Do you ever wish you were Japanese?

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by HikoSeijuro

The initial question hits me with full force of the "victim" mentality or what is known as the "Circle of Concern":

I think this has to be the best way of summing up the entire phenomenon that I have seen.
Wishing you were someone you are not, or that you were somewhere you are not, and thinking you would be so much happier if it would come true is a way to avoid looking at the real reasons that you`re unhappy. A great excuse to not actually bother fixing yourself and your real life.

Having seen how many people simply withdraw when they finally come to Japan after neglecting reality only to find that it didn`t fix their lives and didn`t make them happy... It`s really stunning. I think that you hit the nail on the head.

Being Japanese is one that can never be fulfilled - but it applies just as well with with feasible ones like living in Japan.

Having taught in a Japanese high school, I don't know that to necessarily be a good idea. I have been in a handful of high schools, and the buildings tend to be ominous concrete blocks. There is no heat or cooling, so students huddle around gas heaters in winter and fan themselves in the humid summer heat. Most classes are taught lecture style, so its a lot of sitting in the same homeroom and listening to a teacher talk.

In regard to heating and cooling - things have changed quite a lot recently. There was apparently a death some years back from heat stroke INSIDE a school building... Now air conditioners are pretty much standard equipment, and if the school is not equipped with them, school will be cancelled should it rise above a certain "heat index" (some formula using temperature and humidity).
Students (or rather their families) pay a flat monthly fee for heating and cooling (usually 500yen or thereabout).

As far as school atmosphere... I went pretty much half to a US high school and half to a Japanese high school. In the Japanese school, the unpopular kids might be ignored all day or excluded from group activities. In the US - they were shot after leaving the police checkpoint at the school entrance.
Even in the painfully expensive prep high school I went to until I moved, the level of bullying was pretty much on par with what it was in the Japanese school.

I certainly wouldn`t say Japanese high schools are better, but I also wouldn`t say they are worse. It`s just a different package, still filled with the same social groups and teenage herd mentality.

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

In regard to heating and cooling - things have changed quite a lot recently. There was apparently a death some years back from heat stroke INSIDE a school building... Now air conditioners are pretty much standard equipment, and if the school is not equipped with them, school will be cancelled should it rise above a certain "heat index" (some formula using temperature and humidity).

I have to disagree with this. At least, around where I live, heating and cooling is not even close to being standard in schools. I mean teachers rooms have them as well as the office areas, but in classrooms they are still extremely rare to my knowledge.

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I
In the US - they were shot after leaving the police checkpoint at the school entrance.

The school you went to must have been pretty bad. I mean there most certainly are schools plagued with that kind of violence, but it is not representative of the norm. It all depends on the state, city, and most importantly the area of the city the school is in.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by RickOShay

I have to disagree with this. At least, around where I live, heating and cooling is not even close to being standard in schools. I mean teachers rooms have them as well as the office areas, but in classrooms they are still extremely rare to my knowledge.

I don`t know how it is currently at the high school level, but I do know that it is moving up from elementary. Elementary schools now tend to have heating and cooling as a standard - high school and middle school is sort of in-between. Some schools do, some don`t, and I`m sure the speed at which they install is going to have a lot to do with local budget. The thing is it is now pretty much in the law that new schools built are required to have classroom AC, and that older schools are supposed to install. More students = more incentive to hurry up and do it, so I`m sure the larger schools take priority.

I`m not sure if heating is a priority - but summer AC is. Parents are pretty quick to push a school into installing if the day is too hot and the students are sent home... This year apparently had quite a few "too hot" days, so I expect that next year a LOT more schools are going to have AC in place.

The school you went to must have been pretty bad. I mean there most certainly are schools plagued with that kind of violence, but it is not representative of the norm. It all depends on the state, city, and most importantly the area of the city the school is in.

I don`t think it is representative of all schools, just like I also don`t think the prep school I went to the year before it is representative. But those are my experiences of US high schools, and I didn`t find them in general better or worse than Japanese high schools... As I said, similar stuff just in a different package.

(The school wasn`t in a particularly bad area, but it was during a period of "mixing kids from all over with no regard to anything else" - so there were students brought in from all over... Some from very bad areas, and some in opposing gangs, etc etc. A few bad apples in a generally normal and bland school, but there was still an officer and a kid was shot, a few were stabbed, some very violent bullying went on, etc...)

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I don`t know how it is currently at the high school level, but I do know that it is moving up from elementary. Elementary schools now tend to have heating and cooling as a standard - high school and middle school is sort of in-between. Some schools do, some don`t, and I`m sure the speed at which they install is going to have a lot to do with local budget. The thing is it is now pretty much in the law that new schools built are required to have classroom AC, and that older schools are supposed to install. More students = more incentive to hurry up and do it, so I`m sure the larger schools take priority.

It really must differ between prefectures then because I am at a different elementary school almost everyday and none of them (even in newer schools) have heating in the classrooms.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by RickOShay

It really must differ between prefectures then because I am at a different elementary school almost everyday and none of them (even in newer schools) have heating in the classrooms.

Wow, around here we were told it was a national thing, decided at the ministry of education. They basically rebuilt the local elementary schools in this area as it was cheaper to mostly rebuild rather than remodel and install AC systems.

[GoNative]

Some of the teachers up here have told me horror stories of no AC and poor heating in the schools they teach at. AC is not common in Hokkaido though.

[visionsen]

I am happy to be from States, especially when l remember the vision of the founders of the United States America.

[KuroiBara]

I would like to have a different nationality, but I wouldn't devote my life to wanting to be Japanese. I love the culture and the language etc, so being a citizen of Japan will be enough for me

[Ryzorian]

If I wished I were someone else and became that person, invaribly I would wish to me who I was to begin with.