留学で人生を棒に振る日本人 and 国家の品格

留学で人生を棒に振る日本人—“英語コンプレックス”が生み出す悲劇 (扶桑社新書 8)
(2007/03/23)
栄 陽子

It seems people who are reading this fall into two categories; ones makes fun of people who failed in the US, and others think it is irrelevant. People who enjoy reading failures of others will be surprised to find that there are so many people are in fact doing well.

Community colleges are not bad as a starter: it is very cost-effective. For the first few terms, it might worse while to get there and go to better places later.  Profs there are generally like to teach, even thought many classes are in fact not so good. The value of idiots and tools depends on how to use them, as a Japanese proverb says. But, people must be aware of the main functions of community colleges, which are extremely diverse.

国家の品格 藤原正彦
“こんな本が売れるているとはたしかに国家の品格が問われます”

“しかし、最初から論理の限界を指摘した上で、すなわち反証自体を閉ざした上で、自分の体験や読んだ本から好き勝手に日本人を褒め称える言葉を選んで 並べた程度の本がこれだけ売れているということ自体が、すでに回復不能のところまでこの国の品格が落ちているということだとしか私には思えなかったのであ る。 　日本人であるという事実だけしか拠り所がない、という方々には快感を与える好著であるかもしれないが、やたらと外国人による日本賞賛を並べていること、 ノーベル賞や（数学の）フィールズ賞受賞者が好きらしいことなど権威や欧米を意識しすぎなところも私には気になった” — 本の虫クラブ

I read this book before I went to Boston in a book store. I was quite stunned by its content since I did not know this guy was so illogical. It is worth reading it in a book store but save your money for the Red Cross.

For example, he says that knowing English does not equals to intelligence by pointing out that there are a lot of stupid people in USA and UK. But, a lot of people who mastered a second language in USA or UK are definitely more likely to be intelligent. Of course one needs to have deep knowledge of something to discuss with others.

There is no reason to believe that any single language nor culture is better than others. One way or another people in any country think highly of their own country. For example people from Kenyan, Korea Uganda, Butan, China, Malaysia, Thai, Germany, Spain, Greece, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, Belgium, East Germany, Cyprus, Turkey, UAE, Kuwait, Palestine, Croatia, Algeria etc all love their countries and think they have some of the best culture and foods in the world.

I am sure there are many, very similar books in each country written by a passionate superficially logical narcissist, whose philosophy is praised only by their patronages of his/her country. This book reminds me of  The Emperor’s New Clothes “Kejserens nye Klæder”.