Picture Book

This picture book is one my favorite picture books.
Lots of people must have read this at least once.

Last week I happend to find that
there are a lot of stories about Nezumi Kun.

Soon I went to the library homepage and researved some of them.
Today before I came to my office,
I dropped in the library, and got it.

This is the following one.












Have you read it ever?
This book also warms us. I like picture books
because those always warm my heart and make me tender.

Languages all over the world

Do you know how many languages are used all over the world now?
There are about 180 countries in the world, but...........

The answer is ..........
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6910 languages

Last week I read one article in the newspaper.

コロ語 is the ne of the 6910 languages.
It is used by a very small tribe in India.
Only 800 people use this minor language.
However, this tribe doesn't have people under 20 years old.
So this langueage may disapper soon.

Reserchers say that
"Half of the 6910 languages will disappear by 2100.

This surprised me very much.

Playing the piano

Recently I want to play the piano as much as possible.

I had learned piano for almost 11 years since I was four years old.
The reason why I started to play the piano is
one day my grandmother bought a toy-piano for me
and brought it to my house as a present.

At that time I got interested in it,
and kept playing for a long time.

Also at that time, my father wanted to start to learn something
as his new hobby, then he decided to learn electone and
decided to let me learn electone,too.
Probably my father wanted to share the same thing with me.

In addition, my mother asked the shop clerk in a music shop
about how they think a four-year boy will start to play the instrument.
One shop clerk said, "A boy should try electone, not piano,
because boys tend to be interested in machines in their future,
so they guessed that electone should be more interesting for me.

So my parents let me learn electone, not piano.

Sometimes I wanted to stop learning it
because girls often learn piano, but boys normaly don't learn piano.
and I was really embarrassed in front of other boys,
however, I kept learning it, and now I really thank my parents
since they let me learn it and enabled me to play it.

Honestly speaking, I want to buy a piano
and play in my house if possible because to play the piano makes me relaxed.

TV program ‘Gift’ on NHK

Have you watched a TV program about English ‘Gift’ on NHK?
Or have you never heard the title of this program?

This program is broadcasted from 23:10 to 23:30 every Tuesday.
It introduces a famous person or an historic event in English.
It doesn’t have a Japanese caption,
but what it says is showed as an English caption,
so you can follow the story or the explanation,
and improve your skills to follow English speed and think in English.

Most of TV programs to learn English has a Japanese subtitle,
so I don’t think it is good to learn English.

Try watching this TV program for your improvement!!

Melon

The other day I bought a melon at the shopping street.
'Melon 500yen' was written on the board,
So I thought that was very reasonable, and closed to the clerk.

He gave me a slice of several kinds of melon to have me try eating.
Certainly those were sweet and delicious.
So I decided to buy one melon.

However, 500yen melon is very small,
and he tried to sell more expensive ones.
The other kinds of melon were so-so expensive,
but I couldn’t leave that place, and bought it.

Oh, my got! I really hate such a way to sell.

Retail shop or Large-scale Store?

In my mind I have one rule about my buying products.

It is that I intend to buy products
in a retail shop as many times as possible
if the price at a retail shop is as same as one at a large-scale shop.

I don't like the idea that
people or groups with lots of money are winners.

More than 25 years ago,
there were lots of retail shops or shopping streets.
These were very prosperous and very active.
They had deep humanity there.

However, those small retail shops or streets were getting bankrupt
because of too strong power of large-scale groups.

They can give us very big discount,
and this is very thankful for us and our current economic situation,
but self-employed workers are decreasing,
thus everyone is losing its own motivation or energy.

This is very sad.
So if the price in a retail shop is almost similar,
I intend to buy there.

For example convenience stores sell a beverage for 120 yen.
Small retail shops also sell it for 120 yen.
If so, I buy in a retail shop,
because 120 yen in a convenience shop isn't very big for itself,
but 120 yen in a small shop can not be small.

This is one of my recent rules.
I have the more other rules, too.

Attentive or Selfish?

Do you think Japanese people are attentive?

Lots of my non-Japanese friends image (or say, think) that
Japanese people are really attentive to others, kind, and tender.

However, I really wonder if
recently Japanese people are attentive to others.

Certainly, in the past Japanese people were really attentive.
Parents strongly told children not to bother others.
Children were educated so.

Then, Japanese people at that time were really attentive,
sometimes they were too attentive so didn't insist about themselves.
So Japanese people were told to insist thier own opinions more.

Maybe with its rebound,
recent Japanese people get to insist their opinions,
but I think they insist in a bad way.

They insist only their rights,
but they don't fulfill thier obligations
or don't care about others at that time.
This means that they are only selfish.

They insist their thoughts,
but don't think of others and don't care how others feel or think.
Despite this, they make a strong complaint
if others do the same things to them.

They wield only their thoughts, points of view, rights and so on
without others' situations, thoughts, points of view, rights and so on.

This month I had such incidents several times.

Do you think that really Japanese people are attentive?
Is the non-Japanese people's image about Japanese people right?