Not long ago, I came to loathe a particular word. The word — which I used to believe in and cherish — is now, perhaps, the most misused of all those in the Japanese language. It is yume (dream).
How, you may well wonder, did this lovely sounding and often poetically connotative little word become demeaned and degraded?
When my four children were attending Japanese kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, every single principal at every single graduation ceremony — and I went to them all — gave a speech exhorting the young graduates to "have a dream." At face value, it sounded quite innocent and inspiring — yet as the years went by I began to wonder what those sincere and dedicated educators truly meant by "dream."
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