Common Japanese misconceptions regarding foreigners

[Maciamo]

I have very little experience of this, but I would suggest that the Japanese are very little different from anyone else with regard to their ignorance of another country.

I work for an American company, in Canada. On a daily basis I have to listen to almost continual whines from a select few colleagues who claim " Those ****** Americans just don't understand Canada !" As a non-Canadian with a history of working with Americans .... I am also aware that, in so many respects, those same Canadians are pretty damned ignorant of American attitudes and practices !

I think you are going a step further by raising the issue not just of basic factual knowledge (Canada does have snow in winter), but cultural differences. It is much more difficult to understand another (or even one's own) country's culture (i.e. the commonly accepted attitudes, practices, customs and way of thinking), than hard facts about a country (capital, flag colours, climate, population, main languages, etc.). I do not have any problem with the Japanese not understanding other countries' culture, as this is universal. What surprised me is their general ignorance of some very basic facts about the rest of the world. I heard university-educated people who thought that Argentina was in Europe, that Napoleon was an armoured knight from the Middle Ages, that Belgian people spoke Belgian (have you ever heard of a language called Belgian ? Ever !?), or that only Japan had four seasons. A recent study has shown that 3% of Japanese university students (and they have presumably tough entrance examinations) cannot point out at the US on a world map, and 44% don't know where is Iraq ! Don't even get me started about people with less good education.

I'd be interested to have comparative studies on general knowledge with Western countries. However I expect the Americans average to be close to the Japanese one, as surveys have shown that an incredibly high number of Americans think New York is their capital ! (of course, even 1% would be an incredibly high number, but I think it was more like 20%).

[Sensuikan San]

Ah, yes ... your point is well taken.

And your statistical examples are quite scary !

I think you might be quite right in your last paragraph, though ... there seem to be an inordinate number of Americans who think it snows in Canada ...all year round..... !

Regards,

ジョン

[Gaijin 06]

A recent study has shown that 3% of Japanese university students (and they have presumably tough entrance examinations) cannot point out at the US on a world map, and 44% don't know where is Iraq ! Don't even get me started about people with less good education.

I bet both numbers would be higher in America.

(edit - just read the rest of the thread and it is true).