Warning: learning Japanese can lead to addictive behaviour

...But at least the manfacturers of my new dictionary have recognised the threat and printed directions for help in the inside cover.

The New Nelson Japanese English Character Dictionary was recommended by our teacher at the end of last semester. At 1600 pages, it was certainly one of the heaviest presents I recieved this Christmas, but I'm just working out it might well be one of the most useful.

The handout for our translation module this semester included as the first of its objectives that students would be able to "read, translate, summarise, and discuss Japanese texts that are NOT altered for ease of comprehension." While the texts we were given last semester were fairly complex, last week's work (an extract from a book on General MacArthur and the post-war occupation of Japan) included some characters and vocabulary that completely defeated my trusty electronic dictionary. Working with my three-year-old miniature model and the newly acquired paper monster, I was able to work through the text and unearth the most obscure and specialist vocabulary, including this gem: 公娼制度, or the pre-war system of licenced prostitution. If that isn't specialist, I don't know what is.

In short, if like me you're at a fairly advanced level in Japanese study and know you're going to continue at it for a long time, the New Nelson or a dictionary like it is basically invaluable.

On the merits (or otherwise) of the arse-kicking approach to education

So, as a final goodwill gesture before term finishes, I agreed to be interviewed by some first-year students in class. The deal was to talk in Japanese about our years abroad. I made a pretty good fist of it, although since I got back from Japan my speaking ability has gone way downhill from simple lack of practice. Also present was Ilkka, from the infamous year abroad briefing (which has now assumed legendary proportions among people who were there), and a few others.

The session concluded with some advice from us to the new generation about the year abroad and the semester leading up to it. Among some questions from the floor (about how to recognise Yakuza, as well as more quotidian concerns), one student asked me how many students made it from our first year to the year abroad. I answered truthfully: "About half the class." Then I wondered why he looked so shocked. In fact, all of us advised the first-years to work harder, in no uncertain terms.

Tough love? Sure, but I felt good doing it. For one, it was funny as hell to watch their expressions when Ilkka told them "You can't just expect the Japanese language to magically pour into your head. Do the work, or you'll fail." But also, I think this kind of "motivation" (read: arse-kicking) was what is missing from the staff this year. In my first year, our year abroad director was a sarcastic, cynical Australian academic named Dr. Weste, who left at the end of last year. His sardonic asides during lessons and frequent threats of dire consequences if we didn't do the work did a lot to help shake me out of a rut and do better.

I'm of the opinion that everyone secretly likes the Dr. Cox-type character - someone who will mock, belittle and scare you into working harder, but genuinely does it in your own best interests. Not only will it motivate you, it shows someone cares far more than a diffident, impersonal response.

Newsflash: My evil education

Checking through my Hotmail account for the first time in a long while, I found a load of old emails from a discussion group of people I went to 6th Form with (sorry guys, long time no see!), one of which pointed me towards this article from the Guardian:

A US school district has banned the International Baccalaureate after officials condemned it as "un-American" and Marxist, sparking outrage among pupils who are studying the increasingly popular diploma.

A brief note: I went to an international 6th Form college that offered the International Baccalaureate. This was pure luck - it was the closest local school to us, which just happened to be the only comprehensive which offered the IB. If we hadn't moved to Cambridge, I probably wouldn't have heard of the course, much less have taken it. As it happened, studying the IB was one of the best decisions I've made so far.

I took seven subjects (English, French, History, Spanish, Japanese, Maths and Environmental Systems), in addition to a theory of knowledge (philosophy) course and a paper on a topic of our own choosing. I studied with people from all over the world, making friends and learning about the differences and similarities between our cultures. In fact, I think that's why I've enjoyed being at Kansai Gaidai so much - because it recreates the international atmosphere that I loved so much in my 6th Form, and I couldn't find in my first year at Leeds. In addition to that, it taught me the basics of indepedant study, how to do your own research and present your findings. When I got to university I was astonished to find that there were people who still hadn't been taught how to do this - for me it was second nature.

Anyway, now I've given you my side, you can see the opposing view It's mostly a rant on how the IBO's support for the UN and something called the "Earth Charter" (which I never heard of during my time doing the IB) undermines American sovereignty. It's the editor's comments at the end, however, that make that piece what it is:

This socialist-tyrannical indoctrination for the New World Order must be stopped, if we are to preserve the Good America that still remains ... It can be done, dear Patriot!

The Guardian has more on the school board's motives:

Most of the complaints emphasise the IB's teaching of a theory of knowledge course on philosophy and ethics, and that it offers subjects such as environmental systems, technology and social change, peace and conflict studies and experimental science, with an international flavour, alongside the "drier" subjects such as English, maths, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology and foreign languages, that stir less debate, but are actually a much larger part of the core curriculum.

Now this is interesting. What seems to be the problem here is the teaching of philosophy, ethics and other subjects that encourage students to think for themselves. This is a trend that's been seen a lot in US education lately (the British education system deserves its own rant on this subject). The hypocrisy of this is astounding. Teaching creationism is pushed on the grounds of "giving students access to both side of the issue" but an internationalist outlook is treated as some kind of Red peril. As somebody who's seen (and recieved) the benefits of such an education, I'm very angry that small-minded nationalistic sentiment is depriving others of the opportunity I had. I stand with President Bush on this issue.

Yeah, you heard me:

Despite his disdain for the UN, the Kyoto protocol, the International Criminal Court and many other international institutions, Bush specifically called, in this year's state of the union address in January, for expansion of the IB programme.

In the meantime, be sure to check under your bed for me or any of my other former classmates. You never know where a evil socialist-tyrannical nutcase like me could be hiding.

Nationalism, nonsense and other things

I had my presentation this Monday for Issues in Contemporary Japanese Society and Culture. It was on the zainichi Korean population in Japan - the Koreans who came to Japan before the end of World War II, and their desecendants, who are still registered as foreign nationals. Went pretty well, but I still have to do field research. Which, come to think of it, is a good excuse to go to Tsuruhashi again.

Almost all the presentations I've seen so far have made me think, and I like that some people have obviously taken the time to research their topics and come up with new ideas. When I saw that one guy was giving a presentation on Japanese nationalism, I was doubly interested - it's an important subject that says a lot about contemporary Japan.

Unfortunately, this wasn't what we got from the presentation. It was lazy, biased, scaremongering, anti-Japan and woefully under-researched. A little walk-through: it kicked off with the hilarious assertion that Japanese nationalism died out after World War II exclusively because of General MacArthur's Occupation reforms. So, nothing to do with the immense suffering, food shortages, firebombing and two atom bombs, all of which created the intense post-war backlash among the Japanese population against militarism of any sort (which is still strong today).

Then, apparently, Japanese nationalism was recently kickstarted again - by the Americans allowing Japan to use their navy in combat operations. (The closest I can find to this is a law passed during the 2001 war in Afghanistan that allowed Japan's navy to support the US fleet with supply missions.) From hearing his presentation, you would assume that nothing happened in Japan without America's say-so. And if nationalism was dormant for 50 years, how does this guy explain the fact that the 14 Class-A war criminals were included in the dead at the Yasukuni Shrine in 1978? Or the fact that the first Prime Minister to visit Yasukuni did so back in 1985? (Nakasone Yasuhiro, and no, his nationalist outlook didn't get a mention either.) Any kind of deep political change occurs over a long period of time, it does not just snap from one extreme to another.

On the international front he was even odder. Summed up, that bit went: Japan bad, nationalism rising, wants to regain control over Asia. Remind you of anyone? I challenged him on a few of these points after the presentation, and he had nothing to say. I got kind of bogged down in the question of Japan's recent military moves, and was constrained by politeness from doing the kind of point-by-point demolition that I wanted. It's a real shame that a subject with such potential got such a pisspoor treatment. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few Japanese nationalism-related things I'd love to hear about:

Novelist Yukio Mishima, his ultra-nationalism and fondness for samurai chic, his attempt to take over the Self-Defence Forces headquarters with his own private army (seriously), and subsequent ritual suicide.

Kenkanryu, the controversial Japanese manga (the title can be translated as 'the hate Korea wave', a play on words on the 'Korea wave' pop culture boom in Japan). The manga, which has sold about 400,000 copies, puts across a right-revisionist view of Japan's colonial record in Korea. An interesting view of it
here.

Japanese nationalism is not always overt and scary, like the big right-wing sound trucks I've seen in Hirakata and Tokyo. (They were actually kind of a let-down - I thought they'd be much louder than they actually were.) I'm currently watching a film for my Japanese classes about an underdog university sumo team, which is quite interesting in terms of overtones. The sumo team gains members from students who are fed up with American sports, such as pro-wrestling and American football, and a gaijin character who is ignorant of Japanese tradition and relies on brute strength to win has recently been introduced. I suspect he will soon be shown the error of his ways. Would that I could say the same for the guy behind that awful presentation.

Character acting

Following on from the short aside about studying kanji a couple of posts ago, I remembered an article I read some time ago on the story behind a Chinese word. Among the kanji I'm plowing my way through at the moment is "危機" (きき, or kiki), which means crisis. The two characters which make up the word are '危' (danger) and '機'(opportunity). This is exactly the same as the Chinese word which gave rise to the belief that "in Chinese, danger + opportunity = crisis". It's been the springboard for a mysteries-of-the-orient view that the best time for finding opportunity is in a crisis. Seems to me a slightly patronising, orientalist view of things, like those businessmen who read samurai texts to improve their business skills. The article debunks this view very nicely, and you learn a bit about the Chinese language as well. What more could you want?

Also, I referred to kanji as 'ideograms' in the previous post. I've since edited it, as Prof. Mair puts me right in the third paragraph of his article:

Linguists and writing theorists avoid "ideogram" as a descriptive referent for hanzi (Mandarin) / kanji (Japanese) / hanja (Korean) because only an exceedingly small proportion of them actually convey ideas directly through their shapes. (For similar reasons, the same caveat holds for another frequently encountered label, pictogram.) It is far better to refer to the hanzi / kanji / hanja as logographs, sinographs, hanograms, tetragraphs (from their square shapes [i.e., as fangkuaizi]), morphosyllabographs, etc., or -- since most of those renditions may strike the average reader as unduly arcane or clunky -- simply as characters.

So now you know.

My very own education reforms

As if anything could increase my bilious, cynical, hungover mood from the weekend...

Each year, ever more illiterate and innumerate undergraduates go to university and demand to be spoon-fed answers, revealed the Times Higher Education Supplement last week.

I asked Susan Bassnett, pro-vice-chancellor of Warwick University, if it was possible to go from nursery to university in this country without learning anything. She replied: You can certainly get a 2:1 without demonstrating the capacity for independent thought and without acquiring basic skills.

(Nick Cohen's latest article, second entry down)

Roll on, thou great and restless ocean. Roll on, roll over and drown the lot of 'em.