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2/26/2024 (#32 this year)
You had a nice long holiday last week. What did you do? You only had to come in toschool on Monday morning and then on Thursday. I bet you wish1 every week was likethat. Haha. The high school graduation is this week. I can’t believe how quickly the time
has flown2 by. I knew some of the kids who are graduating when they were junior highschool first graders. They were only 12 years old and they were tiny. Now, they are 18and about to go off into the big wide world. I hope all of the students graduating havea great time at university and manage to do everything they want to. I hope they don’t
forget where they have come from.
12 differences

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about Daiso
1. The company’s name comes Dai 大 (big) and so 創 (to make).
2. Daiso has 5,200 shops in 26 different countries.
3. The most sold item from Daiso is batteries. They sell 5 batteries every second!
4. The second most sold item is fake eyelashes3!
5. Every hour, around the world, 230,000 people are in a Daiso.
6. Daiso has 8 warehouses4 around Japan and they are fully automated5.
7. Daiso has over 100,000 products. The company say that they introduce 700 new
items6 every month.

Founder of Daiso Dies Aged 80
Hirotake Yano died last week. He was 80 years old. I had never heard his
name before this news. You might have heard of him, but probably not.
However, I’m guessing that most of you will have used the store he created atleast once and probably more often. He was the founder7 of Daiso, the most
famous 100 yen shop chain in Japan. It is famous throughout Japan, but it canbe found in other countries as well. If you go to Vancouver, you will find one
there. He was born in 1943 and his birth name was Koro Kurihara. He was bornin Japanese occupied8 China during World War 2 and he came back to Japanafter the war finished. When he got married, he took his wife’s name andchanged his name to Hirotake Yano. He thought it was better for business thanhis original name. He started a shop in 1972 called Yano Shoten. In 1977, hechanged the name to Daiso and made all of the prices 100 yen. He said that
he did it because it was too confusing9 to have to price everything in the store
differently. When Japan’s bubble
burst in the 1990s, people started
looking for cheaper things to buy
and Daiso took off. Hirotake Yano
expanded and soon had stores allover Japan. He became a billionaireduring his life and probably changed
the way people thought about
shopping. There are two quotes hemade that I love:“I have failed many times, and I
thought that whatever I tried,
nothing was going to succeed. [...]
But I kept going because I thought
there was nothing else I could do.”
"I am not a smart person. I have notalent. I just try my best and work
hard to sell my products."
He was quite an impressive10
person.
1.I bet you wish … ～がいいのに、と思っているに違いない 2.time flies 時間が飛ぶ 3.fakeeyelash つけまつげ 4.warehouse 倉庫 5.fully automated 完全に自動化された 6.item 商品
7.founder 創立者 8.occupied 占領する 9.confusing 混乱する 10.impressive すごい

One thing we can do to help the environment

World record
Do you like Big Macs? I do, but I don’t eat them very often. I don’t go to McDonald’s very
often either. If I am honest with you, I prefer Burger King’s Whopper. Well, this week,
let’s look at the world record for Big Macs. There are a few records we can look at. First,
let’s look at speed. The fastest time to eat a full Big Mac meal is 56 seconds. That includes
large fries and a large drink. The fastest time to eat 10 Big Macs, without fries and drinks,
is 4 minutes and 47 seconds. The most Big Macs eaten in one sitting1 is 32. Joey Chestnut
ate 32 Big Macs in about 32 minutes. And, the world record for the most Big Macs eaten
in a lifetime goes to Don Gorske. He is an American and he only eats Big Macs. He had
his first Big Mac in 1972 and since then he has pretty much2 only eaten Big Macs. Heeats an average of 2.3 Big Macs every day and he has eaten over 33,000 of them. He
never eats the fries.

Whatever you are, be a good one.
– Abraham Lincoln#17 Don’t Use the 100 Yen Shop
It seems strange to write this after I just wrote about the founder of Daiso
dying. I used to do a lot of shopping at Daiso and all of the other hundred
yen stores. My daughter still does. She loves to spend her pocket money3 atthe hundred yen store because her money goes further4. However, I am
trying to limit what I buy there to things that I really need. It is very easy togo there for something and end up5 buying five things. You see something
you want and it is only 100 yen, so you buy it. Yet, it is not something you
really wanted or needed. I have drawers full of stuff from the hundred yen
shop and I throw away what I don’t use. And that is the problem. Because itis cheap, we have no problem throwing away things from the hundred yenshop. Most of it is made of plastic, which is bad for the environment in somany ways. Now, times are hard and people go to the hundred yen shop
because it is cheap and they can’t afford6 to shop elsewhere. I understandthat and I am not saying to buy more expensive things. I am just saying that
we should try to think if we really need the things we are going to the shopto buy. Is there something else in our house that could do the same job? Is
there something wecan fix, recycle, or
repurpose7? And, if
we do go to thehundred yen shop,canwebuy
something that is notplastic? Or walk awaywith only the thing
we went there tobuy? It is not easy.
1.In one sitting 一度に 2.pretty much ほとんど 3.pocket money お小遣い 4.makemoney go further 同じのお金でもっと買えるように 5.end up doing をしてしまう
6.afford お金の余裕がある 7.repurpose 別の目的で使う