Quote:
Originally Posted by godwine
I don't agree that Kanji should be banned, thats like saying that they are banning their culture. Why should the country make changes to their culture for foreigners? While it is true that Japan is aging, I don't think the government's stance is to "attract" foreigners, until then, there is no reason to do anything specific to "attract" foreigners.
Just my 2 cents...
|
To be fair, Japan needs foreign workers to remain successful into the next century. Their population is crashing (I forget the name for this problem--人口問題 or something? maybe 高齢問題?), and they either need foreigners to support the social programs or they need women to start popping out more kids (which means serious social reforms such as cheaper education).
Obviously this comes across a bit harsh, like a foreigner riding in on his black ship to tell the Japanese how to be a better country, but I don't mean it to be that way. I just don't have the patience to deal with your flawed argument right now with the depth it deserves.
The argument is what is best for Japan, not what makes sense based on their current immigration policies. You presume that what Japan is doing currently immigration-wise is the correct policy to follow. I do not think it is. I think many Japanese do not think it is, either. Sociologists in Japan don't think so IIRC.
I had to study this at university in Japan, and I was pretty convinced Japan needs foreign workers.
But I digress.
I've been on both sides of the argument. I'm against kanji simplification, but I'm not native enough to know whether switching to all-kana is feasible. OP makes a compelling argument that it worked for the Koreas, and I don't see why it wouldn't also work for Japan.
Hell, I'd love it if kanji disappeared just because the biggest obstacle to my improved fluency would be gone overnight. Learning vocab in kana is so much easier than learning extra kanji.
Of course, once I hit about 2K kanji, I probably won't care about the difficulty of kanji much anymore.