His answer was something I had not expected – he mentioned “Well,
Chinese students are much younger; they are all thirty or much less.”
That is because the purpose of studying English is to move out of
China, he added. They consider being older than around thirty too late to do that. For
this reason parents force their children to learn English totally hard to the extent beyond my imagination.
That is not the case among Japanese students, my teacher noted. Their ages are
varied from small children to senior citizens and they study English for diverse reasons; some use
English for work; others learn it as a hobby, to use it on holidays, etc.
Almost no Japanese study English for the sake of getting out of home.
Yeah, that’s right. I used to want to live overseas for a long
time, which I did to some extent, and I think I’m done. I feel comfortable
living in Tokyo and don’t intend to move somewhere else. That is quite
fortunate, it appears.
