I had a day off today. This morning, I attended an English Zoom meeting. Today's topic was scandalous events in Korea, which were so-called cheating on TOEIC exams. Of course, cheating itself should be prohibited. However, why do they cheat? It must be because getting high scores on English exams can bring people high-class employment, and high-level status. Needless to say, I need a more decent discussion to see this issue. But, it seems that the same kind of simple worship for English here, Japan too. How do you think about this?
After that Zoom meeting, I went to AEON near my home to see a friend again, who has been now coming back to this town. We talked a lot about various things. One thing... As I have written in these journals, our town has an international association that holds English conversation classes. They are basically for the citizens who include from beginners to advanced ones, but some people say that these are too easy for them to keep on learning. Oh my goodness!
Of course, you can choose if you will keep on attending the class or not. However, even though I can't tell how high my level of English could be, I want to choose to go to the classes because there we can have actual/real opportunities to speak and listen to in English. When I started practicing English in that kind of class (it was about 8 or 9 years ago), even though in my head there could be a certain level of English grammar structure and vocabulary, I could speak nothing as clearly as now.
After that meeting, I had lunch. This afternoon, I went to this town's police office to upload my driver's license. Returning to my room at the group home, I read Jie-Hyun Lim's book "Victimhood Nationalism" more. Tomorrow, the 15th of August will be an anniversary for us Japanese to remember the Pacific War. This marvelous book tells me how I can face various cruel memories such as the Holocaust. As a Japanese, I remember that war not only as a tiny person, but also as one from a nation that caused a certain amount of massacre (those won't be paradoxical for me). Yes, this is also a really difficult issue for me (or us?) to think about... How do you think about this?
