Japan's Dark Side

[seanolan]

It's not like North Americans cover all of the gory details of their own conquests. Smallpox-infested blankets, anyone?

SHHHHHHHHH! Now everyone's gonna want one!

Sean

[Ulver_684]

[metablue]

I think they mentioned the smallpox blankets in Canadian school. It was a welcome break from endless history lessons about people in canoes exploring the wilderness and skinning beavers.

For some reason Americans are often surprised that I didn't learn American history in school in NZ. We did a little, but it was in the Race Relations and Conflict module along with South Africa =/ That was also a welcome break. I went to a girls' school and they tried to focus on women's role in NZ history. There isn't much NZ history to start with, so we ended up learning a lot about women who set up tuberculosis camps and others who taught soldiers about VD in the WWs. I still feel a bit sick when I remember it all.

Back on topic, has anyone here read this book or heard this guy interviewed? He studied the hikikomori and women who live at home into their 30s without marrying and having kids and sees them as Japan's canaries in the coal mine.

http://www.shuttingoutthesun.com

Do you think he's accurate? It all seemed a bit gloomy to me, but I heard a podcast interview and he sounded like a very reasonable guy who does his research.

[Bueller_007]

I think they mentioned the smallpox blankets in Canadian school. It was a welcome break from endless history lessons about people in canoes exploring the wilderness and skinning beavers.

For some reason Americans are often surprised that I didn't learn American history in school in NZ. We did a little, but it was in the Race Relations and Conflict module along with South Africa =/ That was also a welcome break. I went to a girls' school and they tried to focus on women's role in NZ history. There isn't much NZ history to start with, so we ended up learning a lot about women who set up tuberculosis camps and others who taught soldiers about VD in the WWs. I still feel a bit sick when I remember it all.

Back on topic, has anyone here read this book or heard this guy interviewed? He studied the hikikomori and women who live at home into their 30s without marrying and having kids and sees them as Japan's canaries in the coal mine.

http://www.shuttingoutthesun.com

Do you think he's accurate? It all seemed a bit gloomy to me, but I heard a podcast interview and he sounded like a very reasonable guy who does his research.

There's more BS like this written about the Japanese than any other people on earth. In the 80s, everyone wrote that they were going to take over America. They didn't, so now these same people feel free to criticize Japan, pointing out that "they could have taken over America, but didn't, so their economy is going to sink into serious decline."

After 10 years, when the Japanese economy is still rocking like a hurricane, they'll publish a book detailing "how Japan pulled itself from the near clutches of national bankruptcy".

So, I haven't read the book, but as for the problems he mentions in the abstract:
1) Most of the countries from the former USSR have a higher suicide rate than Japan. Finland follows Japan by only 2 male suicides per 100,000 males living in the country.
http://www.who.int/mental_health/preven ... erates/en/

This includes Russia itself, which is a G8 member, and has the ninth largest economy in the world. Russia's male suicide rates are almost double Japan's, and its female suicide rates are almost the same as Japan's. His claim that Japan has the highest suicide rates of any industrialized country is BS. He could perhaps have gotten away with "developed countries", but not "industrialized". And the issue of what's developed/developing and what's not is subjective. Besides, some of the countries with the lowest suicide rates are some of the least developed. Like Thailand. I fail to see the relevance in his comparison, except to make his statement sound more alarmist.

2) I don't know much about the hikikomori & parasite singles. But if he's put as much journalistic integrity into reporting about that as he did about suicide, then I would seriously question what he says.

Also, the fact that he used a Wikipedia link on his page (rather than to a description by a professional psychiatric society) to describe hikikomori makes me think that his book is based more on hearsay than actual fact.

I hope he at least mentioned that this seems to be a problem that is developing in many different countries, including Korea, Taiwan, HK and even the US:
http://www.pavementmagazine.com/teenhermit.html

[metablue]

I don't get the feeling he's trashing Japan. In his podcast interview he says he went to Japan 10 years ago to chronicle the economic turnaround, but it never happened. When he heard about the hikikomori and parasite singles he started to see connections. I think his focus is more on them than the suicides, and he gathered info by interviewing many of them.

It sounded like the Japanese psychiatric community underplays the hikikomori problem, and perhaps doesn't quite know how to deal with it.

One thing that doesn't sit right with me is that he totally discounts electronic communication. He actually says it's not "real", whereas I think you can get real interaction without being face-to-face. Organizing 40-person raids in WoW or running a FFXI linkshell and keeping it growing and active both take real leadership skills. Are texting or emailing really equivalent to talking to an imaginary friend? Is playing someone in Starcraft really less real than going and getting drunk with them in a bar? I don't think so. You're more likely to get some action in the bar, but ...

I know where you're coming from though. My friend came into the office and started telling me about the book and it triggered all kinds of overgeneralization and sensationalism alarms in my head. It sounded like another one of "those wacky Japanese" books. But his interview is pretty good. It's in the KQED Forum podcast on iTunes if you want to hear it. He takes callers at the end, and they have some thoughtful questions.

[Bueller_007]

Thanks. I'll actually take a listen to that when I get home from work.

And I agree with you about computer interaction. Completely different than face-to-face interaction, but it can't be discredited altogether, especially when you're trying to say that these people have locked themselves off from the world *entirely*.

BTW, I didn't look at the actual link for the book until just now. I just looked at the guy's gloss yesterday. The info for the book itself is here.
http://www.shuttingoutthesun.com/hikiko ... hesun.html

The guy likes to throw in terms like "Japan's unique social architecture". And says:
"Half of all unmarried men 18 to 34 tell government census takers that they have no casual companionship, friendship and certainly no regular sexual relationship with a female. 40 percent of all women are also equally lonely."

I'm willing to bet that statistics from lots of other countries are comparable to this, and that he has never studied another culture but Japan's and *perhaps* his own.

Another good one: "Japanese women have systematically chosen not to marry and bear children."

First, I doubt that it is "systematic". I know one of these women, and the reason she's still single at age 35 is simply because she's ungodly picky about who she dates. And second, there's something wrong with not marrying because why? Because it doesn't conform to your image of cultural norms? Note that if lots of *women* are not getting married, then this likely means that there are lots of *men* not getting married. But the author apparently either believes that 1) the onus is completely on the women; or 2) there's nothing wrong with *men* wanting to remain single. I cry "sexist" on this one.

The final paragraph is so funny.

"In turn, I think it helps us understand, in this age of Iraq, why it can be so difficult to implacably impose our values on others, and of the dangers that hubris can bring: how the differing social architecture of other societies makes its citizens see the world differently and how, in the end, culture really does matter."

Right... That's why you wrote an entire book *criticizing* a different culture. Hypocrite. And what's with the reference to Iraq?


Anyway, I'll listen to that podcast later. I hope his book gets posted on Google Books, as I would really like to read it without having to pay for it.

[laughinghyena21]

Wow, that's fascinating. I hadn't thought of it that way before. Where did you learn this?

Thanks! I minored in Japanese and have read a wide variety of books. Unfortunately, none of the culture books I've read go into much depth on the foreigner thing. Travel books talk about it to varying degrees and online sources are pessimistic. The area where Japan's relationship with foriegners is explored most, though, is history (Tokugawa and the Jesuits, Commodore Perry, the European empires carving up mainland Asia). So I've been trying to piece stuff together.

Sadly, I haven't been to Japan yet, but that's because, like you, I was worried about the strange juxtaposition of all bad and good stuff I heard about their treatment of foreigners. Since then, I've been trying to find the most optimistic and reasonable way to understand it before I go. When I do go there, I don't want to be another hapless gaijin. I want to be both understanding and understandable.

... and they know they're not going to be fully welcomed into Japanese society anyway ...

So, aren't you saying that kind of bad foreign behavior is the result, not the cause?

The books that you read, are they easy to get a hold of?

[Bueller_007]

The books that you read, are they easy to get a hold of?

Chucky Boy here is long gone.

[laughinghyena21]

The books that you read, are they easy to get a hold of?

Chucky Boy here is long gone.

Desu ne.

Doumo

[Charles]

帰りました。

Check university book stores. I'd give you some names but I didn't take any books with me last time I moved. They're very bulky and I'm not in school anymore.

[Elfunko]

On Japan's English Ability:

I see a lot of arguements here. One, Japanese is too different. Two, the Japanese are incompetent. Three, they need to get tougher in grading, that'll make em learn. (I'm rolling my eyes here)

I haven't been over there, havent seen anything first hand, but from what I've heard the reason their English ability is so low is not even the kids fault. Everything sounds like a grammar-translation approach to language learning. If you know anything about teaching, specifically EFL, you might know that while these asian countries that take this (long outdated) grammar-translation approach though they may not be able to converse can do quite well in a written language setting. Its like asking a baseball player to play basketball, unless you teach them how to do everything, reading/writing/listening/conversing, in a dynamic environment how could you expect them to do well. I'll tell you the reason grammar-translation is outdated. No matter how long someone studied a language, a learner for years and years, when faced with a situation in that language could not communicate. I don't think the problem is the Japanese or even related to their language, they are as capable as any, the problem is their methodology.

[seanolan]

1) They are not taught a communicative approach.

2) Japanese are taught that a mistake is very bad. That it is better to not answer at all than to risk being wrong. Therefore, if they are not 100% sure, they don't speak.

3) Grammar/translation approach.

4) CRAPPY grading system here. Did you know most standardized tests only require a 30% to pass? 30%!!! Many of them are multiple choice as well, so to pass, you only have to be 5% better than random choice!

5) Rote memorization. They are taught ONE response to ONE question. "How are you? I am fine, thank you, and you?" They don't even think about what the individual words mean; it's just a meaningless phrase to them. "How are you today? <blank, terrified look>" One extra word throws them; it's no longer the samer sentence to them.

6) Japanese youths are not encouraged (in fact, they are discouraged) to hold opinions differing from others. This makes discussion format learning IMPOSSIBLE in many cases.

7) Japanese students have no motivation to learn English, unless they are going into a field that might use it.

Japanese English-speaking is made fun of on many popular television shows, reinforcing the stereotype that English is just too hard for Japanese people to learn. There are many shows that show Japanese celebrities trying to speak a phrase in English, mangling it and finishing with "Muri, muri!" while laughing uproariously.

9) No funding. The Japanese school system is one of the least funded in the industrialized world. I have been told at some schools to bring my own rubber bands, because the budget is unable to afford them this year. Most technology in schools is years, even decades out of date (none of the students have access to a Windows XP machine in my schools...they all run 98 with one NT server. And most of the 98 machines were upgraded from windows 3.1!)

10) Poor teacher training. The last figures I heard said that over 80% of English teachers had majored in English LITERATURE, not spoken English. Many of them cannot speak modern English at all. Imagine if you taught French by learning Proust, or German by learning Thomas Mann and Goethe.

THAT'S why English is so poor in Japan.

Sean

[Elfunko]

Thats a pretty grim picture you painted about the english education. I hope the rest of the Japanese education system isn't in such disrepair. Theres huge national debt, a constantly decreasing working class, and now this type of education system. Did I learn the wrong language to do business in or what??

[00017]

i'm not surprised at all by the lack of English in Japan. what's the big deal?
look at America and its big fear of foreign languages. How many kids these days take a French or Spanish class for 3 years, and then don't remember a damn thing?

Please look at your own country's education system before you start dropping critiques on Japanese methods.

[seanolan]

i'm not surprised at all by the lack of English in Japan. what's the big deal?
look at America and its big fear of foreign languages. How many kids these days take a French or Spanish class for 3 years, and then don't remember a damn thing?

Please look at your own country's education system before you start dropping critiques on Japanese methods.

Well, of course, there is the small fact that, in Japan, English is mandatory for 6 years (1st year of Jr High to 3rd year of High school) while in the US, no foreign language is mandatory and even colleges usually only demand 2 years of 1 language other than English.

As someone raised on American education and currently working in Japanese education, I respectfully suggest that you might not be well-informed. Even if you were, nothing you said refutes the points made by others on here.

Sean