2011年中口9月秋季阅读习题.docxVIP

一Value of life forgotten in quest for affluenceI heard my train approaching. I ran up a two-story escalator and hopped on my train. I was relieved to make it onto my train, but my relief was short-lived. While catching my breath, I heard the announcement that the train would be stopped because of an accident. This was the same announcement I had heard just a week before. The number of train accidents is increasing in Japan, and it is thought that one-third of the accidents result from suicide attempts.Japans suicide rate is one of the highest in the world. More than 30,000 Japanese people take their lives every year, even though my country, Japan, is one of the richest and the most advanced countries in the world today.Allow me to describe some factors of the sickly Japanese situation and to list some silver bullets which might cure the illness.To find the causes of todays Japanese social problems, I looked back at history and realized that the way Japan dealt with the aftermath of World War II might have directly affected what Japanese society is today.No other country except Japan could become a world leader just 20 to 30 years after losing a major war and achieve one of the worlds highest GNPs. It would have been impossible without Japanese diligence. While I am amazed at Japans development, I suspect that Japan also lost something important during the postwar boom era.Japan is the only country that has suffered from the damage inflicted by atomic bombs. However, the nuclear attack is just a half-century-old story for most people now.It seems that Japan moved too swiftly to put this pain behind us in order to grab immediate profits in business. While Japanese society has prospered, it has focused only on short-term gain. Therefore, it has neglected the dignity of human life.Japanese seek material affluence and convenience, but in chasing these things, we have left behind richness of the mind and the heart. In compensation for this, people in Japan have no dreams