The ‘Tensei Jingo’ or ‘Voice of the Gods, Words of Man’ column of the Asahi Shimbun has appeared in publications since 1904. Limited to 607 characters, the column can include almost anything topical, and is sometimes controversial.
A recent column has attracted the attention of netizens, who have criticized the writer for their opinion on a mother and daughter who ordered pizza on a snowy day, and then rewarded the delivery guy with a cold can of beer and some sweets. While the writer saw this as being a very considerate gesture, netizens disagree.
What do you think? Would you give anything to a delivery guy to say thank you? If so, what would you give? Or would you not order anything when the weather was so bad?
From J-cast.com:
Story of Freezing Pizza Boy Being Given Beer ‘Heartwarming’?: Asahi Shimbun’s ‘Tensei Jingo’ Column Talked About Online For Missing the Point
A weird ‘Tensei Jingo’ column in the Japanese daily newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, has been discussed online. The column introduced an article from the February 2 edition of their readers’ column, ‘Voice’, as a ‘heartwarming story’.
■ Soaked through he counted the change with shivering hands
According to the column, on January 15 when heavy snow hit Japan, a 10 year old girl living in Saitama asked her mother to order home delivery pizza. The delivery guy who appeared around 2 hours later counted the change with shivering red hands, and he was soaked through. The girl’s mother felt sorry and passed him a can of beer and the girl herself also gave him 10 yen sweets. The girl also said she’d order on a sunnier day next time.
The author of the newspaper column, ‘Tensei Jingo’ [Voice of the Gods, Words of Man] explained ‘concern for deliverers might be unnecessary as they just do what they’re supposed to do. This, however, gave the girl a chance to grow up a little, and the delivery guy gained something more valuable than his salary’. The author concluded that there are lots of ‘chilling’ articles but this kind of heartwarming story is touching, and ‘lights the inner oven’ of each reader.
■ A can of cold beer for a freezing body adds insult to injury
The following are responses about this ‘Tensei Jingo’ column posted on message boards or blogs:’This – passing a beer to deliverers by motorbike, is almost as criminal as encouraging drink-driving’.’This – a super chilled beer to a freezing body is just abuse. Surely that should be hot tea or coffee instead?’ ‘HUGE mistake, they shouldn’t have ordered any pizzas on such a heavy snowy day in the first place.’
Most netizens don’t find the story heartwarming at all, and say that the boy who delivered the pizza didn’t see it at all as ‘an encounter worth more than his salary’.
Since last year there have been online discussions about the Asahi Shimbun ‘Tensei Jingo’ column, with voices who say that the columns just don’t make sense growing louder. For example, on September 30 2012, the column said ‘it’s a good thing that we live in a country where we can tweet things like “why go to war over a deserted island”‘.Furthermore, on September 19 2012, the column brought controversy by describing the new hairstyle of Hashimoto Toru, the mayor of Osaka, as exposing his forehead, saying it was ‘bound to be popular with old men’ and that it was ‘like the hairstyle of a tough woman in a meaningless age-gap marriage’.
Comments from Yahoo! Japan:
man*ma*u*66（man…）さん:
I rather think that the sentences are weird because they’re written by someone who’s not Japanese – don’t you think it’s possible in Asahi?
ginnoryu_51（gin…）さん:
Yasukuni, ex-comfort women, Nanjing Massacre… all starting from this newspaper!
日本人のDNAを開放せよ！（ey_…）さん:
Tensei Jingo = on behalf of Chinese Communist Party
cho**n6868（cho…）さん:
Pro-Korea publisher. No wonder the article doesn’t deeply resonate with the public.
oji*a*nh*tukare*a（oji…）さん:
Doesn’t matter what they say in the article. Just hopeless as long as their articles are used in university entrance exams. You’ll be branded a traitor by the country unless you stop reading this shitty newspaper!
rik*m*ru1*19（rik…）さん:
It made me sick. Isn’t it obscene as a parent to order a pizza on such a snowy day? Such a poor guy who had to deliver it probably slipping and covered by snow… I’m very annoyed with this Tensei Jingo…heartwarming? Where has that come from? Great relief to know everyone is equally pissed off.
danji_nippon7（dan…）さん:
I remember when I was at junior high school, the social studies teacher made me collect Tensei Jingo for about 3 months. The articles were even ridiculous at that time and I stopped reading them only 3 days after I started it. I just wonder was it part of brainwashing educational activities?
イチバンボシ（har…）さん:
Wasn’t it only a typo of ‘a (hot) can of coffee’? The writer worked on this article, drinking beer and accidentally made this mistake?(笑) Lucky them though, these editors CAN work in a warm room with some nice chilled beer. Plus they can get several times of those delivery guys’ salaries, who just work outside, freezing. It’s just hypocrisy that the newspaper advocates the gap between the rich and the poor is one of the problems Japan faces.
Comments from 2ch.net:
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
I sometimes do give coffee to delivery guys. How come beer though?
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
‘Something more valuable than his salary’? Surely he’d never ever found it that way wwwww
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
Just pathetic it pretends as if this story concluded well.
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします :
Isn’t it just a roundabout way of saying ‘the pizza’s late, die!’
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
How about revealing the name of the contributor again in this article?
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
He risked his life to deliver the pizza and got encouraged to drink www
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
Beer? Fucking hilarious wwwww Could SO imagine how shitty this parenting would be wwwwww
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
Must to meant to be this mother’s implicitly-supervised suggestion that it’s too slippery and he should just walk back instead.
以下、名無しにかわりましてVIPがお送りします:
Is it some sort of revenge of this mother and daughter for getting her husband/father murdered by a pizza delivery guy or something?
