ItalianoGACKT Official Blog update. Translation below:
Yesterday was a wondrous day.
I slowly did my training from morning.
My upper body has changed quite a lot.
It’s a wonder that it has become like this when I’m training with only my body weight.
Well, looks like Metal Muscle HMB has produced some good results.
I feel like it’s effects produced results pretty quickly.
Even though I say that I’m using my own body weight, I’m only doing push ups so you could say that it’s pretty efficient in this case.
My T-shirt’s been filling up.
I get the feeling that my chest, arms, and shoulders especially have grown bigger.
Nevertheless,
when I go to America and meet up with my friends and actor friends,
I always get surprised by how big everyone is.
Japanese bodies are seriously small.
Mm…
But, if it’s the beauty of a Japanese body that I’m pursuing,
this might be fine.
I don’t need to compete with them in body size.
The point is whether or not it’s a body that can actually be used.
I think that’s much more important.
I spent my afternoon relaxing with tea.
I’m feeling good, and the flu that I had in Japan has completely gone away too.
After awhile, my friend and his family who are visiting from Japan,
along with the friends and their families who are living here, came to my house to play.
Though they said they were coming to have a look at my home’s surroundings.
Even so…
This being the first time that so many children are gathered around me, I couldn’t hide how lost I felt.
Children are amazing.
They made me feel keenly, “All of them are geniuses…”.
Without listening to anything we say at all, they played around with their own ideas and imagination.
Touching things without permission, chasing Angie and the others around…
For Angie as well,
it’s the first time that she’s been chased like that by children
and she was out of breath, with her tongue sticking out.
The children’s parents mumbled.
「It would be great if they could grow up like this…」
I think so too.
Japan’s education level was wonderful in the past.
But compared to the international standards now, it’s fallen quite a bit.
Well, but since there are differences in the levels between schools as well
we can’t really say overseas is better, or Japan is better
on an overall basis.
What I’ve noticed the most
is the disappearance of assertiveness.
Young children repeat their own assertions.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong,
they are able to clearly sound their own opinions.
However, once they enter a Japanese school,
they get pointed out whenever they’re different from those around them
「Why can’t you work in tandem with those around you?」
「Why are you so different from everyone else!」
「Be quiet! Aren’t you embarrassed to be this noisy!」
「Everyone is so well behaved, you have to be like them too!」
Just like that, you’re supposed to always prioritise acting in a group
over your own opinions,
and the students are taught by both their parents and the school to be the same as those around them.
A report on why Japanese aren’t assertive
was written by a certain American institution and,
it also described one of the reasons as
the above being planted in school life.
Hm…
Certainly when I went to school
those kinds of things are always said to me.
Things that I was different from the others in were pointed out to the extreme in my schooling days.
Of course, there’s good and bad.
If you were to work as a gear in a company,
I suppose this education system isn’t wrong.
Solid corporate soldiers will be produced.
But leaders won’t be created.
Strong leaders won’t be born.
Some time ago, my secretary blurted out something like this.
She and her child were brought up in Singapore.
Due to certain circumstances, they came back to Japan,
and she became my secretary though.
She spoke of an instance in her son’s secondary school.
In Singapore, of course,
education was completely taught in English,
so when he talks to me it would be completely in English.
The first time we met was when he was in primary school but
I admired how well he spoke in English.
However,
when we were talking about his English classes in school,
it appears that her son pretended to be bad at it when reading English sentences.
When I heard that, I asked
「Why do you have to pretend that you’re bad at it?」
and to that, he gave me this answer.
「When I speak English well everyone around me looks at me strange
and they tease me for it.
It’s a big problem. You can’t just be able to speak English…」
I thought, he speaks like an adult, but
somehow I feel like I can understand where he’s coming from.
If it’s an international school
it’s only natural that he will be able to speak English but
in a normal school, those around him will feel disgusted by it.
Indeed,
when I think back on my own school days,
I felt disgusted by those kinds of students.
They’re so full of themselves… was what I would think.
I don’t know if it’s because they’re different from everyone else around them but
it’s unfortunate.
That kid is also now completely accustomed to the environment in Japan…
Or rather, he has adapted.
Well, there’s no country more wondrous than Japan.
Right now, they’ve started English classes for the upper grades in elementary schools.
And until the end of high school, that will be around 7 to 8years.
If we add in the time until they graduate from university, that will make it around 11 to 12 years of English language studies for them.
Especially the level of things like grammar in high school and university,
actually exceeds that of native American’s.
However,
despite that many years
of being taught the English language
only a few percent of Japanese citizens can actually speak English.
An English language education that can’t be used in practice.
Furthermore, when they enter university, there’s even a choice to pick up a second language.
German, French, Chinese, Spanish.
There’s a variety of languages that you can choose from but
I wonder exactly how many people can actually speak them.
This reality has not changed in the past few decades.
No, there’s a reason why it doesn’t change.
But if I write about that here, I think.
It’ll get too long.
Anyway.
It’s the same as being taught, for more than 10 years, self-defense techniques that can’t be used,
and in the end you still can’t protect yourself nor the people precious to you.
This is frustrating.
An education system that doesn’t change
but is naturally questioned by everyone.
Too frustrating…
At the very least,
how about we start from
not excessively saying things like
「Stop it! It’s embarrassing!」 or
「Be a good child like everyone else around you!」
to children when they’re young.
I thought of this yesterday as well but,
children are troves of talent.
They far exceed the imaginations of us adults’,
they’re filled with the talent of possibilities.
I look forward to their future.
Source: GACKT Blog
Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team
Translation © GACKT ITALIA