木村氏：「大学、どこを受験するんですか」
加藤氏：「東大」慶応、早稲田・・・」
木村氏：「ずいぶん強気ですねー」
Tsuyoki, Yowaki
Mr. Kimura: Daigaku, doko wo juken suru'n desu ka?
Mr. Kato: Todai, Keio, Waseda...
Mr. Kimura: Zuibun tsuyokidesu nee
Mr. Kimura: Which schools are you going to try to get into?
Mr. Kato: Tokyo University, Keio, Waseda...
Mr. Kimura: Gee, you certainly have a lot of confidence.
* * *
Tsuyoki refers to being confident and aggressive; strong.
Japan's college entrance examination prep schools rank Japanese colleges based on the score students need in order to pass the school's entrance exam. This is quite annoying for someone like me teaching far from Tokyo at a university in Yamaguchi. But maybe it's not so bad after all. Maybe it's better that we get students who still have some space left in their heads to do some thinking and that the students who have filled themselves up memorizing endless facts and figures end up going to places like T and W. At least our students have room to grow.
Since so many Japanese young people sit for entrance exams each yearr it's impossible to give them tests which actually test the way they think and reason. It would just take too long to correct the tests given the limited number of people available to do the correcting. This is especially true at national universities where students attempting to get into a department of literature are even made to sit for exams in mathematics and physics. When I once said, "Students who have outstanding skills in a particular field of study don't go to national universities but to private universities," a friend replied, "Zuibun tsuyoki no hatsugen wo nasaimasu ne"("That certainly is a bold thing tosay.") I guess my way of thinking goes against common sense. But isn't common sense created by society and the people in it and isn't the very definition of common sense itself changing? Not long ago a Japanese record company announced that potential employees did not need to provide information about where they went to school on their resumes. If more and more companies stop emphasizing academic credentials, even graduates of so-called second class universities will aggressively try to get into top companies (ichiryu kigyo wo tsuyoki de juken sum.) More and more students will say things like, "Up till now, Ichiryu kigyo wa zettai ni dame daro to yowaki de imashita (I'd been fainthearted and thought it would be absolutely impossible for me to get into a top company,) but korekara wa tsuyoki de ikimasu (from now on I'm going to take an aggressive attitude about my chance.)" If this happens, we will no longer live in a society based on academic credentials and people of real, genuine talent will begin to enter the best and brightest of our companies.
February is a real ordeal for students taking entrance exams, some going through the process for the second or even third time. "Good luck, everyone! Yowaki wo dashite wa ikemasen (Have courage and hang in there! )"