Anyone who steps out of their own country, where they were born and where they have lived for a long time, will experience some kind of culture shock. Say, for example, when I went to the States. I stepped off the plane at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, and I couldn't believe how large the "S" size of Cokes were there or how hard it was to reach the top shelf in the stores.
But I think the greatest shock came when I first read Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was in one of the core courses at Columbia University, where we had to read several pieces by him in our American Literature class. The first line of Emerson's essay was "Ne te quaesiveris extra" or "Look to no one outside yourself," a line taken from the Roman satiristPersius, which Emerson adopted as one of his mottos.
This was such a fundamentally different way of thinking to what I was used to back in Japan. Back at home all I was told was to look to everyone except myself. Conformity was important. You had to be aware of what other people thought. You had to respect how they felt. You had to act on what they wanted. If you acted on your own, you were selfish and not a team player. As a result you tended tosuppress your own voice. And this culture had become so much a part of me that it felt natural and comfortable to me. It never even crossed my mind that a completely different point of view could exist.
But this ancient American dude was telling me to focus on myself. He was telling me that I already had the best answers myself. They were inside me. What's more, he wasn't some obscurephilosopher. He was one of the United States' most prominentthinkers.
When I read "Ne te quaesiveris extra," I felt a sudden rush of freedom and joy. I felt like I'd come across something I'd been looking for for a long time. All of a sudden, it was OK to be myself and act on my own. What other people tell you or force you to do doesn't matter. You can decide what you want to do in the future.
At the same time, there's a certain irony about this discovery. After all, it isn't the Emersonian thing to do, is it, to find answers in another person's writing? The idea is that you yourself have the answers.
Q1 Kana was so surprised when she first saw "S" size Cokes in the States because:
A1) They were expensive.
A2) They were huge.
A3) They were frozen.
正解： A2) They were huge.
Q2 What was Kana's reaction when she learned of the phrase "Look to no one outside yourself"?
A1) She thought she had better listen to what other people told her to do.
A2) She felt like she'd been told that she was in denial.
A3) She felt she now had the freedom to decide things for herself.
正解： A3) She felt she now had the freedom to decide things for herself.
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