141–150 of 287 posts
The Chinese style censorship has nothing to do with understanding of English.
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I think you're unfairly generalising. I certainly never expect fluent English from people who don't have English as their first language. I do expect that people who studied a language for years at school should remember some, particularly if those school days were less than a decade ago. This is orthongonal to my suspicion (which I cannot prove) that English education in Japanese schools may emphasise formal rigour…
"I think you're unfairly generalising. I certainly never expect fluent English from people who don't have English as their first language." That's definitely seems to be the attitude of the author, and that of many people I see posting here, or many people I see every day that do not even try learning some local word. I agree that I expressed my opinion like I was generalizing, not my intention. "I certainly remember…
I interpret his words ("The level of English in Japan is shockingly low, despite everyone studying it for 6 years at school") not to mean that he expects fluency.
It's clear that the author is not talking about this level of fluency.
I disagree. I think the author simply says that the level of English is shockingly low. I don't think that we can infer from those words that he's expecting a high level of fluency.
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> That's because english is considered universal language and they don't want to presume that you know japanese well enough for a conversation? Yes, which is a source of white people being "forever foreigners" in Japan, which is exactly my point.
I don't understand, how does that make it "forever foreigners"? Have you tried telling them you understand japanese and continue conversation? How would the other person know if you arrived yesterday or living there for 20yrs? This is a pretty bad example imo.
You seem to be assuming I think they're making a mistake by doing this, or for some reason shouldn't be doing it, which I never said.
His "Cycling in Tokyo" post is just absurdly pessimistic and dark, for example. His username is littleblackheart.
When you project negativity people tend to project it back at you.
Most of his criticism is probably valid in some way, but if I were him I wouldn't make them as important to my experience of the country as he seems to have done.
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Long-term in non-Western countries?
No _true_ scotsman would gatekeep this much.
Sounds like Japanese are happy with their culture and don't want it changed especially not by foreigners. It seems like a reasonable enough position, but I wonder if there a way to express this desire in a way that couldn't easily be criticized as being "xenopohbic"? Is there something inherently wrong with this attitude? (I personally wouldn't want to be a foreigner living there is what he describes is true, but no…
This is a very interesting question, and one that's being asked all over the world at the moment. To use the example of Brexit - I sometimes feel like the 'Remain' side, in accusing 'Leave' of xenophobia & racism, painted themselves into a corner where any discussion of reducing migration was taboo. I voted 'Remain' and am generally fine with current levels of immigration, but would I continue to be ok if these level…
Some of my favorites places in the world have problems that really really annoy me. But the positives outweigh the negatives for me, and everyone needs to decide what is important to them personally.
To stereotype an entire culture or people like this and focus only on those things which annoyed the writer is a futile effort to make the world something that it isn't: perfect.
This isn't exclusive to Japan. I've found English and American people with the same shitty inability to take criticism.
Quick remark: the Chinese text on the 5th picture (below 'JAPANESE ONLY') reads '謝絕中中國人'. This literally means 'Decline Chinese people', suggesting that the place is specifically not willing to receive to Chinese visitors. Thought it might be interesting to point out.
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That's because America has many Asian residents that were actually born there and speak the language natively, whereas the gaijin in Japan are almost all not fluent in Japanese. How is it surprising that people would try the most likely language first?
I never said it was surprising. What is surprising is how every respondent thus far has misinterpreted what I said.
It's obvious that talking English in the US is not on a par with talking Japanese in Japan and also not on a par with talking English in Japan. Talking to someone in English in the US is compatible with considering that person a foreigner and compatible with not considering that person a foreigner, whereas talking English by default in Japan (or any other non-English speaking country) means that you take that person as a foreigner and talking Japanese with someone in Japan means that you accept that person as a non-foreigner.
So what was your point?