[steven]

Nyororin, I think I have to disagree with you. I teach English in Japan and the textbooks I have discovered contain many examples of taking a Japanese phrase and choosing the closest thing to it that you could possibly make in English (whether it is natural or not). Teachers I've worked with also often teach very predictable Japanese-English grammar patterns.

I've been to numerous bookstores in Japan and although I don't spend my time looking at English help books too much, I have looked through them before and found a lot of the same ol'-same ol'. I am sure that the mediocre and downright terrible outnumber the books that you say are in every book store by a lot. I have not found one book that contains that you're talking about in any bookstore. Again, I don't peruse through those kinds of books on a regular basis though, and I'd like to know what it is that you're talking about so I can read them for myself. (I have heard of Dave Specter's book about waseieigo though and that seems like it could be quite useful). I have seen A TON of English dictionaries from Japan and there are still a lot of little problems within them. I'm not a huge fan of using dictionaries to begin with though as the whole idea implies a mathematical equation (this = that) when language is way more complex than that.

The information, as you say, is certainly there. The problem is, it's completely drowned out by eiken crap and other test study books, which all promote some kind of fantasy land English (that strangely complies with a lot of Japanese customs or grammar).

I do agree with you that maybe these things are too often geared for business. I said before that that is a good application for it-- and I still believe that it is, but I think a lot of people would like to know what to expect in everyday conversation. The fact of the matter is, though, that most people dealing with Japan (who are foreigners) will end up in some kind of work atmosphere (as that's how the visas tend to work) and that this information would likely come in handy for them. Doing a study like this for someone coming to Japan for a vacation might not be very practical. That's not to say there isn't any merit in it though.

"I think it is fairly clear. "American style" communication for the world market and the like is pushed pretty hard wherever you turn. As I said earlier, look in any bookstore and you will find tons. Look in any classroom and you`ll see tons. "
This is simply not true. I've been to many classrooms and I've been to many schools where they had demonstrations and it's just not like that. It's definately more American than it is Australian or South African or something like that, but the "communication style" is most certainly Japanese while the language they are teaching is like some kind of hybrid. I'm sure this kind of thing will vary from school to school, but that's the general feeling that I get at work and whenever I speak to Japanese people trying to speak English to me.

"What this article is pointing out is that values considered traditional have remained important, rather than being passed up for values considered more "western"."
The artical is saying that values considered traditional have remained important, but I think the reality is that some of these values ARE being passed up for more "westernized values" or even worse, people are becoming more and more rude (which the I felt the author seemed to define as "westernized" in a couple of instances). That is something that other teachers often talk about, and some of my students are representative of. Multi-generation houses are less prevelant, where if your mom and dad are working late, you get to come home to grandma and grandpa. Now what you see more of is mom and dad at work and the kids come home to TV and computers, which is similar to America. The education which used to usually be received from grandparents is no longer there. That, I think, is a big part in all this.

"It isn`t that the traits are being focused on in school - in fact, I think that is a very minor point. What is being looked at isn`t what is being taught in school, really, but what those who will be teaching consider important.They are the ones being looked at. You don`t say that you find certain values important and believe they need to be emphasized in teaching if you yourself do not feel they are important. These are values, not curriculum - a teacher would be fairly free to stress the values they feel are important. What this shows is that even after years of being fed "American style communication" and the like, values that have been traditionally considered important are still considered important by young adults."

I'm sorry but I'm not sure that I'm following this correctly. What I was saying is that these traits ARE being focused on in school still and that is made clear by the fact that these younger people think that's what is important. You think something is important because you've been taught it's important. The people being surveyed aren't teachers. They simply wrote down what they feel is important in education. I'm saying what they feel is important in education is probably just as influenced, if not more influenced, by their own education more than their own actions. I would think that a set of college students should think the way the results showed, too. The sample size is too narrow to get the whole picture. I don't think you would get recommended into the University of Tokyo unless you have your stuff straight anyways. I think it's important to think of your sample.

To put it all very bluntly:
The author's execution is what I have a problem with. The amount of samples and who he sampled are strange and his interpetations of the results were a little bit offensive and in a way cliche (as they are things I have heard over and over). I don't really find much new about this. It seems a little bit shallow to me.

Something I overlooked the first time-- he was only living in Japan for the fall? He's lectured in Japan over a decade. How many times has he been there? I found what I think are his books on Amazon.co.jp and they all seem to be about Judaism.

Thusly, I found this to be a little misleading:
As a New York-based psychologist specializing in personality study, I've been lecturing frequently and collaborating in Japan for the past decade. As a result, seven of my books have now been translated into Japanese. Last fall I served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, where my wife (a third-generation Brazilian Japanese) and our two tots were comfortably housed on campus, a brisk walk from historic Ueno Park.

I'm not a statistics expert by any means, but I think there are little or no conclusions other than "this is what 150 students in the most prominant university in Japan feel about Japanese traditional social values" that can be drawn from what he's done here. That campus by Ueno seems like a bubble and may or may not (probably isn't) representative of Japan as a whole.