies, convinced of Ieyasu's ultimate victory, defected and joined Ieyasu's forces. By 2:00 p.m., Ieyasu's troops had defeated the rebellious army. (Takafuji speaking Japanese ) TRANSLATOR: Tokugawa's victory at Sekigahara brought an end to the warring states and signaled the beginning of a new era. That's the significance of the Battle of Sekigahara.
CHAMBERLAIN:In recognitionof Ieyasu's power, the emperor awarded himthe title of shogun, the barbarian-subduinggeneralissimo. Tokugawa Ieyasu now hadthe authority to rule Japan in all military matters.
動画の39分当たりに「露と落ち 露と消えにし我が身かな 浪速のことは 夢のまた夢」という秀吉の辞世の句がAh, as the dew, I fall. As the dew, I vanish. Even Osaka Fortress is a dream within a dream.と紹介されています。
Testament of Ieyasu (東照宮御遺訓) A translation of Ieyasu's words is:
"Life is like walking along a long road shouldering a heavy load; there is no need to hurry. One who treats difficulties as the normal state of affairs will never be discontented. Patience is the source of eternal peace; treat anger as an enemy. Harm will befall one who knows only success and has never experienced failure. Blame yourself rather than others. It is better not to reach than to go too far." --Tokugawa Ieayasu, 1604.[6]
An alternate translation is:
Life is like carrying a heavy burden: It is best not to rush ahead too hastily. He who accepts it as natural for life not to go exactly how he wants it to will not feel dissatisfied. Rather than doing too much, it is best to leave things undone. When managing others, give full reign to their good points and overlook their weak points. --Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1604.
Strange but true, three of the men considered to be at or close to the top of any greatest Japanese military leader list all come from the same area! These are among the most famous figures in Japan. All school children learn their names, their deeds, even their personalities in the same way that we learn all about George Washington (for our US readers…). Countless books, manga, anime, TV dramas, movies, and video games have been made featuring these men. In effect, they founded modern Japan, or at least laid the groundwork to make it possible by uniting the land. The strangest fact of all: They all come from the same place, even the same prefecture if we use modern geographic lines.
天下人とホトトギスは英語で以下のようになっています。
What if a bird doesn’t want to sing? “Kill, it!”, said Nobunaga. “Make it want to sing”, said Hideyoshi “Wait”, said Ieyasu
（オックスフォード） Battle of Waterloo a battle fought on 18 June 1815 in which the British, led by the Duke of Wellington, and the Prussians defeated the French army of Napoleon. It was the last battle of the Napoleonic Wars and took place near the village of Waterloo, not far from Brussels in Belgium. It is seen as one of the most important victories in British history and it made Wellington a national hero.
The Duke of Wellington is often incorrectly quoted as saying that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton".[36] Wellington was at Eton from 1781 to 1784 and was to send his sons there. According to Nevill (citing the historian Sir Edward Creasy), what Wellington said, while passing an Eton cricket match many decades later, was, "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo",[37] a remark Nevill construes as a reference to "the manly character induced by games and sport" amongst English youth generally, not a comment about Eton specifically. In 1889, Sir William Fraser conflated this uncorroborated remark with the one attributed to him by Count Charles de Montalembert's “C'est ici qu' a été gagné la bataille de Waterloo” (“It is here that the Battle of Waterloo was won.")
Slap to a Man’s Pride Set Off Tumult in Tunisia Moises Saman for The New York Times Unemployed men in a cafe in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Protests in the impoverished town helped lead to a change of government. By KAREEM FAHIM Published: January 21, 2011
When the 26-year-old Tunisian graduate - despairing of getting a decent job and abused by the police - set fire to himself in a public square, his story resonated far beyond his provincial town.
When he later died of his injuries, he became both a symbol and a martyr.
Now the unrest sparked by his self-immolation has led to the downfall of one of the region's longest-serving autocrats.
He was the perfect symbol for a perfect revolution.
Six months ago Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in front of the local government offices in the provincial Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid.
Unjustly harassed and slapped across the face by a state official for trying to sell food from his market stall, so the story went, Mr Bouazizi had raged on social networking sites about the injustices of a corrupt regime and the lack of opportunities for Tunisian youth.
Weeks later, the young man died from his terrible burns and the rest is history.
But, just like the imperfections and flaws in Tunisia's subsequent "Jasmine" revolution, Mohamed Bouazizi's story is not quite the perfect metaphor that many have since written and talked about.
It seems that for some Tunisians, the 26-year-old martyr is no longer a political hero but a media creation, manufactured for the convenience of those - outsiders - who wax lyrical about the birth of the Arab Spring.
The official who "taunted" and "slapped" Mohamed is, arguably, almost as much a victim of Tunisia's former regime.
******
There is no doubt the subsequent popular uprisings in towns across the country were, in part, promulgated and promoted via social networking sites by driven, savvy young people.
But, again, our Mohamed Bouazizi was not the linked-in, internet whizz, you may have read about, who wrote online about his intentions and frustrations.
As it happens it was another college student, with the same name, who posted his poetry and revolutionary song lyrics on the web. It was arguably these posts and the way they spread like wildfire in Tunisia and beyond - which the regime could do nothing to stop - that helped fuel the uprising.
まあ、彼が率いるAfrica Progress Panelという財団が翌日に発表する年次レポートAfrica Progress Reportの2014年版"Grain, Fish, Money - Financing Africa's Green and Blue Revolutions"のプロモーションのようです。
WSJは以下のように始まります。 Africa is a continent of great wealth. It is not poor. Natural resources abound. If those resources—minerals, fisheries, forestry and agriculture—are managed properly, traded fairly and resources invested wisely in the welfare of the people, Africa could reduce its dependence on aid, feeding itself and even becoming an engine of growth for the rest of the world.
The continent has already witnessed plenty of growth in the past decade. Average incomes have risen by one-third. Exports are booming and foreign investment is rising.
Yet despite those encouraging signs, there are more Africans living in poverty now—around 415 million—than at the end of the 1990s. But as the Africa Progress Panel, which I am proud to lead, demonstrates in a new report, "Africa Progress Report 2014, Grain, Fish, Money: Financing Africa's Green and Blue Revolutions," Africa's political leaders have an extraordinary opportunity to make a breakthrough in human development. A pattern of growth and investment that benefits everyone is the answer. Africa offers excellent long-term investment potential.
この論稿では成長が見込めるアフリカ大陸だが、依然として問題も抱えていることを指摘しています。Grain, Fish, Money: Financing Africa's Green and Blue Revolutionsというレポートのタイトルの通り、Grain（農業）、Fish（漁業）、 Money（金融）の3点を取り上げています。まずは農業からです。アフリカの事情に合わせたgreen revolutionを訴えています。
Our progress report calls for a "uniquely African green revolution" that adapts the lessons provided by Asia to African conditions. Increased investment in infrastructure and research could dramatically raise the region's yields and the incomes of farmers. There is no clearer illustration of the opportunities now being wasted than the food worth $35 billion that Africa must import annually because local agriculture is dogged by low productivity, chronic underinvestment and regional protectionism.
レポートタイトルFinancing Africa's Green and Blue Revolutionsを最初見たときBlue Revolutionが何かすぐに分からなかったです。。。漁業での改革を指しているのですね。
Nowhere is this more evident than in fisheries. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has reached epidemic proportions in Africa's coastal waters. West Africa is conservatively estimated to lose $1.3 billion annually. This plunder also costs the region critical jobs and undermines food and nutrition security. Another $17 billion is lost through illicit logging.
5年前の記事ですが、Blue Revolutionを取り上げているBBCの記事です。
Last Updated: Friday, 12 January 2007, 11:42 GMT A blue revolution to beat poverty VIEWPOINT Stephen Hall Overfishing and poor management have left the world's seas in a sorry state, says Stephen Hall in this week's Green Room. But, he argues, fishing still holds the key to helping millions of people secure a better future.
最後のFinanceですが、具体的には税制と政府支出の問題と、海外送金の問題を取り上げています。
African governments have also been failing to use their countries' finances to drive growth that benefits everyone. They must develop more effective taxation systems—and spend public money more fairly. For example, 3% of regional GDP is currently allocated to energy subsidies that principally go to the middle class. That money should be diverted into social spending to give the poor a better chance of escaping poverty.
As well as losing money through natural-resource plunder and financial mismanagement, Africans are short-changed on money transfers from abroad. The continent loses an estimated $1.9 billion a year because money transfer operators are imposing excessive charges on remittances.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic revival plan for Japan is entering a new phase, and all eyes are on the labor market. After a year of unprecedented monetary expansion, there are signs that growth, inflation and corporate profits are ticking up. Now the question is whether wages and consumption will follow. This is where Mr. Abe risks meeting his Waterloo if he doesn't pick up the pace of reform.
Mr. Abe has repeatedly highlighted the importance of wage increases, practically begging employers to boost pay. The theory is that exporters are booking higher profits thanks to his weak-yen policy, and they should boost compensation so their employees can spend more domestically and spark a virtuous growth cycle.
英語表現This is where Mr. Abe risks meeting his Waterloo if he doesn't pick up the pace of reform.を確認してみます。動詞riskのrisk doingの形です。基本語を柔軟に使えるようにするのは大事ですね。
（ロングマン） Waterloo 1, the Battle of Waterloo an important battle fought in 1815 near Brussels, Belgium, in which the Duke of Wellington, leading the British and the Prussians, defeated Napoleon and the French. It was Napoleon's final defeat, and he never regained power after this. 2 one of the main railway stations in London, just south of the River Thames. Trains from Waterloo go to the south and southwest of England. 3 meet your Waterloo to be finally defeated after a long period of success: • Despite widespread unpopularity, the party did not meet its Waterloo until the election of 1997.
（マクミラン） meet your Waterloo to fail at something that you have always been successful at until now
ここでWaterlooが使われているということは著者はAbenomicsがこれまで成功を収めていると認識しているのでしょう。下記の記事の冒頭に書いています。Abenomicsでこれまでうまくいったものは「三本の矢」の最初の2本でthe first two arrows in his quiver – massive monetary easing and targeted fiscal support – have succeeded in quickening economic growth and setting prices on an upward trajectoryにあたるのでしょう。
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe swept into power in Japan wielding the “three arrows” of his program to revitalize Japan’s economy. Through his first 14 months in office, the first two arrows in his quiver – massive monetary easing and targeted fiscal support – have succeeded in quickening economic growth and setting prices on an upward trajectory that’s encouraging Japanese to spend rather than save.
But the crucial “third arrow” of Abenomics – structural reforms that will position Japan’s economy to compete in the 21st century, even as its population shrinks and ages – has been half-hearted at best.
The reason this isn't happening gets to the core of Abenomics: productivity. Many Japanese are employed unproductively, either in dead-end, make-work jobs or in jobs for which their skills are poorly suited. Rigid labor laws and social mores make it almost impossible for a Japanese company to fire employees. This creates a huge pool of surplus labor within companies, and low average worker productivity makes it difficult for employers to afford pay increases.
The nearby chart illustrates how big the pool of hidden surplus labor may be. Junko Nishioka of RBS estimates the number of workers that would be required to generate the production measured in the economy, and then compares that to the actual number of workers. While the manufacturing industry now has the right number of employees for its level of production, the economy as a whole remains overstaffed by about 5%.
労働市場を解放しないと"in-house unemployed"（社内失業）のため設備投資に回せないと心配しています。さらに次のパラグラフではMr. Abe also needs to pick up the pace on his other policy reforms, the so-called third arrow that hasn't materializedと「第三の矢」である構造改革も進めるよう主張しています。
Mr. Abe has resisted any suggestion that Tokyo liberalize hiring and firing. Yet until companies are able to trim their labor forces to the right size, it's hard to see how they'll be able to invest in the productivity gains needed to boost pay for the workers who remain. Each yen paid to the "in-house unemployed" is a yen a company can't devote to capital investment.
Mr. Abe also needs to pick up the pace on his other policy reforms, the so-called third arrow that hasn't materialized. Japan's productivity gap explains why monetary expansion alone will not lead to the wage boost Mr. Abe had hoped for. Instead, he needs to encourage greater competition to stimulate productivity gains. Opening Japan's sheltered economy to foreign competition, whether through the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal or unilaterally, would be a good start.
英語の曲に日本語の歌詞をつけるときには対訳にすることはなかなか出来ません。The cold never bothered me anyway. は音の数（音節）が10ありますが、「もともと寒さはきにならないの」は15音節あるので、意訳で歌うと、字余りになります。そこで、日本語の歌詞では英語の曲の世界観を違う歌詞で表現するのです。
日本語歌詞の「もう寒くはないわ」は原曲の The cold never bothered me anyway. を訳したものではありません。本当の意味の「もともと寒さは気にならない」だと字余りになるので、その２小節ぴったりはまる「もう寒くはないわ」が選ばれたのです。
さらに「なぜbotheredと過去形なのか？」というところまで踏み込んで考察してくれています。
タイトルがFrozenであることと、動画の風景から察すると、この映画で「寒さ」というのは重要な意味を持つ言葉です。「寒さ」に立ち向かうことを決心した彼女の一言が "The cold never bothered me anyway." です。これを単に「寒さはきにならなかった…」と過去形で訳すと、「…しかし、今は気になる」と可能性を含みます。
なぜ The cold never bothers me anyway. と現在形で表現していないのですか？
この曲は主人公がいろいろな柵（しがらみ）から開放されて、新しい一歩を踏み出すシーンらしいです。以前の自分とこれからの自分の共通点は、「寒さが気にならない」ことです。これは今に始まったことではなく、ずっと以前からそうだったので、これからも寒さには負けない。"The cold never bothered me anyway."には声にしていない気持ちがあり、"...and it never will."と続きます。
この歌の背景はWikipediaにもありますね。
（Wikipedia） "Let It Go" is a song from Disney's 2013 animated feature film, Frozen, with music and lyrics composed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The song was performed in the film by American actress and singer Idina Menzel in her role as Queen Elsa, after an ostracized Elsa abandons her kingdom when her magical ability to create and control ice is discovered by the public. Up in the mountains, away from confused and suspicious onlookers, she realizes that she no longer needs to hide her abilities, and declares herself free from the restrictions she has had to endure since childhood. She rejoices in finally being able to use her powers without fear, manipulating snow and ice to generate a magnificent castle for herself.
war 138 water 128 eyes 48 weather 43 winter 34 air 25 eye 24 shoulder 22 sweat 22 tone 21 wind 21 look 19 day 16 beer 15 expression 15
Let it goの歌は主人公の歌ではなく、「悪役」的なポジションのエルザの歌であることが少し厄介です。Instead of positioning Elsa as a villain – as her inspiration was in “The Snow Queen” – it showcases her moment of self-acceptance.とニューヨクタイムズにもあります。
They worked with the composers Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez – theater veterans whose credits include “Avenue Q,” “The Book of Mormon” and “In Transit” – from the beginning, but a turning point came when they delivered “Let It Go.” (The couple wrote it after taking a walk around Prospect Park, near their home in Brooklyn.) Instead of positioning Elsa as a villain – as her inspiration was in “The Snow Queen” – it showcases her moment of self-acceptance.
“The minute we heard the song the first time,” Ms. Lee said, “I knew that I had to rewrite the whole movie.”
その部分を考察した記事が以下です。「ありのままで」は良いことのように思えてしまいますが、悪役がありのままで思い通りに悪いことをしてしまうのは世界にとっては悪夢以外の何ものでもないでしょう。When the princess decides to “let it go,” she brings terrible evil into the world.とあります。
Thousands of little girls across the country are singing this song – a manifesto of sorts, a call to cast off restraint, rebel against unrealistic expectations and instead be true to whatever you feel most deeply inside. What’s ironic is that the movie’s storyline goes against the message of this song. When the princess decides to “let it go,” she brings terrible evil into the world. The fallout from her actions is devastating. “No right, no wrong, no rules for me” is the sin that isolates the princess and freezes her kingdom.
It’s only after sacrificial love saves her from the effects of the curse that the princess is free to redirect her passion and power – not in “turning away” and “slamming the door” and expressing herself – but in channeling her powers for the good of her people.
If there is a moral to Frozen, it’s that “letting it go” is self-centered and damaging. What’s needed is for our distinctive gifts to be stewarded and shaped by redemptive love.
Perhaps that’s why I’m flummoxed by the popularity of “Let It Go” (the song). Not from an artistic standpoint; it’s a gem. But I’m afraid its popularity drowns out the bigger and more beautiful point of the film.
ただ映画全体では、献身的な愛のおかげでこの力を良い方向に向けることで終っているようです。
If there is a moral to Frozen, it’s that “letting it go” is self-centered and damaging. What’s needed is for our distinctive gifts to be stewarded and shaped by redemptive love.
確かにこの映画を知らない人がLet it goだけを聞くと主人公の曲と勘違いしそうです（まさに自分がそうでした。。。）
半年遅れですが、Let it goってこんなに騒ぎになっているなんて知らなかったです（汗）いろいろな分野で反響があるようで、多種多様に受け止められていることはそれだけ作品の力があるということなんでしょう。でも、まず何よりも子供の共感を得た事が大きいのでしょうね。その辺りのことを書いているYahooの記事です。
Frozen is purportedly a Disney-fied version of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, but what it actually does is use a dead parent/estranged sibling story line to aim straight for the minds of kids who are trying their best to figure out how to grow up and deal with what life throws at them on the school playground.
記事では人気のある理由を4つあげています。
1. Was it something I said? 2. It’s about Girl Power. 3. It makes transformation and being true to yourself look awesome. 4. It’s secretly a huge “neener-neener” to parents.
面白いエピソードとしてあったのが、“The cold never bothered me anyway.”というセリフに影響されて子供たちが映画館を出る時にコートを来たがらなかったというものです（笑）真田広之のアクション映画を見た直後に彼の真似をしてビルをよじ登ろうとして親に怒られた昔を思い出してしまいました。
“The cold never bothered me anyway.” If you’ve ever gotten into an epic battle with your kid about putting on a coat when it’s cold, you’ll suddenly understand what Disney is doing here. It’s fomenting dissent among the troops. You can almost hear the parents as they walk out of the theater with their children, saying, “I don’t care what Elsa does when it’s wintertime! Elsa is fictional. You need to wear a coat.”
大人がLet it goという曲に感動しているパターンは主に３つでしょうか。
自己啓発系（And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all）
フェミニスト系 (Be the good girl you always have to be/ That perfect girl is gone)
LGBT系(Conceal, don't feel/ No right, no wrong, no rules for me)
Accept Your Struggles with Self-Harm and Move Forward Self-harmers tend to feel alone and as if no one truly understands why they do what they do. Everyone self-harms for different reasons and since self-harm really is an addiction, it’s hard to explain the reasons behind the actions. This goes for any kind of mental illness because the brain can be a terrifying place when going through a struggle.
Self-acceptance of personal struggles is the message in the Disney movie, "Frozen." Here's how this relates to self-harm and self-acceptance.
One of the characters in Frozen has a power that she struggles with and instead of accepting her struggle, she hides it and pushes everyone she loves away. It takes her time to understand this power and once she accepts it, she uses her struggle to better herself with the support of others.
Why is a 60-year-old woman going to see "Frozen", an animated children's Disney movie, for the third time? The answer is that this film quite honestly changed my life. "Frozen" is one of those wonderfully scripted movies that targets young girls but also resonates with sisters, mothers and grandmothers alike. Beyond being entertaining, the movie delivers an important message for women of all ages:
Stop trying to please everyone, forget perfection, don't be afraid to be different and be true to yourself. Stop being a "good girl."
For many older women, being a "good girl" was stressed by family and teachers from a young age. It manifests itself in broken marriages, unfulfilled careers and parental challenges. Like Elsa, we struggled for years to "let it go." My guess is that many teenage girls and young women also suffer from the "good girl syndrome." What are its symptoms? We feel an intangible urge to want to please everyone. Many of us feel that we are never good enough. Or, perhaps we are afraid to show our true emotions or judge ourselves by our own standards.
To Kevin Swanson, a pastor and host of a right-wing Christian-themed radio show, it does. Swanson slammed Disney's award-winning animated film Frozen, calling it the work of the devil.
"Friends, this is evil, just evil," he said. Swanson contends the film indoctrinates young women to be lesbians and convinces people that homosexuality and bestiality are acceptable in society.
While Swanson doesn't specifically cite what parts of the film he sees as promoting homosexuality, others have drawn parallels between the kingdom's rejection of the magical powers of one of the main characters, Elsa, and society's rejection of homosexuality.
「自分らしくいること」の罠について語っているSlateの記事は興味深いです。エルザの場合、Let it goの自分らしくあるという結果がむしろ女性の性を強調したもので、自分を解放しているつもりが、逆にありがちなステレオタイプに陥っているという指摘です。
At the song’s emotional climax, as Elsa is about to see the sun rise for the first time from the balcony of her new crystal palace, she suddenly sees fit to express her freshly unleashed power by giving herself … a magical makeover. “Let it go/ Let it go/ That perfect girl is gone,” she declares as she ditches her old look (a modest dark-green dress and purple cloak, hair in a neatly tucked-up braid) for one that’s arguably even more “perfect.” By the time she sashays out onto that balcony to greet the dawn, Elsa is clad in a slinky, slit-to-the-thigh dress with a transparent snowflake-patterned train and a pair of silver-white high heels, her braid shaken loose and switched over one shoulder in what’s subtly, but unmistakably, a gesture of come-hither bad-girl seduction.
Now. I am not saying that all movies for children should be ideologically scrubbed clean of any hint of sexuality. Nor am I immune to the fantasy—one that’s surely not limited only to women—of vanquishing one’s demons and tapping one’s reserves of inner courage while also looking like a million bucks. But I know I’m not the only one who feels a familiar sense of deflation every time that pulse-racing song (delivered so gloriously by Menzel) culminates in a vision of female self-actualization as narrow and horizon-diminishing as a makeover. It’s a moment I recognize from too many movies in my own childhood—Grease was one, The Breakfast Club another—in which the “good girl” goes over to “the bad side” thanks to a quick cosmetic fix-up (Olivia Newton-John’s big slutty perm and skintight black pants! Ally Sheedy’s tragic de-Goth-ification at the hands of Molly Ringwald!). These moments always bugged me as a kid, because they seemed to be last-minute reversals of the foregoing movie’s message, which was that the character in question (Newton-John’s virginal Sandy, Sheedy’s glumly eccentric Allison) was fine just the way she was. To be sure, Elsa’s conversion into a glammed-out ice diva does differ in important ways from those earlier onscreen makeovers—for one thing, her transformation isn’t meant to impress any specific suitor, and in fact Elsa (unlike her younger sister, Anna) ends the movie without a romantic prospect on the horizon.
But in both cases, it turns out that there is also the same remedy for self-restoration, and that is that you have got to find your way back home again as swiftly and smoothly as you can, and if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint: Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
For me, that home has always been writing. So after the weird, disorienting success that I went through with "Eat, Pray, Love," I realized that all I had to do was exactly the same thing that I used to have to do all the time when I was an equally disoriented failure. I had to get my ass back to work, and that's what I did, and that's how, in 2010, I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up to "Eat, Pray, Love." And you know what happened with that book? It bombed, and I was fine. Actually, I kind of felt bulletproof, because I knew that I had broken the spell and I had found my way back home to writing for the sheer devotion of it. And I stayed in my home of writing after that, and I wrote another book that just came out last year and that one was really beautifully received, which is very nice, but not my point. My point is that I'm writing another one now, and I'll write another book after that and another and another and another and many of them will fail, and some of them might succeed, but I will always be safe from the random hurricanes of outcome as long as I never forget where I rightfully live.
Elizabeth Gilbert Gilbert has a reputation as the patron saint of any woman undergoing a well-funded mid-life crisis thanks to her bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. But she’s also an accomplished novelist who published 2013′s well-reviewed The Signature of All Things, a charming bildungsroman about a spirited botanist who uses science to organize her heart and world. Gilbert will also appear on Oprah’s upcoming The Life You Want Weekend tour.
top10-fiction Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love made her a household name; now she reminds us that she began her career as a writer of fiction with this masterly tale of overflowing sensual and scientific enthusiasms in the 19th century. Gilbert’s heroine is Alma Whittaker, a cerebral, insatiably curious spinster who wanders the globe in search of exotic flora but who stumbles on that more elusive and baffling natural phenomenon, love. —Lev Grossman
