The Citizen, 1993-08-25, Page 5International Scene
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1993. PAGE 5.
Work can kill
you in Japan,
alright
Work fascinates me.
I can sit and look at it for hours.
I believe the laconic old wordsmith Anon
is responsible for the above-quoted
philosophy. I wish I'd said it first. It echoes
my sentiments to a 'T'. Or perhaps that
should read 'Z'.
As in zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Your obedient correspondent here, will
never be confused with that hyperkinetic
breed of human you see zooming down the
highway towards the Towers of Mammon
these days, death-grip on the steering wheel,
cellular phone tucked under the chin,
chewing Rolaids.
I am not a workaholic — a fact to which a
grim succession of teachers, bosses,
colleagues and soulmates would be only too
happy to testify.
I not only believe in taking time to smell
the roses, I think you have to seta few hours
aside to watch the river flow, the sun go
down and the world go by. I also subscribe
to afternoon naps, rocking chairs,
hammocks, carpet slippers, banjo
strumming, bonfires on the beach and
playing hooky whenever feasible.
Switzerland
702 years old
If, by any chance, you saw a red flag with
a white cross on it flying somewhere on the
weekend of Aug. 1, I want to assure you this
was not just a minority group declaring its
independence from Canada, nor was it
someone calling attention to the Red Cross. I
point this latter out since one year when I got
my Swiss flag out on that day and flew it
from a pole in our back yard, a neighbour of
mine asked me in all seriousness if I was a
staunch member of the Red Cross. I replied
that the Red Cross is the Swiss flag in
reverse; this is understandable when you
realize that the founder of that organization,
Henri Dunant, was a Swiss from Geneva
who, for his efforts, was awarded the first
Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
At any rate Swiss clubs throughout
Canada always have a celebration on Aug. 1,
the country's national holiday, or on the
weekend nearest it. So it was that we
gathered this year on the Menzi farm near
Monkton (north-west of Stratford) to
celebrate the occasion. Just to show you we
are a peaceful group, the day started off with
a religious service which included hymns,
anthems and a short sermon. After this the
official celebration got under way with such
things as the playing of the Alphorn, flag
swinging, yodeling and official
presentations. This was followed by various
games (cross-bow shooting, stone throwing)
and finally dance.
Since there arc three national languages in
Switzerland (German, French and Italian)
you may wonder just how complicated
communications become. The fact is that the
Swiss in this part of the country are almost
all German speaking; I am one of the few
Which means I probably would have had a
helluva time if I'd been born in Japan.
The Japanese aren't work-oriented —
they're work-neurotic. A survey conducted
by a Tokyo life insurance company last year
revealed that almost 50 per cent of Japan's
workforce believes their jobs are going to
kill them.
And they might be right. The Japanese
salaried employee works a schedule that
would knock Jean Claude Parrot on his well-
upholstered keister. A majority of the 15-
year veteran executives surveyed said they
worked 14 hour days, six days a week. They
averaged less than 10 days off a year each.
Their greatest wish? Nearly 90 per cent
confessed they "just wanted to sleep more."
Work can kill you in Japan, alright. In
fact, they even have a word for it — karoshi.
It means sudden death from overwork. It
knocks off about 200 Japanese white collar
workers a year.
It's become so acute that some Japanese
firms are ordering their staff to take time off.
Mazda Motors even bankrolled one of its
executives and his wife to take time off to
enter an international ballroom dance
competition. The executive complied, but he
was edgy about being away from his desk.
"Two weeks was a long time" he says.
Japan even has the National Recreation
Association. It's a government body that
trains "leisure counsellers", who in turn
teach stressed-out workers how to relax and
members who is fluent in two other
languages. I recall one year when the Swiss
consul came down from Toronto to give
official greetings. He understandably gave
most of his speech in Swiss German but
paused at one point, took a deep breath and
switched to French. After a few minutes
during which everybody listened politely, he
returned to German and finished what he had
to say. Not wanting him to think he had
wasted all his French, I went up to him at the
end of the ceremony and thanked him
profusely in French for his efforts. "Thank
goodness," he replied, "I was wondering if
anybody would understand what I said."
I cannot continue without a few words
about the yodeling. You may think that'
yodeling is yodeling but I can assure you
that the Swiss variation is the real kind and
is not to be mentioned in the same breath as
that done by cowboys. Perhaps I am
prejudiced but I have always thought that the
latter was in the category reserved for the
wailings of constipated coyotes.
You may wonder how the Swiss can claim
702 years when Canada is only at the 125
mark. A little history lesson is in order. It
was back in the 13th century when Rudolf I,
Hapsburg, emperor of that area which forms
part of what is Switzerland today, had
promised to take a personal interest in the
affairs of the three cantons of Uri, Schwyz
and Lower Unterwalden. He was, however, a
busy man and did not see why he had to
leave his castle and go off into the
mountains to rule on such things as the
ownership of goats. Nevertheless he didn't
hesitate in tripling taxes, levying a toll at the
entrance of the St. Gotthard pass and gaining
control over the land that surrounded the
three cantons. With that the Swiss decided
they had had enough.
I should point out that they went about it
in a crafty way. They waited until Rudolf
died and on Aug. 1, 1291, before the
Hapsburgs could select a new emperor, the
Swiss got together to sign an eternal pact
enjoy themselves.
Not that you have to emigrate to Tokyo or
Osaka to qualify as a terminal workaholic.
Consider the case of Wendell Parrish.
If there was ever a flesh-and-blood
representation of a textbook workaholic, it
was Wendell. He didn't smoke. He didn't
drink. He didn't chase women or waste time
or money on foolishness like dancing or
fishing or horse racing. Wendell worked. He
toiled for 28 years as a bookkeeper in a
Portland, Oregon firm.
For all that time Wendell never left the
state of Oregon — as far as anyone knows, he
never even went beyond the city limits.
But that was okay, because Wendell had a
plan. He was going to travel around the
world. Japan, Australia, Europe, Argentina —
all the places Wendell had spent his
weekends and evenings reading about down
at the local library. He would visit the
Russian Steppes, the Great Wall of China,
the Pyramids, Stonehenge.
It was no pipe dream. Wendell Parrish
even taught himself French and German. He
saved every penny he could.
But mostly what Wendell Parrish hoarded
was time. Vacation time. In 28 years
Wendell never took any time off and when
he hit retirement he had an incredible 78
weeks of vacation owing to him.
Moral of the story? Search me. And don't
ask Wendell Parrish. You can't. While
packing to head off for the airport, Wendell
died of a massive heart attack.
which affirmed their independence from the
Hapsburgs; they also promised to help each
other should there by any encroachment on
their rights.
Things not moving as fast in those days, it
was 1315 before the Hapsburgs got around
to challenging this pact. They were defeated,
as they were again in 1386 and 1388. By the
last date the original three cantons had
grown eight. The oaths of 1291 were
reaffirmed in 1393 and the Confederation
was on its way to being the size it is today.
• Well, you might ask, where does William
Tell fit into all this? The legend of Tell
originates in the period of the creation of the
Confederation but I am sorry to tell you that
the Swiss (most of them) are prepared to
admit there is far more fiction than fact in
the legend. The same holds true to the
history lesson which I gave you above, but
no matter. A legend is sometimes worth a
thousand words. There is another story, that
the first Swiss historian to warn the Swiss
that Tell was not all he was supposed to be,
was saved from a national lynching by the
fact that his revelations were so unspeakably
dull few people bothered to read them.
But then few Canadians are aware, or care,
that Sir John A. MacDonald, the founder of
Canada, was a confirmed alcoholic. We have
become a great nation in spite of it just as
the Swiss have maintained their democracy
oblivious to the fact that William Tell was
not all that he was cracked up to be.
During the course of our celebrations on
Aug. 1, we sang both the Canadian and
Swiss national anthems (no, the latter is not
Rossini's William Tell Overture). If for a day
I felt a bit more Swiss (I had, after all, just
come back from a month there), the rest of
the year I am sure everybody feels .very
Canadian with taxes to pay, incomes to be
earned and problems to be solved. I will,
however, continue to enlighten my classes
with my version of how the holes get in
Swiss cheese and how Beethoven came to
write his Alphom Concerto.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
That first step
is ours
Agoraphobia is a pronounced fear of
public or open places. People who suffer
from it are afraid to step out of their door.
Though it's always hard to comprehend
such extreme reaction this is one that I can
somewhat sympathize with. An acquaintance
of mine has always been rather shy. She's
never been particularly thrilled with the
prospect of crowded places; she will often
go out of her way to avoid them. Knowing
that she must attend something where she
knows there will be a lot of people or if the
situation is new can cause her to be
nauseous.
She is fortunate to have a spouse who
loves to be among people, children-that have
been very active and a job that ensures she
must be places she normally would avoid.
I can't help wondering, however, why she
is the way she is. She remembers as a child,
never being comfortable in a large group.
Her parents, she says, never understood and
pushed her into situations.
That does seem to be the easy answer
these days — look at a child's failings and
attribute them in some way to a mistake
made by their parents. As if raising a child
isn't difficult enough, let's ladle parents full
of guilt besides. I have spoken to so many
parents who will, in commenting on one of
their children's character flaws, auto-
matically suggest they should have done
something different; that they made a
mistake in judgement that caused this streak
of wildness, this bad attitude, this laziness.
And if they can't pin it down to faulty
rearing, they'll pin it down to faulty genes,
though these are usually the minor flaws
which are typically passed on to the spouse.
"He gets that bad temper from my wife's
side of the family."
"She's stubborn like her father."
So if parents have sole responsiblity,
whether inherited or taught, what possible
hope is there for kids like Herman and Druie
Dutton These boys aged 15 and 12 are the
sons of Lonnie Dutton, a vicious, sadistic,
brutal man who not only victimized his
children, but had his entire family, parents
included, terrified of him. So disgusting was
this subhuman that he used to make the
children beat their own mother.
Anyway, after years of mental, physical
and sexual abuse, Herman and Druie decided
that there was only one way to protect
themselves and their two siblings from the
man the courts had appointed to look after
them after their mother left. They shot him
as he slept.
Were they just following in Daddy's
footsteps, seeing violence as the solution to
everything or was it an act of strength and
bravery? The residents of Rush Springs,
Oklahoma, where the boys live, think the
latter.
There are a lot of people who, like the
Dutton boys have been failed by the courts,
society and their parents, yet have gone on to
become good, strong people. Others I
wonder, perhaps use their trials as an excuse.
While it's easy to blame someone for the
way we are and just continue on isn't it just
an easy out? There is help somewhere if we
openly recognize our fears and flaws and
have the strength to take responsiblity for
these weaknesses.
To make the changes in our life is within
us all though it may not be easy. Whoever is
to blame or take credit for who we are may
have begun one place but ultimately it can
end with us. Having the desire and power to
take the first step can only be left to us.
Arthur Black