"Deibido-sensei, you wrote 'M' wrong."
"What?" I replied. I've been writing the letter M for over 20 years, so you could say I'm a little familiar with how to write it in all its various forms.
"Yea, write it this way." The student wrote the capital M in 4 strokes of the marker, each stroke originating at the top of line and ending at the bottom. Now, even for those of you who don't have a background in engineering, clearly writing the letter M with one pen stroke (I'm counting one "stroke" as from when the pen is placed on the writing surface to when it is removed from the surface) is a smoother and faster way of writing than lifting the pen 4 times.
But that's not the "correct" way. According to how the capital M is "supposed" to be written, the student was correct. But how many of you write your M's that way?
But so it goes with Japanese learning. There's been a lot of talk in the West how Asian students fare better on standardized tests than their American counterparts. But these tests are standardized. They don't measure the ability to think for oneself. They measure memorization. Regurgitation. "Vomiting," as my high school calculus teacher called it. "But you are not learning math!" she correctly stated.
I can't speak for the educational methods of other Asian countries, but certainly Japan does not promote individual thinking. It does not promote (and as the students get older, allow) coloring outside the lines. A Japanese friend of mine studied abroad in America when she was in college. She was startled when the teachers asked, "So what do you think about this?"
"We're never asked that as students here," she said. She went on to explain how Japanese teachers just test factual information, and how now, years after she's been out of school, she has forgotten most of what she was made to "learn" in school here.
So say what you will (and I could say plenty) about how Americans blindly follow advertisements, politicians or macarena-type fads, and how they fail to think for themselves. Americans are far more mentally liberated than people here.
Even "rebellious" kids here rebel in certain designated ways. They dye their hair one of 3 colors. The shirts or earrings they wear are all of the same ilk. Wearing big boots is a great way to rebel, apparently. So here, if you rebel, you do it in a conformist way.
This has been one of the biggest things I have realized about Japanese culture. It's the nice little box everyone is placed in. A saying in Japanese says, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." If you think for yourself, draw outside the lines, or *gasp* express your own opinion, you will be hammered back down into that small unit until you fit in with everyone else.
In Japan, the whole is far more important than any of its units. People here are taught to fit in, or else. Become part of the system (they call it being a "good Japanese"). I have one student whose father is American and mother is Japanese. She is growing up with both English and Japanese as her native tongues, and will be greatly aided in life being fluent in both languages. But right now, as her hair and eyes are lighter than the "pure" Japanese dark colors, she is often ridiculed by her peers for being different. In turn, she has become very shy about using her best-in-the-class-by-far English as a way of preventing further ridicule and social distance from her classmates. Even though she can help translate something her classmates have said to me, or something I have said to them, she is learning to hold that inside, and not be special in any way.
The Japanese educational - and social - system does not promote expressing your own opinion, or even, appearing to act outside the lines of what is "supposed" to be done. And oftentimes, the reasons for the "supposed to"s are long-lost, and things are done just because that's what's done.
As a foreigner, I am pretty much exempt from these expectations, although I have been chastised for crossing the street on red, days after I did it. The word got through the grapevine from a parent of a student to the principal of the school to my boss to me. That definitely has not stopped me from crossing whenever and wherever I deem appropriate, but it's amazing how pervasive this "you can't think for yourself" idea is.
As a result, everyone works extra hard to fit in. To be that nondescript little box that everyone else is.
Well, more accurately, it's that everyone works extra hard to appear to be that nondescript little box.
Sure, I imagine there are people who internalize this, and really monitor their every activity, even when not in public view. But every Japanese person I have met - every single one - who I have become friends with breaks the rules. At first I, along with the rest of the world, have been shown this I-cross-only-at-the-crosswalks face. But as we get to know each other better, and they allow me in past their public exterior, I hear things such as, "Don't tell my boss, but I don't wash down my desk everyday the way I'm supposed to." or "Don't tell my coworkers..." (who I've never met anyway) "...that I am friends with a student's parent." (a HUGE no-no) or "Don't tell my boyfriend, but I used a different kind of soy sauce last night because I forgot to go to the store."
It's fair to say that almost all people - regardless of their nationality - have secrets. Most people have different faces for the world and for themselves and their close friends. However, I'm finding that the gap between the two faces for the average Japanese adult is larger than the gap in just about every other culture I have encountered.
There are, naturally, some really ugly side-effects to this mentality. If someone is outside the box, and is not trying to rebel, it is often looked down upon in the severest way. For example, while physical illness is understood and accepted, mental illness is not. Patients are frequently advised to hide their behavior - which oftentimes makes said illness worse - for fear of not getting a specific job, or acceptance to a school. Problems are often swept under the rug in order to fit into the prescribed role of a "good Japanese."
I really wonder about other Asian countries. Is this true in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam?
"Yea, write it this way." The student wrote the capital M in 4 strokes of the marker, each stroke originating at the top of line and ending at the bottom. Now, even for those of you who don't have a background in engineering, clearly writing the letter M with one pen stroke (I'm counting one "stroke" as from when the pen is placed on the writing surface to when it is removed from the surface) is a smoother and faster way of writing than lifting the pen 4 times.
But that's not the "correct" way. According to how the capital M is "supposed" to be written, the student was correct. But how many of you write your M's that way?
But so it goes with Japanese learning. There's been a lot of talk in the West how Asian students fare better on standardized tests than their American counterparts. But these tests are standardized. They don't measure the ability to think for oneself. They measure memorization. Regurgitation. "Vomiting," as my high school calculus teacher called it. "But you are not learning math!" she correctly stated.
I can't speak for the educational methods of other Asian countries, but certainly Japan does not promote individual thinking. It does not promote (and as the students get older, allow) coloring outside the lines. A Japanese friend of mine studied abroad in America when she was in college. She was startled when the teachers asked, "So what do you think about this?"
"We're never asked that as students here," she said. She went on to explain how Japanese teachers just test factual information, and how now, years after she's been out of school, she has forgotten most of what she was made to "learn" in school here.
So say what you will (and I could say plenty) about how Americans blindly follow advertisements, politicians or macarena-type fads, and how they fail to think for themselves. Americans are far more mentally liberated than people here.
Even "rebellious" kids here rebel in certain designated ways. They dye their hair one of 3 colors. The shirts or earrings they wear are all of the same ilk. Wearing big boots is a great way to rebel, apparently. So here, if you rebel, you do it in a conformist way.
This has been one of the biggest things I have realized about Japanese culture. It's the nice little box everyone is placed in. A saying in Japanese says, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." If you think for yourself, draw outside the lines, or *gasp* express your own opinion, you will be hammered back down into that small unit until you fit in with everyone else.
In Japan, the whole is far more important than any of its units. People here are taught to fit in, or else. Become part of the system (they call it being a "good Japanese"). I have one student whose father is American and mother is Japanese. She is growing up with both English and Japanese as her native tongues, and will be greatly aided in life being fluent in both languages. But right now, as her hair and eyes are lighter than the "pure" Japanese dark colors, she is often ridiculed by her peers for being different. In turn, she has become very shy about using her best-in-the-class-by-far English as a way of preventing further ridicule and social distance from her classmates. Even though she can help translate something her classmates have said to me, or something I have said to them, she is learning to hold that inside, and not be special in any way.
The Japanese educational - and social - system does not promote expressing your own opinion, or even, appearing to act outside the lines of what is "supposed" to be done. And oftentimes, the reasons for the "supposed to"s are long-lost, and things are done just because that's what's done.
As a foreigner, I am pretty much exempt from these expectations, although I have been chastised for crossing the street on red, days after I did it. The word got through the grapevine from a parent of a student to the principal of the school to my boss to me. That definitely has not stopped me from crossing whenever and wherever I deem appropriate, but it's amazing how pervasive this "you can't think for yourself" idea is.
As a result, everyone works extra hard to fit in. To be that nondescript little box that everyone else is.
Well, more accurately, it's that everyone works extra hard to appear to be that nondescript little box.
Sure, I imagine there are people who internalize this, and really monitor their every activity, even when not in public view. But every Japanese person I have met - every single one - who I have become friends with breaks the rules. At first I, along with the rest of the world, have been shown this I-cross-only-at-the-crosswalks face. But as we get to know each other better, and they allow me in past their public exterior, I hear things such as, "Don't tell my boss, but I don't wash down my desk everyday the way I'm supposed to." or "Don't tell my coworkers..." (who I've never met anyway) "...that I am friends with a student's parent." (a HUGE no-no) or "Don't tell my boyfriend, but I used a different kind of soy sauce last night because I forgot to go to the store."
It's fair to say that almost all people - regardless of their nationality - have secrets. Most people have different faces for the world and for themselves and their close friends. However, I'm finding that the gap between the two faces for the average Japanese adult is larger than the gap in just about every other culture I have encountered.
There are, naturally, some really ugly side-effects to this mentality. If someone is outside the box, and is not trying to rebel, it is often looked down upon in the severest way. For example, while physical illness is understood and accepted, mental illness is not. Patients are frequently advised to hide their behavior - which oftentimes makes said illness worse - for fear of not getting a specific job, or acceptance to a school. Problems are often swept under the rug in order to fit into the prescribed role of a "good Japanese."
I really wonder about other Asian countries. Is this true in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam?
posted by David at 11:33 PM
3 Comments:
nah HK is pretty liberal, prob because we were 'british' but we still kick arse in standardised tests lol
but as for education, i def got more things 'stuffed' into my brain than letting me explore, it's prob different in hs since i left for UK after middleschool. i got no problems with stuffing info into kids brain, i don't think kids here learn much aside from the few subjects they have to learn in order to pass the state/national test. in HK, you have to take 10 subjects, from the basic maths and language to social science and PE until hs where you can choose to take art&sciences or science
not as liberal as US interms of choosing what you want to learn but i think the british system (hk uses is for obvious reason) makes them more focus on what they want to do in college or even in the real world
I think it's generally true in Taiwan, but not as "strict" as in Japan. Also it was more true until about 10 years ago, which formed a huge generation gap between people of my age and the teenage people nowadays, mostly because the education system (one-test-decide-your-life system) started changing about 10 years ago. Now the system in Taiwan is kind of half way between American and Asian, which is so messed up that people are trying to change it back to the testing system. I do agree with Josiah that I learned a lot more under the testing system, and I learned slowly (and forgot easily) under American system. It is still true now even it's my 6th year into graduate studies in the country supposed to have the best graduate schools, especially kicking asses in medical and biological sciences. I don't know why; maybe just not enough pressure for me to work hard?
But back to the subject, yes, I do notice that Taiwanese people try to be "normal" and "common". People try not to be different and special. It is not encouraged to draw attention, and we learned that pretty early (sometimes in the hard way) not to draw attention in class (because teachers do beat up kids).
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