Study English with Obama-sensei!
Today saw the inauguration of Barack Obama, an event which was watched closely from Japan along with the rest of the world. I caught the ceremony on NHK, listening to the Japanese commentators giving their interpretation of the speeches, explaining unfamiliar terms to viewers, and so on. The Japanese have a good opinion of Mr. Obama, and everyone is hopeful that he will bring some much-needed change for the better to the world. One book publisher here had the good idea of selling a book of Mr. Obama's speeches to help Japanese students of English study in a fresh new way, and this series has turned into a runaway hit in bookstores throughout the country. One of the biggest differences between Japan and America is patriotism, and while the average Japanese person is certainly happy to be living in Japan, love of country just isn't expressed in the same way as in the U.S. Concepts Americans take for granted, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, getting misty-eyed when visiting Arlington National Cemetery or being addressed with the phrase "my fellow Americans" in a moving speech by one's president are completely missing from life here. Patriotism is an incredible source of power to a nation, and it's interesting to see that some Japanese, at least, are borrowing it from the United States by studying Mr. Obama's uplifting words.
You can study English with Obama-sensei
posted by Peter in Japan at 3:35 PM
7 Comments:
Yes, I've always wondered if the Japanese are influenced by American patriotism. I know the "Uyoku Dantai" are apart of the few who have extreme Japanese patriotism. (Well, maybe thats more radicalism than patriotism). As for the book of speeches, I think this is the most ingenious idea I've heard this year. Especially for students of English. Oh, by the way, peter... what were some of the unfamiliar terms that they explained to the Japanese viewers?
10:14 AM
On youtube they have the CBS broadcast which is funny because one announcer says "The end of the Bush presidency" and the other announcer says "Thank God!". It was one of the few times in my life when someone says something the exact same time I think it. I did learn something about Japan reading up on the world reaction. Apparently hula dancing is popular in Japan.
12:51 PM
I love Obama's speeches! They move you, they reassure you and he speaks so well! I mean, his sentences are so well thought, it's not something you come up with at the moment, he says things that he must have given very careful thought over the previous week. Yet, he never sounds like he memorized it!
But stuff like "fellow Americans" and "we will build a better place for our children" sound a lot like stuff candidates use because they know it'll move voters, not because they truly mean it...
12:58 PM
I just thought of something. Since Microsoft is having trouble moving xbox360's what better way to sell those things then to give them a brandnew paintjob. The obama themed xbox360, take that iconic painting and just apply it to the 360's, they will sell!
4:26 PM
Chris, yes, the right wingers suck becuase the "flag" becomes their symbol, not the country overall. Really sucks. I remember them describing "sound bite," explaining why politicians aim to have short, effective sentences that will be remembered by the (often Attention Deficit Disorder-plagued) listeners, and what this meant. "It's like a snapshot of the overall speech," one guy said.
Vy, I wonder if he had a teleprompter for the speech. One of the great revolutions of Reagan was the teleprompter, and this is why he was the best speaker ever in history. Of course I know that Mr. Obama is a politician and has speechwriters (of course), but little things about him, like how he loves to read about history (as do I) are just awesome. I wonder how universal that kind of patriotism-creating language is in the U.K., Brazil, etc. In Japan it's basically non-existant.
Noliving, heh, some fan will probably do that. Fans turn their Xboxes into "ita-Xboxes" (or whatever) with anime images.
5:11 PM
In the UK, most people couldn't really care less about patriotism, and the ones that do usually end up being labelled as the nasty racist intolerants that nobody likes. This isn't true for ALL cases, but a lot of it seems to be.
For the most part nobody seems to get that worked up/emotional about anything our politicians say.
I think even if we somehow managed to get someone like Obama to run for Prime Minister, most people wouldn't care much more than they do now :/
7:11 PM
Here in lil' ol' Denmark, patriotism is something we dust off when our handball-women beat the crap out of the South Koreans or our footie-lads get their asses handed to them once again. Other than that we are a fairly unpatriotic lot by-and-large. During the whole Muhammed-cartoon debacle, only right-wing nut-jobs got their knickers in a twist from seeing Dannebrog (the name of our flag) getting burned. Actually, the law on flagburning makes it illigal to burn any OTHER flag than our own - mostly not to piss of countries who have cities with more people than we have in the whole country I would like to say, but in reality it's because burning is the proper way to dispose of an old flag.
Funny thing is that if you didn't know any better, you would think that we were a nation of raging nationalists, because you see the flag being flown everywhere. A lot of private homes have a flagpole in the garden where a streamer version of the Dannebrog is flown every day and the square version hoisted to celebrate birthdays, holydays or special ocations in history (ie. flown on half mast at the anniversary of the german occupation in '40 and at full mast to remember the liberation by british forces in '45).
I guess our facination with our national flag have to do with the fact that it is the oldest national flag in the world and has been in use since the 13th century - with mythological story of how it fell from the heavens during a crusade in Livland (present Estland) as a sign of Gods favour and all.
I guess that was far more than you wanted to know of the danish national flag.
The only person who will not get laughed at for saying 'God bless Denmark' in a speech is the Queen during her yearly new-years speech.
12:16 AM
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