Background: Uemura was interested in conducting the study, "Minority Statuses and Positive National Attitude," because as a citizen of Japan, he said, he was used to people having a low level of national pride. In fact, there is an emerging concern about the low level of national pride among Japanese citizens. He wanted to find out what Americans think about the U.S. His study focused on nationality, religion and ethnicity. "What makes this study unique is that I focus on three demographic characteristics, while most of the research just studied ethnicity," Uemura said.
Wow, really? Japanese people have a low level of national pride? Seems to me that people over here are always bragging about Japanese athletes, Japanese inventions, Japanese food...Are they just over-compensating?
上村良太というアメリカに勉強してる社会学の博士課程の学生によると、日本人は国家威信が低いのでアメリカ人の国家威信を研究したかった。マジで？日本人は国家威信が低い？
Japanese people don't have a low level of "national pride". What they have is a different cultural ethos which feels that overt boastfulness is bad manners, particularly when speaking in formal situations or with acquaintances. If they know you, they're much more overt about how superior the food, lifestyle, and many other facets of their culture are (particularly in comparison to America, which everyone likes to use as a yardstick/whipping boy... as if no country could be discussed without bringing the U.S. into it).
ReplyDeleteI think that Japan has copious amounts of national pride, but they just express it differently than other people from other cultures.
That's what I thought.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm going to have to disagree with Japanese people having a lack of national pride. I think Orchid64 hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteI can think of one time that Paul and I were invited over to a Japanese person's house for lunch, along with other Japanese people. Somehow it became a 'why Japan is better than America' party. Even though we were the only two people who have lived in both countries so were the only ones who could have valid opinions about their life-style differences, we just kept relatively quiet since we were clearly out-voted.
As for a comparison with how Americans express their pride, when visiting America this summer I noticed American flags absolutely everywhere, along with pro-America bumper-stickers on countless cars. When I see a Japanese flag in Japan I'm always a little surprised.