Opening: For Whom are Public Morals Upheld?What am I supposed to do about this?
I had long dreamed of attending Tokioka Academy and here I was taking the high school entrance exam. Failure was not an option here and I had hit a roadblock. My intense studying had paid off and I felt I had done a pretty good job on the five main subjects, but my pencil ground to a halt once I reached the general education section, which was worth the most points.
Most of the general education section was made up of essay questions with only a few fill-in-the-blank questions at the very top. Speaking of the fill-in-the-blank questions…
1. The following chronology is related to the policies that rapidly improved modern j.a.pan’s public morals. Fill in the proper year in each blank.
A. _________ The government provided every single citizen with a miniature data terminal known as a Peacemaker (PM).
B. _________ With the enactment of the Public Morality and Wholesome Upbringing Law, all unwholesome expressions and activities were banned. Also, a monitoring system was included in the PMs.
C. _________ A provision was added to the Public Morality and Wholesome Upbringing Law to require all citizens to wear their PM.
That was a basic problem taught in any elementary school these days. The PMs had been introduced twenty-five years ago, the Public Morality and Wholesome Upbringing Law sixteen years ago, and the requirement to wear the PM ten years ago. Each answer easily came to mind. It was such an easy problem I doubted I could push my score above anyone else’s here. The next problem asked me to explain the pros and cons of the policies described in A., B., and C.. That too was more or less common knowledge.
A. was a little tricky since it involved some economic issues, but I would be fine as long as I said it had a rapid spread to ubiquity. B. required talking about the people arrested by the ban of s.e.xual expression and the increase in terrorists who intended to disturb public morals. For C., I gave the template answer about the rapid decline in those obscene criminals.
I answered all of that almost nonstop.
It was the next question that made me squeeze my pencil and freeze up. To calm myself, I toyed with the PM wrapped around my neck and wrist.
2. Explain each of the following: nocturnal emission, menstruation, how to make a baby.
Really, what am I supposed to do? Do I give the answer in the textbooks or do I give the truth?
Moving only my eyes, I checked how everyone else was acting and saw them all writing away without any problem. I was the only one who had stopped. They were probably all giving the textbook answer.
An example of that would be “A nocturnal emission is a biological process that begins once one enters p.u.b.erty. Due to problems in the production of urine, the waste builds up until it is involuntarily ejected.” But this question was entirely unexpected for the entrance exam of the school with the highest public morals record, so I grew extremely nervous, started wondering if there was a trick to it, and wondered if I should actually be writing the truth while being very careful about the terminology I used. After all, I knew the answers not given in the textbooks.
“Oh, to h.e.l.l with it.”
The pressure of the ticking clock and the scratching pencils around me caused me to start writing away.
Over a decade or so has pa.s.sed since j.a.pan banned all s.e.xual expression in both public and private life.
The establishment of persistent legislation and a monitoring system has transformed j.a.pan into a pure nation with the world’s most wholesome public morals. The concept of dirty jokes does not even exist. With all filthy things eliminated, the children grow up healthy and happy as they carry a bright future on their shoulders.
Or that’s the story anyway.