Podcast #15: The Japanese Wallet Incident
Have you ever faced a moral dilemma?
You know, a situation where you have to make a choice.
A choice between doing the “right” thing. And doing something for personal gain that’s morally questionable.
We were faced with a choice like that when we were in Japan.
While walking back to our hotel one night in Hiroshima, we saw a wallet fall out of a woman’s rucksack.
She continued walking, oblivious to what had just happened. And nobody else seemed to notice either.
We went over to pick it up and discovered that it was full of yen.
We had a tight budget when we were in Japan. We weren’t used to seeing so much cash!
And we don’t speak Japanese.
What do you think we did?
Did we do the right thing? Or not?
Before You Listen
This is a wallet anecdote that happened in Japan. What do you think happened?
- We kept the wallet for ourselves
- We handed the wallet into the police
- We gave the wallet back to the person who’d dropped it
- We ignored it and continued walking
Listen to find out which one is true.
While Listening
Dictations
As usual, I’ve picked out some dictations for you to transcribe. Listen to them several times and write down what you hear. The answers are underneath. Good luck!
Dictation 1
Dictation 2
Dictation 3
Dictation Answers
Here are the transcribed sections of each dictation. Which words or expressions did you find difficult to catch? Let me know in the comments.
Dictation 1: Umm and it was about an incident with a wallet that happened to him on holiday when, when he was younger and…
Dictation 2: I think it must have been you know ten o’clock at night or something
Dictation 3: Nobody else went to pick it up. It was the two foreigners who don’t speak Japanese who picked up this wallet.
Over To You
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. What would you have done in these circumstances? Have you ever been in a scenario like this? What did you do?
Thanks to www.podcastthemes.com for the theme music.
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Thanks for the lesson! Of course it is a right thing to do as almost everyone think it is.
You’re welcome Karina. Yes, I don’t think many people would have stolen the wallet. I think most people would have done the same as us.
Hi
Music is nice. Great idea.
You did the right thing but you could have been deceived to obtain arrigato only. There were a lot of yens. ..you could have an invitation to have a drink and a talk with the owner of this wallet…but she was busy…maybe she wanted to put off this wallet on the ground to give this money to a friend involved in wrongdoing who had to take it without witnesses. ..it is the beginning of a novel.
Glad you like the intro and outro music Martine! I like your interpretation of events – it would indeed make a fantastic story!