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Fujimi High School (6) |
At last, the final installment the Fujimi High sessions is here. These students, with clear goals regarding attending college, and investigating what schools and departments are best for themselves, also appear to have given serious thought to Japan and the rest of the world, as well as to their own personal relationships to the world at-large. The debate raged once it was ignited by Takahashi Mina talking about how she wanted to work in international relations. Now we'll see what they think of Japan.
Takahashi: If you go to a major university, you may change your mind about things because you meet so many different people, but you won't change if the numbers in a department are smaller. There are universities which are really famous in international relations, but they have so much pride that with 15 people or so, they start debating in English, right off the bat.
Mutoo: Maybe they have a strong group consciousness?
Takahashi: With only 15 students in a class, they solidify, and do nothing but study for debates. I hear they study three times the normal English coursework of a four-year college, in two years. They do this study after class, so they can't work. It's not allowed, even though they're in college. And their pride stays high because they don't have contact with other colleges.
Mutoo: Sounds like it.
Takahashi: And they always bash Japan.
Mutoo: It's the same thing in their English compositions. America is great. Japan is garbage. I just don't get it.
"Hardened Into a Group"
Q. Do you think Japan is garbage?
Mutoo: Well, Japan is hardened into a group.
Takahashi: Yeah, and all you ever hear are the bad things.
Mutoo: I think Japan is a pretty terrific country for all that.
Takahashi: But don't your parents tell you things like, "That's why Japan is going into the toilet"? When I say that I think things are OK, my folks reply with, "That's what's wrong with the Japanese way of thinking."
Mutoo: I hate America.
Anno: (laughs)
Mutoo: I've learned to hate it.
Takahashi: I bet people who debate international relations all hate America.
Mutoo: Is all they do in America to criticize others without looking at themselves? Don't they act like they're the greatest? Always saying they're the world's best.
Hirata: I don't like America either. Right now, Japan's economy is bad. But when it was really good, America said that it was doing too well, and now that it's bad, they won't help us out. They just say that it's our own fault. Makes me think, who do they think they are, anyway?
All: (laughter)
Mutoo: I know the feeling.
Takahashi: Still, I think Japan's economic system is pretty good.
Mutoo: That's true.
Takahashi: But when I read economic theses written neither Americans or Japanese, I realize that Japan's economic system isn't so good.
Hirata: Don't just say things are bad, tell us why it's bad, and what we can do to fix it, in concrete terms, if all you're going to do is complain.
Shibasaki: But don't you think that this society was just left to go this way? If you think about the way Japan used to be, I can't imagine Japanese being able to cope with American society. I think Japan has lots of good things that they don't have over there, like systems you can trust in, such as lifetime employment. We're stable, after all.
Takahashi: If it were only Japan, that would be one thing. But it doesn't fly in international society.
Shibasaki: And only in Japan can we find a situation that suits us.
Takahashi: And isn't it America who's taking up the whole international relations debate in the first place? But Chuo University's Integrated Political Science Dept. concentrates on Asia. I thought that was terrific when I heard about it.
"Asia Is Where It's At Now"
Anno: Asia is where it's at now. We'd best get in good with our neighbors. The previous generation is with America. Those currently in their 50's typically think in terms of America. In reaction to losing the War to America, they all want to live the American lifestyle. Like all going to Europe, that sort of thing.
Takahashi: I get that feeling when I read theses written by people of that time.
Anno: It's like an America-first philosophy. In my generation, though, you turn more and more to domestic matters, look more inward. When I was in the boondocks of Yamaguchi, Tokyo as I saw it on TV looked so incredible, so I always wanted to go there. I wanted to go to Tokyo to attend college, that sort of thing.
"Outlying Regions Are Super-Popular Nowadays"
Takahashi: These days, it's down with Tokyo.
Anno: Now there's a reaction turning people's attention to outlying cities.
Mutoo: The outlying regions are super-popular these days.
Takahashi: Everybody's warming up to them.
Suganuma: But they say there's no work in those areas. When I look in magazines about work with I-turns and U-turns, there's just nothing.
(From the Sept. 17, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate-School News)