Young People Teaching Old

      Do you respect your father, mother or grandparents? Of course, I have great respect for my parents and grandparents. Do you really think, however, that you are inferior to them or there is nothing that you can teach them? Certainly, they and the other older people have lived longer than us and they have lots of knowledge and experience. But you also have lived your own life and have much experience, which is different from that of your elders even if your life has been shorter than theirs. There can be many things that you know but older people do not know. Therefore, I cannot agree with this statement that there is nothing that young people can teach older people.

      I have an experience to support my opinion that there is something we young people can teach older people. When I was a high school student, it was the middle of December, and my father was writing addresses on lots of New Year greeting cards. Then he told me that he could not write a certain character symbolizing “high” well each time he tried to write it. He seemed not to be able to write the character neatly and appeared to worry about that very much. As I had learned calligraphy for ten years, I have the knack of how to write characters such as this neatly, so I taught him the secret of writing this character. Once taught the secret, it seemed as if the fog in front of him had cleared up. My father told me that he was surprised at my skill and was proud of me. This is one of my great memories.

      Also, I have an American friend who has been teaching English to children as an ALT at an elementary school and a junior high school from April. He said that he also teaches English to adults who are almost as old as his parents. He is twenty-three years old but the adults are willing to be taught English even by someone as young as him. This is because my friend is a native speaker of English and the adults want to learn English since they do not know English and wish to learn it. My friend and his adult students have lived in different cultures, but I think that their ages have no relationship to their ability to teach or learn.

      People are living their own lives and so each is getting a variety of experiences. I mean, I have lived my own life, and so has my father. Moreover, I am getting lots of experience through life, and so is he. My friend and his adult students all have their own experiences. Of course, these experiences can never be similar.

      In conclusion, I believe there must be something that young people can teach older people. The most important thing, I think, is not how old the person who teaches is, but what that person knows and can teach to another. After all, we cannot say that there is nothing that young people can teach older people, because I taught my father how to write the character and my friend has been teaching English to elder people.

Playing and Winning

      Have you ever lost a game or do you feel bad whenever you were beaten? I have lost lots of games, but they were not always unpleasant. Although some of them were really regrettable memories, others were very nice ones. Therefore, in my opinion, I do not agree with the statement that playing games is not fun unless we win.

      I have a good memory that was fun in spite of losing a game, and it was a race with my younger brother. When I was an elementary school student and he was in kindergarten, we used to play together in the park and sometimes run a race in real earnest. As I was taller and bigger than he, every time the winner was I. My brother hated to lose a race and he cried a lot whenever he gets the worst of it. For me, it was not so good to see him cry, either. Yet, I never lost a race on purpose for him because I knew that it was not fair. One day, however, he lost me at last though I ran with my full strength. I realized that he had grown taller and bigger than what he used to be. Then, the feeling of big happiness came up to my heart despite losing a race because he smiled with all of his face.

      Of course, athletes must be unpleasant unless they win because they work hard on training for the tournaments to get the prizes. They have lots of expectation from their family, relatives, friends and supporters, and they play sports seriously as their great jobs. However, we are kind of ordinary people, so I believe that we just had better enjoy any games when there are not many expectations.

      In conclusion, playing a game is fun even if we cannot win. We have had many chances to do a number of sports since we have been little children. It would be a heavy load for us or we would be very tired if we always think only about winning the games. Moreover, it is important to think about the hearts of the opponents or to praise them when you lose. Therefore, it is very valuable not to stick to the winnings but to enjoying the game itself for us.

New Product

      If you had enough talent to invent new thing, what would you make? I would make a new massaging machine. I like massaging chairs very much, for I feel very refreshed when I sit in it and get a rubdown. However, don’t you feel a little uncomfortable for sitting down on a chair when you are too tired? Is it more comfortable to lie on your stomach than sit, isn’t it? Therefore, I would like to invent a machine that we can have a good massage even if we are lying on our stomach.

      Recently, my parents bought a massaging chair that they had wanted for a long time. It is very useful because it has many functions and options. I can pull down the back of the chair to lie on my back and can even get a massage on my legs and hip, in addition to the ordinary back and neck massage. More than that, it enables us to choose the strength of pressure or even to set up how the massage goes as we like. However, I feel a small dissatisfaction to it because of two reasons below.

      First, I want to make it a machine like a tunnel covering over our body so that we can get a massage from above. This is my strongest wish for the new massaging machine, since I sometimes feel pain in my back when I am lying on the massage chair. I guess the cause must be the too much strong pressure from under my body, and the pain happens because of my weight. Therefore, I want to make it a machine that gives us a special massage not from under but from above.

      Second, it does not have the function of giving a massage on the head or the sole of the feet. I really want to have my head and sole massaged, too. I am sure that most of you have experienced the comfortable feeling when you get someone to step on your soles. That is why it might be a good idea to make the new massaging machine like a tunnel; you can be massaged from head to your toes if you lie on your stomach.

      As these problems were solved, I wish it had some more options like aroma therapy or beauty- treatment in addition to them. If that was done, we could not only improve the circulation of the blood inside our whole body, but also polish up our body itself.

      As I referred above, I strongly hope that we could have such a wonderful machine. Today, while more and more people seem to feel tired in this busy society, the needs to the aesthetic facilities are increasing. Moreover, everyone likes to gain as much advantageous things as he or she can at the same time. I would also like to get a healthy and beautiful body while I am getting massaged. I believe that this new machine would give us a comfortable and satisfied moment.

Resources Disappering

      Do you know mackerel, a kind of fish? They are disappearing in these years, and this fact certainly has bad effects on our society. Then, do you know that this problem is due to our senseless conducts? I heard about it on television and thought that we have to consider this sort of disappearing resources deeply. In my opinion, the fish is one of the most important resources that we need to save, and let me explain why I think that it is important for our own benefit.

      The first reason is that such problem tends to happen because of our senseless deed. The news said that one of the major causes for the disappearance of mackerel is the excessive fishing. The news said that people could catch “masaba”, a kind of mackerel meaning “true mackerel” in Japanese even if they are not grown up enough. As a result, they can neither grow up nor bear new eggs because people overfish them just for fun. Therefore, this fish is disappearing at the rate of eighty percent in these ten years. People need to consider that acting just as they like can surely be one of the causes of this type of problem. I believe that we can stop this kind of thoughtless fishing and do our best to preserve this fish because most of us are sensible enough. If we could achieve this, it would mean that we would be living in a more peaceful country.

      The second reason is that ”masaba” is precious and delicious natural resources especially in autumn. That is why Japanese people call this fish also “Akisaba”, meaning “autumn mackerel”. So, the reduction of them in number will make not only our dinner less satisfied but also the life of fishermen critical. Moreover, the reduction in catch of “masaba” affects the market badly. As you can see, the price of “masaba” is rising drastically. That must certainly hit the management of food stores, and finally, we might not be able to see “masaba” even in a restaurant. Therefore, we have to save the fish to maintain the precious traditional scenes of our meal.

      In my conclusion, it is necessary for us to save the mackerel, our precious natural resources. Especially, saving “masaba”, a Japanese treasure, I would say, is important now. I wish the number of people who would care about the matter of this fish reduction would increase more. Then, I believe that we could protect a Japanese traditional scene of meal, and that would help us to be more thoughtful and kindhearted people.