in a landwhere so few are actually proficient in English, the ones who actually arewould be very valuable, however, that is not the case. Having a good knowledgeof English is an oddity for the consensus and uniformity driven Japanese.Fluent English speakers also have their career paths narrowed by becoming stuckas translators, negotiators or diplomats, but never being CEOs or importantpoliticians. Not even in universities that knowledge is viewed as desirable.Students of unusual backgrounds are view as a sort of problems and disagreementinstead of a cultural enrichment. Unlike here in America where universitiesactually discriminate against locals, not only because of affirmative action,but because non-residents of the county and state and foreigners pay a much highertuition. Approaching the end of the bookthe author then turns his focus to how the Japanese use their leisure time.Leisure in fact was not even a word in Japanese and they use the English wordnowadays to describe it. The concept itself is a new one for the Japanese. Notcounting martial arts, they did not invent a single sport and very few games.Even games like shogi, that we usually tend to associate with Japan wereactually Chinese imports. That is of course until the advent of the video-games,where the Japanese are either the top or the second biggest creators of contentin the world. Perhaps because the Japanese areso serious at work and until recently had so few opportunities to entertainthemselves, they do take their games and sports VERY seriously nowadays, beingbaseball the favorite sport by far. Drinking is a very importantescape valve in Japan as people tend to accept anything that drunkards do asvalid and harmless. This creates an atmosphere where many pretend to be drunkin order to behave in ways that they could not normally do otherwise. Again theculture of shame and moral relativeness instead of guilt and universalvalues. The same men who was chasing waitresses and not keeping his hands tohimself suddenly becomes sober if taken to a corner to speak seriousbusiness. Bars can vary their prices enormously and they usually do not havetheir prices in the menus. Some bars take advantage of it by charging absurdprices for their drinks to the point that they have hired thugs to persuadepeople to pay for their drinks. Almost every bar and many restaurants seem tohave a karaoke and the Japaneseabsolutely love to sing. Generally, they are patient and take bad singingquietly, nevertheless they have a limit for their tolerance some actually gotbeaten or even stabbed because of their horrible singing. Things that might be consideredchildish in other countries like video-games or comic books are actually takenvery seriously and are appreciated in Japan. The best-selling magazine in Japanby far is actually the Shonen-Jump, a monthly magazine aimed at boys thatcontain one chapter of many different action mangas (comic books). The Japanese also love theircars and have a passion for shiny new things. It is impressive the amount ofsemi-new things they throw in the garbage because of the strong distaste forused stuff plus the general lack of space most Japanese have in theirovercrowded cities. Near the conclusion, Mr. Taylornow moves to the image