Mutant Frog On Why Reading Matters

[Mulboyne]

Adamu of Mutant Frog (and, occasionally, these forums), has posted a piece on the "Why Japanese reading comprehension matters". You may well have seen it already - bikkle links to the site on the front page - but it's worth highlighting in this forum. Here's a taste but click the link for the whole piece and responses:

...Most Japanophiles who make it to Japan for an extended stay are far less likely to pay attention to developing reading comprehension in Japanese as they are to speaking pidgin-slang Japanese with their gaijin-groupie friends (see tip #23 at the link), hooking up with the locals, and in general taking the path of least resistance. That is understandable, but there are numerous benefits of boning up your reading skills even while you are in Japan. Kate McArthur, a columnist for Japan job site daijob.com, summarizes them well: expanded menu choices in restaurants, ability to find coupons and other deals, using Japanese websites, and reading the ubiquitous subtitles on Japanese TV (Like her, I hold the irrational belief that “the written language is so intriguing with all the various looks and meanings that I can’t understand how it could possibly not be interesting to someone”).

Even among those who are interested in learning to (and in some cases already claim they can) read Japanese – the types who intentionally stay out of the gaijin bubble – many do not measure up when it comes to reading ability. This phenomenon I attribute to the gaijin complex, by which foreigners interested in Japan isolate themselves from others of their kind. They’ll stick with their girlfriends, host families, or whoever and seek out the so-called real Japan – the “Other” if you will. Without objective scrutiny or friendly competition (and with the entire population of Japan praising them for supposedly excellent Japanese abilities), these people start to think their Japanese is much much better than it actually is. But the fact of the matter is, good reading skills are almost always an essential element if you want to make yourself useful in a quality Japan-related job, and most employers are not going to tolerate someone who cannot deliver no matter how entrenched his/her gaijin complex is...more...

[Captain Japan]

From that last bit from Mulboyne, I think guys at Pliink have way too much time on their hands but I noticed they used the word "colonialist" to refer to certain foreigners in Japan:

Even though Roppongi's getting this new fancy face-lift, every foreigner I meet will automatically expresses his disdain for Roppongi in the first five minutes of conversation, and the old Colonialists seem to have made an exodus towards Shibuya. This goes hand in hand with the perceived "coolness" of Japanese culture itself. Roppongi and Hiroo were places for foreigners to "escape" Japan; Shibuya is a place to be enveloped in it. The soldiers and working holiday'ers now eschew the foreigner-friendly women for a chance to stare at the crazy girls in too much make-up.

There are a lot of references to the word in the comments that follow. Momus and a few others get sort of repetitive and rambling. Anyway, my point is that I was referred to as a "colonialist" myself in an email from a reader. It was the first time I'd seen it used in reference to Japan. Here's the mail:

To "captain japan",

Why do you call yourself "captain japan"? When you obviously are not Japanese. I have a simple theory, perhaps you are conscious of this or not. You are exhibiting thru your posts and nickname - typical European western male superiority over "introverted little Asians".

This trend of raping and stealing Asian culture by caucasians has become so pervasive, we see evidence of this in movies, music ( i.e. Gwen Stefani's Harajuku girls), literature, etc.

Imagine if I as an Asian/American went to the UK, started a blog and gave myself the moniker "captain great Britain". To a country where title and rank carry a lot of weight ( similar to Japanese society) I can guarantee you I would not be received kindly. This highlights a double standard, Asians are generally regarded as shy, "saving face" and being hospitable to guest are crucial. Westerners have taken advantage of this supposed weakness in the Asian social order.

The use of the nickname "captain japan" perpetuates the long held view, from an Asian perspective that westerners are egotistical, arrogant, conceited, and even worst - a colonialist. If you really admire and are fascinated with this foreign culture, then a suggest you exercise some cultural sensitivities and drop that bombastic nickname of yours.

More importantly, quit using Asian girls for your asiaphile perversions, because I suspect this is your true agenda!

Peter Viz
USA

[adamukun]

The way I understood "colonialist" in that post on marxy's blog is less like a lot of us who went to Japan and tried to fit in and more along the lines of a Carlos Ghosn or an international school student who 100% maintains his home culture while in Japan. In that sense I think it can be a useful distinction.

But as the confused e-mail you got makes clear, it's also an easy word to use as an epithet against someone you see as engaging in distasteful cultural miscegenation, or "raping" Asian culture as the e-mail has it. This person's definition of "colonialist" is clearly the opposite of marxy's. If the writer had his druthers, all white Westerners who go to Japan would bring along their white wives, eat hamburgers every day, and scream their orders in English to waiters at the Tokyo-American Club.

[dimwit]

Being an old colonialist I don't what all the fuss is about; we're civilizing 'um aren't we. Now if only the boy could make a decent G&T.

[Greji]

[quote="dimwit"]

Being an old colonialist I don't what all the fuss is about]

Make mine a double, we can have the Cap'ts boy make it!

Peter Viz seems like a very fitting moniker!

[Mulboyne]

I put Adamu's link here because it reminded me of the discussion about Jack Seward's Definition of Fluency. I would suggest that reading and writing comprehension at all levels is becoming more important for all dancing bear gaijin. Keitai messages, social network pages, online transactions etc all put a greater daily demand on reading knowledge than even 10 years ago. Writing doesn't mean handwritten Japanese so much these days because email is more accepted but it would be a star pupil indeed who managed to pick up inputting kanji without going through the drudge of writing them out to learn them.

On the Captain's follow-up point; I saw that discussion before and popped it into our thread about WHAT DO U HATE ABOUT FELLOW GAIJIN. I didn't notice this exchange in the comments before (slightly edited):

Japan Business Digest: Couldn't the type of Westerner moving to Japan these days have some impact on this phenomenom. That is, 20 years ago Americans (to use an example) studied Japanese and moved to Japan for business. These days, Japanese teachers report that 90% of those signing up do it for cultural reasons--they love manga, anime, Japanese video games, etc...Now, most smart businessmen use chances to meet others as networking opportunities, so any awkwardness about running into another foreigner in Tokyo would be offset by the chance to expand your network. In contrast, kids whose primary motivations are what they think of as cool have no use for the other gaijin they run into.

Marxy: If building up social capital is really your goal in Japan, you should work like hell to befriend the Japanese in the Japanese language, because there's no one more rich in Tokyo-related social capital than the Japanese themselves. There are very, very few foreigners in Japan who are hooked into the main centers of power and money, and if entry is your goal, your "network" should always aim for Japanese over foreigners.

You would think that hooking into Japan's elite would be a smart move on its own but it is a rare foreigner who can manage that without having good credentials overseas. It makes perfect sense to raise your stock with foreigners interested in Japan because this is essential to making any inroads with Japanese. As one of my colleagues expressed it succinctly but confusingly after too much wine: "They don't want to know that you know what they know; they want to know what you know that they don't".

[adamukun]

Even though I wrote that blog post with a certain air of authority, I would definitely hit strike three on Seward's list myself - my spoken Japanese is almost useless at this point and I certainly can't handwrite kanji for shit. What makes me useful at the translation/research office here in Washington where I work is my reading/research ability in Japanese and writing/editing ability in English. Hell, I barely even talk to my boss in either language - we just e-mail back and forth.

That post stemmed from some frustration I had about finding my replacement (I'll be a fucked *farang* in Thailand from the end of this month). So many applicants came through who claimed that they had translation experience, passed JLPT 1, and all this but then when we gave them a simple test (read a news article and summarize what it says) ALL our non-Japanese applicants misunderstood the entire thing.

I'm not even sure if more jobs actually require good Japanese for the "dancing bear" jobs (though my office is a US firm who is using me more as a burrowing mole). I am just annoyed that people claim to read Japanese when they clearly can't.

[Charles]

That post stemmed from some frustration I had about finding my replacement (I'll be a fucked *farang* in Thailand from the end of this month). So many applicants came through who claimed that they had translation experience, passed JLPT 1, and all this but then when we gave them a simple test (read a news article and summarize what it says) ALL our non-Japanese applicants misunderstood the entire thing.

How long was the text, and much time were they allowed to study it? Did they have to read it without assistance from dictionaries?

I can read just about anything, given enough time and a good dictionary. But that isn't a very good recommendation. I remember I took a couple of seminars in translation, at my university those classes are now considered 5th Year Japanese. In one class, we weren't allowed to use a dictionary, we had to just take a guess at anything we didn't know. This was supposed to teach us how to read an article cold. This class was notoriously unsuccessful. Then the next semester, we were allowed dictionaries, and given reprints of newspaper articles.. really HARD articles. I showed the stories to a few nihonjin, even they had trouble reading them. Then we dove into the dictionary and discovered that a LOT of the really tough terms were not in the dictionary, had no obvious meaning that anyone could guess, and even had the teacher stumped. We abandoned that textbook about halfway through the semester.

[adamukun]

The article was about 5 or 6 short paragraphs and the candidates got 20 minutes. We gave them a J-E dictionary and our official glossary, and they could use any other resource they wanted (internet, denshi jisho, but not other people) as long as the end result was decent.

[Captain Japan]

But as the confused e-mail you got makes clear, it's also an easy word to use as an epithet against someone you see as engaging in distasteful cultural miscegenation, or "raping" Asian culture as the e-mail has it. This person's definition of "colonialist" is clearly the opposite of marxy's. If the writer had his druthers, all white Westerners who go to Japan would bring along their white wives, eat hamburgers every day, and scream their orders in English to waiters at the Tokyo-American Club.

I got the mail below a while back. I thought it might work in this thread. Then again...

Capain Japan you are a YAKUZA
How do imagine girls can believe in your fucking interviews about Hostess,do you think is that hostess Job??,,do u think is only Talk with The customers and drink some alcohol!,and then make a lot of money, only for do that !!,please that is absolutly FALSE. All what you want is to show foreign girls that this business is easy and Safe,but is not that,what you want is only prostitutes,prostitutes who dont receive any money,if they dont obey you ,You kill them,is that what you think is A nice Job, ,,You are a poor lier,,,"Capain Japan",,,
Some web sites that will refresh your memory and know that all this Clubs are from you!,yeah from the Yakuza...
http://www.allaescort.com/night_clubs.php
http://www.escortcommunity.com/search.php/search::cat/category::56
http://dancinginjapan.com/Attire.html