英作文コンテスト入賞者発表
| １９９６年上記コンテストにおいて菊華高校は、初出場で見事に 入選！を果たした。 ここに、入選生徒とその作文を掲載する。 今年度の課題は下記の通り。
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３年９組 丹羽 茜(Akane Niwa)
"A new word has entered the Japanese vocabulary: 'Amurer (Amuraa)'. An Amurer is an image-conscious young woman, often a student, often with dyed hair, with a sense of independence and a strong desire to emulate her phenomenally successful heroine, singer Namie Amuro."
The article is from the Japan Times. Certainly, if one goes to only busy quarters - Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku, and the like - one can see 'Amurer' quite easily. All of them seem to embody the latest fashion in their entire bodies and hate to fall far behind in this respect. And inevitably they tend to become as indistinguishable as ants marching up and down a hill. Personality and individuality become lost in popular culture, and people's sense of values and thought processes come to almost the same.
Let me give some familiar examples. A hairdresser, who is one of my friends, said "This summer there have been fewer customers who come here for a haircut or to get a perm than there were last year. Usually, when summer comes and the temperature rises, people think "I need a haircut". This must be the influence of Amuro, I guess. Ah... I wish she would change her hairstyle!" I was surprised by this, but I was nevertheless convinced that it was true. If Amuro changed her hairstyle, the 'Amurer' must unanimously do so too. The Japan Times rounds of the article with this:
......The hairdresser's anxiety is likely to continue hereafter.
A few American men, friends of mine, have come to Japan since last winter. Arriving in Tokyo, they said "Boots....boots....boots....Most of the Japanese girls are wearing boots! Why?" I replied "Er....". In fact , I wanted to know too. To get warmth? To make their feet look slender? Of course each answer is right but, I think, the most important reason is that boots are in fashion, or that everyone is wearing boots. Nevertheless I managed to explain to them this current Japanese fashion. They inclined their heads to one side for a while, but before long we reached the conclusion that Japanese (not only the 'Amurer') are extremely afraid of being out of line with what we refer to as 'fashion'. Americans, by contrast, think only difference gives them merit, which is quite a different thing from fashion.
All things considered, fashion, in Japan, is a means of verifying that one isn't different from others. This is the reason why people line up to follow fashion. I can't deny that the aforesaid is a fault of the Japanese, but it is also true that I am proud of being Japanese.
What are the Japanese in need of in the future? To discover their own individuality? To stop imitating? These are surely right, but what if these faults are the very nature of the Japanese people? What the Japanese may really need is, first of all, to try to accept our faults. Writing this essay, this is the way I think.