On Wednesday, October 23, 19289, the stocks suffered the enormous devaluation and this triggered the Great Depression. The US economy that had been in unprecedented up-phase since World War Ⅰcorrupted in a day. Japan could not overcome the depression and went to the World War Ⅱ, however, soon after losing everything Japan had a war boom. While the advanced countries in the West were making business out of weapons for the sake of the Cold War, Japan kept selling automobiles and home electric products, became rich and quite recently bought lots of land in the world with the huge surplus money. Soon later the bubble economy of Japan broke and now Japan has been suffering in the economic recession without any way out. Under these circumstances, the younger generation who will have to lead the future Japan lacks ability and mental energy. I am afraid that Japanese economic prosperity will be over in the coming 20 years.
Under this economic recession, the collage students are faced with the difficulty in finding a work after graduation. However, in April this year two young people got a job with the public research institute in the downstairs of the office where I work. One of them is a man and the another is a woman, both of whom are from graduate school in good public universities. Among the dull Japanese young people of today, they are really sharp and active. Probably this is the reason why they were employed. One day at a lunch hour, when I finish my private affairs and came back to the office, the young freshman walked up to me and said, "Oh, motorcycle! Let me try to ride." I told him to come back to a riding world and later he bought his own motorcycle when he got a summer bonus.
The downstairs institute also has a junior college of nutrition. Because of "nutrition" there are only a few male students in the college and the rest are all women. As it is a junior college, usually the students are expected to be 17 - or 18 -year-old high-school graduates. However, the average age of the recent students has been increasing and finally the average of this year has become up to 22.9 years old. Besides some priority seats for high-school graduates, most students are from universities. In addition, they are the graduates from famous public universities, as far as I know, and among them there is one from a graduate school. This year even a housewife of 30 years entered the college. They understand it is never easy for women to find a job for the time being and they expect to take a license as a nutritionist and to graduate form the college that is proud of finding a job for all the graduates.
The young women are relatively more vigorous among the lazy young generation in Japan. Japan is still a men-dominating country keeping the discrimination against women in its social systems as seen in the labor market, but in the private relationship between men and women this country is changing to be women-dominating. While the Japanese women, who are more independent, more active and more talented than the men, are pushed away from the front to the back of the office, those women explode their energy at foreign language schools, at bars, by motorcycling and in the foreign countries they visit.
Looking back the world history, I suppose the center of our civilization has moved from the east to the west in the then frontier around the earth - from China to the Middle East, from the Middle East to the Mediterranean Sea, then on the edge of the Eurasian Continent, through England to North America. Through the history the great reform occurred each time in the frontier of that period and it moved the center of the civilization. The great reform is also required for this county, which seems to finish its ephemeral prosperity, to survive. I think those who can do it in Japan is not the men, but the women, being pushed away to the corner, who still keep full of energy.
Esperanto still remains minor in is population, although it has a world-wide network. Esperanto is also pushed away to the corner in the same way as Japanese young women. However, I think it is a good chance, on the contrary, for Esperantists. Can Esperanto change the world from the frontier?