1 Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:
Where shall we meet? – It is a question which may demand a good deal of thought in one of our
great overgrown cities.
Perhaps the best-known meeting place in the immense city of Tokyo is the statue of the dog in front of Shibuya station. Everyone seems to know the statue of the dog. The dog’s name is Hachiko. This is the story. Hachiko was born in 1923 in Akita in the north of Japan. Akita dogs are famous in Japan. They are fairly large, golden-brown in colour, and they have pointed ears and sharp, clever faces. They are well-known for their loyalty. It was fortunate for Hachiko when a professor of Tokyo University
found him. The professor took him to his house not far from Shibuya station, and there he showed himself a good and kind master. The dog loved him. He left the house every morning with the professor and walked along with him as far as Shibuya station. He watched him buy his ticket and disappear towards the train. Then Hachiko used to sit down in the small square and wait for his master’s return from work in the late afternoon. This happened every day. The professor and his dog became a familiar sight, and the story of the faithful animal spread around Shibuya.
Then, one afternoon in 1925, there was tragedy. For some time the professor’s health had not been good, and he had a sudden heart-attack at the university. He died before he could be taken home. Back in Shibuya, the dog waited in front of the station. Soon the news of the professor’s sudden death reached Shibuya. People immediately thought of the poor dog which had followed him every day. Several of them had the same thought. They went to the little square and spoke to the dog – as if he could understand them. ‘Go home, good dog. The professor won’t be coming. Go home.’ The next morning Hachiko was seen in front of the station, waiting for his master. The following day he was there again. And the next day. And the next. The days became weeks, the weeks month, the months years. Still the dog arrived in front of the station every morning, searching among the strange faces for the one that he loved. In rain and sunshine, wind and snow, the faithful animal was there. He was a young dog, ten months old, when his master died; he grew old; but the daily wait continued. He became a public hero – the best-loved figure in Shibuya. Travelers returning to Shibuya after a long absence always asked about him. In 1934 the good people of Shibuya asked Teru Ando, a famous Japanese Sculptor, to make a statue of their friend Hachiko. He did it gladly, and the statue was set up in front of the station. For another year Hachiko came every morning to wait, in the shadow of his own statue, for his master. In 1935 the faithful dog died, but not before Ando’s work had become famous all over Tokyo. During the war the statue was melted down, and Ando, the fine sculptor was killed. But the people of Shibuya remembered Hachiko. They formed a society for the Replacement of Hachiko’s Statue, and this society asked Teru Ando’s son, Takeshi Ando, to make a new statue.
Today the fine statue of Hachiko stands in the middle of the busy and friendly square in front of Shibuya station. You will always see somebody telling the story of Hachiko to a child or a grown-up friend.
g Find words/phrases from the passage which mean the opposite of the following words:
behind, stupid, cruel, gradual, young
