[steven]

I appreciate things like this very much and I think this research has some good value, but there were a few things that struck me about it.

First of all, it was kinda funny how the author talks about "westernized" trends permiating Japanese life, especially in the younger generation, then goes on to say that it would be good if we as Americans make sure we are sensative to their "Japanese" culture.

I think that the sample size could be bigger or even more varied for that matter. Most Japanese people have gone through the school system so they should all be aware (even if subconsciously) of what was presented as most important to them socially speaking. I think that college students are of that so called "Westernized-generation" which makes this all a little confusing to me as the results seem to be presented as useful in business situations (which would be conducted with people I'd assume to be older than the age group sampled). Why not just conduct the survey on business students, as they will be future businesspeople, instead?

I think it's an interesting survey and the use of the results in a business situation seems like a good application for something of this nature. However, I saw a lot of these problems having to do with language. I know that culture plays a huge roll in language, but something doesn't settle right here. For example, the report says soemthing along the lines that Japanese people are very apologetic therefore Americans should sympathize with this by making sure they apologize. Then it goes on to say what I took as a bit of a slight towards Americans: we're not very aplogetic and it's a sign of weakness eevn if we did. I think this obviously varies from person to person, but I think you'd be discounting the American character by saying a statement like that. I'm not a Japan hater by any means, but I think there are many things in the past that Japan's government has refused to apologize about as well. With that being said, this reminds me of the cover of a book that I own, which I actually like. It's a book called "Communicative Styles of Japanese and Americans" by Barnlund. I never really payed attention to it until one of my classmates in college pointed it out to me, but there is an image of a swan and an eagle on the cover, with the tough looking eagle obviously representing America and the graceful looking swan representing Japan. Could Japan be so represented, say, 60 years ago?

Again, looking at this from my point of view, which I think would be a bit of a linguistic one, why do Americans have to change their speaking habits for Japanese? This is the same thing that ruins the English education in Japan. Why can't they adapt to American English when they speak to us? That being said, I think it's just as important for Americans to learn Japanese customs when speaking Japanese. I know this gets more complicated when dealing with the big boss of a company and the like and that may be where this kind of information would most come in handy.

I think saying things that equate to the idea that Americans are thankless is a bit of an offense, though. "Among Americans generally, expressing or even feeling thankfulness is inconsequential." The wording on that just seems a bit off. In regards to Japanese people, the aurthor stated, "...From my psychological perch, their reluctance to engage in quick soul-baring or intense emotionality is often misinterpreted by Americans as unfriendliness or coldness." Why is it that Japanese are misinterpreted as such, but Americans are generally such? What about the Japanese idea of "あわせる"? Which is to match things in a sense, as to not embarass one of the parties involved in a gathering or meeting. Looking at two equal people and calling one "~san" while calling the next simply by his name would be breaking this rule. That's kind of like the feeling on got when comparing those two previous sentences.

Finally, a small story-- I hear a lot of Japanese people talking about Chinese people being rude. Even my girlfriend came home one day from her work (as a makeup saleswoman) and was complaining about it. I talked to her a bit and decided to figure out why she thought that. She said things like Chinese people are "thankless" and don't say "sorry" and things like that. From a brief bit of research on the internet (for what it's worth) I found out that Chinese people don't say "thank you" on purpose. The reason being that in doing so, you would create distance between you and your listener, thus sounding "cold". By not saying thank you, it's a sign of understanding that you don't expect them to have to say it back to you when that time comes. I've never heard of many Japanese people (or a single person, but I wouldn't call that conclusive) who was aware or sensative of this.

That being said, I would hope that this kind of work is not only translated into Japanese, but I would hope that there are some American samples to help Japanese people not "misinterpret" American communication. For example, maybe Americans put more emphasis on eye contact than Japanese, and maybe by not using eye contact it makes you look like an untrustworthy person (to an American). Things like that would be just as important for Japanese to know about. Then again, I think it can't be stressed enough that when speaking Japanese, Japanese communication should be utilized and when speaking American English, American communication should be utilized.

All in all, I like the idea a lot. I think the execution of it is flawed. I think a bigger sample size would be nice. I think getting rid of the arbitrary "top 7" thing might be something to think about too. The author basically said that he got his "choices" for this survey from umpteen years of observation. I think it would make things a little difficult, but it might be worthwhile to have a free answer style survey as to let the Japanese completely decide. The interpretation of the data was a little bit strange in that there seemed to be a balance issue. The comments seemed to slight Americans while being a little more friendly towards Japanese. I think to really have great data, and something really worth studying, it would be good to have both sides of the picture, especially if this is going to be translated into Japanese like some of his previous works. As of right now, reading it felt familiar to reading some kind of horoscope reading in that it had big wide generalizations. The aim of the whole thing is great, but it's a shame it couldn't have been better pulled off.

As an aside, the title says that the traits stated "withstand westernization", but I don't know how that was concluded. I think that just because these traits are being focused on in school doesn't mean that these schools are producing model students with these traits.