Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
He said there's no doubt that that would work, but it would screw up Japan's ability to teach kids "how to be Japanese". The way he said it of course had a lot more power and meaning behind it... but that was the first time I'd talked to someone in Japan who completely knew where I was coming from but disagreed... he was geniunely worried about Japanese morals, basically. He said that as a speaker of English, he was fine with being a foreigner and that is all part of it.
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I find this interesting and I suspect his comments are not unrepresentative.
I also think this is one of the reasons why the Japanese governement have been reticent to opening up the borders to immigration. I think this country is held together and works as well as it does only because of what he refers to as "how to be Japanese". Western ways of thinking here would definitely have major consequences, both good and bad. But they would be unpredictable and from my experience the Japanese people aren't too keen on unpredictable. They love an order to things. With much of the population well taught in "how to be Japanese" it's not too hard to predict how they will react. I think one of the hardest things for the Japanese in interactions with foreigners is that they can't predict very well how they will react.