The nature, culture and living in a small village in Japan just after the last world war, reflected through the boy’s eyes.
Chapter15 Eyes of putrid fish (1957~8)*
Yoshiharu Otsuki (Sendai, Japan) and Yasufumi Otsuki (London)
*; Japan is blessed with a wide variety of fish and other seafood, because both warm and cold currents flow around its complex seashores, and we can enjoy a wide variety of flavours, scents, and textures. The best taste is to be had with fresh fish, whether the fish is eaten raw, cooked or processed. Japan is warmer and more humid than the UK, so fish goes off quickly and food poisoning is a real danger. Consequently, we are very particular about the freshness of food. We usually judge the degree of the freshness by the eyes. That is, the crystalline lens in the eyes of fresh fish is transparent, and then gradually becomes cloudy as it decays. Describing somebody as having “day-old fish eyes” means that person is lazy or a good-for-nothing.
<<<paper>>>
The effect of studying quantum mechanics on the author’s works
Y. Otsuki
【Synopsis】The quantum mechanics which the author has studied for long time was verified whether it played an effective roll to his works or not. As a result, most of his works was found to be accomplished by the knowledges categorized in the classical mechanics. In some case, especially the development of magnetic materials and some electronic materials utilized a qualitative information of the quantum mechanics, which was not enough to the energy he spent to study it. This is thought to be caused not by misunderstanding the necessity of the quantum mechanics, but his lazy character as going the long way around the heart of the matter.
1. Introduction
His friend’s advice rescued him from the way to an apprentice of sushi shop. This experience etched the importance of making the life plan to his memory. He thought it over to kill the time after entering the university. However, he could hardly realize it because of giving the entrance of university priority over the decision of his future work. This is not uncommon for the freshmen. They have achieved their objective as passing entrance examination and some of them are suffered from the depression during the first few months of college life. This is called May sick, since the new year in university in Japan usually starts in April.
He did not worse about this problem with postponing the making of his life plan to next year when he was going to determine his major field of study, he thought disciplines necessary to study at that time available to every field. Then he chose philosophy and quantum mechanics and made plan to study them every day. He started reading some book of philosophy, but he immediately faced the difficulty to making an image for the thing written. He read that part again and again, but could not get any idea. He thought the philosophy was beyond the limit of his ability to understand and gave it up easily. Quantum mechanics is essential knowledge to most fields of engineering, so he had studied it with forming a plan as usual. He went to the department of metallurgy, and then got a job there following in the R&D department in the electronic parts company, so he had gotten to live in the field relatively necessitating the quantum mechanics. From this point of view, he made a right decision.
In this study, it was verified what fields his knowledge of the quantum mechanics was available for and how far it contributed to them.
2. Examination procedures
It was investigated what extent he studied the quantum mechanics at first, and assessed whether it was necessary for every work he was involved. However, this study is just qualitative and subjective approach, so that is unfortunately lacking in the objectiveness and the ability of generalization.
And according to the results, it was verified whether his plan of studying the quantum mechanics was proper with considering the factors affected the results.
3. Result
(1) Study quantum mechanics
There was the lecture of physics in the university curriculum which covered classical as well as quantum mechanics. He thought that learning in the class was not enough to his future work and added his own study to it. At first, he studied the textbook written by Japanese physicist after reading the classical mechanics. He could follow the logic, but could not get a realistic image like philosophy. He could understand the many textbook only super facially. While he studied powder metallurgy in undergraduate and graduate class, and unfolded his field to composite materials and fracture mechanics, he did not need the quantum mechanics, but continued studying it.
In the companies, he was charged with taking lead in the R&D of electronic materials, so that he felt the strong necessity of the quantum mechanics. So, he read other textbooks, specific books and letters on quantum mechanics so many times. Furthermore, he read many books titled as quantum mechanics any time. He tried making answer to the questions at the end of chapters in the book, regardless whether they were right or wrong.
The quantum mechanics should be essentially some tool for pure or applied science like mathematics. Generally speaking, you cannot handle the tools well only by reading manuals without practicing how to handle. This fits the case of the quantum mechanics as well. You may not be able to use it well until you operate the equations with using experimental data many times. In his works, the concepts and qualitative expressions were enough to solve the problems, so he could not realize to understand it thoroughly. As a result, his study style was to prepare for the time when he would have to use it fully. This is like an insurance. Consequently, such an occasion never happened until he threw away whole the books on it at the time of his retiring. It is hard to understand whether this is good or bad for him. This is also like an insurance.
(2) Examples of practical use
It was verified whether the quantum mechanics was useful to his main works.
① The effect of phase transformation to the sintering of metal alloys
Descriptions of terms: <sintering> for example, china ware is made by consolidating the ceramic slurry into certain shape, and heating it at high temperature. The consolidates is densified during heating. This phenomenon is called sintering, which also happens to the metals and their alloys (the snow lies thick becomes to ice with same phenomenon.)
<phase transformation> The metals consist of atoms arrayed regularly. Specific metals change their atom array mode at some temperature or pressure. This phenomenon is called phase transformation.
Objectives of this study: To make clear what would happen if the phase transformation occurs during sintering of the metals.
There are a couple of studies on this question. One study reported that the phase transformation impedes the sintering. Another did it promotes the sintering. This study was aimed to find out the mechanism what the phase transformation affects the sintering, and solve the conflict in the previous studies.
Result: it was found that plastic flow happens during the phase transformation. And it concluded that the sintering is impeded when the magnitude of the plastic flow is bigger than some value, and promoted when lower than the value.
Applying quantum mechanics: The phase transformation is metallurgical process which should be analyzed with the quantum mechanics. However, this study can be done with classical mechanics and dynamics, so there was no opportunity to be used the quantum mechanics.
② Study on the fracture mechanics of cemented carbides
Descriptions of terms:<cemented carbides> This is an alloy WC-Co composed mainly by tungsten carbide grains having the mean grain size of sub-micron meter ~ less than 10 micron meters and cobalt binding layer. (There are derivative alloys added by other carbides like TiC, TaC, NbC etc. for specific use. And there are TiC-Ni base alloys.) They have high hardness ranking after diamond and used for cutting everything including metals.
Objectives: To make clear the fracture mechanism of the cemented carbides.
The cemented carbides are very hard, but brittle like glass and ceramics. This study was aimed to investigate the fracture mechanics of these alloys for the sake of developing new alloys having high strength. (this study is a part of his doctoral thesis.)
Result: It was founded by other researcher that the fracture is originated from the faults in the microstructure like pore, inclusion, coarse WC grain etc. This study obtained the way of evaluation of the faults, and interpreted the fracture mechanism for these alloys containing less faults.
Applying quantum mechanics: This study adopted the fracture mechanics which was recently developed for analyzing the fracture of ship. Therefore, quantum mechanics available to micro-scale phenomena is not applicable.
③ Development of rare earth permanent magnets
Descriptions of terms: <magnetic materials> The motion of electrical charged particles, that is, mainly electrons (straight or orbital movement and spin) originates the magnetic phenomena, which are exhibited in every matter containing such particles. Among them, the practical magnetic materials show the striking magnetic phenomena like pulling together with permanent magnet, showing magnet-like power with sending an electric current in the coil wound around it etc. (there are many important magnetic behaviours. But it is very difficult to explain them in short space, so let me leave them out.)
The magnetic materials having strong magnetism naturally is called the permanent magnets. (they can keep a strong magnetization against the applied magnetic field and called hard magnetic materials.) On the other hand, some materials show the magnetization only under the applied field and is called soft magnetic materials. And the materials having the middle character between hard and soft magnet materials is half hard magnetic materials, of which magnetization can keep against not so strong applied field, but responds to the strong one. These materials are used to magnetic recording media.
<Rare earth elements> The elements having atomic number from 57 to 71, called Lanthanum group, that is, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu etc.
Objectives: To develop the high performance magnets based on NｄーF eーB and Sm2C o17.
Results: Many studies have analyzed the magnetization mechanism for these alloys with using the quantum mechanics. On the other hand, the practical improvement of the performances has been done with the classical metallurgical ways like changing the alloy composition, the kind and quantity of additive elements, compromising process conditions, new processes etc. The author used to have the world strongest magnet based on Nd-Fe-B with inventing novel production process. About Sm2C o17 base magnets, quality improvement and cost reduction were main task, as there was less room to increase the magnetic performances.
Applying quantum mechanics: In the most scene of developments, the ideas are induced from the knowledges obtained in previous R&D works (of course categorized in the classical dynamics). Consequently, the concepts on the quantum mechanics was used to analyze the magnetic behaviour qualitatively, but was not made full use.
④ Development of soft magnetic materials (mainly, ferrites and sendust)
Descriptions of terms: <ferrites> This is magnetic materials composed of iron oxides as main ingredient and some ingredients such as Mn, Zn, Cu, Ni, Ba and Sr, of which original substance was invented by prof. T.Takei and prof. Y. Kato in 1930. Then very useful ferrites were invented in Philips laboratory in Holland. Now, Mn-Zn ferrites, Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites having a soft magnetic properties and Ba (Sr) ferrites having hard magnetic properties have been used for many applications.
<sendust> This is Fe-Si-Al alloy exhibiting excellent soft magnetic properties, which was invented by prof. T. Yamamoto and prof. H. Masumoto in 1932. This material is too hard to make a sheet by rolling and is unavailable to high frequency circuit due to low electrical resistivity. So, it is used by crushed into powders and compacted in core shape. The name of this alloy was taken by mixing Sendai (the name of the city where the university they belonged) and dust (powders of this alloy as mentioned).
<loss> The soft magnetic materials are mainly used as the core material in transformers and inductors. The transformers which transform the voltage of alternating current are consisted by the core material wounded by electrical wire. The core repeats magnetization and demagnetization according to alternating current, which results some magnetic loss (=electric loss). So, the core materials are needed low loss property.
Objectives: To develop low loss and high magnetization core materials based on Mn-Zn ferrites and Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites.
Both materials were invented long time ago, so there was very limited room of magnetic properties for being improved. According to the vast advance in electronic circuits, the needs for the components have been changed much. So, the objectives were each ferrite having properties conforming to the needs respectively.
Results: The author have been involved in many developments of the soft magnetic materials. Fortunately, he could develop many new products such as low loss materials based on Mn-Zn and Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites and sendust, and devices using these materials.
Applying quantum mechanics: The performances of these devices using the materials are based on the elementary electro-magnetic properties of them which are explained as the quantum mechanical phenomena. The magnetic loss is also one of them. The new method of the loss analysis was established and applied it to investigated the loss mechanism. In this process, the concept of the quantum theory was fully used, but there was not an opportunity to operate the quantum equations.
⑤ Research in new rare earth permanent magnet
Objectives: To find out novel compounds promising permanent magnets.
The engineer does usually have a dream to contribute to the society with inventing something novel in every field. The author was foolish enough to have this dream as well. Especially he wanted to test the applicability of his knowledge about the quantum mechanics to the research in new rare earth permanent magnet.
Results: He could not find out new magnet after all. The performance of the permanent magnets is attributed to both the high magnetization and high coercive force. The magnetization of the alloys can be certainly estimated for even new composition with the theory of magnetism. On the other hand, there are several models about the origin of the coercive force in conventional permanent magnets, but these are not always available to new alloys. The author tried to make an image of the coercive force nucleation mechanism and search an alloy to meet it. When it was failed, another model was tried. Such a trial was done again and again. Unfortunately, he could not obtain a suitable alloy in the limited time given by the company.
Incidentally, it has been passed about 40 years since the invention of the latest permanent magnet, Nd-Fe-B, was done by Doctor M. Sagawa. It must be a matter of course that the author was not successful. The author would like to pay his respect to the inventors of the permanent magnets, including Dr. Sagawa.
Applying quantum mechanics: Among the themes mentioned above, this project needed the consideration based on the quantum mechanics most. So, he spent a lot of time to study it during this work. However, all of his study was to trace the equation, that is, understanding qualitatively, and he could not find out the alloy by operating the equations with quantum theoretical parameters.
⑥ Development of crystalline silicon wafer production process
In other research and developments else, it is needless to say that the materials and devices exhibit their performances based on the quantum mechanical phenomena. But it was not used for development processes of them. So, the reference of them are omitted here. Still, the author would like to mention the development of the solar battery, of which function is typical quantum mechanical phenomenon.
Introduction: In 1970’s, the world society faced the problem concerning the depletion of oil and the pollution of environment caused by mass consuming oil. The author considered the solution of it as creation, storage and saving of the energy, and moved from the university to the researching department of the company to put his idea into practice. The themes ③~⑤ above-mentioned are done by this viewpoint and belong to the energy saving category. The solar battery categorized in the energy creation.
Objectives: to invent the new production process for crystalline silicon wafer. It was seen by a preliminary investigation that the solar battery is hard to replace the current electric power generation systems due to the high production cost of this system, which is mainly attributed to the cost of silicon wafer production process. This development was aimed to invent the low-cost production processes of silicon wafer.
Results: A novel silicon wafer production processes are invented. If this is put to practical use, the power generation cost of the solar battery is estimated to be comparable to the thermal power generation’s. It was verified that the production processes is practicable fundamentally. But whole production process was not established yet, because his company did not have the technology of the semiconductor process.
Applying quantum mechanics: Of course, the quantum mechanics was used for studying photovoltaic mechanism. But there was not an opportunity to use it in the scene of inventing and verifying the new production process.
4. Consideration
As mentioned above, there is no case that the quantum mechanics played the principal role in every R&D activity. If so, did he made a vain effort to study the quantum theory? The author would like to verify it from the following viewpoints.
・Why did he think his future work would need the quantum mechanics?
Even now he cannot find the reason why he thought so. He took an interest in the nuclear power generation in his childhood and knew the necessity of the quantum mechanics for it as well. But he had already lost his interest in the nuclear power, and naturally must have forgotten the need of the quantum mechanics, when he was a high school student. (Refer to “Science-2 Coping with the boredom of everyday life, Yoshiharu Otsuki (Sendai, Japan) and Yasufumi Otsuki (London)１.Nuclear Power” in Youtube or Website.) He entered the engineering faculty without any idea about his future work, but knew at least the faculty had the fields not needing the quantum mechanics like architecture, civil engineering, mine engineering etc. And there was no possibility for him to get a job in such fields. At that time, some of industries driving high economic growth after the war are electric machines, computers, telecommunications etc. which would never be developed without the semiconductors based on the quantum mechanics. He might see this situation and overrate that he would be able to get some innovation in such a field with mastering the quantum mechanics. He could not make a thoughtful decision.
・Inspection how the quantum mechanics was used in the R&D
Even though all of his studies in the university did not need the quantum mechanics, he continued to learn it steadily. Furthermore, at the time when he was obtaining the position of a leading person in the field of the deformation and fracture mechanism of the composite materials, he did move to the company with leaving them. That was done under his idea that solving the energy problems was more important than his position. But there was his desire of being involved in the fields necessary the quantum mechanics in the background of his decision. This is surely to confuse the order of things.
In the R&D activities in the companies, he used the quantum mechanics to understand deeply electronics, electromagnetism, magnetism, chemical bond etc. necessary to the development of electronic materials and devices. But he did not have an opportunity to use the quantum mechanics as tools like, for example, obtaining results with operating Schroedinger equation. Rather than that, almost problems in his works was done with other knowledges besides the quantum mechanics. In other words, the quantum mechanics existed in the background of his works, but never played principal role. This is like the philosophy or existence of god.
・Could he do his works without the quantum mechanics?(was the knowledge learned in the university enough?)
Let’s examine this question with specific examples.
Theme: the development of miniature inductors using the sendust cores.
Description：Miniature inductors are shaped rectangular parallelepiped with 3-15mm square and 0.7-5mm thickness as shown in Fig.1. They consist of Cu wire sandwiched by magnetic cores as shown in Fig.2. They are mainly used in the power circuits of handy machines, small scale lightweight machines, telecommunication systems etc., which have the functions of AC-DC conversion and voltage transforming.
Objectives: To invent new miniature inductors with the sendust cores.
The conventional miniature inductors with ferrite cores had not been able to satisfy the needs by the recent circuits like down-sizing, increase in current and operating temperature up. The development was aiming to
invent the miniature inductors can meet the customer’s requirements.
Problems: It was well-known that the sendust exhibits the superior magnetic properties to the ferrites, but unfortunately have many obstacles to be applied to the core material of the miniature inductors.
As seen in above figure, the wire contacts core in the structure of the inductor. To prevent the short circuit, the electrical wire is coated by insulation resin and the core material also should be an insulator. Therefore, Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites having high electrical resistivity are applied to these inductors. However, the sendust is electrically conducting material. As a first task, it is necessary to invent the electric nonconductive sendust material.
The wire was put in a groove of the core, as seen in the figure. So the cores are made with the process of consolidating the powders into the rectangular-parallelepiped shape followed by grooving it. It is easy to make a groove on the ferrite pellets with machining, but very difficult to do on the sendust pellets due to high hardness and brittleness. As a second task, it is necessary to develop the sendust material to be machined easily as well as to establish the machining method.
The electric circuits using these miniature inductors have very fine geometry and strict requirement of the electric performance. However, the current sendust cores could not meet such requirements. As a third task, it is necessary to develop the whole powder metallurgical processes such as powder making, consolidation, heat treatment mainly.
Concerning electric properties of core material, the sendust has two minor disadvantages on loss characteristics against the ferrites. These weak points are not big problem in practical use. But if these can be taken off away with new composition of the material, it is more desirable. As the fourth task, it is necessary to invent the new composition sendust material.
As mentioned earlier, the miniature inductors are composed by the core and the wire, so the dimensional tolerance of them must result in the decrease of performance. As the fifth task, it is necessary to develop the production processes of the coil with strictly small dimensional scatter.
And there were many further tasks to realize this idea in industrial goods, such as establishing automatic production processes, developing methods and machines of quality control to prevent anomalies etc., which were available only under the economical requirement.
Among them, the invention of easily machinable and nonconductive sendust material was most difficult problem, because these was never accomplished with the theory and technologies of magnetism.
Mobilization of knowledges and technologies: Every production goods were developed with not only the knowledges concerning this goods, but also utilizing many knowledges and technologies up to encyclopedic one with a maximum effort. In this development, the knowledges of the composite materials was utilized to make an image of microstructure composed of insulation layer on the metal particles and binding inorganic materials in order to increase the electric resistance from 80μΩm of current sendust to 1GΩm (about 10 million times). The tunneling effect which can be explained only by the quantum theory, was considered in this process. And the production process was developed with using the powder technology, powder metallurgy and adhesive technology etc.
The machinable sendust was developed with the knowledge of composite materials, cutting technology (especially abrasion), the theory of elasticity and plasticity, strength of materials etc. The theory of magnetism and magnetic materials was used of course to improve the magnetic properties, the theory of magnetic circuit for designing the magnetic structure of the miniature inductors, the theory of electric circuit and noise suppression technology for designing compatibility of these components in the electric circuit and so on. There were more further tasks to make up the practical products, but the expression of them are left out here. As seen in the above, the quantum theory was used only as the reference of some practical sciences among many sciences, knowledges and technologies. If the quantum theory played such a minor role, was the knowledge obtained in the lecture in the university enough? However timid author had to study it to some extent to have confidence. Still, he might to do it to excess objectively.
・Was the study of quantum mechanics futile?
The conclusion of the above section, the study of the quantum theory was not futile, but had ‘doing to excess’ or ‘doing it in wrong way’. That is, he should have study it intensively only when his work necessitated it. It is futile that he spent so many times to the future possibility. The clever people know it and study to enough extent just in an occasion of needing.
And instead of spending time to unnecessary study, they must learn more important knowledges like management, accounting, nurturing of talented people, business activities etc. which are more essential than the quantum mechanics in the company.
The most serious problem is that he lost the chance to be a leader in newly opening fields due to being attached to quantum mechanics.
・Why was he attached to the study of quantum mechanics so much?
The author, shallow-thinking person, thought more or less the above-mentioned idea as well and intended to get information directly relative to each work in a short time. Then it can be attributed to studying the quantum theory importunately that the basic sciences and knowledges based on it contributed to the works even as minor role. What made his feel unsatisfactory? This might be originated from the difference of approach style to the tasks between pure science and applied science. In the pure science, a general solution is deduced from the hypothesis under the strict boundary condition which eliminates incompatible fact as an exception. In the applied science, for example in the development of some electronic device, it is necessary for the products to exhibit the designated performances steadily under the circumstances expected, so that all of cases should not be excluded as an exception. (As an example, the trouble of one tiny cheap inductor cased the big crash of aircraft. Every engineer involved in development of the practical components designs the reliability of the products with taking in count of such a risk.) This difference of approaching style in both fields can be explained that the scientist in the pure science observes the subjects with strict objective eyes and the engineer or researcher in the applied field treats tenderly the products subjectively as if he or she becomes it (viz. he or she wishes the products are produced smoothly and exhibit their performances surely.).
His idea about the difference in the both fields might drive him to study the quantum theory so much, though it is perhaps attributed to the insufficient understanding of the pure science. However, such an inconsistency always exists in every work. If anything, it can be said that he tried to get away from the tough work just confronting him with learning basic study, which is undoubtedly the natural tendency of lazy person. When the author came to think of it, he can recall many cases.
For example;
・Study of composite materials; chasing the mathematics like complex integral, elastic and plastic dynamics too far.
・Development of secondary battery; electrochemistry, complex chemistry, chemical bonding.
・Solar battery; heterojunction semiconductor.
・Sorry for rubbish topics, he used to be absorbed in the Japanese traditional music. He wanted to learn the play of the instrument used in it (Shamisen). Then he started to make it. It took one year to make up the goods with the right shape, second prototype, when he had lost his interest in this music. ( Every person usually buys the instrument with the money obtained by part time job, but he could not get this idea.)
Like these examples, whenever he starts the work, he makes a detour instead of coming to grips with it directly, which is just nature of lazy person. And it is just the typical case of the lazy person that he was attached to the study of the quantum theory too much.
From other viewpoint, it can be attributed to the way of understanding that he was driven to study the quantum theory. In the European culture, the conclusion obtained by logical development under some prerequisite is always ‘right’. But even if he understood it logically, he could not be convinced of it without sensuous understanding. He should make effort to transform the logical understanding to the sensible one. However, he neglected this hard work and looked for the answer in quantum theory, which resulted in his wasted effort. This is also the typical symptom of the laziness.
5. Conclusion
It can be summarized by the consideration that the study of the quantum mechanics brought about some extent of effect to his works, which was not worthy for his efforts. It can be concluded his lazy habit that he was driven to study the quantum mechanics.
6. Appendix
The book of the quantum mechanics said,’ in the quantum theory, there are many conclusions you cannot understand sensuously. But all of them are true, since they are deduced logically through the equations. Therefore, understand that the quantum mechanics is true. Because if you believe this, you can obtain many useful results. When you cannot understand….’
You can find the similar words in the Bible.
It is true that I (the third person singular is used thus far, but I would like to use the first person singular from here) have already discarded all of the books on the quantum theory which was thought not to be useful in my future life. From the other viewpoint, the logic in the quantum theory mentioned above might be useful to another? That is to say, ‘for believing the God’. It is very difficult for me to sensuously understand the existence of the God, because I used to be a rationalist with no religious faith. In that case, when I can get a reasonable result with logical deduction under the assumption of the existence of the God, I would get its evidence. Like that, believing the God like the quantum mechanics approach is the task left to my future life.
When this is successful, my study of the quantum mechanics will get to bear fruit.
And my eyes of the putrid fish would be able to retrieve the life?
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
Washington Irving
The end
<<< Showing again the story presented in Youtube >>>
- Eyes of putrid fish (1957)
The term of ‘perfectionism’ is generally attributed to the character of the man who has the strong will of accomplishment, while it sometimes means the person unconcerned to the time schedule, namely an idler worldly.
Family usually has a couple of nuisances in its relatives who is fond of chatting gossip and brag. The boy’s family also had such a person. He was called Matzan. He was almost another person of him. That is, he was a person in the family which had a woman as wife from the family having a woman as wife from the family of the boy’s grandfather. He usually joined the meeting among the relatives and wasted the time with his favorite performance (gossip, boastful talk and abuse about absent persons), then disappeared with getting some souvenir. Furthermore, he put effort into traveling around his relative families to play his performance and grasp some gifts during the off-season for farmers.
It was around eleven o’clock Sunday now. The voice of old man was sounding in living room for several ten minutes. He was Matzan.
By the way, Japanese general honorific title is ‘san’ (Mr. John = John-san) and the name containing the sound of ‘tsu’ is contacted to ‘tzan’ (Tetsutarou-san →Tetzan). In this essay, Matzan is also derived from Matsuo-san. He visited the boy’s family on his own schedule of visiting relatives today. As soon as he appeared, the sister of the boy ran away to next room to study. But he failed to do because he could not be good at fast action and felt his mother sorry to meet Matzan by herself. He was hearing Matzan’s talk and the radio sound both with no interest.
Matzan visited around every family once a month to talk a lot of routine topics without asking about host’s affairs and went out with some souvenirs after satisfying his talk. Today’s episodes were same as usual as: The son of his brother was could proudly entered a famous high school. The daughter of his sister was getting good grade though taking care of her parents. His cousin was studying at some private college in Tokyo and may be able to make some company in future. The children of his neighbor could get good grade because they usually get to study just after returning from the school, and so on.
Hearing his talk mindlessly, the boy naturally got to compare himself with the heroes in Matzan’s episodes of which the last story specially made him fall ashamed. That is, he usually threw his school gadgets into the living room just as getting back from school and went fishing at river or lake with fishing gadget to enjoy for the evening. And of course, he had to accept the logical result concerning the grade. Matzan talked and talked endlessly. The boy noticed some mental conflict on his mother’s face. On weekdays, she had no time to do housework due to her profession as a teacher, so she had to finish the households piled up for a week on Sunday. This day as well, she was very busy to do many works at a time. Then Matzan appeared and stopped her works entirely. If she would say that I was very sorry not time to attend you as you saw, he must have spread her curt reception around his relatives. Of course, she knew it well, so she pretended to listen Matzan’s gossips while thinking many other things. Her thought might contain her boy’s grade discontent as well.
At eleven o’clock, it became a delicate time. It means the time to decide whether lunch would be served or not. If it was served a couple of times, he must predict it every time. On the other hand, if there was no serve every time, he must spread a bad rumour. Serving or not serving? With looking at Matzan and then his mother alternately, he tried to expect which she would choose this time. Of course, he looked absent-minded.
All of sudden, Matzan said loudly, “You.”
The boy felt like something fierce to him and stared Matzan. He turned up his chin and said, “What are you doing now. Your eyes are like putrid fish’s. Your behaviour tells me you cannot get good grade now and will not be able to get a good job in future.” The boy could imagine easily how the fish’s eyes were, because he caught them almost every day. He felt he was looking at his face in the mirror, ‘my eyes were like that.’ Then he felt a strong inferiority complex against the excellent people in Matzan’s gossip as well as being ashamed of his idleness. Matzan glanced at his mother’s face. She was a woman of spirit naturally, so she had felt bitter strongly at her son about his grade and slow reflexes. More than that, she was vexed at what her son did not pay attention to this fact. But she could hardly accept others’ criticism to her son. Surely, she wanted to shout back to Matzan with her anger. He seemed to notice slightly that she was bearing not to do so.
“Well, I must be going now. These cakes, can I bring them to my grandchildren?” He stood up scooping and putting them into the pockets of his wear. Nobody was not surely surprised with his action as usual. He seemed to give up a lunch today. She might say in her mind that his leaving time did just come and the preparation of our lunch, the restart of washing etc. is coming, and then forgot to include her hospitality in her farewell greeting. The boy could not get rid of his habit of idleness and have been having the eyes of putrid fish whole his life.
2. Buying watch (1959)
‘Turezurekusa (The essays in idleness) is one of the most famous essays in Japan, which is written by Kenko Yoshida (ac1283-1350) from the viewpoint of his position as an isolated monk and containing 243 episodes like good or bad things, precepts etc. Some preceptive ones of them appear in the textbook of secondary high school, so everyone knows these essays. No. 188 story is as follows:
・・・・・
When a man entered the school of the Buddhism, his father told him, “I wish you should study hard the theory of Buddhism and then earn the money with teaching it to people.” He decided to be a teacher of religious according to his father’s advice and started how to ride a horse at first. Because he was worried about falling off the horse provided by the host of the religious ceremony since he did not have a bullock cart due to his poverty. As a next step, he learned the popular songs. Because he did not want to spoil the atmosphere with no performance after the ceremony. While he was enthusiastic in these practices, he had grown old without mastering an essential preaching.
・・・・・
The essay contains the specific examples after these section, but the textbook was eliminated them to trust the teacher with how to use this episode as an education.
The teacher of the boy told the students, “There is absolutely the order of priority in every matter. However, man tends to start with an easy thing and loose the essential object. So, you should get rid of such risk with understanding this episode.” The boy with eyes of putrid fish could understand the teacher’s lesson well and thought what he should do now. And he said in a low voice, ‘Well, I should make a plan first.”
Basically, he should decide the aim of his life and move to make a long-term plan followed by braking it down to short term one. But he did not grow so old as he could do it, and tried to make plan of study to get better result at the next regular examination. As a matter of fact, his mother was worried about his not good result and declared the start of the dog race operation to him, “You can buy a wristwatch when you can get the result in top five in the form.” This was a wily tactics to stimulate him by hanging a food at his nose to run. At that time, there were only several rich students having wristwatch, which was a prize beyond his reach. “I want to have it.” Even now some of parents adopt such a tactics in Japan. And these tactics is called ‘a carrot hinging in front of the nose of horse’ in Japan.
At that time, that school released the names of the students ranking higher than several ten at the regular examination. He could not how difficult the fifth grade in around 200 students, because he had never attention to the result of exam. He made the following plan aiming to get a prize against the agitation done by his mother.
- (1)Do an imitation of his friends in the family of next-door: They studied for a hour as soon as arriving at their house from the school. So far, he was waiting them with playing alone and then played with them. He thought this an hour study beneficial and determined to imitate them.
- (2)Study at night: So far, he listened radio and played with his handmade toys after dinner. He determined to set aside a couple of hours to study.
And afternoon study was applied to a revision and night one to the preparation of next lesson.
He turned his determination into study schedule and started it next day. However, it was not so easy as he thought. According to his practice, he naturally put his hands to fishing gadget with throwing his satchel on the floor just after arriving at his house. Then he recalled his determination and sat in front of low dining table (of course, he did not have study desk as well as study room). He took off study tools from his satchel and opened his note. However, his mind was dancing and the letters in the textbook also dancing, so he could not see what textbook said. He tried reading it loud. That afforded understanding to him a little. With rereading over again, he felt to understand the content and naturally muttered, “I see.” Such a feeling was the first time in his life. He felt studying for one hour and saw the clock. It only passed 15 minutes.
“Time runs slow.” He got know that time passed slower in study than fishing. He got tired of Japanese language easily and search next item.
It was not necessary to study civics. The textbook of English appeared, but he put it aside since he was not good at it. Then he started on the math to study. He spent an hour like that. He felt more refreshing than usual at going out to play.
At night he was in worse condition. His family listened to the radio program regularly. Other people were enjoying the program without regard to him. Since he usually played by himself, they never asked him, “What happen with you. Why don’t you listen to the radio?”
He muttered, “No way, try the civics.” As usual, he took the habit of idleness this time as well.
He continued this style of study on following days and did no less than two hours at third night. However, he felt dizzy in the morning class on the next day and fell in the bed in an infirmary. When he woke up, the afternoon class was already finished. He said himself, “That is pity. the preparation came to nothing.” It was passed three months by studying not too much.
How about the result of the regular test? Excellent! He got the fifth grade. It might be reasonable that this result should be brought about the fact that the superior students happened to get worse results rather than usual rather than that his work hard. And getting fifth grade coincident to the requirement of the wristwatch showed his habit of lazy.
From just after day of releasing the result, his appeal of buying wristwatch started. “Please keep the promise.” “Of course, but give me some days to buy it.” Such an exchange of speech lasted several periods.
His elder sister had kept the first grade every time, so her mother did not need the dog-race strategy. Then he did not know how she could get her wristwatch.
After dinner, the boy and his mother were at the watch shop in the town. His sister was absent in his team. Rather than that, it was more exact that he did not care whether she did exist in his team or not due to his cruelty to buy the watch. He started looking for the watch from the end of showcase carefully in order. He had never seen the wristwatches in his hand, so he could not choose it due to the lack of taste about it. His mother was tired of waiting him on the chair, while he was looking them one by one. “This one is attractive. But the one in other case might be better.” With saying like that, he walked too slow. The shop owner dealt with him at first, but got tired of it immediately and was chatting with her. “Have you already chosen it?” She got tired and hurried him up. It already passed one hour. He felt it passed vey faster than at the studying.
At first, he refrained with checking expensive ones with considering his family’s economics, but could not find one satisfying his taste. It might be fashion that everyone had thick, thick rim, big letter and pointers which might be categorized as a vivid design. With murmuring that something different, he got into the zone of expensive goods without knowing.
“This one, I was looking for.” He was gasped by the most expensive one made by Seiko.( Of course, the shop was in the countryside and did not have Swiss made ones.) That watch was thin, and had thin rim and pointers. So to speak, it had delicate and chic design. Once he took a fancy to it, he already forgot the price he had been anxious.
“This one is the best. Could I take it?” He declared. She glanced at the price tag and wore a puzzled expression in an instant. He was too fascinated in the watch to notice the change of her look. ¥15,000 was comparable or more to her salary at that time. She was generous enough to say with her thought it was worthy to incite him to study harder, “OK, you can buy it.” (At a later date, she grumbled to him many times, “I did not have much money at that time, so we were in economically hard time after buying the watch.)
She never took the dog race tactics with learning from her experience. On the other hand, his father took this again at his university entrance examination. That is, he declared to his son just before the exam, “If you are in success in the exam, you can buy a cycle. But if you can’t, you should get a job at Sushi restaurant without any chance to challenge again.” Japan has been the society which sets a greater value on the academic career of an individual than on his real ability. And graduation from the university which he tried to enter would give him an opportunity to be on the elite track. Thus, the cycle was not worthy to be in success in the exam. On the one hand, if he failed in the exam, he was given punishment as an apprentice of a sushi shop which the boy graduating from secondary high school usually took at that time. Of course, all vacations are equally honorable. But such a bias was common in the society of an overemphasis of educational qualification at that time. Moreover, the profession of his mother, teacher, put such a bias into her son’s mind. Therefore, he thought that his father’s declaration was very irrational betting. However, he was given the school expense by his mother, so he did ignore his father’s proposal. Anyways, recently Japanese cuisine has been very popular in the world, and sushi craftsmen are said to get high salary. If he became a craftsman through an apprentice, he might earn much money than the company employee. In this meaning, his father might have better foresight.
Then you might have a question how the reward changed his attitude to study. He had a similar behavior to dog which was sleeping whole days due to the lack of an objective, and returned the life of playing fishing. His position was temporarily fifth, but did not go down so much. He got interested in the planning and did it so many times followed by carrying out it for about three days. That is, he studied more than before. ( In Japan , the people like him is said as three days boy( a person who cannot stick to anything.)) Maybe, his not bad position could be attributed to the fact that excellent students moved to other school.
He has never able to get rid of such lazy study attitude as going the long way around a target in his life. Now writing this essay, I become conscious of that this action is one of my lazy behaviour as well.
Appendix
This essay is composed of two parts: the YouTube versions are concerning the topics in 1960’s and Home-page versions do one in other years. According to this category, next topic should be included in HP version. But it would like to be in the YouTube part from the view point of making story-telling smooth.
- Long term plan (1964)
In the interval of lessons, one of the boy’s classmate asked him. “Can you share some time with me after the class, OK?”
It passed more than half a year after he became third year student in the high school (final year). But he had never talked to him yet. He replied to him with being anxious about the reason why almost unfamiliar classmate wanted to have a time with him unexpectedly. “Yes. After the class.”
After the class, the winter sun hurrying setting was shining through the window to the classroom weekly. They were sitting facing each other under the fluorescent lights turned partly.
“What are you going to be in your future?” The classmate initiated the conversation between them. The boy was puzzled with an unexpected question and faltered after thinking awhile. “I am going to enter the faculty of engineering in the university and then become an engineer in some company.”
There was a strong demand of the engineers in the Japanese industries which were in the rapid growth of the economy in 1960’s. So, the generation having a difficulty of earning money under the last war period wanted their children to enter the technical high schools and the faculty of engineering in the universities. That is, his answer was only the typical future vision of the students lacking self-direction who could not think his future life sufficiently.
“Faculty of engineering! It covers wide range of technologies. Then which technical field do you want to belong?”
He was flustered by the classmate’s sharp asking and let slip his real intention. “When I was child, I made up my mind to work in the field of the nuclear power as an engineer. When I was in the first year of the high school, I studied this technology a little. And I found that the nuclear power generation has the fatal fault essentially, and gave up my plan. In the second year, I wanted to change my course from science study to liberal arts. But the class teacher advised me to keep it with the reason why changing course at that time would have a bad influence on the university entrance exam. That is why I have been in this class. The university I am aiming to will accept the students in whole faculty and then they will choose their department in the second year. So, I am going to decide the field at this moment.”
“After all, it is just what I thought. You got unusually bad result at this time’s mock examination.”
The boy could not find out what his friend wanted to know with a look of triumph, and was thinking back his bad result.
In his high school, the third-year students had to take the examinations once a month which was composed of the regular test done per three month and mock examinations presuming the entrance exam in the university located there. And the name of the top hundred students were posted on the wall of corridor. The teachers could advice the students with the high reliability which faculty of this university they would be able to enter, according to the data piled up for long time. In one side, this system was inconvenient for the students aiming to other universities especially private universities and colleges. It was due to competing with another school in this city about the number of students passing this university that such an unpractical system was adopted.
While the highest rank students had gotten good result steadily, the boy’s result changed so much every time. The cause of it can be found out easily. His so-called ‘plan and do’ = ‘three days boy’ lazy studying style was a lack of systematic work and made many holes in his knowledge for every subject. So, his result changed greatly whether the question in the exam met the holes or not. Furthermore, the bad result pointed out by his classmate (his comprehensive ranking was over a hundred, the ranking in every subject was also over 30rd.) could be attributed to a special reason.
In fact, he was ordered by his father to take an entrance exam of the National Defense Academy. His father was born in poor farmer as the second boy which was promising to live out his life like a livestock, of course had none of opportunity to marry. He joined the navy as the lowest soldier to escape from his tough future. He could get ahead a little by becoming a communication soldier, but could not get rid of strong inferior complex against the elite solders graduating from the military academy. And he probably wanted to be most gratified to have his son enter there. His son could understand his father’s feeling, but did not want to be a soldier because of disliking the army from his heart. However, denying his father’s proposal was guessed to be very dangerous to him according to short tempered character of him. In worst case, he might order his son to be an apprentice of sushi shop without taking an entrance examination. Then he thought harder about avoiding this crisis and at last found a way of taking an examination and failing it.
The National Defense Academy usually held an examination ahead of the examination of national university in March. That was composed of the first written examination and second interview. Therefore, he had twice chance to realize his will.
The first round was fairly easier than the mock test in his high school. He had no sooner picked up his pencil than he tackled the questions forgetting his plan of failing the examination. Even if he did remember it, his inferior complex had him think he must fail an examination even by serious action, because the questions were easy for every examinee. However, he got an acceptance letter. He decided to fail an interview. At that time, he got a mock examination. Even though he never thought entering that academy, he felt let down. Of course, he had neglected his lazy study. Consequently, he got the horrible result as mentioned above. He went depressed so much with not considering the cause of it. And his classmate might feel something bad with him and spoke to him. But he was embarrassed about telling his friend the story above, and fell silent.
Then his friend said to him. “Your position went up and down many times. Everybody laughed at you as saying elevator result. Nevertheless, I worry about you seriously and have thought that there is some reason bringing about your changeable result. And my guess is right.” And he continued. “Since I became a high school student, I have had a job to go to Tokyo several times a year. Someday I was spoken to by an adult in his thirties sitting next seat in the train. He listened many things about me. And as I am going to take an entrance exam of Waseda university, he told me his experience. When he was a high school student, he thought over his future and got to his vision as an architect. Then he made the list of the necessities from now to the goal. It’s so-called life-design. Roughly speaking, an architect ⇦ studying know how necessary for it by working in construction company ⇦ studying the architectonics in the university ⇦ studying hard to obtain an academic ability enough to enter the university. He aimed to go to Waseda university which was said to have the top reputation in the architectonics. He performed them perfectly and now was working as an architect actively. Comparing with his life, you don’t have any life plan entirely. Now, you have only a couple of months rested for your exam. But if you make plan like that and study, you can get a good result.”
The boy could not fully understand his friend’s advice on the necessity of the life plan, which he could feel more useful than his own plan at least. More than that, he felt thanks the advice by his friend who had never talked each other. He was a common teenager who could accept easily the friend’s opinion though did hardly his parent’s.
Then after he tried make his life plan, but could not image up the objectives of him at least. Good for him, he could get rid of his blue. And he could keep his study more than the three days boy. (maybe three weeks boy.)
The end