[YuriTokoro]

Why Japan prefers a monocultural society.
This is my answer to Kakusa’s comment.


Kakusan: Of course in the case of the Potato Famine, there were many other historical factors that induced the dependence upon potatoes, but when one has the choice it is certainly preferable not to rely upon a single variety of crops.

Yuri: In Ogasawara Islands which is located in the south of Tokyo, there had been about 350 endemic insects, but alien species are exterminating most of them. Especially, a green anole (lizard) has a very big effect to the insects and plants in the Islands. This is only one example and alien species have been doing a lot of damage to Japanese endemic insects, plants, fish and animals throughout Japan.


Kakusan: In genetics, too, we see that if we have two specimens that are weak due to high homozygosity, but they are highly heterozygous with respect to one another, so to speak, their offspring will be much stronger, larger and healthier.

Yuri: I do not see why you need to be large. I do not fight hand-in-hand combat or hunt animals. I’m sure that I have enough muscle strength, and Japan has the world’s highest longevity rate. I think this means Japanese people are healthy.


Kakusan: However, if one society comprises many cultures rather than just one, then it is much more likely that the society as a whole will be able to find within itself those cultural resources with which to equip itself against the new difficulty. In this way, we can learn from those who are different from us how best to cope with unfamiliar situations.

Yuri: We can learn from other country because we can study abroad when we need. I do not see why you need to live together in one society.


Kakusan: In turn this eventually leads to a more peaceful society.

Yuri: Do you know that Japan is very safe and girls can walk outside alone in the middle of the night wearing skirts and high heels? I do not think the UK and the US are more peaceful.


Kakusan: People will always find reasons to hate one another. Whether they be religion, culture or skin colour,

Yuri: Japanese people do not hate people because of religion or skin color. I do not see why you hate people because of such reason. Japan persecuted Christianity in 17th century, but it was just to prevent being colonized by Western countries.


Kakusan: I understand what you are saying about "reading between the lines" and hearing what is left unsaid. However, when we have to learn how to do this with a new group of people with different mores, we leave our "comfort zone" and both exercise a new area of our brain and learn something about ourselves which could not have otherwise been revealed.

Yuri: When moving in a new workplace, after saying nice to meet you, you say like you do not know anything and ask to tell everything in Japan. This is the Japanese way to say things. We do not expect that other co-workers would tell me everything, but we say like that because attitude of self-confidence is hated when you first meet people. On the other hand, Western people always show their self-confidence, and if you say things like Japanese, they would hate or look down on you, right? I believe the Japanese way of saying is from the Japanese spirit. Do we need to change our culture and spirit? I do not want to.
When we go abroad, we conform to your way, but in Japan, we want to be ourselves.


Kakusan: Obviously there is the long-term history of the "Bamboo Curtain",

Yuri: Bamboo Curtain is of China.


Kakusan: So, to take a very broad, overall message from history, one could get the impression that Japanese interactions with the "outside" have had a tremendously unfortunate negative tendency.

Yuri: Yes. In addition, our culture and spirit is different from yours, so when you behave ordinary, sometimes we can’t help feeling you are cowards, because we do not have the culture of debate. I think Japanese people may have been feeling we have been agued down by foreign people.


Kakusan: In this sense, it seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Japan has benefited from an exclusive kind of "multiculturalism of ideas" in a way that few other nations can claim to have done.

Yuri: Yes, you are right. So, I do not see why we have to live with foreign people when we can get a lot of information about foreign countries easily.
I don’t dislike foreign people, I love foreign countries, but still I prefer a monocultural society than a multicultural one to live myself.


Thank you.
覚さん、Could you correct my English?