There are expressions that buzz like busy little bees and ones that don't buzz anymore. One of the dead-bee buzzwords in Japan is shimaguni konjo, meaning "island mentality." As for a buzzword for 2011, you'd be hard put to find one more busily doing the rounds than garapagosu, which references the Galapagos Islands that lie nearly 1,000 km out in the Pacific off the coast of Ecuador.
In their Japanese context, shimaguni konjo and garapagosu have more in common than merely their connection with islands.
I heard "shimaguni konjo" bandied about a lot after arriving in Japan in 1967. Why are the Japanese often so standoffish when it comes to strangers? "The island mentality." Why aren't Japanese good at foreign languages? "Island mentality." I wondered then if this was being trotted out as an explanation for the way Japanese people were — or as an excuse for the way they weren't.
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