ARW 5/15 Response

ARW 5/15 Response

It was exciting to have class at Bakayama again. It was very hot yesterday, but having class under tree shades made us feel comfortable. At the beginning of class, we met Paul Wadden, the editor of the first reading in ELA Reader. Apparently there are students from U.S. coming to our university today! Unfortunately I cannot meet them due to schedule issue, but I am glad that the Japanese government has chosen our school for one of destinations for them to visit. Mr. Wadden smiling at girls was a awkward yet funny moment but it was the introduction to our first discussion topic. The first question was whether Barna's article is still applicable to today. In fact, that article was written a long time ago so the answer is supposed to be no. I wrote as if it is still up-to-date on a previous blog so I changed my idea. Still, I partially believe in differences in perception of greetings depending on the nationalities.

It was shocking to hear that Rab's children were not permitted to wear LEGO Starwars hoodies to elementary school. Moreover, it was a hoodie that caused the problem. I personally like hoodies so much, so I can't stand school keeping this restriction. What is so bad about hoodies? Masamune mentioned how Japanese schools tend to require uniformity in the class, so that can be the reason. I agreed that it is a possible answer. In order to find another possible answer, I looked up why hoodies got banned in UK originally. Apparently, it is because criminals tend to wear hoodies to hide their faces and disguise so they give a bad impression...what? Then every single cloth worn by typical criminals should be banned. This reason is not so quite convincing.

Another interesting issue to discuss was the age limit for certain actions, such as smoking, drinking, gambling, marrying, going to war, or voting. The question was whether there should be a different range of age limit or they should be all unified. Our group came up with an interesting answer that there is no point setting the age limit for drinking or smoking because it is just individuals' responsibilities to do it or not. But for marrying, going to war and voting, they all require official documents and involve more responsibilities to others; therefore, they should have certain age limits. We did not have enough time to come up with an actual number.

Tomorrow is Retreat!!