[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by Nyssa View Post
In seriousness, I thought that divorces were frowned upon and difficult to get in Japan.

One thing I did want to add to this... If there are children, the wife will almost always get total custody, and usually, the husband will never have any future contact with the children. I have two friends who were denied all contact with their kids until the children were old enough to move out on their own and contacted the fathers to re-establish relations. When getting married with a Japanese, it's far more common for a foreign man to take his wife's Japanese name.

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Thank you Stitchawl! This information has been absolutely fascinating!
Do you have any suggested reading material about overall and current Japanese culture?

Unfortunately, most of what is written is not accurate. The closest I've seen so far is called 'Culture Shock - Japan.' It's a series of cross-cultural studies on many different countries, and they do a 'fairly good' job with Japan. There are still plenty of gross inaccuracies. For some reason, Japan has been able to propagate some of the most remarkably wrong but positive information about itself. The one that springs to mind is the concept of it being so crime-free. There is plenty of crime, just not the same kinds of crimes you see in other countries. And the crime statistics are based only on 'solved crimes,' not reported crimes. 2-3 years ago, Osaka Japan was on Interpol's "Top Five" for vehicle theft IN THE WORLD, and number one for motorcycle theft.

The Lonely Planet Guides 'tend' to be a bit more accurate, but even in the newest one for Japan I saw some glaring misconceptions. It's not 'permitted' in Japanese society to even suggest a better way of doing something to your superior... unless you've been drinking. This is the primary REASON why almost all men 'must' go drinking every night after work with their work group. The bonding is vital, but only after a few drinks can any meaningful things be expressed without offending. Otherwise, all talking is just 'tatemae.' Hone and tatemae are keystones to understanding Japanese culture. Without understanding them, there isn't a chance in hell of understanding Japan.

The media specialist at my eldest son's school took an official education-based trip to Japan some years ago. The Japanese wanted to know how American students were "okay" with failure (isn't that an awful compliment ), and invited a group of American teachers over to exchange ideas.

It might be 'official' but there won't be any changes made. My wife was a teacher for the municipal school system for 20 years. She just quit... in the middle of the school term... She got so fed up with the school's refusal to deal with problem students. There is NO punishment for acting out other than making an apology. In just this school year alone, and only in her school (although it's the same in all schools) a student stabbed another student with a pair of scissors. The 'stabber' only had to apologize. The victim was hospitalized for several days. A few weeks later another student broke a dozen windows in the school. He had to apologize too. His parents weren't even required to pay for the damages. A few weeks later two students attacked a teacher and put her in the hospital. They only had to apologize... No suspension, no detention, not even writing on the board "I must be a good person" 100 times. Nothing. At no time were the police ever called in, because the school felt that this would be damaging to the children's psyche... We will be hearing a LOT about the rising problems of Japan's youth in the next 10 years...

One of the things that I actually loved learning, was how ALL of the students were responsible for their school. They helped keep it clean, they helped with lunch, etc. I think that is a fantastic way to teach responsibility, especially away from home.

Well... yes, the students do clean the school, are responsible for bringing lunches from the kitchen to the classroom for the class, etc., which is great, but what the visitors DON'T see is that this responsibility isn't transferred to outside situations. Mother does everything at home, and until the child grows up and starts to work, there is responsibility for nothing outside of school. When the start a job after college, the employer sends all new hires to 'basic training' for 4-6 months, where they are taught everything from how to brush their teeth and make their beds, how to fill the copy machine with paper, and how to sweep the floors. That's where they really learn to take responsibility. The girls have 10pm curfews, and the boys must get short haircuts...

The visitors are shown classes of elementary school kids learning math and science that the US schools don't teach until high school. What they DON'T see is that these same students have absolutely no knowledge of the world outside of Japan. They don't get classes in World History, only Japanese history... and ONLY as the Education board had declared 'accurate' rather than what may or may not have actually happened. Anything else learned comes from western movies or TV. In a game of 'Trivial Pursuit,' a western 12 year old will trounce all over a Japanese high school senior and most college students.

I also like how there was one main backpack, sold for ALL of the children, with a removable flap (or something to that nature) in a color based on grade level.

Those are only for elementary school grades, and the colors 'were' actually red for girls and black for boys rather than grade by grade. But these days, they are allowing the kids to choose their own colors, and in some schools (but not all,) allowing the kids to use nylon daypacks of any color or design rather than the heavy leather traditional packs. The lower grades also get a yellow cover flap and wear yellow hats to make them more visible when walking on the streets at night.

As for learning the culture...