Originally published by Bismarck State College, North Dakota, in
an electronic literary magazine: Webgeist, 3 (2), 27 May 1997.
"Notes from the Pacific Rim" column, third installment.
For those who have not been to Japan, this article goes down to the
neighborhood level to describe some of the variegated specifics that
are often missing amid the plethora of generalities about Japan. A day
in the life of eight-year-old schoolboy Kiley Ishikawa demonstrates
how educational rigors begin early in East Asia. Citing commonalities
as well as differences between Japan and countries such as Singapore,
South Korea and China may also shed light on actual diverse practices
within the educational ethos of East Asia.
To set the scene, even the rural town of Kokubunji on Shikoku, the least
modern among the four largest islands of Japan, can be seen on the Web.
This area is the bonsai capital of Japan, and English-speaking grower
Hiroyoshi Yamaji now takes orders via the Net: "Bonsai of Kokubunji"
<http://www.wesselsys.com/bonsai/kokubu.html>. The town orginated
with 8th Century Nara Period Buddhism, namely "Kokubunji Temple"
<http://www.wesselsys.com/bonsai/temple.html>. Nowadays, however,
Kokubunji is becoming more of a suburban bed town because of its
location next to Takamatsu, a capital of the Inland Sea region (pop.:
320,000). Tiny Kagawa Prefecture (pop.: 1 million) is sometimes
called "Japan in miniature," and tends to the middle statistically, so
it is representative in many ways of the "real Japan" outside of Tokyo.
Kagawa retains some compelling historical sites, although its natural
beauty noticeably diminishes every year. An entryway is "Sightseeing"
<http://202.252.65.76/eac/local/kagawa/en/sightseeing_ke.html>.
One of the finest of all Japanese strolling gardens is "Ritsurin Park" in
Takamatsu <http://www.kagawa-net.or.jp/KAGAWA_e/2/rituri.html>.
The pine-forested mountain in the photo at this Website is typical of
the many small but steep and conical mountains throughout Kagawa,
with Kokubunji Town surrounded by them. Kokubunji schoolboy Kiley
Ishikawa is pictured at the left in a photo with his mother and
five-year-old brother at <http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/>.
Kindergarten in Japan runs from age three or four to six, and the large
but well-organized classes with school uniforms are the training
grounds for "becoming Japanese." Kindergarten and elementary school
seem to be fun for the children, with pressure building in junior and
senior high school toward "exam hell," the sense that one's career or
status is determined for life by college entrance exam results. This
reflects a credentialistic society, dominated by big companies, with
little scope for entrepreneurship. A bureaucratic social organization
and its effects on education can be seen throughout East Asia, harking
back to the Confucianistic meritocracy of ancient China. The severe
competition among students with similar backgrounds in a standard
national curriculum results in the world's best test-takers, with
Singapore tops in the world because it is a city-state with no
educationally disadvantaged countryside.
In the Japanese countryside people look up to the biggest cities and
many younger people want to move away to Tokyo or Osaka. But this
is placing the priority on availability of information and social
amenities. Contrary to the image of "rabbit hutches" and subway
staff pushing crowds into the trains, most people in the fairly
urbanized "countryside" of Japan live in spacious houses they own
and can usually find a seat on the train or bus. A roadside parking
space in any city is probably a rumor, but more people outside the
cities drive cars because there is room for them. Still, the air is
fairly clean in the countryside amid the uncrowded highways and
occasional twenty to thirty-story condos or office buildings.
Compared to the even more crowded squalor of other parts of Asia,
Japan is urbanized nationwide, but pleasantly so with nearly the
whole population of 125 million enjoying middle-class affluence.
Kiley Ishikawa lives in a four-bedroom house, not unusual in being
mostly Western style but with one traditional-style room with a
tatami mat floor and so forth. He meets the other elementary
school kids in the neighborhood and they theoretically walk to
school together for safety. In practice there are many stragglers,
for one reason to avoid being bullied by older kids. The school year
has many more days than that of Western countries, and each day
is longer. Moreover, there is much homework, including not only
weekends but also vacations. Mothers supplement this, because
other mothers do, with correspondence courses and lessons at
after-school schools. At the secondary school level, cram school
life begins in earnest for university aspirants, but so far Kiley
has just taken lessons he wanted: swimming, karate and abacus.
As for what is studied, there is a nearly 100% literacy rate in the
2,000 Chinese characters, two phonetic syllabaries and the English
alphabet. That alone demands much study, but a country with few
natural resources feels hard-pressed to overcome this with math
and science. Early in the third grade Kiley multiplies three digit
numbers by two-digit ones and has started division. He can multiply
and divide larger numbers on the abacus, which goes back to about
500 B.C. in China.
Not all study is drudgery, either. One homework assignment that
starts in first grade is the picture diary, reporting what the child
has enjoyed over the weekend. Drawing the picture tends to add a
cognitive dimension to strengthen the writing. One second grade
assignment was to research festivals, go to a certain one, and
then report it all in the picture diary. Kiley's mother Chisato
Ishikawa said that they would have had to go to the library,
except that there was an entry on festivals in Kiley's children's
encyclopedia. In such ways supplementary educational materials
also tend to become a necessity. Kiley's father, yours truly, took
this opportunity to explain about citing sources that were not his
own writing, but Kiley sniffed that he already knew that.
To the dismay of his parents, Kiley has never shown any aptitude
except for sports, but the educational system is forcing him to
learn an enormous amount. It is taking a day-dreamer who would
otherwise play outside all day--like his father in his youth--and
enculturating him into a society where people have to pay
attention and study hard.
Educators outside of Japan could not import the whole ethos that
drives students, but they could at least investigate what is going
on and select elements that might be enriching to import. This is,
after all, what East Asians have been doing with things Western.
Now while there are many traditions common to East Asia with
roots in the Chinese cradle of civilization, each country has its
own particular practices. This is shown when East Asian countries
come into conflict with one another or prove to be a mystery to
each other. Generally speaking, South Koreans are far more open
than Japanese nationals. Taiwanese students in Japan once said
that Chinese are more like Americans than they are like Japanese.
A delegation from the Singapore National Institute of Education,
not to be complacent, recently came to Tokyo looking for tips on
how Japanese schools instill a sense of commitment to community
and society. Since I was invited to meet them, I checked if their
assumptions were true or not. Voluntarism is indeed part of the
secondary school curriculum in some parts of East Asia such as
Hong Kong, but it is still at the proposal stage in Japan. My
Japanese informants stated that local schools do not instill a
sense of community at all, so people tend to pursue selfish aims
within the group-oriented system. Singapore should rather look
to a multicultural society like that of the U.S. for inspiration,
they said. It turned out that even a Singaporean with degrees
from Japanese and Western universities had been projecting
Singapore's desiderata onto the unknown screen of Japan. So if
East Asians can be so mysterious to each other, then how much
more easily can Westerners be deceived by appearances and
project mistaken assumptions onto the folding screen of a
country as enigmatic as Japan.
Updated on 28 November 2001
Make a link or a bookmark
to tour this Website again as it expands!
(^_^) /Click to e-mail Steve McCarty
Proceed to the Bilingualism and Japanology Intersection or its Mirror Site