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Uncharted Territory

自分が読んで興味深く感じた英文記事を中心に取り上げる予定です

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リアルTOEIC アマゾンの社内連絡メモ

 
移民に関するトランプの大統領令に対してIT企業は異議を唱えていますが、TOEIC学習者として興味があるのは社内文書での表現。ちょうどアマゾンによる文書を紹介しているものがありました。記事は弱腰だと批判的な調子ですが。。。

Amazon had the weakest response to Trump’s immigration ban yet
by Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy Jan 28, 2017, 11:31pm EST

Amazon has advised employees from countries affected by President Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban from seven majority-Muslim nations to avoid traveling outside the United States, and is working on “contingency plans” for those who are currently abroad, according to an email provided to The Verge.

Unlike some other major tech companies, Amazon has not issued a high-level public condemnation of Trump’s recent executive order, which has been contested by judges in New York and Virginia. But it appears to be worried about consequences for employees from the countries in question — all of whom can (and likely will) be banned from entering the US, even if they’ve been granted green cards. In response to questions from The Verge, Amazon forwarded a message from VP of human resources Beth Galetti, which was sent to the workforce.


冒頭近くにあるのはアマゾンの社是の確認。equal rights, tolerance and diversityと謳っています。ちなみにIBMはdiversity, inclusion and toleranceだそうです。

From the very beginning, Amazon has been committed to equal rights, tolerance and diversity — and we always will be. As we’ve grown the company, we’ve worked hard to attract talented people from all over the world, and we believe this is one of the things that makes Amazon great — a diverse workforce helps us build better products for customers.

TOEIC学習の参考になるのは以下の具体的な対策を述べている部分でしょうか。until further noticeのようなおなじみの表現をたくさん見かけます。

Our immediate focus is to make sure you all have the information you need to make travel decisions in the coming days and weeks. Here’s what you need to do now if you are a citizen of any of the countries listed in the order:

- If you currently reside and/or work in the US and are present in the US today, we recommend that you refrain from travel outside of the US until further notice as you may be denied re-entry to the US for the duration of the entry restrictions;

- If you currently work/reside in the US (as a green card holder or on a valid work visa such as an H, L, E, or TN) but are traveling abroad, please contact amazonimmigration@amazon.com. We are working on contingency plans for these employees and will be communicating with them directly;

- If you work for Amazon in another country (and are a citizen of any of the countries listed above) and have current plans to visit the US for business or personal reasons, we advise you to cancel them until the entry restrictions are lifted.


IT企業はトランプ支持層とかぶらない部分が大きそうなので、トランプ支持層はざまあみろと思っているのかもしれません。
スポンサーサイト



 

米国人になるための花嫁学校

 


前回取り上げた予告編ですが、細かい内容に興味がある方はスクリプトを最後に載せましたので参照ください。

Yetの感覚って「yet=まだ」の図式で捉えていると難しいですよね。予告編では以下のようにありました。感覚的な話ですがbutよりも当たりが柔らかくなる感じです。

I’m not Japanese. I’m completely American.
And yet every morning you make miso soup.
Well, the food is a different story.

最後の締めでは流行りのgritが使われています。短い言葉ですので聞き取りには苦労しそうです。

The women who came over had a lot of grit and fortitude. I don't think I would have had the courage moving with a man that I didn't know, whose language I didn't speak, to a country that I really wasn't aware of without any backup. What these women represent is what is good about people, that they can forgive and they can go ahead and just start lives with people who used to be their former enemy.
(こちらに来た女性たちにはやり抜く力と屈しない精神力がありました。私にはそんな勇気はなかったと思います。知らない男性と移り住んだところが、話せない言語で、よく知らない国で、何の助けもないんですから。この女性たちが体現しているのは人間の良い面です。許して前に進み、かつて敵国だった人と生活を始めることができるのです)

さて1分12秒あたりに雑誌記事が出てきますが、The Saturday Evening Postという当時多くの家庭にあった週刊誌だそうです。下記の記事でどんな内容のことが日本で教えられていたのか紹介してくれていました。

2017/01/26, Society
The Curious Curriculum of the 1950s Red Cross 'Bride Schools'
Kristin Hunt


In the 1950s, Japanese women seeking a new life in America had to learn about more than just visa requirements. They also had to learn how to cook hamburgers, entertain neighbors, and confidently walk in high heels. Eyeliner application was, apparently, a vital skill.

These immigrants weren’t just any women. They were the war brides of American G.I.s, and some of them learned these lessons at the American Red Cross, which ran schools designed to prepare them for domestic life in the United States.

The American Red Cross Bride Schools sprang up in response to the wave of marriages between American soldiers and Japanese citizens following World War II. Thousands of G.I.s were stationed in Japan during the postwar Allied occupation, which led to several romances with local women. Although the statistics vary, scholars estimate somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 such marriages took place through the 1950s.


花嫁学校に当たる英語はfinishing schoolなんですね。初めて知りました。

(オックスフォード)
finishing school
a private school where young women from rich families are taught how to behave in fashionable society


This superiority complex is evident in a 1952 Saturday Evening Post article reporting on the American Red Cross Bride Schools. The story is full of anecdotes about clueless Japanese students wearing too many slips under their dresses and slapping raw fish right on the stove. “They’ve been children in a nation’s defeat, have gone hungry, have cared for smaller brothers and sisters with the aid of a couple of old kimono sleeves in contrast to the dozens of diapers they’re now given for their own children,” the Post wrote. “Some are quick, some stupid, many average.”

In order to teach their pupils how to be Americans, the instructors had to emphasize the country’s gender roles. And as so many disappointed Rosie the Riveters learned after V.E. Day, America wanted its women back in the home. These Japanese war brides were destined to be housewives, just like their instructors. A typical class might include a tutorial on washing machines, or how to get crisp hospital corners when making the bed. Topics like U.S. history were covered. But cooking was perhaps the biggest part of the curriculum.

“I have a Japanese war bride mother and I grew up with a culinary repertoire of Sloppy Joes, pineapple upside-down cake, spaghetti, and tuna casserole,” says Elena Creef, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Wellesley College. “It’s kind of hysterical. How did my mother learn to master these really basic, slightly awful all-American dishes? Well, she was trained. I guess those lessons were taught very well.”


生活単語って実際に暮らしていないとナカナカ難しいですよね。ベットメーキングのあの角がhospital cornersと言うのも初めて知りました。こういうのは辞書の説明を読んでもイメージしづらいのでYoutubeの方が効果があります。



(オックスフォード)
sloppy joe
finely chopped meat served in a spicy tomato sauce inside a bun (= bread roll)


(ウィズダム)
sloppy joe
⦅米⦆スロッピージョー〘スパイスの利いた挽き肉とトマトソースをはさんだパン〙.




(オックスフォード)
hospital corners
a way of folding the sheets at the corners of a bed tightly and neatly, in a way that they are often folded in a hospital


(ジーニアス)
hospital corners
シーツの隅の三角折り<病院で、たるみが出ないようにマットレスの下に折り込むこと>


The Saturday Evening Postという雑誌名だけだとピンとこない人もいると思いますがあのNorman Rocwellによる表紙のイラストを見れば、「ああ、あれか」となるのではないでしょうか。

(ロングマン)
ˌSaturday ˌEvening ˈPost, The
a popular US family magazine that started in 1821 and continued until 1969. It contained news, short stories, humorous cartoons, and reviews. Pictures by Norman Rockwell often appeared on its cover.


(オックスフォード)
The Saturday Evening Post
a US magazine established in 1821 and published each week. It became one of America's most popular general magazines from the 1920s to the 1960s and was known especially for its covers painted by Norman Rockwell and its fiction by such writers as William Faulkner and F Scott Fitzgerald. It stopped being published in 1969 but began again in 1971 and is now published six times a year.


週刊から隔月刊になっているようですが、今でも発行されているとは驚きです。

(トランスクリプト)
The emperor is telling us “we lost the war”. We lost everything. It was a nightmare.

After Japan’s defeat in 1945, half a million American soldiers and 5,000 civilians came to Japan to work for the occupation.

The original order was that they’re not to fraternize with the local people. But this quickly became unworkable. Lots of romances developed.

American did look more attractive. They’re well-fed, happy-go-lucky. They had tremendous appeal to young girls.

By the late 1950s, tens of thousands of Japanese women and American men had married and moved to the United States.

I wasn’t in love with him. I don’t even knew him. I just took a chance. I want to get out.

They had to assimilate. So they were not encouraged to speak Japanese at home.

I think the most difficult thing for the girls to learn here has been walking on high heels.

In my in-laws, they don’t want call me Hiroko. They call me Susie.

We see pictures of you with your mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. Everyone seems to be happy and having a good time.
It’s supposed to look that way in the picture.

Three daughters lived in the shadow of a story they wanted to understand.

I never really saw her as a mother because compared to the other mothers that I knew she didn’t act at all like them. I think the biggest challenge she faced was that she was raising American kids.

How were you able to go over those hurdles? Is it just because you were tough and stubborn?
And also very proud.

I’m not Japanese. I’m completely American.
And yet every morning you make miso soup.
Well, the food is a different story.

The women who came over had a lot of grit and fortitude. I don't think I would have had the courage moving with a man that I didn't know, whose language I didn't speak, to a country that I really wasn't aware of without any backup. What these women represent is what is good about people, that they can forgive and they can go ahead and just start lives with people who used to be their former enemy.

 

English Journalから学べるもの

 
AmazonのUnlimitedで読んでいるので偉そうなことは言えないのですが、English Journalの最新号をようやく読みました。インタビューの一人として以下のドキュメンタリーを製作したLucy Craftさんがいます。

Japanese War Bridesと聞いてジュリー・オオツカさんの屋根裏の仏さまの世界で描かれた「写真花嫁」をドキュメンタリーにしたのかと思ったらLucyさんのは戦後すぐの話でした。3番目のインタビューは地味な人選になりやすいのですが視野を広げてくれるものばかりで個人的には楽しみです。まあ来月はGritのダックワースさんなので有名どころですが(笑)



七転び八起きをそのまま英語にしたFall Seven Times, Get Up Eight: The Japanese War Bridesというタイトルですが、米国の占領政策が7年に及んだことや戦争で適齢期の日本人男性が少なかったことなどから米国人と結婚した日本人女性が4万5千人もいたそうです。Lucyさんのお母様も含め良家のお嬢様もたくさんいたとか。

日本外国特派員協会の動画でLucyさんの会見が見れますが、まあこれがわかればEnglish Journalなどの教材はいらないですよね。。。



共同製作者であるKathryn TolbertさんとKaren Kasmauskiさんのインタビュー動画もありました。



Kathryn Tolbertさんはワシントンポストにも寄稿していました。こちらの記事は4000語を超える長いものですがとても興味深い内容でオススメです。

From Hiroko to Susie: The untold stories of Japanese war brides
Story by Kathryn Tolbert
Washington Post Published on September 22, 2016


As for my family, my Japanese grandmother opposed my mother’s relationship with Bill, and neighbors gossiped pointedly. My mother didn’t care. Neither did she care when my grandmother warned her with an old proverb: “He’s like the bones of an unknown horse.” My grandmother was saying: Before you marry a man, you must know his family, his circumstances, his values. The soldiers were an unknown quantity in a society where lineage is all-important.

The U.S. government was not in favor of these liaisons either. The men faced tremendous legal hurdles to bringing home Japanese wives. The Immigration Act of 1924, which limited immigrants through a quota system by nationality, also excluded any person who was not eligible for citizenship, and that meant Asians. Several temporary laws in the late 1940s allowed servicemen to marry their Japanese girlfriends and bring them home if they could complete the paperwork in time. The system was designed to make marriage difficult to accomplish, and easy for the young man to change his mind.

Passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952 removed the legal obstacles, although paperwork was still considerable. Commanding officers continued to discourage the relationships, not just out of personal animus but also because they anticipated the unions might be deemed illegal in the men’s home states. In 1952, interracial marriages were still banned, at least on the books, in more than half the nation. The Supreme Court declared those laws unconstitutional in the 1967 decision for Loving v. Virginia.

With their can-do American persistence, some men lobbied their congressmen for help. In 1947, Angelo Amato had just turned 20 and was determined to bring Kimiko Yamaguchi — “the most beautiful girl I had ever seen” — home to East Boston. That’s how the young John F. Kennedy, his congressman, came to sponsor H.R. 8558, “A Bill for the relief of Kimiko Yamaguchi, May 18, 1950.” Their son, Joseph Amato, treasures the sheaf of letters from Kennedy regarding the bill.


日本の家族にも反対されることが多く、米国政府も奨励することはなく、当時は人種間の結婚を禁止している州もあったそうです。さらに日系人のサポートを得られることはなくその地域に住むただ一人の日本人として現地に溶け込まなくてはいけないケースもあり、相当大変だったことが伺えます。

I don’t think of myself as Asian American. In my Upstate New York upbringing, there weren’t other Asians, certainly not other Japanese Americans, with whom I might have felt some affinity. But I was surprised to find that even children of Japanese war brides on the West Coast — with its deeply embedded Asian communities — did not think of themselves as especially Japanese American.

I think that’s partly because the Japanese war brides so rigorously suppressed their former identities to become American. Their departures on the arms of American men were viewed with sadness, by the women and their families alike, because they were probably leaving forever. And there was an underlying tinge of shame that they had turned away from Japan or that Japan could not provide for them.

The women don’t view their families today as a branch on their Japanese family tree; they started from scratch. “I came here alone, and today I have 28 family members,” one woman told me with quiet pride.


移民に門戸を閉ざしている日本がアメリカに言える立場ではないですが、トランプによる移民政策が衝撃を与えている中、このような現実があったことを知ることは大切でしょう。このような事実を知らないとどうしても単純で単調な単線的な歴史観を疑わずに持ち続けるに違いありません。

聞き取り調査したアーカイブは以下のリンクで見ることができます。

Japanese War Brides: An Oral History Archive
Stories from across the United States as told to a daughter of a war bride
 

有名なretreatを忘れていた

 


リゾート地のようなところに集まって会合を開くretreat。先週まで開かれていた世界的に有名な会議がぴったりの例じゃないか、と思ってネットで調べてみたらBusiness leaders, politicians, economists and others attending the annual Davos retreatという説明がありました。ようやくretreatがイメージしやすくなった気がします。

Google co-founder 'surprised' by speed of AI advancements
Adam Satariano
Bloomberg January 19, 2017

Business leaders, politicians, economists and others attending the annual Davos retreat in the Swiss mountains have been debating the political and economic fallout from the globalization policies that conference attendees have long advocated. Advances in artificial intelligence and automation are ushering in changes to industries ranging from manufacturing to law, threatening to eliminate many jobs. Brin said technology's evolution is "inherently chaotic" and changes require debate about the proper ways for society to adjust.

もちろんretreatには「保養地」という意味もあるのを忘れてはいけません。そもそもダボスはリゾート地だけではなく、結核患者のサナトリウムがあったようです。ダボスのホテルの案内にthe Hotel Alpina is the ideal retreat.とあります。

WELCOME TO THE HOTEL ALPINA IN DAVOS

The over 100 years old building in the middle of Davos still shines today at its former charm. First built as a sanatorium, it was converted to a hotel in the early fifties. With only 18 cozy rooms, the Hotel Alpina welcomes you with a warm and friendly atmosphere.

Its central but very quiet location above the main street of Davos invites you to relax. In just a few minutes walk you will reach the convention center, the indoor pool, the ice rink, the Vaillant Arena and the bus stop. Thanks to the regular bus services, you can quickly reach the various mountain lifts, sightseeing and shopping, that Davos has to offer.

The quiet, sunny site, the creative cuisine and Swiss hospitality ensure a pleasant stay both in summer and in winter. For an extended family holiday but also for relaxing days together the Hotel Alpina is the ideal retreat.

We look forward to welcoming you soon at our hotel.


今回のダボスでの会議のニュースでは、そのretreatのイメージも引っ掛けてか、後退の意味を表すのにin retreatも使われていました。

The defeat of Davos: Are the global elite in retreat?
By Joe Miller BBC News, Davos

16 January 2017

It's all too easy to take a swipe at "Davos" - the annual Alpine pilgrimage of the so-called global elite, during which they underline the urgency of tackling climate change to the hum of private jet traffic, pledge to alleviate food poverty while snacking on caviar canapes, and commit to reducing inequality while being waited on hand-and-foot by an army of service staff at exclusive dinner parties. 
But beyond the often jarring contrasts, the World Economic Forum (or ze WEF, as locals call it), has always been able to point to its role in oiling the wheels of a socially progressive, pro-globalisation alliance - safe in the knowledge that, to a greater or lesser extent, it was in harmony with the tide of history.


In retreatはまさに今週のEconomistの表紙でもあります。トランプ就任の前から多国籍企業のグローバル化が伸び悩んでいたことを分析しています。
 

単語を多面的に理解する

 
TOEIC学習で手こずるのは単語が動詞や名詞として柔軟に使われたり、文脈によって様々な意味を持つ多義語であったりするケースでしょう。外国語の場合は限られた文脈でしか触れないことが多いので偏った単語理解になりがちです。その点、新聞や雑誌がいいのは多くの分野のトピックに触れることができるからですね。

映画『沈黙』のレビューと同じ号にあったこともあり、イエズス会について書いてあった記事を読んでみました。そこで先ほど取り上げた単語retreatが登場していました。Orderが「修道会」を意味するように宗教のトピックはまた違った知識が求められそうです(汗)

Jesuits Admirable and Execrable
Garry Wills FEBRUARY 9, 2017 ISSUE


創始者Ignatius Loyolaによる「霊操」を説明しているところで、この記事では現在、会社や議会が実施するretreatの元になった実戦だとしています。

He did this through his Spiritual Exercises (exercitia means “workout”), a monthlong retreat made one-on-one with a personal trainer. The Exercises are now treated as a kind of spiritual boot camp to be experienced by incoming Jesuit seminarians in a group under one director (中略)

The exercises lie behind the modern practice of a “retreat” – withdrawal from one’s daily routine and patterns to consider their broader setting, possibilities, or shortcomings. Corporate and legislative bodies now encourage such retreats for secular purposes. Ignatius, of course, wanted to have a person reconsider his whole relationship with God.


宗教的な黙想の意味では英和辞典も載せています。

retreat
〘宗〙(修行を行う)静修(期間), 黙想会〘黙想のため修道院に入る〙


黙想を主催しているサイトを見ると確かに現代の研修的な側面がありそうです。「霊操」という日本語になっているのはSpiritual Exercises (ラテン語ではExercitia spiritualia)をそのまま訳したからでしょう。「霊操」って岩波文庫にも入っているんですね。

記事自体はすみませんが定期購読者専用になっています。イエズス会で傍流だが評価に値する人としてアメリカでベトナム反戦に積極的に関わったDaniel Berriganを評価に値しない人として第二次世界大戦時にローマ教皇とイタリアのムッソリーニの仲を取り持ったPietro Tacchi Venturiを中心に取り上げていましたがイエズス会の概要がわかるありがたいものでした。

Jesuits have never been shy about naming schools and other institutions after “Ours” (as they refer to each other)—Loyola, Xavier, Gonzaga, Canisius, Marquette. I went to Campion High School, where I was on the Bellarmine Debating Society, before entering St. Stanislaus Seminary—all three of them named for Jesuit saints. So one might have expected the first Jesuit pope to take his papal name from a Jesuit saint; there are, conveniently, two called Francis—Saint Francis Xavier and Saint Francis Borja (general of the order from 1565 to 1572). But Jorge Bergoglio took his name from Francis of Assisi, who was not a Jesuit, not a pope, and not even a priest. This is not surprising, since Bergoglio was not on good terms with his fellow Jesuits before his election to the papacy—which was probably why he was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, who despised Jesuits. John O’Malley, S.J., the great Renaissance historian, suspects that the pope thought he was not getting “a real Jesuit.”

Despite all this, some are trying to make the pope a “typical Jesuit,” though that is a mythical beast. There are Jesuits of all sorts, some to be revered, some reviled; some good, others bad. A good one died last year, the peace activist Daniel Berrigan, S.J.—though some thought that he, too, was not a real Jesuit. One of his superiors said he was “in the order, but not of it.” If I were looking for a bad Jesuit, I would name Pietro Tacchi Venturi, S.J., the secret intermediary between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini—a thorough anti-Semite, an authoritarian schemer, and a sexual adventurer. Fortunately, there are recent books that bring these two men into better focus—The Berrigan Letters(correspondence between the brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan) and The Pope and Mussolini, by David I. Kertzer.1 Tacchi Venturi figures largely in Kertzer’s book, and is given solo treatment in a forthcoming book by Kevin Madigan of the Harvard Divinity School.


日本でもイエズス会といえば上智大学などの教育機関がまず頭に浮かびますが、それは欧米でも同じのようです。昨年話題になったニュースもイエズス会だったようです。

米名門ジョージタウン大が過去の人身売買を謝罪、「奴隷子孫優遇枠」設ける
2016年9月2日(金)18時55分

米首都ワシントンのジョージタウン大学は1日、19世紀に大学の財政難を解消するために運営母体のカトリック・イエズス会が、所有していた黒人奴隷を売却するなどして奴隷制に関与していたことを認め、謝罪した。
 当時の奴隷272人の子孫に当たる学生に対して、入学しやすくする優遇措置を取ると発表。奴隷制の歴史を学ぶ機関も創設する。


宣教師=植民主義の片棒を担いだというイメージもあり、このニュースなどはその見方を補強するものでしかありませんが、記事を読んでみるとそんなに単純なものではなく、Daniel Berriganのように反戦の立場をとる人もいたことがわかりました。
 

ロングマンにも載っている女優でした

 


エンタメの知識なんてつけても英語力を高めるのに一ミリも貢献しないのかもしれませんが、今日本で「解散」と聞けばSMAPを連想してしまうように結構共通知識として横たわっています。外国で世間話が難しいのもこのあたりを共有していないことも一因としてあるでしょう。

先日訃報とした取り上げられたメアリームーアさん。一時代を象徴する方だったんですね。ロングマンの辞典にも見出語になっていました。

米女優メアリー・T・ムーアさん死去 70年代ドラマで一世風靡
2017年01月26日 06:15 発信地:ロサンゼルス/米国
【1月26日 AFP】米国の伝説的女優で、快活なコメディー演技で一世を風靡(ふうび)し、独身のキャリアウーマンを演じて男女の壁を打ち破ったメアリー・タイラー・ムーア(Mary Tyler Moore)さんが、長年の闘病の末に25日、死去した。80歳だった。

 自身の名を冠した1970年代のコメディードラマ「メアリー・タイラー・ムーア・ショー(The Mary Tyler Moore Show)」では、一人暮らしをしながらテレビレポーターになる夢を追う独身女性という、当時としては先進的な役柄を演じた。同番組は7シーズンにわたり放送され、米誌タイム(Time)により「テレビを変えた17番組」の一つに選ばれている。


(ロングマン)
Moore, Ma‧ry Ty‧ler /ˈmeəri ˈtaɪlə $ ˈmeri ˈtaɪlər/
(1936–) a US film and television actress and producer, known especially for appearing in several popular humorous television programmes, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show(1970–77)


(Wikipedia)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, originally known simply by the name of the show's star, Mary Tyler Moore, is an American sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977. The program featured American television's first never-married, independent career woman as the central character.

日本のドラマだと滑走路を並んで歩くGメン75のオープニングが印象的だったように彼女の番組のオープニングの最後で振り向きざまに帽子を投げるシーンがとても有名でテレビ番組のGreatest Momentで堂々2位にランクインしているとか。





20代の頃の自分自身にかける言葉を聞かれて答えた回答も素晴らしいです。

What does Mary Tyler Moore know now that she didn’t know when she was in her twenty?
That is OK. Whatever it is, it's OK because it's what it is. Don't be looking for perfection. Don't be short-tempered with yourself. And you'll be a whole lot nicer to be around with everyone else."

こちらがそのランキングでの紹介なのですが、1位がケネディ大統領の暗殺シーンですから彼女の影響力の大きさを伺えます。

MARY TYLER MOORE TOSSES HER HAT 
Sept. 19, 1970 

It was a simple little movement — Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat into the frigid Minneapolis air — but in addition to putting a perfect, um, cap on her signature show’s opening credits, the gesture also spoke volumes about Moore’s new-gal-in-town character, Mary Richards. ”Wasn’t it great?” says Moore. ”Freedom, exuberance, spontaneity, joy — all in that one gesture. It gave a hint at what you were going to see.” Viewers responded to what they saw, and Richards became the archetype against whom all other successful single women would be measured (Ally who?). Sure, the Chuckles the Clown episode and the WJM-TV clan’s group hug are classics, but for us, it’s the image of that heaven-bound hat (”a knitted black and turquoise beret my aunt had given me,” says Moore) that really sums up the creative spirit Mary brought to TV. Rank 2

The 100 Greatest Moments In Television: 1960s
JAMIE MALANOWSKI

POSTED ON FEBRUARY 19, 1999 AT 5:00AM EST

In the days following the assassination, network cameras caught nearly everything: the tremor in Walter Cronkite’s visage as he removed his glasses and relayed the official announcement of Kennedy’s demise. The frantic scenes from police headquarters in Dallas. The gray faces of ex-Presidents Truman and Eisenhower as they walked up to the White House in the rain. That long weekend marked the moment we became a TV nation: Not only did television surpass print for primacy as a news source for the first time, it created a focal point for the public’s grief. By the time the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald was broadcast live on Nov. 24, TV had not only become legitimate, but necessary. The point was driven home the following day, when the images from the funeral — a riderless horse, a veiled widow, a young son’s salute — were transmitted into our cultural consciousness. 

”When the President was assassinated,” says Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes, who has spent his life in TV news, ”people did not go to church or to meetings. They came to their televisions, and everybody who was watching was, in a sense, holding hands. They were saying, ‘Father Walter, tell us everything will be okay.’ And ever since, the real TV clergymen have not been Billy Graham or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, but Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. Because in times of crisis, we now turn to them to hear that everything will be all right.” Rank 1


ちなみにTV Guideが選んだテレビ番組のベスト10に入っていたエピソードが以下です。



ニューヨークタイムズでの取り上げ方を見ても彼女の影響力の大きさを伺えます。Obituaryだけでなく女性の自立、女性の社会進出、ファッションなど別個に記事を立てています。



Mary Tyler Moore, Who Incarnated the Modern Woman on TV, Dies at 80
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNANJAN. 25, 2017

‘Making It on My Own,’ With Mary Tyler Moore as a Guide
By JANE PAULEYJAN. 26, 2017

Mary Tyler Moore’s Guide to Leaning In
By ANNA CLARKJAN. 26, 2017

How Mary Tyler Moore Changed Fashion
By PENELOPE GREENJAN. 25, 2017

70年代当時は離婚した女性が主人公なんて許されなかったから設定を変えたと ニューヨークタイムズの動画で述べていますが、ほんの40年前はまだまだそんな感じだったんですね。。

下記は当時の社会状況もコンパクトにうかがえて便利です。しかも短い動画クリップが付いているのでリスニング教材にもなります(笑)

Sex and That ’70s Single Woman, Mary Tyler Moore
By MARY JO MURPHYJAN. 25, 2017
 

ザビエルではなくハビエルと呼んでいる例

 


たまたま見つけた動画でXavierをハビエルと呼んでいる例を見つけました。40秒あたりです。Xavierをハビエルとスペイン語読みするならFrancisをフランシスコと読んでも良さそうですが、そこはスクリプトに忠実にフランシスとしたのでしょうか。。。

動画トランスクリプト
This documentary, "Ukon the Samurai,” will soon be released in honor of Pope Francis recognizing Takayama Ukon, the Japanese samurai, as a martyr. This documentary highlights Ukon's life as one of the most important samurais in Japan, but also, as a prominent Christian figure.

Born in 1552, Ukon converted to Christianity, following the suit of his father and the mission of Saint Francis Xavier. As both master of the tea ceremony and master of the samurais, Ukon gained many Christian supporters.


さてこの動画はキリシタン大名の高山右近が「福者」に認定されたことを受けてのもののようです。来月の2月7日に列福式が執り行われるようです。詳しい経緯はプレスリリースにありました。

Japanese Samurai Who Gave Up Everything To Follow Jesus To Be Made A Saint
James Macintyre 24 January 2017

A Japanese samurai who gave up his status to follow Jesus will be beatified in a ceremony in Japan on 7 February.

The ceremony for the beatification of Justo Takayama Ukon (1552-1615), known as the "Samurai of Christ", will take place in Osaka, Agenzia Fides reported.

Pope Francis signed a decree for his beatification in January last year and the Japanese have been preparing for the event since then.


認定そのものは昨年行われたようです。知らなかった分野は余裕でスルーしてしまうんですね。。。

高山右近
「福者」に認定…バチカン、殉教承認

毎日新聞2016年1月22日 21時13分

【ローマ福島良典】江戸幕府のキリスト教禁教令で国外に追放され、殉教したキリシタン大名の高山右近(1552〜1615年)がカトリック教会の崇敬対象である「福者」に認定されることが正式に決まった。バチカン(ローマ法王庁)は22日、フランシスコ・ローマ法王が右近の殉教認定を承認したと発表した。

 高山右近は戦国時代から江戸時代初期にかけて生きた。現在の大阪府豊能町がある摂津国高山の生まれ。12歳の時に洗礼を受け、21歳で高槻城主となった。「バテレン追放令」を出した豊臣秀吉に棄教を迫られたが拒否し、徳川家康による禁教令で国外追放され、フィリピン・マニラで死亡。日本における「教会の柱石」と呼ばれた。


***********

Pope approves beatification of warlord Takayama Ukon
JIJI
JAN 23, 2016

BERLIN – Pope Francis has approved the beatification of Takayama Ukon, a Christian warlord who was ousted from Japan in the early 17th century, the Vatican said Friday.

Takayama, born in 1552, was baptized at the age of 12. Following the Tokugawa feudal government’s ban on Christianity, he was exiled to Manila in 1614 and died of disease the following year.

The approval of Takayama as beatus, or blessed, the stage below a saint, followed a campaign by Catholics in Japan for his beatification that grew active because last year was the 400th year since his death.


高山右近はまさに遠藤周作の沈黙に近い条件を迫られた人物だったのですね。改めて注目を浴びるかもしれません。
 

もう一つのTESTは公式総合のFinal Test

 
2月16日に出る公式問題集の出処はどこか。一つは公式実践のTest5なんでしょうけど、もう一つはどこからでしょうか。ディープなTOEICkerはすでに予想済みなんでしょうけど、Yutaも気になったので調べてみました。

下記の状況証拠から公式総合のFinal Testだと思います。

状況証拠1
サイトで紹介している「解説と訳」の問題161-164が公式総合のFinal Testと同じです。

公式TOEIC Listening & Reading 問題集 2

状況証拠2
公式総合のFinal Testは公式実践のTest1から5までで被っている問題がない。全部はくまなく調べていませんが、ざっと調べた限り公式実践のTest1から5までに登場した問題が公式総合のFinal Testにはありませんでした。

状況証拠3
Final Testは公式入門にもありますから、こちらの可能性を考える人もいるでしょう。でも公式入門のFinal Testは公式実践のTest1から5までに登場した問題をいくつも載せています。ですから公式入門のFinal Testが使われることはありません。

今回の予想はたやすいものでしたが、次の公式問題集の出典がどうなるかは難しそうですね。YBMだとETS作成という謳い文句が使えなくなりますから。。。
 

やっぱり金フレは頼りになる

 
先ほどのretreat。金フレ改訂版の最後の頂点の100語にも載っていました。さすがです。どうやら数年前の公開試験にも出たようですね。

retreatがなぜ会合になるのかいまいちピンときてなかったので整理してみました。retreatには「(安全静寂な場所状態への)隠遁, 避難, 引きこもり.」(ウィズダム英和辞典)の意味がありますが、ここから「日常業務から離れて集うこと」となり、その集まりの目的がチームの結束を高めることだったら「社員旅行」になりリクリエーションなどもするんでしょうし、新たなプロジェクトの理解やスキルを高めることだったら「社員研修」になるでしょうし、会社の方針を話し合うようでしたら「会議」「会合」になるのでしょう。

2010年の記事ですが以下のようなものがありました。

How to Plan a Company Retreat
If you have a project that's too big to fit into a two-hour meeting slot, a retreat might be just the tool you need to hash it out. Here's how to make sure you get the most out of your time offsite.

 By Sarah Kessler
 
Do you need to work out a strategic plan? Build your team? Launch a project? It's unlikely that you will be able to work through these projects in a one- or two-hour meeting-;which is why many companies choose to hold an annual retreat.

"You start to understand perspectives that maybe you hadn't considered before," CEO and founder of Tutor.com George Cigale says of his company's past retreats. "Slowing down time allows you to think a little bit differently about the way you communicate and depend on each other." Throughout the years, Tutor.com's retreats have facilitated both large changes, like deciding to expand into the consumer market, and small changes, like instituting monthly meetings about operational metrics.

Taking time for a retreat eliminates daily work distractions and helps set the tone that the project you are working on is important and worth extra time. Here's how to get started on making yours a success.


もっと具体的に説明してくれているものもネットで見つけました。

A Guide to Planning and Conducting Successful Retreats
 
Edwin C. Thomas, Director
Governmental Research and Service
Institute for Public Service and Policy Research
University of South Carolina


1.      What is a retreat?
 
A retreat is a meeting that is typically designed and organized specifically to facilitate the ability of a group to step back from their day-to-day demands and activities for an extended period of concentrated discussion, dialogue, and strategic thinking about the organization’s future or about specific issues.
 
2.      Why hold a retreat?
 
There are as many reasons for doing a retreat as there are issues and challenges facing an organization.  Among the most common uses of retreats are:
 
        Strategic planning
        Budgeting
        Discussion of specific issues or challenges facing the organization
        Team building
        Problem solving
        Development of annual goals and objectives
        Orienting new members
 
3.      Where should a retreat be held?
 
This is a challenging question for many organizations.  Ideally, a retreat is conducted away from the normal workplace.  The reasons for this are straightforward:
 
        Retreats are hard work and require long periods of intense, uninterrupted discussion
        Participants are less likely to be interrupted by phone calls and staff members if they are away from the office
        Participants can better focus on the topics under discussion
        Participants are more like to stay for the entire time
        Being “away on retreat” creates a atmosphere that is more conducive to teamwork, creative thinking,  and consensus building
 
Many governmental organizations are sensitive to holding meetings outside of their normal place of business.  Citizens may criticize such meetings as efforts to “hide” from public scrutiny.  There may also be criticism because of the cost of the retreat.  Obviously, if a governmental organization enjoys a good relationship with the press and its citizens, such criticism is minimal. 
 
It is usually possible to find a good retreat site within your city or county boundaries.  Banks often have meeting rooms that you could use.  The public library may be a good location.  Local hotels have boardrooms or small meeting rooms that make good retreat locations.   But the drawback to meeting close to home and office is the increased likelihood that participants will arrive late, leave early, or be interrupted by routine, day-to-day demands.


retreatを「会合」とするとmeetingやconference、conventionと区別がつきづらくなるので「リトリート会合」のように訳すこともあるようですね。これはこれでリトリートってなんだよということになるので一般の視聴者向けのメディアでは単に「会合」となるんでしょうね。
 

ビジネスマンはまずTOEICを!

 
時にTOEICの悪口を書いているYutaですがTOEICで使われている英語を使えれば会社の英語はほとんど事足りるのではないかと思っています。それによく使われる英語表現が満載ですから効率の意味でもTOEICはオススメです。

さらにTOEICがいいのは最近の傾向を反映していることも挙げられます。受験英語で扱う英語や辞書の記述は古くなりやすいんですよね。。。そんなことを実感した最近の例がこちら。

トランプ氏、共和党議員に野心的政策の支持訴え
By BYRON TAU, KRISTINA PETERSON AND SIOBHAN HUGHES

2017 年 1 月 27 日 09:16 JST
 【フィラデルフィア】ドナルド・トランプ米大統領は26日、ペンシルベニア州フィラデルフィアで開かれた共和党連邦議会議員の会合に出席し、医療保険制度改革法(オバマケア)の撤廃や、国境警備の強化、貿易政策の見直しなど1期目の野心的な政策への支持を求めた。

 トランプ氏は会合の機会を利用し、税制や医療保険、貿易、犯罪、製造業など幅広い問題について持論を展開。米国は「新たな独立の夜明け」を迎えているとし、「我々がここに集まったのは、何千万人もの米国民がワシントンから権力を取り戻そうと、我々に希望を託したからだ」と訴えた。

PHILADELPHIA—President Donald Trump sought to line up his party’s support Thursday behind an ambitious first-term agenda that includes a thorny health-care overhaul, tighter border security and a re-evaluation of U.S trade policy.
In wide-ranging remarks about taxes, health care, trade, crime and manufacturing, among other policy topics, Mr. Trump used a retreat here for congressional Republicans to lay out his vision, saying that the country was at the “dawn of a new era of American independence.”


日本のメディアでは「会合」と訳していた英語はretreatでした。なんでretreatが「会合」になるのか? 英和辞典にも載っていないので不安になりますが、以下のサイトで紹介している今回のretreatのagendaを見ると、確かに「会合」のようです。

Here Is the (Apparently Leaked) Agenda for the Republican Retreat in Philly
Protesters might want to take note of this four-page document.

BY VICTOR FIORILLO | JANUARY 25, 2017 AT 3:31 PM

熱心なTOEIC学習者はすでにお馴染みのものかもしれませんが、「TOEIC(R)テスト Part 3 & 4 鬼の変速リスニング: TTTスーパー講師シリーズ」に素晴らしい解説があったので引用させてもらいます。

retreatは「退却」や「静養」という意味だが、company retreatで「社員旅行」になる。また、企業の重役などが日常業務を離れて集う、避暑地で行われる会合やセミナーを意味することもある。

それにこのretreatは新形式のTOEICにも既出ですよね。パート5に出た方は一文なのでarrangements for the company retreatが「社員旅行」か「会合」が区別がつきませんが、パート4に出た方はa welcome dinner for the first night of the meetingとあったのでおそらく「会合」でしょう。

確かにTOEICだけだと背景知識も最新情報も得られないし、視野も広がらないのでTOEIC以外の学習も積極的にすべきなんですが、TOEICで使われている英語を自分でも自由自在に操れるようになるというのは簡単なようで遠い道のりです。
 

オバマが退任直後に会った作家の映画が公開

 
オバマ大統領が読書について語った記事は日本のツイッターでも話題になりましたね。

Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI JAN. 16, 2017

“At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted,” he said, reading gave him the ability to occasionally “slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes.” These two things, he added, “have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.”

さらっと読み飛ばしていた部分ですが、この記事が書かれる前週に大統領が愛読している5人の作家に大統領自身がランチをしたみたいですね。

Mr. Obama entered office as a writer, and he will soon return to a private life as a writer, planning to work on his memoirs, which will draw on journals he’s kept in the White House (“but not with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for”). He has a writer’s sensibility — an ability to be in the moment while standing apart as an observer, a novelist’s eye and ear for detail, and a precise but elastic voice capable of moving easily between the lyrical and the vernacular and the profound.

He had lunch last week with five novelists he admires — Dave Eggers, Mr. Whitehead, Zadie Smith, Mr. Díaz and Barbara Kingsolver. He not only talked with them about the political and media landscape, but also talked shop, asking how their book tours were going and remarking that he likes to write first drafts, long hand, on yellow legal pads.


下の記事ではここでは動詞のdineとlunchが同じ文脈で使われています。ここでのdineは夕食ではなく単に食事するという意味でなのでしょうね。

Outgoing president dines with five leading novelists and speaks at length of his short stories
President Obama lunched last week with five top novelists, it was revealed
He dabbled in short story writing before penning his best-selling memoir, 'Dreams of my Father'
He typically reads for about an hour late at night
He quizzed authors with questions about their book tours and talked about the industry
By Geoff Earle, Deputy Political Editor For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 22:48 GMT, 16 January 2017 | UPDATED: 03:26 GMT, 17 January 2017


動詞lunchはまだTOEICではでていませんが、dineの方は登場しています。食事をする人という意味でのdinerはパート1頻出ですね。

Approximately one hundred guests dined at the newly remodeled restaurant

Diners are ordering food at a restaurant.


その中の一人Dave Eggersの映画が来月日本で公開されます。



Yutaはフライト中に見ましたが、映画で登場する地区はおそらくこちらかも。実情も映画のようなのかはわかりませんが。。。





 

ザビエルはTOEICにも登場

 
日本の文化受容で困ることは文化の仕入先が違うと日本での表現も変わってしまい本来は同じ土壌にあるものが見えづらくなることです。フランシスコ・ザビエルも英語だとセン・フランンシス・イグザビアのように発音しています。文脈もなくパッと聴いてフランシスコ・ザビエルのことだとすぐには分からないです。。。

(Oxford)
Xavier, St. Francis
(1506–52), Spanish Catholic missionary; known as the Apostle of the Indies. One of the original seven Jesuits, from 1540 he traveled to southern India, Sri Lanka, Malacca, the Moluccas, and Japan, where he made thousands of converts. Feast day, December 3.

Pronunciation
Xavier, St. Francis/(iɡ)ˈzāvēər/


しかもXavierはスペイン語だと「ハビエル」になるそうですね。ウェブスターの方は「ハビエル」の発音も聞くことができます。

(Collins)
Xavier
(ˈzeɪvɪə , ˈzæv-, Spanish xaˈβjɛr)
Saint Francis, known as the Apostle of the Indies. 1506–52, Spanish missionary, who was a founding member of the Jesuit society (1534) and later preached in Goa, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the East Indies, and Japan. Feast day: Dec 3


(Webster)
Xavier
Saint Francis 1506–1552 Spanish Francisco Ja*vier  /hä-ˈvyer/ Spanish Jesuit missionary

ここでようやくTOEICの登場です。ハビエルさんなら新形式のTOEICで登場していたことを記憶している方も多いでしょう。ギターショップを開いた人の師匠にあたる人で、Javier TorrezとMaria Torrezのお二人が登場していました。テキサス州の話なのでヒスパニック系を意識したのでしょうかね。ちなみに公式問題集vol5ではJavier Perezが出ていました。

TOEIC絡みのネタはこれだけなんですが、このTorrezという苗字はザビエルの後を受けた宣教師の名前でもありました。

(Wikipedia)
コスメ・デ・トーレス(Cosme de Torres, 1510年 - 1570年10月2日)はフランシスコ・ザビエルと共に戦国時代の日本を訪れたイエズス会宣教師。
カトリック教会の司祭。ザビエルの意志を受けて18年にわたって日本で宣教。彼の目指した「適応主義」(宣教師が現地の文化に根ざして生きること)は当時のヨーロッパ人の限界を超えた思想であり、日本におけるキリスト教布教の成功をもたらした。

日本で学ぶとどうしても各々知識がぶつ切り状態になってしまい、西洋文化に横たわる大きな流れを見落としがちですよね。
 

TOEICを「英検」と訳していいか?

 
今では現実的な仮定ではないですが、ほんの20年前はTOEICを知らない人が多数派でしたよね。そんな人にTOEICを説明するのに「英検みたいなもの」と説明していいものでしょうか?もちろんTOEIC愛を貫くTOEICkerに対して踏み絵を試そうとしているのではありませんのでご安心を。先ほどのJapan Timesの記事でキリスト教の神をどのように訳したのかという興味深いエピソードがあったのでふとこのようなことを考えました。Wikipediaにも載っていましたのでこちらをまず紹介します。

(Wikipedia)
布教は困難をきわめた。初期には通訳を務めたヤジロウのキリスト教知識のなさから、キリスト教の神を「大日」と訳して「大日を信じなさい」と説いたため、仏教の一派と勘違いされ、僧侶に歓待されたこともあった。ザビエルは誤りに気づくと「大日」の語をやめ、「デウス」というラテン語をそのまま用いるようになった。以後、キリシタンの間でキリスト教の神は「デウス」と呼ばれることになる(インカルチュレーションも参照)。

Japan Timesの記事では以下のようにありました。

Ferreira is speaking about an anomaly that was to color the fate of Christianity in Japan. The concept of God, under the guidance of Xavier’s illiterate Japanese guide, Anjiro, was introduced to the Japanese as “Dainichi” — or “Great Sun” — a manifestation of Buddha in Japan.

According to historian George Elison, Anjiro mistakenly told Xavier that “the Japanese believed in one personal God who punished the bad and rewarded the good, the creator of all things.” However, Xavier had only Anjiro to rely upon as a source of knowledge of Japanese culture, and he began his missionary career in the new land preaching the doctrine of Dainichi. It was only after discussions with Buddhist scholars revealed his error that Xavier switched to teaching the word of “Daiusu” — Deus — but the damage had already been done.

“The danger,” writes Elison in his seminal work “Deus Destroyed,” “was that old beliefs would remain tied to the adopted terminology, being submerged under the surface of the new terminology rather than erased.”


新しいことを伝える場合全く新しい語を使うと理解してもらうのが難しくなります。一方で似たようなものを借用して伝えるとイメージしやすいですが、今度は違いをわかってもらうのに苦労してしまう。異文化コミュニケーションの大変なところですね。和訳や英訳は英語習得では馬鹿にする人もいますが、このような問題を考える上ではとても役立つトレーニングになると思います。何度も書いていることですが、このような違いに無自覚なことで起こる問題が少なくありませんから。

以下もWikipediaで仕入れたネタですがキリスト教文化圏から見ると日本はクリスマスを祝う国とは思われていないようでクリスマスを避けるための目的地の一位に日本が選ばれています。

10 of the best places to go to avoid Christmas
Tuesday, 29 November 2016


Idea of Christmas fills you with dread? There are loads of places to escape the festive season, where December 25th is just like every other day. Hop on a plane and leave the horrors of present buying, TV specials and the Queen’s speech behind. Make your own Christmas cheers this year in one of these stunning, anti-Christmas, destinations...

1. Japan
Although you might see giant robotic Santas in Tokyo, Christmas is not traditionally celebrated in Japan. Instead, you can visit cities like Kyoto and Nara to sample traditional culture, head to Tokyo to immerse yourself in its futuristic cityscape or go to Hokkaido to sample some of the best powder snow in the world. And all this whilst enjoying the friendly and gracious hospitality of your Japanese hosts. Got to know Tokyo before you fly, check out our picture gallery of the Japanese capital.


日本内部から見るとクリスマスが広まっていないというのは信じられないことなので本当に意外です。「TOEICだけでいいんだよ」という能天気なおじさんが困るのはこういう問題にあまりにも無自覚だからです。
 

Last ChristmasではなくFirstの話

 
昨年末の記事となりますが、映画Silenceに合わせて読み直してみました。日本で最初に行われたクリスマスを紹介したものです。

LIFESTYLE
Japan’s first Christmas
The first Noel, the Jesuits in Yamaguchi did say, was a 16th-century celebration in a converted Buddhist temple with midnight hymns

BY JOJI SAKURAI
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

Words checked = [2226]
Words in Oxford 3000™ = [77%]

Wikipediaでは以下のように書いていますが、この記事ではThis was Japan’s first Christmas on recordと慎重に書いています。記録がないだけでザビエルが滞在していた1549年と1552年の間にもクリスマスは実施されていたのではないかというのです。

(Wiipedia)
明治維新以前
1552年(天文21年)に周防国山口(現在の山口県山口市)において、カトリック教会(イエズス会)の宣教師であるコスメ・デ・トーレスらが、日本人信徒を招いて降誕祭のミサを行ったのが、日本で初めてのクリスマスである。しかし、その後江戸幕府の禁教令によってキリスト教は禁止されたことで、明治の初めまでの200年以上の間、隠れキリシタン以外には全く受け入れられることはなかった。


This Christmas of 1552 is often called “Japan’s first Christmas.” That’s probably misleading. Xavier would almost certainly not have passed up the opportunity to celebrate a Christmas on Japanese soil between his arrival in Satsuma, today’s Kagoshima Prefecture, in 1549 and departure for India in 1552, according to historians Klaus Kracht and Katsumi Tateno-Kracht. There is just no record of such an event. De Alcacova’s letter, written to brethren back home in Portugal, is simply the first extant account of a Christmas celebrated in Japan.


当時は現代のようなお祭りというよりも聖書の内容を伝えるための重要な機会だったようです。分かりやすく伝えるために日本ではクリスマス劇も行われたとか。

Jesuit accounts of Japanese Christmases in subsequent years follow roughly the same pattern.

“High-class men and women assembled in great numbers in the priestly residence,” missionary Duarte da Silva writes in a letter about the Japanese Christmas of 1553, also in Yamaguchi City. “From one in the morning, they listened to stories from the Bible — hearing of the creation of heaven and Earth and of man’s sin, then of Noah’s flood, the separation of languages, the beginning of idol worship, the destruction of Sodom, the story of Nineveh, the story of Joseph’s son of Jacob, the Babylonian captivity, the 10 commandments of Moses and the flight from Egypt, then of the prophet Elisha, Judith, Nebuchadnezzar’s statue — according to the ages — and finally the story of Daniel brought us into the dead of night.” Such protracted instruction in Old Testament storytelling was meant to bring home the necessity of Christ’s advent — which the Japanese converts learned about during the second half of the night.


Japan Times On SundayはTimeは毎週日本のトピックを取り上げた読み応えのある記事を読めるのでいいですね。
 

ミーハーでいいじゃないか

 
ローリングストーン日本版の翻訳記事を読むだけでもエンタメファンは色々な情報を得ることができますね。

トランプ大統領就任を目前に、ケイティ・ペリーか公共広告で訴えたメッセージとは
BY DANIEL KREPS 2017/01/19 14:00

この記事で紹介されていたのはこちらの動画。



日系人の収容についてはたくさんの本がすでに出ていますが、昨年Japan Timesがベスト10に選んだ本がありました。



Tales from the cracks: 10 of the best books about Japan released in 2016

Midnight in Broad Daylight
In a year marked by cultural entrenchment, the true story of the Fukuharas, a Japanese-American family torn between Japan and America in the endgame of World War II, was a powerful plea for empathy.
“The enemy looks like us,” says the main character, Harry Fukuhara, summing up his dilemma of conflicting loyalties — of being torn between family and country. Named one of the best history books of 2016 by Kirkus Review, “Midnight in Broad Daylight” is a milestone of narrative nonfiction, putting real human faces on the internment of Japanese-Americans and the atom bomb horrors in Hiroshima. A must-read — and, sadly, timely.


Kindle版がもう少し安くなったら是非読んでみたいと思います。
 

戦国時代の日本の女性たちは

 


ワシントンだけでなくニューヨークやカリフォルニアでもデモがあるんですね。

‘We’re Not Going Away’: Huge Crowds for Women’s Marches Against Trump
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS, YAMICHE ALCINDOR and NIRAJ CHOKSHIUPDATED 5:15 AM




いろいろなセレブも参加しているよですね。ビヨンセも支持を表明してニュースになっていました。ただアシュレージャッドのようなパフォーマンスを見ると急進的なフェミニストだけが参加しているような印象を与えてしまいそうですが。。。

Beyoncé Believes the Women’s March Can Lead to ‘Meaningful Action’
By Samantha Cooney
Jan. 18, 2017

Beyoncé joined the growing list of celebrities supporting the upcoming Women’s March on Washington.

The usually tight-lipped star shared a picture of the March’s logo on Facebook gave a shout out to Chime for Change, a global campaign launched by fashion house Gucci that aims to raise money to empower women and girls. “Together with Chime for Change, we raise our voices as mothers, as artists, and as activists,” Beyoncé captioned the photo. “As #GlobalCitizens, we can make our voices heard and turn awareness into meaningful action and positive change.”

(ビヨンセのメッセージ)
Together with Chime for Change, we raise our voices as mothers, as artists, and as activists. As #GlobalCitizens, we can make our voices heard and turn awareness into meaningful action and positive change. #WomensMarch.


前回の記事で紹介したIan Brumaのレビューで16世紀末の日本の女性たちが自由であったことをフロイスが報告していました。実際のところどうだったかわかりませんが。。。

His letters from Japan make extraordinary reading now, for even this erudite, open-minded scholar sounds a bit like an orthodox Muslim today commenting on the decadent West. The first thing to know about Japan, he wrote, is that everything is utterly different from other countries. Women, for example, are still free to marry even if they lose their virginity. Not only that, but unlike in Europe, women are quite free to leave their house and walk about town, without the permission of their parents. Most shocking of all, Japanese don’t object to a woman getting an abortion.

このころの西洋は両親の許可がないと外出できなかったなんて、現在の厳しいムスリムと似ているなんて書いています。
 

スコセッシ監督の前書き

 


先ほどのインタビューは真面目なものでしたが、一般向けテレビ番組では重い映画の沈黙はさわりだけ触れて後はこれまでのキャリアの話に終始していますね。監督の名前をどう発音するなんて軽い話題もあるのはテレビ向けなんでしょう。

原作である沈黙の英語翻訳版にはスコセッシ監督が前書きを書いています。どんなことを書いているのか興味がある方は以下のリンクをお読みください。

Martin Scorsese Introduces ‘Silence’

How do you tell the story of Christian faith? The difficulty, the crisis, of believing? How do you describe the struggle? There have been many great twentieth-century novelists drawn to the subject – Graham Greene, of course, and François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos and, from his own very particular perspective, Shusaku Endo.

When I use the word ‘particular’, I am not referring to the fact that Endo was Japanese. In fact, it seems to me that Silence, his greatest novel and one that has become increasingly precious to me as the years have gone by, is precisely about the particular and the general. And it is finally about the first overwhelming the second.

(中略)
I picked up this novel for the first time twenty years ago. I’ve reread it countless times since. It has given me a kind of sustenance that I have found in only a very few works of art.


孫引きになりますがApproaching Silenceという本でもスコセッシ監督が寄稿しているようですね。

Endo’s novel confronts the mystery of Christian faith, and by extension the mystery of faith itself. Rodrigues learns, one painful step at a time, that God’s love is more mysterious than he knows, that He leaves much more to the ways of men than we realize, and that He is always present … even in His silence. What role am I playing, wonders Rodrigues? Why am I being kept alive? When will my martyrdom arrive? Of course, it doesn’t. Which means that he will be playing a role that is very different from the one he expected to play. He will not be following in the footsteps of Jesus. He will be taking a less revered path, and therefore playing a very different role. This is the most painful realization of all.

How do I translate the last pages of the novel, as abstract as Moby-Dick or The Idiot, into images and actions? So how do I film these interior sensations and realizations and emotions? How do I make the mystery of faith, and the ways of God, cinematically present? The answer is in making the movie — going to Taiwan, working with the actors and the cameraman and the production designer, shooting, and then putting it together in the editing room, adding a frame here and taking one out there, mixing the sound, timing the color, and deciding that it’s finished. But on another level, that answer lies within the cinema itself, and its way of pointing us toward what we cannot see.


定期購読者限定の記事になり恐縮ですがNew York Review of BooksではIan Burumaがレビューを書いていました。

Japan: Beautiful, Savage, Mute
Ian Buruma FEBRUARY 9, 2017 ISSUE

Silence
a film directed by Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese’s beautiful new movie, Silence, based on Endō Shūsaku’s novel, begins and ends in the same way: a dark screen filled with the noise of summer on the rural coast of southwestern Japan, cicadas rasping, waves crashing, thunderclaps exploding, and rain lashing the rocks.
In between is played out, for almost three hours, the harrowing story of two young Portuguese Jesuit missionaries on a clandestine search for another priest who is rumored to have renounced his faith after torture and to be living as a Japanese Buddhist. The tale, based on historical events, is set in the 1640s. Half a century before, the Shogun Hideyoshi, who unified Japan after years of violent conflict between regional warlords, had embarked on a merciless campaign to get rid of Christianity by expelling foreign priests and forcing Japanese Christians, concentrated mostly in the regions around Nagasaki, to give up their faith by stamping on images of Christ and the Virgin. Those who refused were subjected to a variety of hideous tortures: scalded in sulphurous hot springs, burned at the stake, crucified, drowned at sea, or suspended upside down over pits filled with excrement until death, often slow in coming, ended their torment.


遠藤周作は「日本人は超越的なものを信じることができない」と見ていたようで、それ以外にも篠田正浩監督による沈黙があったこと、宣教師フロイスにも触れていたり日本に詳しいところを見せています。



(Wikipedia)
ルイス・フロイス(葡: Luís Fróis [luˈiʃ frɔjʃ]、1532年 - 1597年7月8日(慶長2年5月24日))は、ポルトガルのカトリック司祭、宣教師。イエズス会士として戦国時代の日本で宣教し、織田信長や豊臣秀吉らと会見。戦国時代研究の貴重な資料となる『日本史』を記したことで有名。

フロイスの本の方に興味が出たのですが、Kindle版は売っていないのですね。最近、本屋に行って買うのは面倒に思えてきました。。。
 

スコセッシ監督はいつ沈黙を読んだか?

 


重い映画なので見に行くかわからないのですが、いよいよ公開されましたね。細かいことですが気になったのは、いつ監督はこの本を読んだかということ。というのも動画では出会ったのが1988年とあり、以下では1989年に読んだとあるからです。一体どっちなのでしょうか。

前作「ウルフ・オブ・ウォールストリート」から3年ぶりのスコセッシ作品となるが、実はこの映画は、監督が初めて「沈黙」に出会ってから実現までに27年かかった執念のプロジェクトでもある。スコセッシ監督が遠藤周作の小説を最初に読んだのは1989年、 尊敬する黒澤明監督の映画「夢」にヴィンセント・ヴァン・ゴッホ役として出演するべく乗った京都行きの新幹線の中でのことだった。「それから数え切れないほど読み返しました。この小説は極めて数少ない芸術作品でしか出会えないような生きる糧を私に与えてくれたのです」と監督は英語版の「沈黙」の序文で書いている。

結論から言うとどちらも間違っておらず本を入手した=出会ったのが1988年で、実際に本を読んだのが1989年だったようです。ご本人のインタビューで9分30秒あたりから説明があります。



ついでに日曜版についてくるニューヨークタイムズマガジンにも書いてありました。長い構想期間を経ての製作なので記事タイトルのpassionには「情熱」だけでなく以下のようなキリスト教的意味合いもかけているのでしょう。あとイエズス会が英語だとJesuitと発音も変わってしまう点にも注意が必要ですね。

(ウィズダム)
passion
 〖the P-〗〘キリスト教〙キリストの受難.


この記事は6000語を超える雑誌タイムのカバーストーリーに匹敵する長さです。Yutaが英語教師や英語資格止まりの人に対してついつい不満を述べたくなるのはこの人たちは少しでも長い記事になるとさっぱり読まなくなることです。そのくせ「精読できなければ速読も多読もできない」といっぱしの説教を垂れるじゃないですか。精読の重要性は否定できませんが「精読ばっかりしているから長いのが全然ダメじゃないか。もっともらしいこと言う前にいいからたくさん読めよ。いつまでたっても短い教材しか読めないじゃないか」と文句を言いたくなるのです。

脱線しましたが、読み物的な記事なると興味を持って読み進めてもらうために工夫を凝らすようになります。今回もA man was on a train in Japan, reading a novel set in Japan.と人物名や読んでいる小説の名をすぐに明かさず進めています。

The Passion of Martin Scorsese
In his new film, “Silence,” he returns to a subject that has animated his entire life’s work and that also sparked his career’s greatest controversy: the nature of faith.

BY PAUL ELIENOV. 21, 2016

A man was on a train in Japan, reading a novel set in Japan. The train slid past the mountains, bound for Kyoto, where the man, bearded, bright-eyed, was headed. The year was 1989. The train was a bullet train.

The man on the train was in a quandary, and the man in the novel he was reading was in a quandary; and as he read the novel, it emerged that his quandary and the one in the novel were essentially the same.

The man in the novel was Sebastian Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit priest sent to Japan in the 17th century. He was there to minister to Japanese Catholics suffering under a brutal regime and also to find out what had happened to his mentor, a priest rumored to have renounced the faith under torture.

The man on the train was Martin Scorsese. He was in Japan to play the part of Vincent van Gogh in a movie by Akira Kurosawa, another master filmmaker. He was also there to move past a brutal battle in America’s culture wars over a picture of his, “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

The film had been pilloried by conservative Christians for a dream sequence in which Christ has sex with Mary Magdalene. In depicting Christ’s life as a doubt-ridden struggle between his human and divine natures, Scorsese had intended to make a film that was at once an act of doubt and an act of faith. In the novel he was reading, the priest was shown profaning an image of Christ, and yet the act was an act of faith.

The train slid past the mountains. Scorsese turned the pages. This novel spoke to him. All at once he saw it as a picture he would like to make.

The novel was “Silence,” by Shusaku Endo, a Japanese convert steeped in European literature and the history of Catholicism in Japan. Published in Japan in 1966, “Silence” sold 800,000 copies, a huge number in that country. Endo was called “the Japanese Graham Greene” and was considered for the Nobel Prize. Greene referred to “Silence” as “one of the finest novels of our time.”

このニューヨークタイムズの記事はカトリックの信仰心を持った少年時代から紹介し、どうして沈黙という映画を撮るに至ったがよくわかるようになっています。

記事で「本との出会い」である方の1988年についても以下のように書いています。

The day the film had its premiere at the Ziegfeld — Aug. 12, 1988 — hundreds of picketers were there. So were several television news crews.

“After the premiere,” Scorsese recalled to me, “a group of us went to dinner at the Regency hotel.” The group included Universal executives; the celebrated director Michael Powell; Scorsese’s longtime editor and collaborator, Thelma Schoonmaker; and prominent Christians who had supported the movie. Paul Moore, the Episcopal bishop of New York, had written a letter to The New York Times declaring that the movie dramatized the core church teaching that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. At the Regency, Moore told Scorsese about a book he should read. The next day he had it sent over: “Silence,” by Shusaku Endo.

英語ニュースだとイエズス会の宣教師が主人公であることと、現ローマ法王がイエズス会出身であることが結びつけられることが多いですね。あとは日本では昔のことに思える宗教弾圧も現在進行形である地域があること。

In Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, China, and elsewhere, the persecution of Christians — often to the point of martyrdom — is real and continuing. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the word “martyr” has taken on awful new connotations. “Silence,” then, is inadvertently topical. Like the novel, the picture interrogates the very idea of Christian martyrdom, by proposing that there are instances when martyrdom — the believer holding fast to Christ to the bitter end — is not holy or even right. It makes in the way of art the arguments made in defense of “Last Temptation”: that an act can’t be fully understood if the intentions behind it aren’t taken into account, and that a seeming act of profanation can be an act of devotion if done out of an underlying faith.

ある程度予想できたことではありますが、日本の役者については記事では一言も触れていませんでした(苦笑)
 

Age of Discovery

 


日本では大航海時代と呼ばれるAge of Discoveryという言葉を紹介したくなった別の理由はつい最近上記の本をAudibleで聞いたからでした。今はルネサンス、発見の時代に匹敵する大激動の時代というのです。

日本人は何か新しい時代が始まろうとするとすぐに「第三の開国」とか、「何ちゃら維新」とか呼びたくなりますが、欧米にとってはルネサンスという言葉もそのような言葉なのかもしれません。Are We Living in a New Renaissance?と呼びかけています。以下のScientific Americanのサイトでは本の始まりである第1章の抜粋を読むことができます。英語学習的にはa New Renaissance という冠詞の使い方やflounder, or flourishという語呂の良さもチェックしておきたいです。

Are We Living in a New Renaissance?
Two scholars speculate on how history may be repeating itself in this excerpt from their new book

By Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna on May 24, 2016

If Michelangelo were reborn today, amidst all the turmoil that marks our present age, would he flounder, or flourish again?

Every year, millions of people file into the Sistine Chapel to stare up in wonder at Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Creation of Adam. Millions more pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Through five centuries, we have carefully preserved such Renaissance masterpieces, and cherished them, as objects of beauty and inspiration.

But they also challenge us.

The artists who crafted these feats of genius five hundred years ago did not inhabit some magical age of universal beauty, but rather a tumultuous moment—marked by historic milestones and discoveries, yes, but also wrenching upheaval. Their world was tangling together in a way it had never done before, thanks to Gutenberg’s recent invention of the printing press (1450s), Columbus’s discovery of the New World (1492) and Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a sea route to Asia’s riches (1497). And humanity’s fortunes were changing, in some ways radically. The Black Death had tapered off, Europe’s population was recovering, and public health, wealth and education were all rising.

昨年発売当時、有名コラムニストのトマス・フリードマンもこの本を紹介していました。

Another Age of Discovery
Thomas L. Friedman
JUNE 22, 2016


Have we been here before? I know — it feels as if the internet, virtual reality, Donald Trump, Facebook, sequencing of the human genome and machines that can reason better than people constitute a change in the pace of change without precedent. But we’ve actually been through an extraordinarily rapid transition like this before in history — a transition we can learn a lot from.

Ian Goldin, director of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University, and Chris Kutarna, also of Oxford Martin, have just published a book — “Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance” — about lessons we can draw from the period 1450 to 1550, known as the Age of Discovery. It was when the world made a series of great leaps forward, propelled by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Copernicus and Columbus, that produced the Renaissance and reshaped science, education, manufacturing, communications, politics and geopolitics.


この本の面白いところの一つにルネサンスの光の部分だけでなく激動の時代の闇の部分にも触れているところでしょうか。トランプに匹敵する扇動家がいたというのです。先ほどの冠詞の使い方がWas there a Donald Trump back then?とここでもされています。

Was there a Donald Trump back then?

(中略)

“From there, Savonarola launched an ugly campaign of public purification, introducing radical laws including against homosexuality, and attacked public intellectuals in an act of intimidation that history still remembers as the Bonfire of the Vanities. Savonarola was amongst the first to tap into the information revolution of the time, and while others produced long sermons and treatises, Savonarola disseminated short pamphlets, in what may be thought of as the equivalent of political tweets.”

歴史的な考証に基づいて書かれたわけではなくいかにもコンサル的な切り口で書かれていますが、これからどういう時代になるか予想するのが難しい中、いわば王道とも言える「ルネサンス」という過去のイベントを参照してこれからの未来に備えようとする態度も理解できます。下記のBCGの著者インタビューを読んで興味を持たれた方は本自体も面白く読み進められると思います。

Navigating the New Renaissance
An Interview with the University of Oxford’s Ian Goldin

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

In reading the book, I was really fascinated with the quotes taken from the Renaissance that sounded actual and real. You describe the era as an eruption of genius.

For me, the real driver of that explosion of genius was the printing press. It was the sudden sharing of ideas and information, and, with that, the desire to have literacy. Before then, only monks could really read and write in Latin the handwritten manuscripts in their monasteries, and the church had a monopoly of knowledge. This revolution democratized information in the same way the internet has today. But, of course, the numbers of people today are so much greater. We go from a world of only half a billion people connected in the 1980s to 5 billion people connected now. When I first went to China in 1980, only 78 people had doctoral degrees. Now there are hundreds of thousands. That’s a quantum shift in the number of incredibly gifted people around the world who are sharing ideas. If you believe in the random distribution of exceptional creativity, call it genius, there’s a lot more today—only the new Einsteins will not emerge from the streets of Vienna or New York or London; they will emerge from Mumbai and elsewhere.

It’s not just individual random genius; it’s also collective genius. When people come together as diverse teams, that’s when you really get sparks, and that’s happening across the board. It’s happening virtually—look at YouTube videos of people learning to hip-hop dance, sharing the latest moves around the world, or see what’s happening in the labs in the Oxford Martin School on new cures for cancer on a 24-hour research cycle around the world. It’s that collective endeavor which is totally unlike anything that’s ever happened before.


 

大航海ツアー

 


ヒロ前田さんとHUMMERさんのセミナーは本気で何かをしたいと思い立った学習者の受け皿となる素晴らしいものですね。しかも継続して色々なところで開催してくれているのもありがたいことです。

おそらくお二人は格闘技がお好きなようなのでそちらの方から今回のセミナータイトルを思いついたのでしょうが、大航海と聞いてすぐに思いつくのは「大航海時代」という言葉ですよね。わざわざこんなエントリーを書こうと思ったのは英語では呼び名が異なるからです。Wikipediaによると日本の「大航海時代」という言葉は欧米での言葉にあえて逆らってつけたようですね。

(Wikipedia)
「大航海時代」の名称は、1963年岩波書店にて「大航海時代叢書」を企画していた際、それまでの「地理上の発見」、「大発見時代」(Age of Discovery / Age of Exploration)といったヨーロッパ人の立場からの見方による名称に対し、新しい視角を持ちたいとの希求から、増田義郎により命名された。増田は、大航海時代の時間的範囲について、議論があると前置きした上で、具体的な始まりと終わりの年を提案している。増田によれば、大航海時代の始まりは、1415年におけるポルトガルのセウタ攻略。終わりの年は、三十年戦争が終結し、ロシア人の探検家セミョン・デジニョフがチュクチ半島のデジニョフ岬に到達した1648年である。

もちろんだからといってgreat voyageという言葉が使われないということではありません。つい先日New York Timesで大航海時代から地球はグローバル化していたというコラムがあったのですが、the monarchs of Spain and Portugal funded the great voyages of the age of discovery.という表現がありました。発見の時代はまさにgreat voyageがあったんですもんね。

What Nutmeg Can Tell Us About Nafta
By AMITAV GHOSHDEC. 30, 2016


It was in hopes of bypassing Venice and the Middle East that the monarchs of Spain and Portugal funded the great voyages of the age of discovery. The Portuguese mariners who pioneered the sea route to the Indian Ocean brought with them not just their religion but also the prevalent European faith in monopolies. This notion was alien to the trading cultures of the Indian Ocean, where the rulers of the major ports had always vied with one another to attract as great a variety of merchants as possible. The Portuguese, and the Spanish, Dutch and English who followed them, were unheeding of these traditions: They never veered from their quest for monopolies, especially amid the vulnerable islands of the Moluccas.

Wikipediaを見て大航海時代というゲームがあるのも知りました。こちらの英語版タイトルは海図にない未知の海域という意味のUncharted Waters。



このタイトルを知ったのもこのエントリーを書きたくなった理由でもあります(苦笑)
 

(続)ナンタケット島で進められている研究

 
先日ご紹介したNew Yorkerの記事。昨日のFresh Airでライターが呼ばれて記事内容について話してくれています。NPRはトランスクリプトも公開してくれているので英語学習に活用しやすいですね。



SCIENCE
New Gene-Editing Techniques Hold the Promise Of Altering The Fundamentals Of Life
January 12, 20171:28 PM ET

Fresh Air
New Yorker writer Michael Specter discusses emerging biotechnologies that will make it possible to remove disease and change the characteristics of life by rewriting the genetic code in cells.
 

自分の頭で考えよう

 
どこかで聞いたプレーズですが(苦笑)fake newsがメインストリームになりつつある中で、オープンサイエンスのような開かれた知のあり方も生まれています。さらにはAI時代の到来を控え、ますます知的労働の重要性が上がり今週のEconomistのSpecial Reportは生涯学習でした。時代の変化に対して何かを鵜呑みにせず「自分の頭」で考えることはますます重要になりますね。オバマ大統領の最後の演説で言っていたcitizenもこのような態度を想定している気がします。

もっともらしくこのエントリーの意義っぽいものを書いてみましたが、単に部屋の本棚を整理していたらカントの「啓蒙とは何か」を収めた文庫が見つかりました。昨年、NHKのEテレで「永遠平和のために」をやっていたので文庫を買っていたのでしょう(もう覚えていない。。。)まあ綺麗ごとに聞こえたり、説教くさく思えたりするかもしれませんが、post-truthの時代には不可欠な態度であるに違いありません。英訳はYoutubeと同じものを、日本語訳は中山元さんのものです。



"What is Enlightenment?"

◇啓蒙の定義
啓蒙とは何か。それは人間が、みずから招いた未成年の状態から抜けでることだ。未成年の状態とは、他人の指示がなければ自分の理性を使うことができないということ である。みずから招いたというのは、人間が未成年の状態 にあるのは、理性がないからではなく、他人の指示を仰がないと、自分の理性を使う決意も勇気ももてないからであ る。それゆえ、「敢えて賢明であれ Sapere aude !」「自分自身の悟性を使用する勇気をもて!」というのが、啓蒙の標語である。
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!


この短い論文の哲学的意義はわかりませんが、以下の部分などは英語学習にも当てはまります。効率的な学習法や対策などばかり話される傾向にありますが、実際にやってみて何度も転んで自分で学んでいけばいいのにとYutaは思います。

◇未成年の利点
ほとんどの人間は、自然においてはすでに成年に達していて(自然による成年)、他人の指導を求める年齢ではなくなっているというのに、死ぬまで他人の指示を仰ぎたいと思っているのである。また他方ではあつかましくも他人の後見人と僣称したがる人々も跡を絶たない。その原因は 人間の怠慢と臆病にある。というのも、未成年の状態にとどまっているのは、なんとも楽なことだからだ。 (中略)
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature!

そしてすべての女性を含む多くの人々は、未成年の状態から抜けだすための一歩を踏みだすことは困難で、きわめ て危険なことだと考えるようになっている。しかしそれは 後見人を気取る人々、なんともご親切なことに他人を監督するという仕事をひきうけた人々がまさに目指していることなのだ。後見人とやらは、飼っている家畜たちを愚か な者にする。そして家畜たちを歩行器のうちにとじこめておき、この穏やかな家畜たちが外にでることなど考えもしないように、細心に配慮しておく。そして家畜がひとりで外にでようとしたら、とても危険なことになると脅かしておくのだ。
The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind (including the entire fair sex) should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous. Having first infatuated their domesticated animals, and carefully prevented the docile creatures from daring to take a single step without the leading-strings to which they are tied, they next show them the danger which threatens them if they try to walk unaided.

ところがこの〈危険〉とやらいうものは、実は大きなものではない。歩行器を捨てて歩いてみれば、数回は転ぶかもしれないが、そのあとはひとりで歩けるようになるものだ。ところが他人が自分の足で歩こうとして転ぶのを目撃すると、多くの人は怖くなって、そのあとは自分で歩く試みすらやめてしまうのだ。
Now this danger is not in fact so very great, for they would certainly learn to walk eventually after a few falls. But an example of this kind is intimidating, and usually frightens them off from further attempts.


昨今の政治では既得権の体制への反感からかアウトサイダーが選ばれる傾向がありますが、体制を変えたところで別の既得権が生まれるだけだとカントはフランス革命前にすでに指摘していたんですね。

  おそらく革命を起こせば、独裁的な支配者による専制や、利益のために抑圧する体制や、支配欲にかられた抑圧体制などは転覆させることができるだろう。しかし革命を起こしても、ほんとうの意味で公衆の考え方を革新することはできないのだ。新たな先入観が生まれて、これが古い先入観ともども、大衆をひきまわす手綱として使われることになるだけなのだ。
A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism and to rapacious or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a leash to control the great unthinking mass.


ただ、カントのいう「理性の公的利用」はよくわかりません。学問空間を公的問題を公正に扱う空間としてみることが果たして可能なのかつい疑問に思えてしまうからです。

人間の理性の公的な利用はつねに自由でなければならない。理性の公的な利用だけが、人間に啓蒙をもたらすことができるのである。
The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men


またWikipediaにあったのですが現代哲学者がカントの啓蒙の問題を批判的に捉え直していたりするようです。

Foucault, Michel. "What is Enlightenment?" In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, pp. 32-50. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
Original Publication: Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ?


A brief summary, to conclude and to come back to Kant.
I do not know whether we will ever reach mature adulthood. Many things in our experience convince us that the historical event of the Enlightenment did not make us mature adults, and we have not reached that stage yet. However, it seems to me that a meaning can be attributed to that critical interrogation on the present and on ourselves which Kant formulated by reflecting on the Enlightenment. It seems to me that Kant's reflection is even a way of philosophizing that has not been without its importance or effectiveness during the last two centuries. The critical ontology of ourselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them.

This philosophical attitude has to be translated into the labor of diverse inquiries. These inquiries have their methodological coherence in the at once archaeological and genealogical study of practices envisaged simultaneously as a technological type of rationality and as strategic games of liberties; they have their theoretical coherence in the definition of the historically unique forms in which the generalities of our relations to things, to others, to ourselves, have been problematized. They have their practical coherence in the care brought to the process of putting historico-critical reflection to the test of concrete practices. I do not know whether it must be said today that the critical task still entails faith in Enlightenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty.


サペラ・アウダのように発音していたラテン語Sapere aude !は古代ローマの詩人ホラティウスの言葉だそうです。文庫の訳注では「知る勇気をもて、始めよ。正しく生活すべき時期を先延ばしする人は、川の流れがとまるのを待つ田舎者と同じだ。川は流れる。永久に、滔々と流れる」と長い引用も紹介していました。英語メディアだと著作全文がすぐに読めるのが助かります。

The First Book of the Epistles of Horace.

We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like Penelope’s suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous’ youth, employed above measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp. Robbers rise by night, that they may cut men’s throats; and will not you awake to save yourself? But, if you will not when you are in health, you will be forced to take exercise when you are in a dropsy; and unless before day you call for a book with a light, unless you brace your mind with study and honest employments, you will be kept awake and tormented with envy or with love. For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt your eyes, but if any thing gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it from year to year? He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning. Boldly undertake the study of true wisdom: begin it forthwith. He who postpones the hour of living well, like the hind [in the fable], waits till [all the water in] the river be run off: whereas it flows, and will flow, ever rolling on.

自分の頭で考えるのは手間がかかって大変だし、効率が求められる時代になんとも非効率に思えてしまいます。それにこんな態度は空気を読まない態度になってしまうでしょう。でもやっぱり大変だからってやらなくていい理由にはならないんでしょうね。カントによればそんなのは怠慢と臆病だというのですから。。。

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life.
 

ナンタケット島で進められている研究

 
もう2週間も前のNew Yorkerの記事になってしまいました(汗)渡辺由佳利さんのSNSに親しんでいる人ならマサチューセッツ州にあるナンタケット島を何度も目にしていますよね。そこである研究がされているそうです。

REWRITING THE CODE OF LIFE
Through DNA editing, researchers hope to alter the genetic destiny of species and eliminate diseases.
By Michael Specter


ナンタケット島に生息する人もかかるライム病という感染症を保菌するwhite-footed mouse(シロアシネズミ)に対し、遺伝子ドライブでライム病を持たないネズミを島全体に放してライム病を根絶しようとする取り組みのようです。

Esvelt has spoken about Lyme dozens of times in the past year, not just on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard but at forums around the world, from a synthetic-biology symposium in Chile to President Obama’s White House Frontiers Conference, in Pittsburgh. At every appearance, Esvelt tells the audience that he wants his two young children—he has a three-year-old son and a daughter who is almost one—to grow up in a Lyme-free world. But that’s not really why he speaks at infectious-disease meetings, entomology conventions, and international conservation workshops. He has embarked on a mission that he thinks is far more important.

Esvelt and his colleagues were the first to describe, in 2014, how the revolutionary gene-editing tool crispr could combine with a natural phenomenon known as a gene drive to alter the genetic destiny of a species. Gene drives work by overriding the traditional rules of Mendelian inheritance. Normally, the progeny of any sexually reproductive organism receives half its genome from each parent. But since the nineteen-forties biologists have been aware that some genetic elements are “selfish”: evolution has bestowed on them a better than fifty-per-cent chance of being inherited. That peculiarity makes it possible for certain characteristics to spread with unusual speed.

Until crispr came along, biologists lacked the tools to force specific genetic changes across an entire population. But the system, which is essentially a molecular scalpel, makes it possible to alter or delete any sequence in a genome of billions of nucleotides. By placing it in an organism’s DNA, scientists can insure that the new gene will copy itself in every successive generation. A mutation that blocked the parasite responsible for malaria, for instance, could be engineered into a mosquito and passed down every time the mosquito reproduced. Each future generation would have more offspring with the trait until, at some point, the entire species would have it.


gene driveについては下記のナショジオの記事などは日英で読めます。

Genetic Engineering to the Rescue Against Invasive Species?
Scientists call for a public discussion on development of emerging "gene drive" technology.

By Katie Langin, National Geographic
PUBLISHED JULY 18, 2014


遺伝子工学で外来種を駆除
2014.07.22

まあ、このあたりは遺伝子研究の方向性として予測できる感じだったのですが、さらにこの研究者がユニークなところは自分の研究を全てオープンにしているところ。

At the meeting on Nantucket, Esvelt assured residents that he and his team fully understood the implications of manipulating the basic elements of life. He said that he regards himself not just as a biologist but as the residents’ agent; if they stop showing interest in the research, he will stop the experiments. He also insists that he will work with absolute openness: every e-mail, grant application, data set, and meeting record will be available for anyone to see. Intellectual property is often the most coveted aspect of scientific research, and Esvelt’s would be posted on a Web site. And no experiment would be conducted unless it was approved in advance—not just by scientists but by the people it is most likely to affect. “By open, I mean all of it,” Esvelt said, to murmurs of approval. “If Monsanto”—which, fairly or not, has become a symbol of excessive corporate control of agricultural biotechnology—“did something one way,” he said, “we will do it the opposite way.”

近頃言われているオープンサイエンスをさらにラディカルに進めた感じでしょうか。
 

サンゴ白化現象は英語では

 
今日のニュースで個人的に興味を引いたのはこちら。昨年宮古島の大きなサンゴ礁である八重干瀬に行ったのですが同じように白化現象でサンゴが死んでしまっていました。地元の人の話では台風が来ずに海温が下がらなかったことが原因だとか。

西表石垣国立公園 石西礁湖のサンゴ白化現象の調査結果について
 環境省那覇自然環境事務所では、11月から12月にかけて西表石垣国立公園の石西礁湖海域(石垣島と西表島の間)において本年度3回目のサンゴの白化現象についての調査を実施しました。今回お知らせする調査結果は本年度の最終調査結果であり、平均白化率(※)が91.4%であることを確認しました。
 9月から10月にかけて行った本年度2回目の調査結果(平成28年11月9日付け報道発表)と今回の調査結果を比較すると、全体が死亡した群体の割合は、56.7%から70.1%に増加したことが確認されました。また、白化していない群体については、3.0%から8.6%に増加したことが確認されました。


添付資料

英語ではbleachingと表現していました。AHDの方ではサンゴの白化現象の語義も載せてくれていました。

(アメリカンヘリテージ)
bleach
v.intr.
1. To act as or use a bleach.
2. To become white as a result of the loss of algal symbionts, usually following an environmental stress such as increased water temperature. Used of coral.


世界でも進行していることは承知の事実ですが、深刻度は増しているようです。昨年末にNatureが発表した今年の10人には豪グレートバリアリーフのサンゴの白化現象を研究している研究者が選ばれていました。

Nature’s 10
Ten people who mattered this year.

19 December 2016

TERRY HUGHES: Reef sentinel
A coral researcher sounded the alarm over massive bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef.
By Daniel Cressey

When Terry Hughes flew over the Great Barrier Reef in March, his heart sank at the sight of telltale pale patches just below the surface, where corals were dead or dying.

Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC’s) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Townsville, says that he and his students wept after looking at the aerial surveys of the damage. The bleaching hit nearly all of the reef, with initial surveys showing 81% of the northern section suffering severely. It was the most devastating bleaching ever documented on the Great Barrier Reef — and part of a wider event that was harming corals across the Pacific.

The trigger for this year’s coral troubles in the Pacific was a strong El Niño warming pattern in the tropical part of that ocean. Abnormally high water temperatures prompt corals to expel the symbiotic zooxanthellae algae that provide them with much of their food — and their colour. Some corals can recover after bleaching, but others die. Follow-up studies in October and November found that 67% of ­shallow-water corals in the 700-kilometre northern section of the Great Barrier Reef had died.


まさに世界的現象で2年前に世界的に深刻な状況にあることをアメリカ政府が発表していたようです。日本のこともさらっとですが2016年に広がったと触れています。

Corals throughout the world have struggled in the past couple of years, as global temperatures have repeatedly hit record highs. In October 2015, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that a global bleaching event was happening as coral reefs in Hawaii, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives began to succumb.

This year, the bleaching spread to Australia, Japan and other parts of the Pacific. Researchers say that, as climate change drives up baseline temperatures, bleaching will afflict reefs more frequently. Under some scenarios, this could happen so often that most corals can no longer survive.

2015年の米国政府のレポートについては当時のNatureも記事にしていました。

Corals worldwide hit by bleaching
Warm ocean waters combine with El Niño to turn reefs a stark white.

Alexandra Witze
08 October 2015

先ほどの研究者のインタビューもNatureは掲載しています。地球温暖化が主要因だと話していますね。

Coral crisis: Great Barrier Reef bleaching is “the worst we’ve ever seen”
Marine ecologist Terry Hughes talks about the ongoing bleaching of the world’s most famous coral reef.

Daniel Cressey
13 April 2016

Has comparable bleaching happened before?
This is the third bleaching event that the barrier reef has experienced at a large scale, after 1998 and 2002, but this is much worse in terms of the number of reefs that are severely bleached. It could have been worse: we were lucky enough to have an ex-cyclone [the remains of cyclone Winston, which had passed over Fiji] come to the Queensland coast. It brought cloud to the middle and southern barrier reef, which cooled it down. Without that cyclone, the whole reef would have bleached as severely as the northern part.

The temperature on the barrier reef has slowly been rising as a result of global warming, decade by decade. Today, the northern barrier reef is half a degree centigrade warmer than it was 30 years ago. The southern part is closer to a full degree centigrade warmer. El Niño events happen on a regular basis. But it wasn’t until 1998 that they started to cause bleaching events. It’s the underlying baseline temperature that’s turning El Niño events into climate extremes for the reef.


環境省も「国内のサンゴ礁保全の取り組み」をしているように、対策そのものを研究している研究者もいるようです。下記に紹介されている研究ではサンゴとそれを取り巻く環境を人の住む社会を含めて総合的に見て、どのような地域でサンゴがよく保全されているのかを見ていっています。

Mass coral death drives efforts to identify resilient reefs
Widespread bleaching gives scientists new urgency to avert decline of key ocean ecosystems.

Daniel Cressey
15 June 2016

Common factors
The research team, led by Joshua Cinner, a social scientist who studies coral-reef systems at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, based its analysis on data that describe conditions at more than 2,500 reefs. The researchers used information on a reef’s habitat, depth, nearby human population and amount of fishing to model how many fish could live at each site.

The bright spots shared several characteristics, including high levels of local engagement in resource management, high dependence on local marine resources, and protective cultural taboos — such as excluding fishers from outside the local village.

Cinner’s work also suggests that the proximity of urban centres is a key driver of change in marine systems. It can damage reef systems that seem to be performing well to the naked eye, such as sites in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands that are part of a well-policed marine reserve but are still classified as a dark spot.

宮古島のツアーの人は今年はどうしようと頭を抱えていました。自然相手なので即効性のある対策をすぐに打てるわけではないので難しい問題ですね。
 

Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.

 
オバマ大統領の最後の演説。どうせアメリカの建国理念を再確認し「あなたたちが主役だ」というのオバマ節だろうと正直期待していませんでした。確かにど真ん中のスピーチだったものの、やっぱり感動してしまいました。トランプ大統領への毒はところどころ散りばめていたんですが、もう少し自分のできることを頑張ってみようとさせてもらえるリーダーは本当に素敵です。演説を一通り聞いて一番印象に残ったのはShow up. Dive in. Stay at it.というフレーズ。ワシントンポストも記事のタイトルにしていました。

Obama’s farewell message on democracy: ‘Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.’
By David Nakamura January 11 at 5:26 A

But the warm embrace from his adopted hometown may have served another purpose, too, in helping to insulate Obama and his faithful from the stark reality that his goodbye speech was not the crowning valedictory they had so recently anticipated.

Over the course of 4,500 words, the president delivered a determined pep talk and reality check, warning his audience not to lose faith in democracy or to give up participating in the American experiment.

“Show up. Dive in. Stay at it,” he urged. “Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose . . . And more often than not, your faith in America — and in Americans — will be confirmed.”
America, we weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character aren’t even willing to enter into public service. So course with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are seen, not just as misguided, but as malevolent. We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others.


これからなんでもトランプ大統領にせいにできるかもしれませんが、そんなことはオバマ大統領は許しません。なぜならwe in fact all share the same proud type, the most important office in a democracy, citizen. Citizen. So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you.だから。

America, we weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character aren’t even willing to enter into public service. So course with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are seen, not just as misguided, but as malevolent. We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others.

When we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt. And when we sit back and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.

(CROWD CHEERS)

It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy. Embrace the joyous task we have been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours because, for all our outward differences, we in fact all share the same proud type, the most important office in a democracy, citizen.

(APPLAUSE)

Citizen. So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when you own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.

(APPLAUSE)

If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing.

(CROWD CHEERS)

If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.

(CROWD CHEERS)

Show up, dive in, stay at it. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose. Presuming a reservoir in goodness, that can be a risk. And there will be times when the process will disappoint you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been part of this one and to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America and in Americans will be confirmed. Mine sure has been.

もし選挙結果に不満だったら外に出て活動を始めたらどうだShow up, dive in, stay at it.と激励します。If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up, dive in, stay at it. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose.と。勝つ時もあるし負ける時もあるが、それこそが民主主義を確固たるものとするのだからというメッセージ。まさにオバマ大統領は若い時シカゴの街角で活動を始めたんですよね。

自分もShow up. Dive in. Stay at it.を肝に銘じて頑張ってみようと思います。
 

素晴らしいスピーチでしたが

 
メリルストリープのスピーチ。早速日本語訳も出回っていてその素晴らしさを実感することができます。ただ、アメフトや格闘技をアートに含めなかったことはファンの怒りを買っていて反撃を受けています。

Meryl Streep Was Dead Wrong About MMA In Her Otherwise Lovely Golden Globes Speech
BANSKY GONZALEZ 01.09.17 26 COMMENTS


The speech has been lauded, but there were some curious moments, most notably her chiding of the sport of mixed martial arts. “And if we kick ’em all out,” she said of all of the international stars, “You’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” The idea is, without all of the diversity present in Hollywood and at the Globes, we’d all be left with Trump and his supporters watching football and mixed martial arts, apparently the hobbies of the modern-day neanderthal.

格闘技の方が多様性を含んでおり、白人至上主義が続くハリウッドよりもマシというのです。

The choice of MMA showed not only a gross misunderstanding of what the sport is, who participates in it, and who its audience is. Not only is alluding that MMA is the sport of the immigrant-loathing Trump supporter insulting, it’s just plain wrong. By inferring that Hollywood — a culture so white-washed that #OscarsSoWhite became a movement last year and actors and actresses of color boycotted the profession’s premiere event — was somehow more diverse than sports in general, but especially MMA, Streep made her tender and eloquent moment laughable, even for the briefest of moments.

具体例としてゴールデングローブ賞の内訳をあげています。

At the 2017 Golden Globes, the event Streep celebrated for its diversity and international mix, only 10 of the 30 actors and actresses nominated in the six primary individual actor categories were either black or international and only one won, and that includes several British born actors and actresses. The other 20 were all American born white actors and actresses. That was up from last year when only three international or black actors were nominated, and none won. In fact, over the past three years, every single award in those major categories has been awarded to a white American or Brit, save for Viola Davis’ lone win on Sunday in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role category.

確かに去年は白人が演じることになってしまったことをwhitewashと表現して色々物議を醸しましたね。

APRIL 15, 2016 3:57pm PT by Rebecca Sun, Graeme McMillan
Why Did 'Doctor Strange' and 'Ghost in the Shell' Whitewash Their Asian Characters?


こういう反応を見るとアメリカ国内の対立の深さを感じます。
 

金フレ 消えた見出語たちはどこへ

 
およそ200語の見出語が入れ替わった改訂版の金フレ。TOEIC公開テストで出題され話題になった難語はTOEI頻出語ではありませんので入れ替わる可能性が高いことは予想がつきやすいです。例えばjargon, newly-wed, refute, sleekなどは思わず懐かしいと言ってしまいます。Yutaが個人的にカウントした数字ですが、やはりレベルの高い見出語は入れ替え率が高いです。

600点レベル 助走の400語にあった約14%の見出語が入れ替え
730点レベル 加速にあった300語の約14%の見出語が入れ替え
860点レベル 飛躍にあった200語の約22%の見出語が入れ替え
990点レベル 頂点にあった100語の約42%の見出語が入れ替え


でもそれだけではありませんでした。すでに気がついていらっしゃる方たちも多いのでしょうけれども消えた見出語たちは他のセクションで再登場していたのです。「パート1重要語100」や「日常単語」、「前置詞・接続詞・接続副詞」は少数ですが、「多義語」では新規に増えた48の多義語のうち半数以上がオリジナルの金フレで見出語だったものでした。deliver, leave, secureなどいくつものTOEIC頻出語彙を含む単語は多義語で紹介した方が良いですよね。

「多義語」のセクションを見てみて、改めて一見何でもない基本語が様々な意味に使われているんだと再認識しました。例えばfareという単語。

(新公式問題集vol4)
a French-inspired restaurant that offers both fine dining and casual fare
(高級料理もカジュアルな料理も提供するフランス風レストラン)


(ロングマン)
fare
[uncountable] written food, especially food served in a restaurant or eaten on a special occasion
 traditional Christmas fare


この意味では韓国の新形式の5セット模試にも登場していました。ホテルやレストランなどの観光・エンタメ系は頻出トピックなので今後も使われそうな表現ですね。

990点レベル 頂点の100語に登場するような難語は4年後の改定で4割が入れ替わっているのを見ると一般的なアドバイスとして語るなら「やらなくてもいい」と言いたくなります。でもオリジナルの金フレを見返してみると、公開テストに出たこと、そして出題そのものが話題になったことが思い返されます。出題されたことがきっかけで意味をしっかりと覚えられたという単語も少なくありません。実際にTOEIC公開テストを受けた人は「990点レベル 頂点の100語」のチョイスはゾクゾクするでしょう。金フレが単なる単語集を超えた愛着を生み出しているのはこういったところもカバーしているからかもしれません。
 

電通の嬉しいニュース

 


2016年12月13日
米国フォーリン・ポリシー誌、電通の社員2名を「世界の頭脳100」に選出

 
米国のフォーリン・ポリシー誌(Foreign Policy magazine)が12月12日に発表した2016年「世界の頭脳100」(The Leading Global Thinkers of 2016)に、当社の社員2名、鈴木 瑛と木田 東吾が選出されました。両名が手掛けている、臓器移植の普及・啓発を訴求する「Second Life Toys」※プロジェクトが高い評価を得ました。


the healers
TOGO KIDA AND AKIRA SUZUKI
FOUNDERS, SECOND LIFE TOYS/JAPAN
For ripping a social taboo apart at the seams.


Only about 300 people a year in Japan receive organ transplants, despite some 14,000 patients in need. The reason for this deficit is rooted in both cultural stigma (the traditional belief that bodies should be whole upon cremation) and legal restrictions that finally loosened six years ago (previously, only brain-dead individuals over age 15 could donate, and only with written consent). With Second Life Toys, which repairs and transforms damaged stuffed animals, Togo Kida and Akira Suzuki are counting on a new generation to end the nation’s transplant hang-up. Picture a lion with an elephant’s ear, or an alligator with a monkey’s tail. After the surgery, toy recipients are encouraged to write a thank-you letter to donors, making the process both personal and open.
(年間わずか300人ほどしか日本では臓器移植を受けていない。14000名もの患者が必要としているにもかかわらず。このような不足が生じている原因は文化的な偏見(伝統的な考えでは遺体はそのまま火葬されるべきとされる)及び法的規制の両方があった。法的規制はようやく6年前に緩和された(以前は15歳以上の脳死者のみが移植可能で、しかも書面での同意がある場合に限られていた)。Second Life Toysという傷んだぬいぐるみの動物を修理して変貌させる団体で、木田 東吾と鈴木 瑛は国内の移植問題を終わりにすることを新しい世代に託している。ゾウの耳を持ったライオンやサルの尻尾を持ったワニを思い浮かべて欲しい。術後におもちゃを受け取ったらドナーにお礼の手紙を出すように依頼されており、このやり取りを個々人同士のものだけでなくオープンなものにしている)

より詳しい英文記事がリンクとして紹介されていました。冒頭のおもちゃのエピソードは共感できますね。泣き腫らすことをcrying my eyeballs outと表現しています。

ART 7 MONTHS AGO
SECOND LIFE TOYS
SUZANNE TROMP

Everyone remembers that moment in their childhood when their all-time-favorite toy suddenly lost its eye, its arm or even worse, its head. After crying my eyeballs out, I would either try to fix it myself, or run to my mum to have her fix Lion as soon as possible.

Akira Suzuki and Togo Kida had a similar memory. While tossing ideas around for a new project besides their regular client work at Tokyo-based advertising agency Dentsu, they stumbled on a shared experience from the past: when they were kids they both tried to fix their broken toy by attaching something from another toy to it.


この記事では日本の「金継ぎ」という文化にも触れています。こういう説明するための流れというのも参考にできます。

“There is this tradition called Kintsugi in Japan. It’s a way to fix broken dishes or tableware by using melted gold as an adhesive to connect the broken pieces. The idea is to cherish that restructured dish as something even more beautiful than it was before it broke.
“And then, you’d have something new and you start to think that it is actually better than it was before,” Togo continues. “You creatively replace the broken part with something to have a new experience with the toy.”


(Wikipedia)
Kintsugi (金継ぎ, きんつぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, きんつくろい, "golden repair"),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.[2][3][4] As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

この特集は日本からは2つ選ばれていました。もう一方は小池都知事でした。

the decision-makers
YURIKO KOIKE
GOVERNOR/TOKYO
For taking on a political boys’ club.




 

ストーリーの力

 
ユリイカ1月号はアメリカ文化特集だったのでKindleで買って読みました。雑誌はKindleで読めるものが増えてきたので嬉しいです。

渡辺由佳里さんも「今だからこそ、届けたいストーリー」というエッセイを寄稿していました。渡辺さんがストーリーの力を信じているところは『ジャンル別 洋書ベスト500』の本の選択にも表れていますね。

このエッセイではストーリーによって「自分とは異なる社会経済文化的背景を持つ人」を理解できるようになるとし、さらにはトランプ当選で絶望を感じたゲイの少年を救うことができた現実のストーリーを共有してくれています。

今回のエピソードはストーリーを届けたい相手にしっかりと届いたケースでしたが、一方で届けたい相手に届かないという厳しい現実もあるようです。

マイ・ブラザーズ・キーパー ~ 黒人少年の未来のために:ヒューマン・バラク・オバマ第9回
 
白人の貧困に関しては以前このブログで取り上げたものがあります。

このような現実を持ち出してアートが無力だと意地悪をしたいのではありません。うまく言えませんが、むしろこのような無情な現実があるからこそ尚一層アートが必要に違いないと思うのです。

ちょうどKinder Than Solitudeを書いたYiyun Liさんが立て続けにエッセイと短編小説をNew Yorkerに発表していました。短編小説の方はご本人が朗読もしてくれています。

FICTION JANUARY 9, 2017 ISSUE
ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE

By Yiyun Li

The Writer's Voice: New Fiction from The New Yorker
Yiyun Li Reads “On the Street Where You Live”

暗いトーンなんですが、英語という外国語を学んでいるものとしては第二外国語で生きることを書いたエッセイの方に惹かれました。ロシア革命で亡命を余儀なくされたナバコフのような例とは違い彼女が英語で生きることを決心させたのはあくまで個人的なものであると強調します。

PERSONAL HISTORY JANUARY 2, 2017 ISSUE
TO SPEAK IS TO BLUNDER
Choosing to renounce a mother tongue.

By Yiyun Li

A metaphor’s desire to transcend diminishes any human story; its ambition to illuminate blinds those who create metaphors. In my distrust of metaphors I feel a kinship with George Eliot: “We all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.” My abandonment of my first language is personal, so deeply personal that I resist any interpretation—political or historical or ethnographical. This, I know, is what my husband was questioning years ago: was I prepared to be turned into a symbol by well-intentioned or hostile minds?

別の場所でもEnglish is my private language.とあくまで個人的なものであると書いています。

When we enter a world—a new country, a new school, a party, a family or a class reunion, an army camp, a hospital—we speak the language it requires. The wisdom to adapt is the wisdom to have two languages: the one spoken to others, and the one spoken to oneself. One learns to master the public language not much differently from the way that one acquires a second language: assess the situations, construct sentences with the right words and the correct syntax, catch a mistake if one can avoid it, or else apologize and learn the lesson after a blunder. Fluency in the public language, like fluency in a second language, can be achieved with enough practice.

Perhaps the line between the two is, and should be, fluid; it is never so for me. I often forget, when I write, that English is also used by others. English is my private language. Every word has to be pondered before it becomes a word. I have no doubt—can this be an illusion?—that the conversation I have with myself, however linguistically flawed, is the conversation that I have always wanted, in the exact way I want it to be.

In my relationship with English, in this relationship with the intrinsic distance between a nonnative speaker and an adopted language that makes people look askance, I feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in life. But with every pursuit there is the danger of crossing a line, from invisibility to erasure.


Yuta自身もそうですが英語は仕事で使うものであったり、外の世界に出るためのものであったり、趣味や自己実現の手段の一つであったりします。でも、そのような形とは全く別の形で英語が存在している人もいる、そんなことを実感を持って理解できるのもストーリーの力なのでしょう。
 

(小ネタ)TOEICにも音声認識が出たぞ!

 
年明けに出たYBMのLC1000で早速「音声認識」が登場していました。ネタバレになるので白フォントで書いておきます。興味のある方は反転してください。

test1 part2
This software has voice recognition, doesn’t it?
- No. It’s the old version.


TOEIC問題集は新しい方がいいと思うのはこのような時代の変化を反映したものが盛り込まれているからです。まあ、そんな知識がなくても英語力があれば回答できるんですけど。。。
プロフィール

Yuta

Author:Yuta
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