Understanding
the World Today

Dave Rearphotographs byiStockphoto
Shutterstock

音声ファイルのダウンロード／ストリーミング
CD マーク表示がある箇所は、音声を弊社 HP より無料でダウンロード／ストリーミングすることができます。下記 URL の書籍詳細ページに音声ダウンロー
ドアイコンがございますのでそちらから自習用音声としてご活用ください。

https://seibido.co.jp/ad647
http://seibido.co.jp/ad607

Understanding the World Today
Copyright © 2022 by Dave Rear
All rights reserved for Japan.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission from Seibido Co., Ltd.

2

To Teachers and Students
We live in a world that is constantly changing. Every week seems to bringnew developments in work, society, media, and technology. Making sense of allthese changes is not easy, and all too often we find ourselves struggling to keep up
with the vast amounts of new information swirling about us daily. But we mustn’t
give up! To be a global citizen means to be informed about the world we live in,both inside and outside our own country. This book, in a small way, aims to help
students deal with that challenge.
It is organized into four main sections, each with five units that illustrate
the major theme. We start with Economy and Work, looking at new trends likeremote working and Universal Basic Income, while acknowledging the enduranceof tradition with Japan’s 200-year-old shinise businesses. In the second section, we
examine developments in Culture and Society. We learn about the tricks retailers
use to make us spend money in their stores. We look into the dark secrets behindsocial media, and we hear the moving tale of Mats Steen, the boy who foundfreedom in the world of online gaming. The third section delves into Language andLearning. We read about the mysteries of mentalism and the ups and downs ofchild geniuses, and we try to answer the question of how human beings learned tospeak. In the final section, we turn to Science and Technology, which is at the heartof change within our world. We investigate the history of vaccines, the concept ofhealthspan, and developments in solar power, and we gaze toward the International
Space Station and ask whether it is really worth the money we spend on it.
To help students understand the topics introduced in the book, each unit
contains a variety of activities for them to complete. There is a vocabulary exercise
to help students understand key words in the reading passage. Two sets of reading
questions test their comprehension both of broad themes in the passage andspecific details. There is a listening activity employing important vocabulary fromthe text, and finally a set of discussion questions to encourage students to thinkcritically about the topics they have read. I hope you and your students enjoy using
the book. Good luck!
Dave Rear3

Table of Contents
Section I: Economy and Work

経済と仕事

100-Yen Shops: Still going strong
日本の 100 円ショップ：絶好調の理由..........................................................................6		
Unit 1

Work-Life Balance: Do it like the Germans
仕事と生活のバランス：ドイツ人を見習え................................................................. 12		
Unit 2

Lasting the Ages: Japan’s 200-year-old companies
時代を越えて：創業 200 年の日本企業..................................................................... 18		
Unit 3

Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?
ユニバーサル・ベーシックインカム：今の時代に導入するべきか...............24		
Unit 4

Remote Work: A new way to live and work
リモートワーク：新しい生き方と働き方......................................................................30		
Unit 5

Section II: Culture and Society

社会と文化

Tricks of the Trade: How companies get us to spend
商売の秘訣：企業はどのように私たちの購買意欲を刺激するか...............36		
Unit 6The Secret Life of Gamers: The boy who escaped his body
ゲーマーの秘密の生涯：自分の体から脱出した少年.......................................42		
Unit 7

Social Media: Big tech’s addiction to addiction
ソーシャルメディア：依存させて利益を得るテクノロジー会社.....................48		
Unit 8Super Solos: Catering to Japan’s singletons
おひとりさまたち：日本の一人客の需要....................................................................54		
Unit 9Happiness: What is the secret?
幸福：秘訣は何か....................................................................................................................60		
Unit 10

Section III: Language and Learning

言語と学習

Dialects: How English is spoken across the world
方言：英語は世界中でどのように話されているか...............................................66		
Unit 11

Child Prodigies: Raising a little genius
天才児：小さな天才を育てる........................................................................................... 72		
Unit 12

Mentalism: Mastering the human brain
メンタリズム：人間の脳を使いこなす.......................................................................... 78		
Unit 13The Origins of Language: How did humans learn to speak?
言語の起源：人間はどのように話すことを学んだか..........................................84		
Unit 14

Memory Hack: The one study habit every student needs to know
記憶力アップ : 学生が知って得する学習方法........................................................90		
Unit 15

Section IV: Science and Technology

科学技術

New Solar Power: A breakthrough in clean energy
新しい太陽光発電：クリーンエネルギーにおける飛躍的進歩.....................96		
Unit 16

Vaccines: A history of keeping us safe
ワクチン：人類を守る歴史................................................................................................102		
Unit 17

International Space Station: Is it worth the money?
国際宇宙ステーション：コストに見合っているか............................................... 108		
Unit 18

Healthspan: Changing the way we age
健康寿命：老い方の変化..................................................................................................114		
Unit 19

Helping Hands: The growing role of robots in Japan
支援：日本でますます重要になるロボットの役割............................................ 120		
Unit 20

Key Vocabulary............................................................................................................................................. 126

UNIT1100-Yen Shops
Still going strong

Introduction
現代の厳しい経済状況の中において，多くの企業はビジネスを成立させることを難しいと感じています。
しかし，その中でも日本の 100 円
ショップは順調な成長を見せています。現在，コンビニエンスストアよりも急速に拡大する 100 円ショッ
プの成功の秘訣とは何でしょうか。

Key Vocabulary
Match the word to its meaning.

1.     poverty

a. being unable to pay your debts

2.     bankrupt

b. to make possible

3.     retailer
4.     manufacture
5.     enable

c. to produce something, usually in a		factoryd. the state of being very poor
e. a shop or person selling goods

6Unit 1 100-Yen Shops

Reading
CD1-031-03～09Hirotake Yano is an unlikely billionaire. Born in 1943 to a family offive brothers and three sisters, he grew up in the poverty and hardship ofpost-war Hiroshima. Two of his brothers became doctors, but Yano was
not considered suitable for a career in medicine. Getting married while
studying engineering at Chuo University, he began to work at his father-5

in-law’s fishery business in Hiroshima, taking over as president at the ageof 26. Unfortunately, the small company soon went bankrupt and,burdened with 7 million yen in debts, Yano fled with his young family toTokyo, where he took a job as an encyclopedia salesman. That too,however, failed to work out and, returning to Hiroshima at the request of10

his father, Yano started his own street stall, moving from location tolocation to sell cheap household goods. In 1977, he decided to simplify hisbusiness by charging a uniform price of 100 yen for all his products, thecheapest price he could possibly make a profit from. He changed the nameof his small, one-man store from Yano Shoten to Daiso, meaning “big15warehouse.” Perhaps you might have heard of it.
CD1-04

Now Daiso operates over 3,000 stores in Japan and around 2,000

overseas in 26 countries, including the United States, Australia, China,Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. The largest of the stores in Japan is in
Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, a so-called “giga Daiso” that spans no fewer

20

than seven floors; but the company’s headquarters remain where they
started in Yano’s hometown of Hiroshima.
CD1-05

Daiso is the largest of Japan’s 100-yen chains, ahead of Seria, Can

Do, and Watts. Despite the difficult retailing conditions in Japan over thepast decade, all four of these chains have been expanding at great speed.

25In 2019, Daiso announced they would be opening 170 new stores in Japan
during that fiscal year. Runner-up Seria planned to open 150 outlets, while
Can Do and Watts aimed to add 80 and 115 stores respectively.
Remarkably, the total of new openings exceeded even those of Japan’s

7

30

mighty convenience store chains of Seven-Eleven, Family Mart, andLawson, although with over 52,000 outlets nationwide, these retailing
giants are still much larger than the growing empires of the 100-yenchains.
CD1-0635

So, what is it that makes 100-yen stores successful, even when

faced, like all the world’s retailers, by intense competition from Amazon
and other online stores? How on earth do they manage to generate a profit
when selling their products so cheaply? The answer lies primarily in theway they manufacture and purchase their merchandise. The majority of
their products are manufactured cheaply in low-wage factories in China

40and southeast Asia from where they are shipped directly to the chain’s
warehouses, without any middlemen that would add costs. Furthermore,they are always ordered in bulk―tens of thousands of each single item.
Buying in bulk allows the chains to negotiate lower prices with themanufacturers, enabling the retailers to make a small but crucial profit on

45

the products sold in their stores. Manufacturing on a large scale alsomeans the products do not necessarily have to be low-quality. By itself,each item might cost more than 100 yen to produce, but because thefactories are able to make so many, they can keep the costs down.
CD1-0750

That said, not every item in a 100-yen store costs under 100 yen toproduce. Retailers like Daiso are willing to accept a loss on some more
expensive items because they know that customers will also purchasecheaper items (some costing the company less than 10 yen) at the sametime. Indeed, it is the sheer number and variety of products on sale that is
the secret to the popularity of the 100-yen stores. Daiso, for example, sells

55

over 70,000 unique items across 15 different categories, from kitchen
goods and garden equipment to cosmetics, apparel, and electrical devices.
Each month a further 700 new products are added to the line-up, giving
shoppers a constantly changing selection from which to choose. This often
means that, while customers might enter the store intending to buy just60

8

one or two specific items, they end up leaving with four or five more that

Unit 1 100-Yen Shops

suddenly caught their eye.
CD1-08

Like all retail businesses, operating a 100-yen chain is not without

its risks. Although competition from online stores like Amazon is not sucha problem with low-cost goods of this type, rising labor costs caused byworker shortages are an issue. Some 100-yen shops have begun to65

introduce automated checkouts to compensate. Also, with profit margins
tight, the chains are vulnerable to changes in exchange rates, which cansuddenly make imports more expensive.
CD1-09If Daiso’s founder Hirotake Yano has anything to do with it,

however, the 100-yen business should be safe. Famously modest and70

publicity-shy, he once said, “O-kyaku-sama wa yo wakaran” (“I just don’t
understand customers”). Clearly, though, he knew something.
NOTES

encyclopedia「百科事典」 uniform price「均一価格」 span「及ぶ，広がる」 fiscal year「営業年度，事業年度」
outlet「直売店，アウトレット」 middleman「仲買人，仲介業者」 bulk
「大量」
profit margin「利益幅」 vulnerable to「〜に対して弱い」

True / False
Decide if each sentence is true or false.

1. [ T / F ]Hirotake Yano started to sell encyclopedias for 100 yen.

2. [ T / F ]Although there are more convenience stores than 100-yen
shops, the 100-yen business expanded more quickly in 2019.

3. [ T / F ]100-yen stores keep their costs down by asking their
manufacturers to use the cheapest materials possible.

4. [ T / F ]Daiso’s profit margins are basically the same for each item
they sell.

5. [ T / F ]Exchange rates and labor costs are the two main risks to the100-yen chains.

9Finding Specific Information
Write down the answer to each question.

1. Why did Hirotake Yano move to Tokyo?

2. Where are most of Daiso’s products manufactured?

3. Why have some 100-yen stores begun to introduce automatedcheckouts?

Summary

1-10Fill in the spaces with the words at the top.
operates   expand   bulk   founder   shortages

Daiso(1)isthelargest

100-yenchaininJapan,

butits           Hirotake Yano did not seem like the kind of person

who would go on to become a billionaire. His first businesses wereunsuccessful, and it was not until he hit on the idea of selling all his goods
for the fixed low price of 100 yen that he began to make progress. Now hisfirm (2)            thousands of stores all over the world and isstill continuing to (3)            rapidly today. The profitability of100-yen stores depends on buying goods in (4)            directlyfrom low-wage factories in China and southeast Asia, enabling them to keep
costs as low as possible. There are still risks to the chains from worker(5)           and exchange rates, but for now they seem set tocontinue their success.

10Unit 1 100-Yen Shops

What Do You Think?
Write down and share your ideas with your classmates.

1. Do you or your family often visit 100-yen stores? What kind of goods
do you buy?

2. Do you think that 100-yen stores will continue to be popular in Japan?
Why / why not?

11