Firing a Teacher

              I was once a member of a language class. All the members had already graduated from their schools. The class was managed by the students. We paid a membership fee every time, and we gave all the money to a teacher. That was simple accounting. The class continued for a few years.

 

 One time, a teacher became too busy, which created a problem. She often skipped the class or came in late. She didn’t give us any advance notice for doing that. She could have personal problems. However, all the students were also busy. All of us managed to make time for the class.

 

The students decided to meet and discuss the situation, and we decided to fire her. Actually, I was a main member of the students at that time. I found a new teacher, and now I had to tell our ex-teacher: “You are fired.”

 

             This was a very difficult job for me. She was a nice person. Maybe she was not good at managing time. First of all, she was the person who invited me to the class. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

 

I can still remember the night I called her. I was at a park downtown when I decided to do it. I called her and told a lie that we were too busy to continue the class, so we decided to take a break. I said that we all thanked her for teaching us for a long time. I didn’t tell her we already found a new teacher. I didn’t tell her that we just kicked her out. I think she believed my story. She accepted it. I felt she might have been relieved when I told her about it.

 

I finished my hardest work. Right after, I called my classmate. I reported what happened. My classmates also felt relieved.

 

Afterwards, I called our new teacher. Now, we didn’t have any teachers. Officially, we could invite the new teacher. I said, “I look forward to your class” in a happy tone.

 

I finished all the work for that day. I sat down on the bench to relax, and then I realized a homeless guy was glaring at me. He might have heard all my lines. My stories were contradictory. He might have thought I was a fishy person. It is possible to think that he hates a contradictory and fishy person. That might be why he was homeless. Our society is contradictory and fishy.

 

We continued the class for a few years. The new teacher was good. However, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, we couldn’t continue the class anymore. My city was far from the epicenter, but all of us were affected indirectly. Schools, companies, theater groups, and any organizations found it hard to continue.

 

When people are together, there are many kinds of problems. We tend to look at the leaders of the organization. We should not forget about the shadow workers who actually carry out the organization’s work.

 

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Great Reader

 I have been a great reader since I was a child.

 I guess the reason was that I needed to read a book to protect myself.

 I have an elder brother. He is not a nice person. He always bullied me. My mother never helped me. But if my brother disturbed my reading, my mother would scold him. She thought disturbing someone while they were reading a book was worse than bullying. So, I had to read books to avoid being bullied by my elder brother all the time.

 I often used the school library. I also visited the city library with my friends by bicycle every Saturday.

 Once, my university and workplace were very far from my home. It took about two and a half hours to commute. But this was a joyful time for me. I could read books on the train.

 My home was at the edge of Nagoya city. I needed to take trains to do anything. If I needed to meet someone, I needed to take the train. Usually, I needed to transfer to another train. Most people hate wasting time on transportation. But I loved it because I could read books. In my case, being on a train is the best situation for reading a book.

 I married my wife. There was the pandemic.

 One day, I realized that my reading time had drastically decreased.

 My wife is not a good talker. But she is a nice person. Talking with a nice person is joyful. I read almost no books at home.

 Since the pandemic, I can work and meet people without transportation. Before the pandemic, I took the train to go somewhere every day. But now, I only take the train a few times a month.

　Furthermore, I have my smartphone now. I enjoy games on my smartphone. Sometimes, I also read electronic books on my smartphone. But it is only a few times a month. I almost forget the content.

 I am not a great reader anymore.

 I had an opportunity to talk with a talented young playwright. She said the shocking words: “I hate reading a book.” When I was young, senior playwrights always appealed to how many books they had read.

 A new era is about to come.

 If I had been born in this era, I might stick to my smartphone all day and night. In this case, my mother would never have protected me from my elder brother.

But I am sure we can learn from smartphone games or smartphone movies the same as books. I think they are just different types of media for individual use.

Like me, most great readers didn’t use to have good conversation partners at home. Or most of them needed to spend time on transportation. Since smartphones’ spread, they have another option to spend their time.

A famous Japanese novelist, Osamu Dazai, wrote, “Not reading books is proof that a person is not lonely.”

I think we can say the same thing about smartphones and games. If a person is not lonely, they never need any book, smartphone, or game.

Most people can’t spend their lifetime without being lonely. Books used to be our only friends when we were lonely. But we have other options now. I think it is a good thing.

 

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Seven-Herb Rice Porridge

 Generally, Japanese people eat seven-herb rice porridge on January 7. It is an old Japanese tradition. Some people believe it can keep people healthy.

 Actually, I never ate it when I was a child. Because my mother tended to doubt all superstitions.

 My mother was a strong woman. She was always the leader of our family. But she got Alzheimer’s. Then, my father became the leader of our family. But at that time, he had disabilities in his body. He just provided direction to me.

 One January 7, he bought a package of seven herbs and said, “We should eat seven-herb rice porridge. Make it.” I didn’t know he loved that kind of tradition. I was surprised. But I tried to make it. I used to work at a restaurant. Cooking is not difficult for me. Actually, I made all my family’s meals at that time. But I needed to check how to make seven-herb rice porridge on the internet.

 I assumed I made a perfect seven-herb rice porridge. It was the same as the sample picture on the internet. I proudly served the seven-herb rice porridge to my parents. But my father was not happy about it.

 He said, “This is not seven-herb rice porridge.”

 I was confused. Seven-herb rice porridge is not a difficult dish. Could the information on the internet be wrong? According to my father, I needed to add more water to make it. His ideal seven-herb porridge must be much more like soup. In Japan, rice porridge is served to sick persons. It is easy to digest. In this case, they add a lot of water. But for healthy people, porridge doesn’t need so much water.

 It is possible that his image of seven-herb porridge formed when he was a child. He had ten siblings. His family was poor. It was during World War II. In those days, many people were starving.

 Maybe my grandmother needed to add a lot of water when she made seven-herb porridge. She didn’t have enough rice to serve ten children.

 I didn’t argue with my father. I remade it into his ideal seven-herb porridge. From that day on, I made his ideal seven-herb porridge for him every year.

 There is no such thing as one correct answer in cooking.

 

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It Takes Ten Years for a Dissatisfied Customer to Come Back

Yakiniku is a popular restaurant style in Japan. You can cook your meal by yourself.

My wife, her parents, and I sometimes go to restaurants. Yakiniku is one of our favorite restaurant styles.

One day, we decided to go our favorite yakiniku restaurant. But the restaurant was closed. So, we went to our second-favorite yakiniku restaurant. But the restaurant was also closed. We could have gone to a different style restaurant. But we really wanted to eat yakiniku. My mother-in-law said, “I know another yakiniku restaurant. But it was not good ten years ago.”

We discussed wanting to eat yakiniku. We didn’t care about the quality of the yakiniku. So, we went to the not-so-good yakiniku restaurant.

But, unexpectedly, the yakiniku restaurant was good. It had a clean room, tables, and chairs. The staff were so polite and friendly. The food was delicious.

Maybe there had been drastic changes during those ten years. The store manager might have changed. Or their operating policies might have changed. I don’t know why, but that restaurant became a delicious yakiniku restaurant.

But if you think about this story from the yakiniku restaurant manager’s side, it is a scary story. If a restaurant gives a bad impression to a customer, the customer would not come back for at least ten years.

I used to work in a restaurant.

Dear friends who work in a restaurant, you are doing a great job. You have to concentrate hard every day. Kudos to you. Kudos again.

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Presents from the Sand Dunes

I visited Tottori prefecture with my wife, her sister, and her sister’s husband.

If you visit Tottori prefecture, you should visit the sand dunes. It is the most famous spot for visitors to Tottori.

We enjoyed climbing up and down the dunes. We also rode on a camel. I strongly recommend visiting the sand dunes.

After we enjoyed the sand dunes, we went to our hotel. Walking around the sand dunes was hard work. I jumped into my bed to relax. After that, we planned to go out for dinner. The hotel was near the sea. We could eat fresh seafood there.

Then, I got up. I was surprised. There was a lot of sand all around my bed. I couldn’t understand how it had happened. I lost my mind for a while.

At that time, I was wearing longer pants than normal. So, I had rolled up my pants. Doing this made pockets in the bottoms of my pants. I walked up and down the sand dunes. The pockets filled with sand. When I jumped into bed, the sand spread around my bed.

This could be a present from the sand dunes. If I slept in that bed, I could dream about the sand dunes. Thank you, sand dunes.

No. I wanted to sleep in a clean bed.

Dear friends, if you visit the Tottori sand dunes, you should wear tight-fitting pants.

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Who Knows the Champion

　　　It is a classic scenario that you may have seen before.

Some competition is taking place, and the final candidates for the championship are on stage in a theater. The stage is dark. You hear drums roaring. The spotlights are wandering. The master of ceremonies opens an envelope. He reads the paper and loudly announces the name of the champion! All the spotlights light up the winner. What a moving moment! Some people will cry at the spectacle.

Now, I have a pop quiz for you.

Before the master of ceremonies opens the envelope, who knows who the champion is? The judges, of course. They decided who it should be. Other than them, a few people know who it is.

Please think about it. I already gave a clue above.

The answer is the stage lighting artists. The judges send the envelope at the same time as they send the information to the lighting crews. They have to light up the champion just as the master announces his name. To do that, the lighting crews need to know who he is.

I know that because my wife is a stage lighting artist. She told me. She said she becomes very nervous when she needs to aim the spotlight in that situation. If she makes a mistake, someone other than the champion could have short-lived joy.

Dear friend, if you see that situation in a theater, you should pay attention to the stage but also to the lighting crew. They are behind the audience. They are also nervous. They might rehearse lighting up the champion on the stage. You could guess who it will be.

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A New Technology Looks Like a Toy

　When I was a junior high school student, mechanical pencils started to spread among students. We loved those. We were excited to use the new technology. But one of my aged teachers argued, “You should not use those toys. Use a pencil. If you use a knife to sharpen a pencil, it concentrates your mind.”

Actually, I didn’t agree with him. But mechanical pencils had problems in those days. They broke easily. So, I used both pencils and mechanical pencils.

When I was a university student, electronic dictionaries started spreading among students. We loved those. We were excited to use the new technology. But one of my aged professors argued, “You should not use those toys. Use a paper dictionary. You will memorize new words better by using a dictionary.”

Actually, I didn’t agree with him. But I have to admit that the very first electronic dictionary models were very expensive, and they didn’t have as much information as paper dictionaries.

When I was a teacher at a technical school, digital cameras started to spread. I was not interested in those. But one of my senior teachers argued, “Those are not real cameras. Young people miss out on the precious time waiting for photos to develop.”

Another of my senior teachers gave me a digital camera. It wasn’t useful. The number of pixels was too low. That was one of the very first models.

When smartphones started to spread, I thought, “These are toys for people who have a lot of time to kill.”

My wife recommended a smartphone to me, and I started to use it. The first smartphone models ran out of power quickly and froze up easily. But now, I can’t do anything without my smartphone.

Such things have always happened in history. Guns were imported to Japan in 1543. In those days, Japan was in a period of civil war. In 1575, Oda won against Takeda by using guns effectively.

I assumed Takeda didn’t know about guns. But I was wrong. The Takeda faction was aware of guns. They bought and tested them. But their leader’s conclusion was, “These are useless on the battlefield.” Maybe the very first guns brought to Japan were not of high quality.

New technologies always appear disguised as useless toys. The very first models are of poor quality. Young people happily use new technologies. Aged people tend to hesitate. They feel that using a low-grade new thing could be a waste of time. I think old people lose their patience. They are busy. They might feel that the time it takes to learn to use a difficult toy could be humiliating.

Keeping up with the times is hard.

 

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