Westerners in Japan Don't Do Kanji

[Mulboyne]

Japan Times: Why Johnny can't read 'kanji'

Yes, you can find these folks all along the archipelago: foreigners who can speak and comprehend Japanese, who show comfort with Japanese culture and who have perhaps attained positions of responsibility in their schools, companies and communities -- yet who cannot read a single lick of kanji.
...There are also Westerners who can do it rather well. Some of these are kanji nerds with thick glasses, thicker heads and no life beyond their dictionaries. Yet many others are normal individuals who either through effort, talent, inclination or a transaction with the devil have somehow managed to become wise and masterful "ji" whizzes.
Japan changes once you can read. The landscape morphs before your eyes. It jumps at you like a surprise image from a Magic Eye stereogram. It's amazing what you can see....A Japan that can be read is no longer such a faraway and inscrutable foreign land. The islands drift pleasantly closer to being home.
So why don't most Westerners work harder at literacy?...Japan indulges Western guests....many businesses and companies produce English signboards, Web pages and annual reports even if they can count their English clientele only in their dreams. This lends an English-friendly flavor to the environment. But that's just the start.
English train and bus announcements, English directions for this and that, and an examination-pummeled population that often sees visitors as walking/talking English lessons can all persuade Westerners to be lazy, languagewise. Meanwhile, non-Western foreigners are not nearly as pampered. Chinese guests -- of course -- arrive with kanji preprogrammed into their gray matter, but other Asians are not cut much slack either. Typically they either learn or they return.
A Japanese language teacher I know well...says this: "In general, Westerners don't have the same classroom attitude. They do homework less, they skip class more and they have shorter-range plans for learning the language."

[puargs]

DAMN. I don't know about elsewhere, but UIowa has an exchange program with Nanzan University in Nagoya, and the students from there didn't study a single bit back at their old college. They all tell me it's too difficult here, because the studying environment in an american college is too hardcore. Well, that is, assuming you're taking classes that will get you a job, instead of a VCR-programming degree.

All I ever hear about american colleges is how hard they are compared to back home, accompanied with forlorn statements of how they won't miss the extra work when they finally get back to Japan. Psh. I study my rear off here. (I'm an asian lang and lit major, so that includes kanji, hence the relevance to your story)

[jingai]

Point taken, but it's a generalization.

I went the other way from a top US liberal arts school to CJS at Nanzan, and struggled hard to keep up with the language classes, in part because they didn't match up precisely between schools. The rest of the classes were jokes, but the program's focus was on language classes.

A smart Japanese friend at Nanzan worked very hard academically, taking more classes than required, and doing a thesis in English. Japanese university can be a challenge, or students can get away with a lot, and it depends on the student.

[Charles]

Ah, puargs, I see Hatasa-tennou is neglecting to put sufficient social studies in the curriculum again. We learned all this stuff in 2nd year, but we used a different textbook, and apparently this material didn't make it into Nakama.

It is well known (or at least it SHOULD be) that Japanese college students spend less time studying than in any other country. All the hard work is done in High School, while prepping for the college entrance exams that will determine your entire future. Once in college, life is mostly focused around clubs and extracurricular activities, where you will form the Old Boy Network that will be the vital resource through the rest of your professional life. Many clubs are mostly focused around binge drinking.
Of course I oversimplify here, but I'm not far off the mark, generally.

US college culture comes as a bit of a shock to Japanese exchange students. I remember a few years back when the UofI decided to crack down on clubs that involved drinking. This wasn't such a bad idea, the Japanese clubs that attracted Japanese mostly served as a jumping off point for an evening's hard drinking, and I saw several occasions when predatory asia-fetishers tried to get the women students drunk and carry them off. But after the crackdown, the Japanese exchange students lost interest in the clubs, drinking was the sole link to the college lifestyle they left behind, without it, they seemed lost, and mostly kept to themselves and didn't mix with the locals.
Anyway, many of the students that come over here aren't really interested in studying. They're here for an "english vacation," they expect to take a year goofing off in America, so they can put it on their resume when they graduate and then they'll become the company's gaijin handler due to their vast (ha) experience in English. You can tell a lot of these students, they're women that say they're English Lit majors, (a/k/a looking for a husband major). Forget them. Keep an eye out for transfer students, not exchange students, only the transfer students are serious about college, and they'll be around longer so they make good study partners, as well as good lifelong friends.
Some exchange students just can't make it in the US. I read an essay by a Japanese sociologist that studied this phenomenon, he said that nihonjin find US life too chaotic compared to Japan, they're used to more ritualized behavior patterns where everything works according to one's relative position in life to others, and everything happens as expected. And of course they deal with free-spirited Americans who are always doing unexpected things, and they don't know how to deal with it. Then he astonished me by declaring that the USA drives nihonjin to schizophrenia. I didn't believe it until I met a Japanese exchange student I knew, nobody had seen him for weeks, and then he showed up in the student lounge, looking like crap. He said he was just waiting to sign some paperwork and then he was leaving for Japan. We asked what happened, he said he'd been locked up in the mental ward for the last few weeks due to his sudden onset of schizophrenia, and now he was being sent home to the Happy Time Smile Academy. After that incident, I began to understand the sociologist's analysis a lot better.

[puargs]

[Andocrates]

[puargs]

Yeah, but how many each?

Just kidding of course, but you get what I mean.

[devicenull]

yea, im at chubu still... god, the lack of literacy here in characters is pretty fucking sad. as for japanese students studying.... um, in my 2 classes that actually are real, the students rarely come, sleep when they do, and dont pay attention. Cram when it comes to anything important and then complain that everything is taihen.

[devicenull]

[tsukikage]

Point taken, but it's a generalization.

I went the other way from a top US liberal arts school to CJS at Nanzan, and struggled hard to keep up with the language classes, in part because they didn't match up precisely between schools. The rest of the classes were jokes, but the program's focus was on language classes.

A smart Japanese friend at Nanzan worked very hard academically, taking more classes than required, and doing a thesis in English. Japanese university can be a challenge, or students can get away with a lot, and it depends on the student.

I also think it depends on if the student is planning to attend grad school.

In other news, I will, I will, I will learn all of the jouyou kanji! Dunno about the other million kanji, though. ><;

[djgizmoe]

I teach English at Nihon University, one of the biggest (though nowhere near the best) unis in Japan.
Some generalizations:
1. Only about 20% of students study as hard as I did at my UC school (and I didn't study very hard).
2. To maintain enrollment numbers, they're admitting students who wouldn't have been let in 15 years ago.
3. So much emphasis is spent learning the basic kanji and cramming English grammar and vocab through high school, that most of my students have spent ZERO time on learning how to write compositions (either in English or in Japanese).
4. From what I hear, Mombushu has some sort of cap (5%) on students who are allowed to fail. Universities that exceed this limit are apparently given less money from the state. So teachers are reluctant to fail students no matter what their grades. Students know this and have learned that they really don't have many responsibilities or restrictions. Sleeping in the front row, sending mail with keitais, chatting in class, everything you'd expect from an American JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

A Japanese language teacher I know well...says this: "In general, Westerners don't have the same classroom attitude. They do homework less, they skip class more and they have shorter-range plans for learning the language."

My students only do homework if I call them up every day individually and grill them about it. My five absences per semester limit is considered "cho-kibishii" and most students have NO plans to use their English EVER.

But I have to admit, I've actually let my kanji skills slip since I came to Japan (especially my writing, christ). Every gaijin should at least periodically try to improve their kanji knowledge as life becomes a lot more fun the more literate you become...

[Mulboyne]

[Lifer]

[vir-jin]

[Socratesabroad]

[Kanchou]

From what I hear, Mombushu has some sort of cap (5%) on students who are allowed to fail. Universities that exceed this limit are apparently given less money from the state. So teachers are reluctant to fail students no matter what their grades. Students know this and have learned that they really don't have many responsibilities or restrictions. Sleeping in the front row, sending mail with keitais, chatting in class, everything you'd expect from an American JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

How true.

My economics teacher at Nichidai (who is an older American man) tells people that "if they want to talk, leave. when you finish, come back." at least 10 times every day.

Woo, Japanese class is over for the year. Now I get to do nothing 5/7 days of the week if I so choose.

(As for kanji, I can write about 20, not including numbers... but I can recognize and pronounce an a whole crapload now... woo, hikken, tachiirikinshi.)

[tsukikage]

[Charles]

[quote="Socratesabroad"]And as for skills in communicating, kanji are concentrated, which means you can say more in a fixed space. This became an issue when I worked for a company making printers/copiers/faxes. The little display screen is only so big, so it's much easier to write
'

[Socratesabroad]

[Socratesabroad]

[Charles]

Here's another classic, though this one is more often classified as a 'brain teaser':
M.R. Ducks
M.R. Not
O.S.A.R.
C.M. Wangs
L.I.B.
M.R. Ducks

Sounds like a lame old joke I know:
ABCD puppies?
LMNO puppies.
OSAR
CMPN?

you can do it with kanji and there is no loss in meaning. Both Chinese and Japanese already use a form of abbreviated kanji that conveys the same exact meaning as the original, although you won't find it in a dictionary (so I hope my explanation suffices).

Yeah, I know about simplified kanji, that wasn't really what I meant, I don't think it's really equivalent. I was thinking of eliminating whole kanji from sentences. The closest direct equivalent to my scenario is when sometimes you see a jukugo that can be written either with or without okurigana, both are acceptable. Alas, I can't think of an example right now (I've been slacking off in my studies) but I know I've seen examples in a textbook that listed Monbugakusho official okurigana rules (I didn't know they made official rules for that kind of stuff). But I'd still argue that was more like dropping the U from "colour," just a modernization of archaic spelling.

[Mulboyne]

[mercutio]

[Charles]

[quote="Mulboyne"][url=http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/041202/kanji.shtml][b]University of Chicago:

[Socratesabroad]

[vir-jin]

[Socratesabroad]

[vir-jin]

Well, a quick look at Kojien shows that......



.....I know I don't know anything. That's a matter of life I guess. But even though, are we allowed and wanted to be able to read Kanji?

All these discussions about the topic have only one problem in common, the way we as westerners present our knowledge or lack of knowledge to the Japanese society. I think it doesn't matter whether you know kanji or not, but showing Japanese that you know more about their country than they know will cause some fear. because this knowledge gives you power over the country and the power to really influence Japan.Therefore we are sources of knowledge of a foreign culture and need to communicate that as good as possible. I am not able to be Japanese. That is not what a Japanese expects from me. If I tell them how much knowledge I have on this country every intelligent Japanese would stop to contact me.

One of my professors stops to talk to me in Japanese because he said I am too good. And he is really upset that I understand everything. If you really are able to get deep into that culture you have to be very careful with how you present yourself to this society. I recently feel better to answer only when I am asked for my opinion. I am not needed here to contribute to the Japanese culture but to contribute to the Japanese interest in other cultures. To gather knowledge on Japan is not expected from me. and not supported. My access will be as limited as the knowledge of my own culture is. If I can contribute to the Japanese societies interest in gathering knowledge on other cultures that enables them to get to the top I will be accepted as useful. That's all.

my conclusion: we should learn as much Kanji as we can and never show that knowledge to anybody.

[mercutio]

<snip>
I am not able to be Japanese. That is not what a Japanese expects from me.

<snip>
my conclusion: we should learn as much Kanji as we can and never show that knowledge to anybody.

From your conclusion it sound as if you may have become "more Japanese" than you give yourself credit for...

[Charles]

Ah, vir-jin, you really really need to read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195154851/

Different Games, Different Rules: Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other by Haru Yamada

It's the best book on cross-cultural communications I ever read. It might be the best Japanese language book I ever read, but it won't help you at all unless you're at a fairly high level of proficiency.. I just picked it up again to read last night, and it's as good as I remembered it. Don't be put off by the "Americans" topic, it really should be about Japan/The West, but the author is bicultural, she lived with her parents that rotated every 3 years between the US and Japan, so she's fully fluent in both languages, and is now a linguist at Oxford.

Anyway, the author is a keen observer on linguistics and culture, and might be the only person who could truly observe these matters. I really think you'd like this book a lot, considering some of the issues you raise in your messages. It's a bit expensive, but please do go out of your way to find this book.