striferser
Huge Nickleback Fan
Sick reference!
This is unfortunately true.
USA and Japan is too different, there are several thing that many country could follow from Japan, but turning full japanese is a bad idea.
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Politico OpEd: Should We be Turning Japanese?
- Thread starter Antiochus
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USA and Japan is too different, there are several thing that many country could follow from Japan, but turning full japanese is a bad idea.
having lived elsewhere in Asia and currently teaching English at a Japanese engineering company, it's incredible just how low the overall level of English is. I had one student not know the meaning of the word "insect", and several others visibly nervous when I ask them to explain the difference between a/an. I feel for them a bit because English education sucks here, but this is the sort of thing that would be laughable in some other countries.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I've never seen such awkward expressions as Japanese people when they are asked a question in English. They look like they are in physical pain.
I have one student who is quite bright and has decent English overall....but there are times when he just damn near freezes when I ask him to do the most basic things. This is compounded in my job by the fact that these guys are engineers and not naturally inclined towards language stuff in the first place (for the most part).
Not all of my students are like that though.
Not everyone's worlds revolve around their English ability. This isn't laughable at all.
michaelius
Banned
I don't know if this is Asia specific issue. It took me several tries to find someone in Barcelona who would speak english when I tried to find my way in non tourist part of city.
well several of my students work closely with the (American) parent company and give presentations and do other work in English - so their work does partly revolve around their English ability actually. (that said, I regret using "laughable" in my original post since that comes across as kinda strong and rude to my students, who I really do like. But my overall point still stands).
edit - and actually, I think it's less the low level that's the problem, rather it's the "english is scary" mindset that you see among a lot of Japanese - which ain't no thing if you've got no need for it in your daily life, but working at a major subsidiary of an American company is an issue imo.
Chocolate & Vanilla
Fuck Strawberry
I judge it more on learning a second language especially seeing as the main reason English is an international language is because of our 400 year long imperialism forcing it on a good quarter of the world.
You won't see many Brits learning Spanish despite that also being an international language ( also a result of imperialism) and I think that's a more level judgement.
I'm in no way defending the article or Japan's political policies. I'm just saying that those points made in the post I quoted can be attributed to many of the most prominent economies around the world and are not a sole result of Japan's approach as countries with different international and domestic policies suffer the same negatives.
So you guys are saying I shouldn't go to Japan and teach English for a couple years?
No you should, it's great, it's the best kind of culture shock you can get.
Growing up in the west you innately/unconsciously grow a sense of superiority for
- white people (I mean the privileged sense, not the racist one, though for some that too)
- WASP capitalism
- multiculturalism
- free speech democracy
- equality
- flexible jobs
- the need to stick it to the man
To live in an Asian country, especially Japan that is in many ways more advanced and civilized, shakes these unconsciously held beliefs that this is what is necessary to be prosperous in the first world, to the core.
Of course get out before you actually get ingrained in the stifling work/life culture. Because while the overall wealth, courtesy and cleanliness is amazing, the rest is perhaps not so much.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I have to say, I admire your passion for this. It's good to see people have passion for just causes.
Personally everyone here's got that thing or two that brings out the unfiltered side of them, and I guess that shouldn't be shamed. It's part of what makes us human.
SliceSabre
Banned
Every country can learn a bit from every country. The biggest issue is every country's culture is different which hampers any actual changes happening.
Grass is always greener on the other side etc...
Yeah a huge portion of the population knows Spanish, but not because Americans in droves are running out to learn spanish, its because of heavy immigration from mexico and south america. The average natural born American is not learning Spanish or any other foreign language because we don't need to.
Grass is always greener on the other side etc...
Works the same here in the United States.
Yeah a huge portion of the population knows Spanish, but not because Americans in droves are running out to learn spanish, its because of heavy immigration from mexico and south america. The average natural born American is not learning Spanish or any other foreign language because we don't need to.
In western culture the thing that everyone despises is Nazi Germany for killing six million Jews. This is something that everyone knows. No one tries to whitewash it or revise history to portray Nazi Germany in a positive light. There are Jews living to this day that can recount person stories or stories from their ancestors of these savage times.
However, on the internet, we have people from all over the world from different backgrounds and some of those people have their own Nazi Germany that inflicted similar levels of atrocities. Atrocities where the wounds are actually personal and yet to heal. Remember that the 19th-20th century is the most violent and evil period in human history and that was very recent. In many cases, the perpetrators of these atrocities continue to enjoy success and prosperity while their victims are still reeling.
Here is an example of a terrible atrocity that isn't that well known other than "bad things happened there". In the late 1800s, Belgium's King Leopold went to the Congo and enslaved the people using his armed pirates. He forced the Congolese to work in the most inhumane conditions, physically, economically and mentally, while he raped their lands of its resources.
Ammunition was very expensive to import to the Congo so Leopold thought of a rule. For every bullet that his men fire, they must bring him the severed hand of a human to prove their kill. His fear was that his men would use his bullets to hunt animals for their own profit. His fear was warranted because his men were just as greedy as he was.
To keep Leopold from finding out about the bullets they used on their side ops, his men accepted severed hands from the Congolese workers when they were unable to meet their unrealistic rubber quotas. The workers had no choice but to provide severed hands because the penalties for not meeting those ridiculous rubber quotas was complete and total annihilation. This turned the Congolese people against each other and some raided neighbouring villages to collect severed hands. Human hands became a currency and soldiers were paid bonuses based on how many hands they collected.
Before Leopold showed up with his band of savages, the Congo had 20 million inhabitants. After Leopold's 20 year reign of terror, only 10 million survivors remained.
And even after Leopold's reign, the Belgians weren't done. They imported their eugenics and racial segregation. The divisions that they created/exacerbated led to the Rwandan genocide (800k slaughtered) as well as numerous other conflicts within and around the Congo (e.g. Burundi's impending war). Unfortunately, because these atrocities took place in the heart of the Africa, the Belgians were able to quietly revise history and change Leopold from a devil wearing human skin to a hero that protected the Congolese from Arab slavers and civilised them.
To put this into perspective using something relatable, imagine that statue with Hitler standing there and a Jewish woman thanking him for his heroic deeds. "Thanks for saving us from debt and making our nation a world power!"
The Royal Museum for Central Africa was built in Belgium in 1990. It contains no reference to the atrocities that took place in the Belgian Congo and defined it. This is what happens when revisionists do their thing unimpeded.
Other atrocities that I can think of are Russia's Circassian genocide, Turkey's Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides, the Soviet Union's Ukrainian genocide, Croatia's Serbian genocide, Nigeria's Igbo genocide, Pakistan's Bengali genocide, Pol Pot's Cambodian genocide, and the Rwandan genocide. There are many, many more, unfortunately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
On Japan, they committed numerous genocides during World War II. The amount of civilians they killed rivals the number of Jews killed by their Nazi allies. Their actions were informed by the savage Emperor Hirohito's scorched earth policy, the "three alls", which is "kill all, burn all, loot all".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
Just think of the worst thing that can be done to a person. Whatever you might of just thought of, it's already been done to a human being by Japanese soldiers during WWII. From widespread sexual slavery and genocide to chemical warfare and cannibalism. There were no lines left uncrossed.
The thing that disturbs me the most is their widespread human experimentation. It involved live dissections (without anaesthesia) of people (infants to adults) who were forcefully injected with the most heinous diseases known to man. Organs and limbs were frequently removed for observation and sometimes reattached to other parts of the body. At one point, they stopped injecting people with STDs in favour of forcing STD infected prisoners to have sex with uninfected prisoners (if not, they'd be shot). All throughout, the experimenters and guards raped the prisoners (even if they were mutilated) to forcefully impregnate and, of course, to satisfy their base desires.
The point of this post was to explain why someone might have a strong negative emotional reaction to an article that is not only revising history and downplaying atrocities, but crediting oppressors for the success of their victims. India isn't one of the world's largest economies because of the British.
1990? Unless we have two, the one I can think off was built a century earlier. When Leopold II was still alive. It also wasn't renovated since 1958, when Belgium still held Congo so the permanent collection remained unchanged since then as well. It has since held some more honest showings of Congo, although its mission has also changed a lot with a focus on modern Africa and on its huge research department. (The museum itself represents maybe 10% of what is stored away in those basements.) The true test will of course be to see what they have done with the place after 2017, after the renovation.
Without knowing foreign languages you cannot communicate much with foreigners on the internet, that makes you slower to learn from the world's knowledge than people who do know English. Sounds imperialistic but ultimately I know I'd be much worse at my job without knowing English and being able to access the knowledge only written down in that language. If you only know a language spoken by only one country you will simply not be able to access that knowledge, you'll be worse off for it and you may need to learn many lessons the hard way that people had figured out long ago.
I just read about it in the legacy section in Leopold's Wikipedia. I'm glad to hear that there has been progress since then. Still, I think they should have a museum dedicated entirely to the Congo.
Great post. I agree with every word of it.
Unfortunely Japan's soft power has allowed it to hold onto some of its ugly past without getting wide spread condemnation.
English is the lingua franca of the world, the modern day latin. It's the universal language for science and industry to the point that not speaking it well is severely debilitating. I'm not a native speaker myself, for the record, and I'm immensely grateful that the Swedish government saw the writing on the wall decades ago and made English mandatory. My world is infinitely larger thanks to it.
Of course, Japanese has more than 10 times as many speakers as Swedish so it's not directly comparable. But even 130 million speakers is nothing compared to the 1.5 to 2 billion that speak or at least understand English to some degree.
Finaika
Member
What about anime tho?
DeliciousDoc
Member
western brainwashing that diversity=good and constant growth is the new god shows that are schools are doing their job. (can anyone explain why or just repeat it over and over)
do you know who benefits from a growing consumer base? its probably not you.
A lot of the things people say about japan is repeating the same thing they heard over and over. Did you know all foreigners in Japan used to believe there was no fluoride in toothpaste in Japan? people who cant even read the ingredient list. Japan has been changing since the 1990s but peoples perception hasnt.
do you know who benefits from a growing consumer base? its probably not you.
A lot of the things people say about japan is repeating the same thing they heard over and over. Did you know all foreigners in Japan used to believe there was no fluoride in toothpaste in Japan? people who cant even read the ingredient list. Japan has been changing since the 1990s but peoples perception hasnt.
Great points.
I should add to the fact that their neighboring countries, Korea and China have had way more economic and political influences to the global market in the last few years than Japan have in double of that. Its almost like Japan wants to stay evem more isolated from the world at large.
If anything, people perception have became more optimistic towards Japan, more than they deserve because of its isolating status they let them believe, but inherently speaking the country has to accept the fact that its dwindling. Whether that has something to do with the aging population or the lack of diversity, I am not too sure, but there are problems and it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to it just because you don't agree with the western ideas of Diversity and population control.
If you're counting on immortality to solve the problem of a country it's pretty clear that country isn't in a good position.
Maedre
Banned
In western culture the thing that everyone despises is Nazi Germany for killing six million Jews. This is something that everyone knows. No one tries to whitewash it or revise history to portray Nazi Germany in a positive light. There are Jews living to this day that can recount person stories or stories from their ancestors of these savage times.
However, on the internet, we have people from all over the world from different backgrounds and some of those people have their own Nazi Germany that inflicted similar levels of atrocities. Atrocities where the wounds are actually personal and yet to heal. Remember that the 19th-20th century is the most violent and evil period in human history and that was very recent. In many cases, the perpetrators of these atrocities continue to enjoy success and prosperity while their victims are still reeling.
Here is an example of a terrible atrocity that isn't that well known other than "bad things happened there". In the late 1800s, Belgium's King Leopold went to the Congo and enslaved the people using his armed pirates. He forced the Congolese to work in the most inhumane conditions, physically, economically and mentally, while he raped their lands of its resources.
Ammunition was very expensive to import to the Congo so Leopold thought of a rule. For every bullet that his men fire, they must bring him the severed hand of a human to prove their kill. His fear was that his men would use his bullets to hunt animals for their own profit. His fear was warranted because his men were just as greedy as he was.
To keep Leopold from finding out about the bullets they used on their side ops, his men accepted severed hands from the Congolese workers when they were unable to meet their unrealistic rubber quotas. The workers had no choice but to provide severed hands because the penalties for not meeting those ridiculous rubber quotas was complete and total annihilation. This turned the Congolese people against each other and some raided neighbouring villages to collect severed hands. Human hands became a currency and soldiers were paid bonuses based on how many hands they collected.
Before Leopold showed up with his band of savages, the Congo had 20 million inhabitants. After Leopold's 20 year reign of terror, only 10 million survivors remained.
And even after Leopold's reign, the Belgians weren't done. They imported their eugenics and racial segregation. The divisions that they created/exacerbated led to the Rwandan genocide (800k slaughtered) as well as numerous other conflicts within and around the Congo (e.g. Burundi's impending war). Unfortunately, because these atrocities took place in the heart of the Africa, the Belgians were able to quietly revise history and change Leopold from a devil wearing human skin to a hero that protected the Congolese from Arab slavers and civilised them.
To put this into perspective using something relatable, imagine that statue with Hitler standing there and a Jewish woman thanking him for his heroic deeds. "Thanks for saving us from debt and making our nation a world power!"
The Royal Museum for Central Africa was built in Belgium in 1990. It contains no reference to the atrocities that took place in the Belgian Congo and defined it. This is what happens when revisionists do their thing unimpeded.
Other atrocities that I can think of are Russia's Circassian genocide, Turkey's Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides, the Soviet Union's Ukrainian genocide, Croatia's Serbian genocide, Nigeria's Igbo genocide, Pakistan's Bengali genocide, Pol Pot's Cambodian genocide, and the Rwandan genocide. There are many, many more, unfortunately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
On Japan, they committed numerous genocides during World War II. The amount of civilians they killed rivals the number of Jews killed by their Nazi allies. Their actions were informed by the savage Emperor Hirohito's scorched earth policy, the "three alls", which is "kill all, burn all, loot all".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
Just think of the worst thing that can be done to a person. Whatever you might of just thought of, it's already been done to a human being by Japanese soldiers during WWII. From widespread sexual slavery and genocide to chemical warfare and cannibalism. There were no lines left uncrossed.
The thing that disturbs me the most is their widespread human experimentation. It involved live dissections (without anaesthesia) of people (infants to adults) who were forcefully injected with the most heinous diseases known to man. Organs and limbs were frequently removed for observation and sometimes reattached to other parts of the body. At one point, they stopped injecting people with STDs in favour of forcing STD infected prisoners to have sex with uninfected prisoners (if not, they'd be shot). All throughout, the experimenters and guards raped the prisoners (even if they were mutilated) to forcefully impregnate and, of course, to satisfy their base desires.
The point of this post was to explain why someone might have a strong negative emotional reaction to an article that is not only revising history and downplaying atrocities, but crediting oppressors for the success of their victims. India isn't one of the world's largest economies because of the British.
Thanks for this post, as a german i often forget that there are other countries with a extrem dark history.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
And have Japan's insane work culture and systemic sexism? No thanks.
Its probably easier to count the countries that don't...
Why is diversity not good again? Maybe you could actually explain your arguments so we can have a discussion instead of assuming we're all stupid.
teruterubozu
Member
Uh, it's quite the opposite in this thread. If anything GAF is too familiar with Japan and have no problems calling out their bullshit.
Let's not pretend there are no war criminals memorialised at Arlington, or the Cenotaph.
There's a great blog called Spike Japan that people should check out if they want to learn more about how and why Japan is failing. It's a depressing read, but it's a really useful lesson re the destiny of demographics and how xenophobia can slowly destroy a country. Robots are not going to save Japan.
Dancing Queen
Banned
Finally someone in tune with reality. I completely agree. Was about to post the same.
If anything, we should learn from the Koreans.
Kenshin001
Member
Lol. Hyperbole at its finest. You should come here. Lots of happy, well educated, financially comfortable people enjoying life. Not worried about getting carjacked or blown up by terrorists. Japan is more relevant than 90% of countries on Earth. They are the second biggest financial contributor to the UN. No Japan, no UN.
Half the tech in people's houses is probably Japanese. I only learned today that Sony controls 40% of the market for image sensors used in iPhones. The biggest selling car in the world for 2015 was a Toyota. Not relevant? Stop spouting nonsense.
DeliciousDoc
Member
Ok. First I will define diversity as having people from different moral backgrounds living under one geographical area.
This causes problems because common sense becomes diluted. Although media and education tries to create a norm, certain groups of people (race or religion) see things in a way that makes them clash with other groups in close proximity. This has been seen to carry past the first generation. even more so in groups that self segregate. to translate a french expression, those who are alike, gather. You then have mini countries within a country.
You might argue that it is the fault of one group or a loud minority but this creates more *us versus them* conflict.
The benefit of welcoming outsiders to your country is to increase the talent pool. People are generally not legally allowed to live in a foreign country unless they can contribute. The government and major corporations dont see diversity as something that must be done because it is the right thing to do. This is what the people who are voting against their own interests are told. They want the most talented or the ones that will work the cheapest (ideally both). In a competive (capitalist) society, this skews supply and demand into the hands of the people hiring. Unless you are at the top of the economic food chain, competition lowers your standard of living.
This is the first post I came in hoping for. Well done.
Heck, a good chunk of the population barely speaks its own language. All the time people ask me "What's that in Japanese?" and I have to say, "Um, that's a Japanese word." We go to a dictionary and it's like they're seeing it for the first time. >_<
All too true.
You know, seeing it all laid out like that, I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to reinterpret the constitution. -_-
There are good things though. I can, you know, actually afford to go to doctors and get medicine/operations and shit, which is nice. It doesn't go well with the aging population here, but that's not the systems fault (from what I can tell).
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I can't believe I'm defending Japan's English education situation, but in high academia and scientific fields, where English is necessary to communicate with international colleagues, I don't think Japan is necessarily at a huge disadvantage. Most people in those positions can at least communicate in the context of their fields.
English is a mandatory subject in school in Japan, as well. It's just that the teaching is focused far more on passing tests rather than developing actual communication ability.
In what way, K-Pop avatar? Not to say that there is nothing to learn from Korea, but some of those bullet points you were so strongly agreeing with are even worse in Korea.
Great post. Having a strong negative reaction is one thing. Spouting a bunch of hateful shit in what can only be described as a drive-by post is another.
Crediting oppressors/occupiers is not the way to go, but neither is going the other direction and claiming they had nothing to do with the development of the countries they occupied. While India isn't one of the world's largest economies solely because of the British, it would be crazy to say that the British influence had little to do with India becoming such a large economy. Obviously that doesn't excuse them for all of the terrible shit they have done in the country and elsewhere.
Are there? Typically the winners get to decide who and who isn't a war criminal.
What do you mean "refused to open their borders to immigration?" Their borders are certainly not closed.
Are you saying that they should be opening their borders to free immigration by anyone who wants to come? What country in the region does that? Other than Singapore, I don't think most countries in the region are particularly welcoming to people who just want to move in regardless of education, skills, and qualifications.
Personally, I think that while diversity is certainly good and should be encouraged, at the same time, a lack of diversity isn't necessarily a bad thing if groups of people already living in the country/region aren't being marginalized.
psynergylover
Member
I came expecting this and it was the first post! bravo!
Seriously though, if you asked me to list the developed democracies of the world in order of where I'd want to live, Japan and South Korea would be athe the bottom. Everything I've heard about their work culture would make me want to jump off a cliff if I had to do it. And considering the suicide rates in both countries that seems like a fairly common thought.
petran79
Banned
Japanese cars constructed in Germany are the best
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