| 30 Years |
January 24, 2019
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| He had thought that this country's two ways of era names were complicated. One was the predominate Christian Era, this year being 2019, or precisely A.D. 2019. The other was the Imperial Era. When emperors change, from the former emperor to his successor, usually his first born son, the Imperial Era is changed. In this year, the Imperial Era is supposed to change because the present emperor will abdicate because he says that he is too old. The present era started 30 years ago, in 1989, so this era has lasted for 30 years. His country has used the Imperial Era calendar longer than it has used the Christian Era calendar, so if you compare things between the two calendars, it becomes quite complicated. For example, he was born in the former Imperial Era of the 33rd year, his coworker was born in the present Imperial Era of the 5th year. The former era had 64 years, so their age difference was 64 - 33 + 5 - 1 = 35 years. (-1: the year when there was an emperor change overlaps) But this time, he felt some benefit of this. On New Year day, many newspapers featured about the present Imperial Era. They summarized what those 30 years were. In these 30 years, the world had  experienced many drastic changes. One of the newspapers introduced 6 pieces of data as major social changes in this country. [The population of the country] It increased for the first 20 years by 5 million and then decreased for the next 10 years by 1.5 million. [Longevity] Men's increased from 75.9 years old to 81.1; women's increased from 81.8 to 87.3. [Age rate] The number of elderly people (older than 64 years old) rose from 11.6% to 28.0%. [Birth rate] The number of children that one woman gave birth in her life time decreased from 1.57 to 1.43 person. [GDP ranking] The GDP world ranking of this country went from No.2 to No.3. The article showed how the best 10 countries grew on a graph. He was curious about this, and checked more about it on the internet. This country's GDP was $3.1 trillion in 1989 and became $4.9 trillion 30 years later. It grew by 60%. Others were totally different: America $5.6 trillion ⇒ $19.5 trillion (345% comparatively) China $461 billion ⇒ $12 trillion (2,606%) Germany $1.3 trillion ⇒ $3.7 trillion (295%) England $1 trillion ⇒ $2.6 trillion (261%) India $300 billion ⇒ $2.6 trillion (867%) France $1 trillion ⇒ $2.6 trillion (252%) Brazil $439 billion ⇒ $2.1 trillion (468%) Italy $938 billion ⇒ $1.9 trillion (207%) Canada $565 billion ⇒ $1.7 trillion (293%) The world GDP rose from $19.9 trillion to $79.9. It grew 400% comparatively from before. He also could see that many countries had changed drastically. For example, countries that the GDP grew 500% or more were as follows. (Each GDP in order): Korea (633%), Indonesia (828%), Turkey (577%), Saudi Arabia (721%), Argentina (720%), Poland (784%), Thailand (610%), UAE (1,004%), Israel (713%), Ireland (872%), Singapore (1,032%), Colombia (573%), Philippines (664%), Malaysia (765%), Pakistan (584%), Chile (933%), Bangladesh (768%) and Vietnam. Vietnam was ranked 75th in 1989 and its GDP was $6.3 billion. 30 years later it became 46th and the GDP was $220 billion, it grew 3,504% comparatively! He had to say that during those 30 years the world became rather prosperous, excluding his country. He sighed. The last data of the article was about inbound travelers from other countries. 2.8 million people came from other countries in 1989. 30 years later, it grew to 31 million people. An increase of 1,092%! He was 60 years old. So those 30 years were half of his life. He remembered his first 30 years, and he believed that the growth of his country was more radical than the present China. His parents didn't have a car license because when they started to work there weren't enough cars and they didn't think they could afford a car in the future. When he was a child, the water in the pans that were in the sink in the kitchen of his house was frozen every morning in the winter because his house's insulation was so poor. As the speed of change was so fast, maybe people in this country needed some rest. In addition, there were many other countries that needed to rise out of poverty. So he didn't think that his country's stagnation was so bad. And one more thing: he expected his country to be a leading country that would prove that growth of the economy doesn't equal to happiness directly, and controlled growth would contribute to a decrease in CO2 levels. |
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*predominate :優位を占める、圧倒的に多い
*abdicate :退位する
*comparatively :比較して
*exclude :除いて
*inbound :本国行きの
*stagnation :停滞