Erika's life

Last time, I wrote about aimai and this time, I want you to intorduce about "Amakudari".
Amakudari literally means "descent from heaven" and the real meaning is that senior bureaucrats are allowed to take important positions with private or semiprivate companies after retirement.
The reason Amakudari doesn't disappear in Japan is it is profitable for both bureaucrats and companies.
For example, there is Dango(secret price arrangement) between the Ministry of Finance and construction companies. It became a big scandal in Japan. Before bidding, they consult with one another and prearrange a bid winner. In this book, the relationship is described " back-scratching". I think this word shows the fact.
Except this fact, there are a lot of problems about bureaucrats. They use our money for personal things, eat out with their colleagues or travel or even go to cabaret.
After taking high positions with companies, they don't contribute to the company. They only take high sallary and high retirement allowance.
Actually, these facts are revealed recently. There was a background that we trusted bureaucrats and their system. They have a big authority.
Well, how do you think about this syestem? What should we do to abolish this system? I think goverments should make a law to prohibit the system. Now, there is a law that after retirement, they can't enter private companies or public corporations for two years. But this law is no meaning. A lot of bureaucrats get a new job with these companies.
And, also their systems or tasks should be shown clearly. Still now, they are not shown clearly.
It thought whether such system is existed in other countries. Please tell me your opinion and what you think!

Hi!! Today, I had a cold and am staying in my house... Cough, cough...

Anway, last Sunday was last day of Golden week and I went to Kobe with my uni friends!! I was looking forward to going out with them because I had not seen them for a long time since new term started. Besides, I had only worked during Golden week... That's steressful for me.
Although that day was raining, we met in Sannomiya station . I think someone is a rainy girl!? When we always go out, it is raining... After meeting with them, we went to Nankin-machi(China town). I like this place and often go with mom. We can see rare Chinese food and can eat a lot cheaply. This time, we ate Chinese noodle and shaomai! That's really delicious:-)
Then we went to Sweets harbor! This was main event for us! We love sweets so we're looking forward to eating a lot;-) In there, we ate ice cream but it is not ordinary ice cream. This ice is mixed some fruits or drinks in the ice plate of -30℃ and we can choose 2 topping. If my memory is right, it is popular in US and came to Japan. Sadly, our stomach was full with Chinese food, so we didn't eat anymore. We wandered around and looked a lot of sweets. Then we found really cute sweets, Maltese cake. This is the picture of cake. It's really cute, isn't it? Wate to eat... I want to go there again and eat other sweets.
I had a good day with my friends☆

Now, I'm reading a really interesting book in my English class. The name of the book is "The Japanese Mind". Actually, I don't like reading either Japanese or English but this book attracts me a lot. Surprisingly, this book was written by university sutundets in Ehime and traslated into English. The cotent is about particular Japanese culture and divided into some chapters. Sofar, I read two chapters "aimai" and "amae". aimai means ambiguity and amae means fawning. The definition of amae is very difficult to explain and it has a lot of menings so I'll tell you about aimai. I think this is a particular behavior for Japanese.
In this book, it is said Japanese word, aimai has a lot of menings, vague, obscure, equivocal, dubious, doubtful, questionable, shady...etc. Yes, I think so, too. And, aimai is regarded as virtue in Japan.
Certainly, when we talk with elder people or even our friends, we often use aimai words. But I'd never thought it's a particular behavior for us.
For example, when we want to refuse the offer, we often use these phrases, "chotto..."( directly traslated = "a little bit") or "maa-maa"(so-so). We really often use these words. Except these words, there are many aimai words in Japanese.
In this book, the origin of aimai is also described. I think it's very itneresting ideas and I agree with that.
You know, Japan is an island surrounded by sea so we had to help each other to live longer. And, to grow up rice in limited space, we had to support each other to achieve high production. As a result, we really cared our "group". If one man was thrown out of his group, noone helped him and he couldn't grow up rice and live by himself. It was very important to use aimiai words not to break the harmony of the group.
Because of these things, we use aimai words until now.

But how about that when we talk with people from other countries? Especially, with westerners. I know all of westerners don't speak directly but they tend to speak directly. Maybe misunderstandings will happen between Japanese and people from other countries. My teacher suggested us to think about the solution of avoiding misunderstandings.
In my opinion, we have to take care not to use aimai words when we talk with people from other countries and also, they should know Japanese culture, aimai. Well, how abou you? What do you suggest to solve this problem? Please tell me your opinion:-)
Anyway, I really recommend you to read this book if you are interested in Japan or Japanese culture. You can get to know real Japanese mind and culture. Please check out this book!
If I have some question about other chapters, I'll ask you about that in my blog!