Mieno on the kanji culture
Posted by ampontan on Friday, June 1, 2007
COMMENTATORS IN WESTERN COUNTRIES have been lamenting about declining educational standards for years now. This phenomenon is also occurring in Japan, and it has accelerated since educators successfully moved the curriculum toward the Western model and implemented the five-day-a-week school system. (One of the primary objectives of the Abe administration is to fix the system, as it seems to be generally agreed those reforms have failed.)
This decline is particularly noticeable in the Japanese language skills of young people. The Japanese language has always been a favorite topic of discussion among the Japanese, so the decline has provided a lot of grist for the mill of those who wish to return to providing students with a more solid grounding in their own language.
One of these people is Yasushi Mieno, the former governor of the Bank of Japan, who participated in the formation of the Association for the Promotion of Kanji Culture. (This association does not seem to have a website.)
He was interviewed by the Nishinippon Shimbun, and the following is a translation of part of that interview. It provides a glimpse of how some view the state of contemporary Japanese education and how the Japanese language–whose structure and hybrid writing system is unlike anything in the West–is commonly discussed by the people who use it every day.
What are your perceptions of the state of language ability today?
The ability to think for oneself is lacking. After stepping down as governor of the Bank of Japan, I decided to perform a service to society and taught on the subject of the Japanese economy at a university. The examination papers of most students were filled with nothing but parroted ideas. They had little ability to express themselves or to communicate. I suspected that education in the Japanese language and composition had gone astray.
Since the end of the war, the Japanese language has continued to lose lucidity and precision. I think the reason is the reduced class time for language studies and composition in primary and junior high schools, which is said to be half that of other developed countries. The aliteracy resulting from the spread of television and the atrophy of composition ability due to Internet use is causing the Japanese language to lose its luster.
How did the Association for the Promotion of Kanji Culture begin?
Volunteers from the economic and educational sectors established it in 1995 to overcome the lamentable state of the Japanese language and ensure the proper transmission of the kanji culture, which is the foundation of the Japanese language. We were worried about education in the language, which had been neglected. The association is involved in unpretentious activities in every area of the country by holding lectures, symposiums, and study meetings.
What meaning does kanji culture have?
Language is the foundation of culture. The Japanese language is comprised of the Yamato kotoba (indigenous Japanese language) used for the Tale of the Genji and other works, and kanbun, words derived from Chinese. The critic Shuichi Kato believed that Japanese have expressed themselves emotionally through Yamato kotoba and intellectually through kanbun. The Japanese language is a marvelous combination of kanji, which is the basis of kanbun, and the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, which the Japanese invented.
Many words from kanbun express symbolic concepts, enabling the accurate perception of conditions. A major achievement of kanbun is it that enabled us to incorporate aspects of Western civilization starting with the Meiji era. I studied the Confucian analects in high school under the former educational system, and even if I didn’t understand them entirely, I got the feeling that I understood them and became familiar with the world of kanji.
Are there any problems with the approach to Japanese language education?
Education in English and IT is important, of course, but the most important thing is to develop the ability to think for oneself. This requires education in one’s own language. We should place the strongest emphasis on Japanese language study and composition at the primary school level. This requires more than just teaching manuals—spiritual depth and passion are important for the people doing the teaching.
What is important for the Japanese people to do?
In the analects, there is a homily that says we should think about whether we as people have strayed from the path we should follow. My wish is that more people should have the ability to think for themselves and to consider their conduct in life. Other countries will accord us greater respect as a result. I want to see a return to a richer Japanese language to achieve these goals.
Global Voices Online » Japan: Declining Language Skills said
[...] has translated an interview by Nishinippon Shimbun with Mieno Yasushi, the former governer of the Bank of Japan, on the topic of “the state of contemporary [...]
madne0 said
“…since educators successfully moved the curriculum toward the Western model”
NOT a good idea.
Paul said
Juku are the reason Japanese students ever did so well internationally to begin with. It certainly wasn’t Japan’s public school system.
mitaker said
I question how much juku actually helps students. It’s the ultimate result of a capitalist fundamentalist society, where students pay to get the most efficient education, being taught only the required facts for passing examinations. A full rounded education teaches not only facts, but how to learn, as well as social skills, and morality. These are things you can’t get in a juku.
Japanese schools do spend too much time on science and maths. This was fitting for the Japan of 100 or 50 years ago. But now, it is time to find a more balanced education. No one takes a person who can’t speak their mother language fluent seriously.
Nor said
Mieno, then the governor of the Bank of Japan, was in part responsible for the asset bubble, it’s spectacular burst and the following recession during late eighties and nineties. His mismanagement destroyed the lives of many Japanese. He is a graduate of the faculty of law (no, not economics) and he never got Ph.D. in economics and yet he was chosen as the governor of the Bank of Japan. Hayami, the successor of Mieno, also failed by raising interest rate too soon despite huge objections from the Japanese government. His failed policy killed the nascent recovery instantaneously and prolonged the post-bubble recession. The biggest flaw in our education system lies in higher education, which is evidenced by the lack of any descent central bankers in Japan and by the fact that the failed central banker without Ph.D. is allowed to teach economics at a university. Shame on you, Mieno!
jost said
I’ve always felt that, compared with, say, a 100 years ago, the Japanese in general have gotten better at communicating thoughts in speech but have lost the ability to express their thoughts convincingly, lucidly and creatively in writing.
The Japanese-language “reform” hastily implemented after WW2 is the culprit of the latter phenomenon, especially the infamous restrictions pertaining to kanji teaching and usage. I think the government grossly underestimated the consequences of downsizing the number of kanji taught at schools and used in government documents. At the end of the day, kanji are what enable the Japanese to grasp abstract concepts; put another way, without the kanji there can be no thought.
Jon said
There are good and bad things about the western model as there are with most models. The western model is not all bad and actually does a pretty good job stocking American Universities which still rank as the best in the world and continue to turn out very good graduates. And it is not because there are so many foreigners in American Universities. They make up only a small percentage.
There are definately some serious issues with the American primary and secondary school system but I think there will always be government and business leaders who say the system is broken or needs improvement. No matter what or in what decade, I don’t think I would or will ever hear a business or government leader say, “You know, I think the school system is good and turns out very articulate and educated students.”
My point is that it is wrong to say that because the Japanese school system is adapting some western education system, that means it is going downhill. That is not true.
Bender said
I think the meiji to early showa people had better command of the written language, as exemplified in the numerous translations of western poems or more yet, the japanese songs and poems themselves. This kind of work we might never see, as no one is taught the classic way of expression anymore.
The example I like is “Lorelei”. a German song which was translated as:
なじかは知らねど 心わびて
昔の伝説（つたえ）は そぞろ身にしむ。
寂しく暮れゆく ラインの流れ
入日に山々 あかく映ゆる
The amazing thingt about this is that it translated that so you can sing it according to the melody.
T.K said
Madne0,
Do you think the Western model is flawed?
I’ll grant that there may not even be a “Western” model at all. Does it refer to the style used in American, British, French or Nordic schools? They’re all very different and some more successful than others.
I do agree with Mieno on the importance of critical thinking. He’s sadly mistaken about the effect of the internet, but it’s okay since he’s an old guy.