專題推薦：詞解十七大

Text and photography by Brendan John Worrell

On Friday Japan's largest English-language provider, Nova crumbled.

Japanese commuters shuffle past an advertisement for Nova – once the largest private English school now filing for bankruptcy.

It left 4,400 foreign teachers, 2,300 Japanese staff, just under half a million students and almost a thousand branches throughout the nation wallowing in its wake.

The size of this business and its tragic collapse look set to make it one of the worst corporate implosions in the country's history.

The estimated debt is said to hover around US$385 million.

Foreign embassies from Australia, the UK, Canada and New Zealand have rushed in to assuage the anxiety of their citizens working abroad.

Considering Nova assisted with housing – the company paying landlords directly out of teachers' salaries - many foreigners teaching in Japan today will be realizing they are now homeless.

Australia's airline Qantas has since come forth offering cheaper fares home for those stranded.

Not surprisingly the school's co-founder and president, Nozumu Sahashi has gone missing and no one seems to know where he is. He was dismissed several days ago when he failed to show up for a board meeting.

At the same time four of the seven-member top management resigned. One of those four- co-founder Anders Lundgvist, nicknamed the 'backpacking Swede'.

Sahashi and Lundgvist set up the business 26 years ago while the latter was allegedly holidaying through Japan. The nation was riding a wave of economic prosperity and was wolf hungry for English - seen as a key to internationalization and an aid for the affluent traveling classes.

But today 2007, trading in Nova shares is suspended on the Jasdaq.

On the surface, Nova's troubles began when the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry punished the company in June over lesson contracts and cancellation problems.

At the time management had been instructing staff, mostly young Japanese females in their 20's, to get students to sign lesson contracts. This was an issue for many students who were accustomed to buying their language lesson like it was take-away sushi.

As a result of the Ministry's June ruling, student enrollment declined affecting the ability of schools to pay their foreign teachers.

When the teachers' pay was late - many stopped coming to class.

This caused more students to pull out and within months the whole system imploded.

All rather prophetic, when you consider the naming of the school, Nova.

For many language teachers this was short for "no vacation" but if you check your dictionary a nova is a star.

A rather special star.

A star that burns exceptionally bright though with time its sparkle gradually fades.

Possibly this was a semantic nuance that the cofounders Sahashi and Lundgvist didn't pick up on- considering they weren't native English speakers themselves.

Were they to know that in science, the greater the mass of a star, the brighter its shine.

Though correspondingly - the quicker its death.

At one time Nova ads boastfully declared to offer a "study abroad experience at your local train station". And to the commuter so it seemed. Nova was as ubiquitous as Coke or KFC.

But behind the scenes and on teacher Internet bulletin boards Nova was downright dubious.

It was common practice for new teachers who had never taught, to get just three days training preparation and then be giving eight lessons a day.

To be sure, Nova was the fast food of language learning though for years, its nutritional value was always a little suspect.

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wallowing in its wake - wallow - clumsy rolling about e.g. the pig wallowed in the mud

wake - what follows

left wallowing in its wake - the effect that many people are left on their hands and knees not knowing what to do

assuage - lessen, ease,

implosion - the opposite of explosion, when something falls apart internally

stranded - left with nowhere to go

semantic nuance - semantic refers to aspects of meaning and a nuance is a small detail - so looking at the small details of meaning in the language, often a nuance is difficult to see or notice

boastfully - to show off, boldly state, to brag

ubiquitous - everywhere

dubious - doubtful, not certain

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Brendan John Worrell is currently a polisher for China Daily Website. He used to be a teacher and has taught at university and colleges in China, Australia and the UK and also at the high school and primary school level. In the field of writing Brendan has been published most recently in the Tiger Airways In-flight magazine ‘Tiger Tales’, writing about Hainan, Sanya, and in the upcoming issue the sister city relationship between Haikou and Darwin. He has also written travel articles for the Thai English Language Newspaper, The Bangkok Post and the Taiwanese English Language Newspaper, The Taipei Times. Brendan loves China, the Chinese spirit, his Chinese wife and the color red. He can be contacted at brendanjohnworrell@chinadaily.com.cn.