Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Japanese Sarcasm

Today when I studied in library, I was listening to Japanese pop music. I think it's a first time to listen to Japanese music here.. Do I miss Japan?
Anyway, I listened to a song sung by Mr. Children; that is a very famous pop singers' group in Japan. I guess they sang this song about 10 years ago, it'd be right after the bubble economy burst in Japan. When I listened to this song 10 years ago, I enjoyed it as just a song, but now I found very interesting sarcasm in this song. :-)

I tried to translate a part of this song to English, is it sophisticated?

In a complicated and intricate society
Work hard in a gigantic organization, Japanese salary men!
You compete with rivals by your education, intelligence and business card
You support our future of Japan, thanks
And you , you're having an instant food as a dinner in your office alone, today too?
But you never be recompensed for your efforts


I think this lyric expresses our business life with reality. Japanese are not special people, they only like to work hard and I guess they have a strange philosophy; "working a lot is a good job"; poor Japanese workers! I guess, our development and economic power were produced by our incessant efforts and self-sacrifices, you know.

Lately, do you know this song? Guess what! :D

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