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Why do yobs spontaneously greet you with a smile and wash toilets while they are in a miraculous local driving school in Japan?
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It's pity that these days many young Japanese people cannot greet others very well. Some of them can't even say hello to their colleagues, let alone strangers.
However, there seems to be a miraculous driving school in the moutains of Shimane prefecture (the least populated prefecture) in Japan. The Masuda driving school been successfully attracting a good number of students for more than 10 years while other schools are struggling hard to survive the reduction of the young population and the even steeper decline in youngster's interest towards cars and driving. More importantly, it seems that any student in the residential school changes his/her mind and start spontaneously greeting anyone out loud with a smile. A writer reported that he was very impressive that every single student he saw there, including apparently dangerous-looking one, greeted him with a good 'hello' at a single glance of him, which you cannot expect to see anywhere else in Japan perhaps.
On average the students stay there only for 20 days. Most of the students are teenagers, including 'bad' boys, such as those with blond-dyed hairs and 'Yankees' — in Japanese slung, 'Yankees' ヤンキー refers to yobs —, some of them even voluntarily clean the toilets in the school. The same report tells that in evening there is always a queue of enthusiastic students who want to register themselves to get up at 6 o'clock and clean the toilets in the next morning. The cleaning is so popular among the students that, as soon as the booking starts, it becomes full. When they clean the inside of the toilets, they don't use a brush with a long shaft or wear gloves; they use sponges with their bare hands.
However, the school never tells the students that they should greet with others or clean the toilets. It's all spontaneous. Simply, there is a special atmosphere in the school, which lets the students greet others and clean the toilets.
So what the hell is happening to them in the school? In fact, there is a secret which made it happen. Guess what?
The answer is that the founder of the school hired a number foreign employees for more than ten years solely to establish the custom of greeting in the school. The effect was phenomenal. Although it's been already years since they left the school, the culture of greeting still remains there. About 30 minutes after your arrival at the school, you'll find yourself greeting to others out loud. That was in fact what happened to the reporter himself.
With regard to the cleaning of the toilets, a member of the staff of the school says that it'll be a lot more cheaper and quicker if they hire professional cleaners or do it by themselves. They let the students clean the toilets only because they think it is a good experience for the youngsters.
The following is a conversation between the reporter and the founder of the school Mr Jiro Ogawa.
====================
Mr Yamaguchi (the reporter): Good morning. Thank you very much for sparing your precious time for this interview. First of all, I would like to ask you about the mystery of the Masuda driving school.
Why on earth can those modern youngsters soon start greeting others when they arrive at this school, even though you don't have a special lecture about greeting or force them to do it?
Mr Ogawa (the founder of the school): Well, why do you think they can? I would like to ask you, actually. Some students only arrived her today and others joined us two or three days ago. They only stay here for 15-16 days, anyway. If they can easily start greeting, why can't ordinary schools achieve the same? What do you think?
Mr Yamaguchi: Well, it is probably something like "the atmosphere of the place." They want to do decent greetings at heart. But the atmospheres of their schools and work places don't allow them to do it. If they suddenly say, "Good morning!" others will find them weird. There is no such a limitation in this school, so they can do greetings as loud as they want. I think it's something like that.
Mr Ogawa: That could be the case. Greeting and cleaning are comfortable things to do by nature. Therefore, we have to set an atmosphere which lets people do such things just in a natural way. It was already 50 years ago, but when I was working in Tokyo, I lived in a hotel. It was Shinbashi Daiichi Hotel. At that time, guests in hotels were mostly foreigners. Every morning when I used a lift, those foreign guests casually said to me, "Good morning." So, I replied to them, "Good morning."
However, when another Japanese person came into the lift, it doesn't work like that. They hesitated, flashed, and eventually turned to the wall. It was awkward. I saw this happen so many times that I realized the severity of the matter. People often say that Japanese people are polite, but in fact they can't even do a greeting. That's why I wanted the staff and students in my school to do a decent greeting.
Mr Yamaguchi: Right. Do you think the greeting and cleaning are sustainable? When they go back to their home town, do they continue to the greeting and cleaning?
Mr Ogawa: No, I'm not hoping that they can continue at all. If they can't keep the greeting or cleaning, that is nothing to do with me. If they have such a experience only once in their whole lives, I think that's still wonderful.
Most of our students are between 18 to 20. They will live another 50 years from now. If during the rest of their lives they recollect, "Oh, I did nice greetings and cleaning in that school," that'll be great. If they think a bit about doing it again, that's enough for me.
Mr Yamaguchi: So, you don't think they have to keep doing them at home with an effort.
Mr Ogawa: That's right. If they can continue, of course, that'll be good. But it's difficult. Having this kind of experience would help them later in their lives, I believe.
Mr Yamaguchi: Wow, that's quite a macroscopic view.
Mr Ogawa: While I'm alive, it doesn't matter. After I die, if it goes well, that's the best. (laughter)
Mr Yamaguchi: By the way, the atmosphere of your school is really cool. I think the local people in this area have a good custom of greetings? I got up early in the morning and ran along RIver Takatsu. All elderly women I passed through greeted me politely and even bowed. They say like, "Hi, young man. You're great. You're running as early as this time of the day." I was pleased too. Naturally, I took my cap off, and bowed back to them.
Mr Ogawa: People used to greet others very well. They do greet even apparent outsides or strangers, like you. It is not the matter of areas. People used to do it well. Youngsters can't do a proper greeting because of the modern education system.
Mr Yamaguchi: The modern education system? Do you mean the education system after WWII?
Mr Ogawa: That's right. The post-war education system. I think it became worse, especially since Ministry of Labor (労働省) was launched ... er, it's now called Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省). After that, in schools or companies, people started to measure the amount of work in terms of working ours rather than quality of output.
Mr Yamagshi: Oh, yes, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, of course. Then, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (文部科学省) and Japan Teachers' Union (日教組) joined up and....
Mr I (Editor): Wait a moment, Mr Yamaguchi. Don't be ridiculous. Driving schools has nothing to do with Japan Teachers' Union at all.
Mr Yamaguchi: What's ridiculous? When it comes to the post-war education system, we can't ignore the issue of Japan Teachers' Union. Don't raise the Japanese national flags in schools. Don't sing the national anthem in schools. You can't find any other country doing such things than Japan.
Mr I: Well, I'll listen to your opinion later. So please stop here...
====================
I see this success in the drive school as an example of how we can fight against otherwise formidable 'collective consciousness,' i.e. a cultural mindset which is shared by the majority of people in an area.
The key idea here is that you need a few people who take something absolutely for granted. In this example, the foreign employees hired by the school took granted for greetings, because their culture takes it for granted. So much so that, Japanese people in the school started thinking that greeting was a natural thing for them to do as well. They started doing it. Soon, they took the new custom of the greetings for granted. Afterwards, the new custom survived on its own even after the original foreign employees left, as if it were a life form.
Yes, you call it 'meme' if you like.
The official web site of Masuda driving school.
http://mland-masuda.jp/
The links below are the sources of this information including the conversation I translated.
日経ビジネスオンライン「フェルディナント・ヤマグチの走りながら考える」
フェルディナント・ヤマグチ
金髪さん、ヤンキー君もみんな挨拶してく れる 自動車学校でココロも便所も磨きました
番外編:便所掃除に行列ができる大人気自動車学校へ突撃取材
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20100915/216247/
挨拶する若者はなぜ育つ
ああ!名物会長の放談にF氏も飲まれる
番外編:大人気自動車学校トップとの禅問答
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20100928/216414/
挨拶する若者はなぜ育つ(その2) 人生放談合戦に突入する名物会長とF氏
番外編のとっておき:前回収容できなかった部分です
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20101001/216463/
However, there seems to be a miraculous driving school in the moutains of Shimane prefecture (the least populated prefecture) in Japan. The Masuda driving school been successfully attracting a good number of students for more than 10 years while other schools are struggling hard to survive the reduction of the young population and the even steeper decline in youngster's interest towards cars and driving. More importantly, it seems that any student in the residential school changes his/her mind and start spontaneously greeting anyone out loud with a smile. A writer reported that he was very impressive that every single student he saw there, including apparently dangerous-looking one, greeted him with a good 'hello' at a single glance of him, which you cannot expect to see anywhere else in Japan perhaps.
On average the students stay there only for 20 days. Most of the students are teenagers, including 'bad' boys, such as those with blond-dyed hairs and 'Yankees' — in Japanese slung, 'Yankees' ヤンキー refers to yobs —, some of them even voluntarily clean the toilets in the school. The same report tells that in evening there is always a queue of enthusiastic students who want to register themselves to get up at 6 o'clock and clean the toilets in the next morning. The cleaning is so popular among the students that, as soon as the booking starts, it becomes full. When they clean the inside of the toilets, they don't use a brush with a long shaft or wear gloves; they use sponges with their bare hands.
However, the school never tells the students that they should greet with others or clean the toilets. It's all spontaneous. Simply, there is a special atmosphere in the school, which lets the students greet others and clean the toilets.
So what the hell is happening to them in the school? In fact, there is a secret which made it happen. Guess what?
The answer is that the founder of the school hired a number foreign employees for more than ten years solely to establish the custom of greeting in the school. The effect was phenomenal. Although it's been already years since they left the school, the culture of greeting still remains there. About 30 minutes after your arrival at the school, you'll find yourself greeting to others out loud. That was in fact what happened to the reporter himself.
With regard to the cleaning of the toilets, a member of the staff of the school says that it'll be a lot more cheaper and quicker if they hire professional cleaners or do it by themselves. They let the students clean the toilets only because they think it is a good experience for the youngsters.
The following is a conversation between the reporter and the founder of the school Mr Jiro Ogawa.
====================
Mr Yamaguchi (the reporter): Good morning. Thank you very much for sparing your precious time for this interview. First of all, I would like to ask you about the mystery of the Masuda driving school.
Why on earth can those modern youngsters soon start greeting others when they arrive at this school, even though you don't have a special lecture about greeting or force them to do it?
Mr Ogawa (the founder of the school): Well, why do you think they can? I would like to ask you, actually. Some students only arrived her today and others joined us two or three days ago. They only stay here for 15-16 days, anyway. If they can easily start greeting, why can't ordinary schools achieve the same? What do you think?
Mr Yamaguchi: Well, it is probably something like "the atmosphere of the place." They want to do decent greetings at heart. But the atmospheres of their schools and work places don't allow them to do it. If they suddenly say, "Good morning!" others will find them weird. There is no such a limitation in this school, so they can do greetings as loud as they want. I think it's something like that.
Mr Ogawa: That could be the case. Greeting and cleaning are comfortable things to do by nature. Therefore, we have to set an atmosphere which lets people do such things just in a natural way. It was already 50 years ago, but when I was working in Tokyo, I lived in a hotel. It was Shinbashi Daiichi Hotel. At that time, guests in hotels were mostly foreigners. Every morning when I used a lift, those foreign guests casually said to me, "Good morning." So, I replied to them, "Good morning."
However, when another Japanese person came into the lift, it doesn't work like that. They hesitated, flashed, and eventually turned to the wall. It was awkward. I saw this happen so many times that I realized the severity of the matter. People often say that Japanese people are polite, but in fact they can't even do a greeting. That's why I wanted the staff and students in my school to do a decent greeting.
Mr Yamaguchi: Right. Do you think the greeting and cleaning are sustainable? When they go back to their home town, do they continue to the greeting and cleaning?
Mr Ogawa: No, I'm not hoping that they can continue at all. If they can't keep the greeting or cleaning, that is nothing to do with me. If they have such a experience only once in their whole lives, I think that's still wonderful.
Most of our students are between 18 to 20. They will live another 50 years from now. If during the rest of their lives they recollect, "Oh, I did nice greetings and cleaning in that school," that'll be great. If they think a bit about doing it again, that's enough for me.
Mr Yamaguchi: So, you don't think they have to keep doing them at home with an effort.
Mr Ogawa: That's right. If they can continue, of course, that'll be good. But it's difficult. Having this kind of experience would help them later in their lives, I believe.
Mr Yamaguchi: Wow, that's quite a macroscopic view.
Mr Ogawa: While I'm alive, it doesn't matter. After I die, if it goes well, that's the best. (laughter)
Mr Yamaguchi: By the way, the atmosphere of your school is really cool. I think the local people in this area have a good custom of greetings? I got up early in the morning and ran along RIver Takatsu. All elderly women I passed through greeted me politely and even bowed. They say like, "Hi, young man. You're great. You're running as early as this time of the day." I was pleased too. Naturally, I took my cap off, and bowed back to them.
Mr Ogawa: People used to greet others very well. They do greet even apparent outsides or strangers, like you. It is not the matter of areas. People used to do it well. Youngsters can't do a proper greeting because of the modern education system.
Mr Yamaguchi: The modern education system? Do you mean the education system after WWII?
Mr Ogawa: That's right. The post-war education system. I think it became worse, especially since Ministry of Labor (労働省) was launched ... er, it's now called Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (厚生労働省). After that, in schools or companies, people started to measure the amount of work in terms of working ours rather than quality of output.
Mr Yamagshi: Oh, yes, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, of course. Then, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (文部科学省) and Japan Teachers' Union (日教組) joined up and....
Mr I (Editor): Wait a moment, Mr Yamaguchi. Don't be ridiculous. Driving schools has nothing to do with Japan Teachers' Union at all.
Mr Yamaguchi: What's ridiculous? When it comes to the post-war education system, we can't ignore the issue of Japan Teachers' Union. Don't raise the Japanese national flags in schools. Don't sing the national anthem in schools. You can't find any other country doing such things than Japan.
Mr I: Well, I'll listen to your opinion later. So please stop here...
====================
I see this success in the drive school as an example of how we can fight against otherwise formidable 'collective consciousness,' i.e. a cultural mindset which is shared by the majority of people in an area.
The key idea here is that you need a few people who take something absolutely for granted. In this example, the foreign employees hired by the school took granted for greetings, because their culture takes it for granted. So much so that, Japanese people in the school started thinking that greeting was a natural thing for them to do as well. They started doing it. Soon, they took the new custom of the greetings for granted. Afterwards, the new custom survived on its own even after the original foreign employees left, as if it were a life form.
Yes, you call it 'meme' if you like.
The official web site of Masuda driving school.
http://mland-masuda.jp/
The links below are the sources of this information including the conversation I translated.
日経ビジネスオンライン「フェルディナント・ヤマグチの走りながら考える」
フェルディナント・ヤマグチ
金髪さん、ヤンキー君もみんな挨拶してく れる 自動車学校でココロも便所も磨きました
番外編:便所掃除に行列ができる大人気自動車学校へ突撃取材
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20100915/216247/
挨拶する若者はなぜ育つ
ああ!名物会長の放談にF氏も飲まれる
番外編:大人気自動車学校トップとの禅問答
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20100928/216414/
挨拶する若者はなぜ育つ(その2) 人生放談合戦に突入する名物会長とF氏
番外編のとっておき:前回収容できなかった部分です
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/life/20101001/216463/
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In fact, I wanted to translate ヤンキー or 不良少年 into English, but couldn't find better one than yob. Hoodies and chavs have similar tastes, but seemingly they refer to quite specific types of bad boys, perhaps more specific than yobs.
An Osaka dialect dictionary says:
不良少年。ミナミのアメリカ村でアメリカ人の真似をする人の意味から。剃り込みを入れ、眉毛を剃り、大便をする格好でしゃがみ、群をなす。歩くときはガニ股。「ヤンキー」とは「ヤンク」という人の名の変化形で、もともとニューイングランドに入植したオランダ人をイギリス人がからかって呼んだ名、後にアメリカ北部の人を指す言い方になり、それがアメリカ人全体の意味になったが、大阪では髪の毛を茶髪や金髪に染めているところからこう呼ばれるようになった。単に「わる（悪）」とも言う。女性の場合は「ヤンキーのねえちゃん」という。東京で「つっぱり」。
If we believe this, ヤンキー was an Osaka dialect which originally referred to youngsters with red- or yellow-dyed hairs in American Village in Minami (a very casual spot in Osaka).
Chavs are a British phenomenon and isn't applicable here unless you were to call them "Chavish Japanese" or "Japanese Chavs" or "Japan's answer to Chavs" or something.
I think the closest translation is actually "working class kids/youth." But if I were you, I'd just use the word yankii--the same way English writes "Gyaru" to talk about ギャル instead of "Gal." It's a Japanese phenomenon, so it should be explained rather than translated.
Thanks for the great English definition of ヤンキー.
I don't think I can call them 'working class kids,' because working class kids are not necessarily included in ヤンキー. Although in reality ヤンキー's children tend to be the next generation ヤンキー and thus there seems to be their 'class', we don't normally classify them into a working class.
Why do yobs spontaneously greet you with a smile and wash toilets while they are in a miraculous local driving school in Japan?
This is a rather condescending word usually said by older people about young people - usually implying that they are rough, obnoxious, etc.
The Masuda driving school has been successfully attracting a good number of students for more than 10 years while other schools are struggling hard to survive the decline in the number of young people and the even steeper decline in youngsters' interest in cars and driving.
"Reduction" makes it sound deliberate (i.e. someone deliberately *reduced* it). "Decline" just describes a natural trend.
More importantly, it seems that any student in the residential school changes his/her mind (when?) and starts spontaneously greeting anyone out loud with a smile.
A writer reported that he was very impressed that every single student he saw there, including apparently dangerous-looking ones, greeted him with a good(? polite? loud?) 'hello' at a single glance of him, which you cannot expect to see anywhere else in Japan perhaps.
Most of the students are teenagers, including 'bad' boys, such as those with blond-dyed hairs and 'Yankees' — in Japanese slang, 'Yankees' ヤンキー refers to yobs —, some of them even voluntarily clean the toilets in the school.
In British slang, "Yankee" means "American person", so...
The same report tells that in evening there is always a queue of enthusiastic students who want to register themselves to get up at 6 o'clock and clean the toilets in the next morning.
The cleaning is so popular among the students that, as soon as the booking starts, it fills up.
A little better.
However, the school never tells the students that they should greet with others or clean the toilets.
Simply, there is a special atmosphere in the school, which makes the students greet others and clean the toilets.
"Lets" = gives them the opportunity to. "Makes" = encourages them to.
So what the hell is happening to them in the school?
This is quite colloquial, and the rest of your article is formal. A more formal alternative: "what on earth?".
The answer is that the founder of the school hired a number of foreign employees for more than ten years solely to establish the custom of greeting others in the school.
Adding "others" sounds a little better.
Although it's already been years since they left the school, the culture of greeting still remains there.
About 30 minutes after your arrival at the school, you'll find yourself greeting to others out loud.
With regard to the cleaning of the toilets, a member of the staff of the school says that it'll be a lot more cheaper and quicker if they hire professional cleaners or do it by themselves.
Why on earth can these modern youngsters soon start greeting others when they arrive at this school, even though you don't have a special lecture about greeting or force them to do it?
"These" feels more appropriate here. Even though they're not *physically* nearby, they are the main subject of discussion, so they feel sort of metaphorically nearby.
Some students only arrived here today and others joined us two or three days ago.
If they can easily start greeting each other, why can't ordinary schools achieve the same?
Mr Yamaguchi: Well, it is probably something like "the atmosphere of the place." They want to give? decent greetings at heart.
Not sure about this...
There is no such a limitation in this school, so they can greet others as loud(ly) as they want.
"No such limitation", or "not such a limitation". (The word "no" secretly means "not a", so you can't repeat the "a".)
Therefore, we have to set an atmosphere which lets people do such things just in a natural way.
It was already 50 years ago, but when I was working in Tokyo, I lived in a hotel.
Every morning when I used the lift, those foreign guests casually said to me, "Good morning." So, I replied to them, "Good morning."
Even if there's more than one, and you only used one, this feels more natural to me.
However, when another Japanese person came into the lift, it didn't work like that.
They hesitated, flashed(!), and eventually turned to face the wall.
I don't know what you mean by this (but you probably don't mean "flashed", which is what a 露出狂 does). Maybe "blushed"?
People often say that Japanese people are polite, but in fact they can't even say hello.
That's why I wanted the staff and students in my school to give decent greetings.
If they can't keep up the greeting or cleaning, that is nothing to do with me.
If during the rest of their lives they recollect, "Oh, I did nice greetings and cleaning in that school," that'll be great.
Sounds strange.
Yeah, I had a trouble with 'do greeting' and 'greet others,' and couldn't tell which was better at all.
This distinction between reduction and decline is very helpful.
Think of "let" as meaning "allow". When you say "let", you're implying that they're forced *not* to do it elsewhere. If you don't like "make", then how about "encourage (to)"?
Wow, this explains it very well. I thought about "allow" too, but not about "encourage." Thanks a lot! :)
Why do yobs spontaneously greet you with a smile and wash toilets while they are in a miraculous local driving school in Japan?
As an American I have never heard the word "yob" before.
Most of the students are teenagers, including 'bad' boys, such as those with blond-dyed hairs and 'Yankees' — in Japanese slung, 'Yankees' ヤンキー refers to yobs —, some of them even voluntarily clean the toilets in the school.
Maybe in Ameican English "hoodlums" or "thugs" would work in place of "yobs."
The same report tells that in evening there is always a queue of enthusiastic students who want to register themselves to get up at 6 o'clock and clean the toilets in the next morning.
In the US we also say "line" instead of "queue," but most Americans will understand "queue" as well.
At that time, most hotel guests were foreigners.
They will live another 50 years from now.
After that, in schools or companies, people started to measure the amount of work in terms of working hours rather than quality of output.
So let's stop here...
"please stop here" sounds kind of strong
It's absurd, isn't it? Some of them ignore you, even if you greet them out loud.
As the founder of the driving school said, I believe people used to greet others naturally. They were able to enjoy small talks with strangers those days.
Now, for some reason, or perhaps due to the trend toward the nuclear family in cities, we lost that sort of communication skills. We can't greet or talk to strangers, because we don't know what to say. We don't know what to say because we can't decide who we really are in the relationship. Without knowing who we really are, we can't choose the right "I" or verbs.
In a stereotypical view, Japanese people are supposed to be 'polite.' But unfortunately that may not the case now.
I've noticed this effect at my schools, too. In schools where teachers greet each other and the students, students also greet everyone. In schools where the teachers do not greet students (or even other teachers!!!), students follow suit.
I think I now understand your idea for how to change group mentality, thanks to this concrete example. In this driving school example, the foreigner employees believed in the importance of greetings so strongly that the students were influenced by them, simply by being around them. The foreign employees were not going to change their custom, so the students had to adapt to them.
A similar example: Last year, my favourite 中3年生 graduated. I loved them because they were the group of students most excited to speak English to me. The reason that they loved English was because of one boy, a half-Japanese, half-Philippine boy. He was good at English, and when the other students saw him participating in English class and talking to me, they copied him. He lifted up the entire class by himself. (and their teacher was good, too..)
..
Back to your article...I also really enjoyed the interview! But I was intrigued by Mr. Ogawa's comment of "Youngsters can't do a proper greeting because of the modern education system". Why is this? Why has the modern education system stopped youngsters from doing proper greetings?
Also how exactly has the education system in Japan since WW2 gotten worse? I'm interested in knowing more about what life was like in Japan before WW2, because it sounds like it was much different than how it is now.
And... thanks a lot for your very interesting comments.
I've found your examples are quite promising and encouraging, actually.
The half-Philippine boy must be a really nice boy. So, other students naturally wanted to follow him.
I imagine it doesn't always work like that. Other students could have just envied him and tried to avoid him, or even bullied him, if he had a different character and were not as popular.
It would be interesting if I could tell what the watershed for these two possible outcomes is. Because these days young people seem to be under the pressure of 'reading the air' (空気を読む), a subtle difference may change 'the air,' which in turn dictates other people's actions.
***
With regard to the last bit, I admit that it certainly requires more explanations. Because you're working in Japanese schools, it is understandable that you're very intrigued.
I think Mr Ogawa's criticism of governments is quite general in nature. Like he said, everybody started to measure the amount of work in terms of working ours rather than quality of output. I think he is talking about the concept of labour movement and unions. It was after WWII when those concepts were introduced and widely accepted. I think his criticism here is not about labour movement in general. He doesn't like the fact that teachers considered themselves as labours and claimed their rights as labours.
At least some of elderly people think that when teachers started demanding their rights, their authority in Japanese society was gone and it was never recovered since then. It's logical. They claimed that they were nothing more than labours, so people thought, "Fair enough, but we don't respect you any longer." Without respect toward teachers, good education cannot stand, they think (and I agree). Before WWII, teachers weren't rich, but highly respected by people in the community.
The Japan Teachers' Union (日教組, にっきょうそ) played a pivotal role in this labour movement. This huge organization, which a lot of your colleagues may actually belong to, has a massive political power. As far as I understand, they're against anything reminiscent of the pre-war Japan, such as the national flag and national anthem. The union members often reject to sing the anthem in graduation ceremonies. This is what Mr Yamaguchi was trying to talk about.
This is actually one of the most controversial issues about education in Japan. However, you can't easily find news articles etc related to this in the major media. I didn't know about this arguments until I heard this from an elderly colleague when I was 25 or something. The reason the editor stopped the topic there was that he thought the topic was too dangerous.
>The half-Philippine boy must be a really nice boy. So, other students naturally wanted to follow him.
>I imagine it doesn't always work like that. Other students could have just envied him and tried to avoid him, or even bullied him, if he had a different character and were not as popular.
Very good point. Probably many half-Japanese kids are bullied because they stand out and are different. (though I hope that isn't the case..) You're right that the half-Philippine boy's character was important. He was a born leader and so I think that the other kids looked up to him.
>It would be interesting if I could tell what the watershed for these two possible outcomes is.
I don't think it would be easy to find such an answer. There are a lot of other important factors. For example, "the air" would also be influenced by the attitudes of the teachers and community. And the student's family life (and how much support he gets from his family) would also be important. And you can't easily measure those things.
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Thank you so much for your explanation about the teacher's union! I didn't know anything about it before.
I agree that teachers should not be considered as normal labourers. Teachers have a lot of duties to do outside of school hours, such as prep work, marking tests, dealing with parents, etc. These things have to be done, however the number of hours spent doing them is not so important.
After I read your article, I asked one of my older Japanese friends (who is not a teacher) about the teacher's union. He said that after WW2, the American General, MacArthur, completely reformed the Japanese education system. He (and later the teacher's union?) wanted to remove all the attitudes and practices that might have caused Japan to go to war. So that was why many things from pre-war Japan, such as greetings, the role of the emperor, and (like you mentioned) the national flag, anthem, etc. were abolished. It sounds like many good things were thrown out with the "bad".
It also seems like the Japanese culture and society changed dramatically after WW2.. However, the current Japan is the only Japan that many people know. So it's very interesting when I get glimpses into pre-war Japan. Thanks again!
Japan experienced two major discontinuities in its recent history. One was the encounter with the Western World, which is symbolized by the arrival of American Battle Ships "黒船" lead by Admiral Perry in 1853. The other was the defeat in WWII in 1945, which was followed by the military occupation by GHQ and General MacArthur.
Although Japan was in a state of turmoil in both incidents, their nature was different. The former change is viewed as one of the most exciting themes in historical novels. A lot of efficient and ambitious young samurai came to the central stage and they lead the transition from the Edo Period to the new Meiji Era, during which Japan urged to catch up with the Western civilization.
Perhaps, the latter, the end of WWII, had even more profound impact of Japanese society and culture, because it was the complete denial of our history and culture by ourselves in the name of peace after all. Since the end of the war, 67 years have passed. Those who know about the pre-war society are dying.
Amid the disputes about the small islands with our neighbours, a new katakana English word sneaked into the news media. It's ナショナリスト, apparently meaning 'nationalists.' Although there have been Japanese words for the meaning, such as 国粋主義者, some people somehow prefer ナショナリスト to the older expression to confuse other people.
Anyway, those 'nationalists,' represented by the mayor of Tokyo, Mr Ishihara 石原, that of Osaka, Mr Hashimoto 橋下, and the new leader of Liberal Democratic Party, Mr Abe 阿部, seem to be trying to recover the continuity with the pre-war society, although they are also often reminiscent of the system which drove the country into the war.
In short, peace is associated with the denial of history and culture. This is the tricky issue.
Thank you again for your detailed explanations! Have you written about those nationalists on Lang-8 before? or do you plan to? Please let me know if you do :)