加速する世の中
先日、ソフトバンクで新しいスマホに買い替えようと思い、店員と話した。店員は２０代の女性で、話し方が速く、ついて行けない。店員は専門用語を駆使して滔々と立て板に水を流すが如く話しまくるので、圧倒された。何度も、聞き直して何とか理解することができた。
速く話すのはこの店員だけではない。最近、他にも早口で往生したことがあったが、誰であったか忘れた。
世の中が加速している。懐かしの歌謡曲を聞くと、歌手はゆっくり歌っている。往年の藤山一郎、春日八郎、三橋美智也、美空ひばり、岩崎宏美、ペギー葉山等はゆっくり歌っており、私と波長が合う。今の歌手は速く歌い、踊り、忙しい。
映画もそうだ。日本の映画（東京物語、チャンバラ映画、男はつらいよ）にしろ、アメリカ映画にしろ、台詞はゆっくりだったのに、今の映画の英語は早口だ。
昔は手紙のやり取りがあった。時間をかけて手紙を読み、時間をかけて手紙を書いた。今はラインやメールで瞬時に伝わる。
世の中は加速するばかりだ。ゆっくり景色を見て歩きたいのに、そうさせてくれない。
Accelerating World
The other day I dropped in at a
SoftBank shop in an attempt to buy a new smart phone. The sales clerk in her 20’s
talked so fast that I could not follow her. Moreover, she used technical terms once
every 30 seconds. I was completely bewildered and overwhelmed by her torrential way of spkeaking. It felt as if I
was talking with an alien who spoke something like Japanese. I often interrupted
her, and managed to understand what she was trying to convey
to me.
She
was not the only fast speaking person. I sometimes encounter such machine-gun-like
speakers.
The world is accelerating. Actually, when I
listen to good old days’ songs, they (Ichiro Fujiyama, Hachiro Kasuga, Michiya Mihashi,
Hibari Misora, Hiromi Iwasaki, Peggy Hayama, etc) sing very slowly. The tempos
of their songs go very well with my heart beat. Today’s singers are very busy
on the stage. They sing and dance as fast as they could.
The
same can be applied to movies. The stars in old movies spoke slowly. Such movies
are, for example, “Tokyo Monogatari” directed by Yasujiro Ozu and “Otokowa Tsuraiyo”
by Jiro Yamada and chanbara (Edo era sword fighting) films. The same can be
said about old American or British movies. Whether the old movies are Japanese
or English, the stars spoke slowly compared to today's stars.
Writing
letters was one of the most popular correspondence methods decades ago. They were
read and written slowly decades ago. Today, you don’t have to spend time
for correspondence. Lines and emails connect people in a blink of an eye.
The
world is running faster and faster. You can’t enjoy the beautiful scenery on
your way. You must run faster and faster in order to catch up with the time. Otherwise,
you can’t get on the ever-rapidly changing bus.
No comments:
Post a Comment