Lesson 30

Underdog

Part One

Watch the video and do the exercises

Part Two

Against All Odds - A Japanese Story

It starts with a determined Taiwanese-born entrepreneur.

Our story begins in 1933, when the entrepreneur moved to Japan and built a successful clothing company. Business continued to boom during World War 2, as he expanded his business to sell slide projectors to the Japanese government as well as other products like air-raid shelters.

Eventually, he found an accounting problem with one of his companies. He went to the Japanese military police to get help investigating. Instead they arrested him and put him in a military prison, where he was starved and tortured for 45 days. While he recuperated, Japan lost the war. The economy was in shambles; his factories and businesses destroyed. He had little left.

But he started again. Over the years, he built a property empire and help launch a bank — only to lose everything again, twice. He wound up stuck in prison, this time for years, on charges of tax evasion. (The charges were eventually dropped.) And when he tried to start a new food company, he spent a year in a homemade laboratory in his tool shed, watching experiment after experiment fail.

At last in 1958, at the age of 48, this entrepreneur finally hit on an idea that eventually became a company worth $700 billion on the Tokyo stock exchange.

Momofuku Ando had invented instant ramen noodles.

Part Three

Underdog Reads

All in book or Kindle on:

Truth as Told by Mason Buttle

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Fifteen months ago, his best friend, Benny, was found dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. When a new kid, Calvin, moves to town, he and Mason become fast friends, but when Calvin goes missing too, it’s up to Mason to find him, and unravel the mystery of what really happened to Benny.

Hello, Universe

Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted.

Valencia Somerset is smart, brave, and secretly lonely. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so he can focus on basketball. In one day, their lives will weave together as a prank Chet pulls on Virgil goes wrong and Valencia, Kaori, and Gen must team together to save him.

Holes

Cursed with bad luck that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather, Stanley Yelnats finds himself unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake. There, the boys spend each day digging holes to build character, but Stanley soon realizes that there’s more going at the camp then meets the eye. Now, finding redemption for himself and his family means uncovering the truth of what they’re really digging for.

King of the Bench

In the first book of the series, Steve, a perpetual bench-warmer, watches one of his teammates get hit by a fastball, and develops a crippling fear of being struck by a pitch. Content to sit on the bench, he realizes that he is a candidate for the “Goose Egg” — a “trophy” awarded to the player who finishes the season with a zero-batting average. Determined to not go down as the biggest loser, Steve must now work up the courage to step out onto the field.

Part Four

Underdog Movies

Rocky

A triple-Oscar-winner (including Best Picture) and the obvious choice when it comes to ‘the little guy making it big’ movies. Written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, this sports drama has become the ultimate rags to riches story.

The film was also a breakthrough life event for Stallone himself: prior to appearing in Rocky, he was earning $36-a-week as an usher.

Erin Brockovich

The influence of Rocky is clearly visible even outside the sports film genre as it inspired director Steven Soderbergh to make Erin Brockovich, the movie that won Julia Roberts an Oscar for her performance as the feisty, foul-mouthed, no-nonsense suburban mother who discovers contaminants in her local water and single-handedly takes on a corrupt system.

The real Erin Brockovich made a cameo appearance as a waitress named Julia.

8 Mile

A harrowing story of success based on rapper Eminem’s early steps to becoming a hip-hop icon of cult status.

Set in 1995, it tells the story of a young white rapper living in a mobile home with his broken family in Michigan, and his attempt to launch a career in rap—a genre dominated by black people.

The film won an Oscar for Best Music, making it the first film to have a rap/hip-hop song win an Academy Award, with ‘Lose Yourself’, becoming one of Eminem’s biggest hits.

Writing

Research and write a short report on an underdog story that you like. Explain why you like this story.

Submit to: kkgenglishhl@gmail.com

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