More English Cultures - Weekly Journal

     Last week,  the operators of Tokyo's Tsukuba Express line apologized for one of its trains leaving 20 seconds too early. In other words, only because the high-speed train pulled out of a station 20 seconds earlier than scheduled due to staff members failing to check the departure timetable, the company felt guilty of failing to accurately perform the departure operations  even though the next train was just four minutes later. This strange event surprised many people including me. In foreign countries, it is usual that their train timetable doesn't hold good. Japanese people may believe that punctuality is a virtue which must be practiced by those who are in a social rule.

1. Kumagusu Minakata (1867~1941), biologist, naturalist, and ethnologist  Minakata studied in United States and England to expand his knowledge of various fields (such as history of science, biology, folkloristics, and anthropology). He wrote many papers, including 51monographs in the famous magazine "Nature". Even today, this number is the largest  since it started to be published. He also tried to make a place where anybody can freely study regardless of class, which way of thinking influenced Yukichi Fukuzawa. In addition, he was opposed to the plan that the government made a lot of shrines abolished. It is said that this posture made an origin of nature conservation activities. 2. Tetsu Nakamura (1946~ ), doctor  Nakamura was born in Fukuoka prefecture. After graduated from medical faculty of Kyusyu University, he went to Pakistan to help people suffering from Hansen's disease "Leprocy" recover. Moreover, he built an irrigation ch...

     New research shows that it is bad for children to watch TV, tablet or mobile phone screens before bedtime. Researchers from the University of Colorado found that "screen time" before sleeping damages children's health. The researchers looked at over 60 different studies on how screen time affects children. They said: "Of more than five dozen studies looking at children aged from 5 to 17 around the world, 90 per cent have found that more screen time is associated with delayed bedtime, fewer hours of sleep, and poorer sleep quality." Screens are becoming smaller and smaller, so children can look at them in bed. More than 75 per cent of children in the study had some kind of screen in their bedroom.  We had better encourage young people to form the habit of not using smart phone just before they sleep.

     Since my group explained the history of Gion festival, I want to give you more introduction about it.           The Gion Festival is a festival of Yasaka Shrine which has a tradition of 1000 years. In the old days, it was called “Gion Goryoe”. When the plague epidemic spread throughout Japan in 869, it is derived from the fact that 66 lances were established, the god of Gion was enshrined, furthermore a Mikoshi was sent, praying for removal of disaster . It has changed year by year, it has become sophisticated, and it has become large scale in the North and South era. After that, it became the current Gion festival in the early Edo period. This is because in that era, people's standard of living had improved and they were able to buy and wear "Nishijinori", which is very luxury clothes even today. They put it on and joined the festival, which has made it more splendid. Over 1000 years have passed since the Gion festiv...

     What kind of jobs do you want to be engaged in? Of course, we have at least 3 years to decide it, but this decision is so important and we must do so carefully.     Yesterday, I thought that to be a journalist may be one of the good choices, because I am interested in many foreign countries' history and various conflicts resulted from the difference in the way of thinking(religion, race, custom and so on). I want to get a lot of current news as soon as possible and report it to as many viewers as I can. to be a journalist, I have to study the world situation more severely.