Walt Gardner's May 4 letter, "Naming and shaming doesn't help," makes a significant prescription: "Japan is not Finland. But that's no reason to reject out of hand lessons learned from the other side of the globe." As an education consultant and business English instructor in Japan for 17 years, I have to say this indictment is slightly off the mark. Japan is hardly "rejecting" the knowledge of other countries; rather Japan is largely ignorant of foreign knowledge.
Psychologically, Japanese education does not encourage curiosity, especially in externalities. Coupled with a popular lack of personal confidence (April 26 editorial, "Unwise testing in education") that strongly affects their linguistic skills, only a few Japanese access foreign knowledge bases. This is clearly demonstrated by the simple fact that Japanese broadly rely on Japanese products and services, which provide inferior cost performance to those of foreign providers.
In short, the Japanese have a lot to learn from the world, and certainly to offer it. However, it all starts with curiosity, then motivation, skills development, confidence and improvement. And is it not improvement that we lovers of Japan want most for our chosen home?
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