木村：あの先生の講演は前置きが長いですね。
鈴木：ええ。しかも、問題の核心がどこにあるのかわかりにくい。
Mondai no kakushin
Kimura: Ano sensei no kooen wa mae-oki ga nagai desu ne.
Suzuki: Ee. Shikamo, mondai no kakushin ga doko ni aru no ka waka rinikui.
Kimura: That professor makes such long introductions to his lectures, doesn't he?
Suzuki: Yes, and even then it is so difficult to make out what his main point is.
Mondai no kakushin means the main point, the core of a subject, the heart of a matter.
Recently, I attended a lecture by a professor from "S" University, whose area of research is Indonesian Ethnic Studies.
"Whenever I go to Indonesia," he told us, "I find that within a few weeks I'm transformed from an unsociable old man into a much more cheerful, smiling person."
It is interesting to compare Japan and Indonesia, he said, "In Indonesia, when a member of your family is sick, you take time off from work - without telling your company - to look after them. In Japan, people leave their family to get on with it by themselves, and carry on going to work. I wonder which is the most civilized lifestyle?" However, although I shared the same opinion as him, Nakanaka mondai no kakushin ga miete konai (I couldn't make out where it was all leading.).
"Everything is so rigidly precise in Japan," he went on. "The high speed trains that are always on time; the strict school rules, and so on. Living in the midst of this makes me feel like running off straight to Indonesia."
Mondai no kakushin ga dandan hakkiri shite kita (I began to feel that his main point was becoming clearer). I thought what he was saying was that Japan is too rigid; that there is no breathing space, no freedom, but then he took a different tack: "However, many Indonesians admire and look up to Japanese society."
"The Japanese are living in a world of virtual reality," he said. "They reject contact with real things in preference for the unreal. Instead of keeping real pets, some people even keep Virtual pets' inside their computers."
He then went on to talk about the problems brought about by the Japanese obsession with cleanliness. Mondai no kakushin ni semaru to, kare no hyoojoo wa hikishimatta (As he began to reach his main point, his expression grew more serious). In Japan everything is sterilised, and if people eat or touch anything that is even slightly dirty, they start complaining that they are ill, he said.
Yatto mondai no kakushin ni furete kimashita ne (At last we're touching on the main point), I felt And I wondered how he would go on to develop his topic from there.