Globalization

When being involved in schools in Morioka it is difficult to miss the effect of sister cities/schools/etc. Some schools, especially the top high schools, in the city have sister schools around the world. Earlier during my stay in Morioka my sister’s high school met up with students from their sister cities around the world including Canada, the United States, and Korea. My other sister, who went to the same school, had the opportunity to travel to New York City to visit the students from the U.S. sister school. The pressure to become internationalized (which usually means to be influenced by western culture and to learn English) seems very strong in Japan and seems to be very important in one is wanting to seem educated and/or urbanized. In the picture above you can see a display I found in the station at Hiroshima. It is a poster and display for the 2015 Boy Scout Jamboree that will be hosted by Japan. Being from a family that is heavily involved in Boy Scouts, I know that the Jamboree is a very important international event in the scouting group. International parties, sister schools, study abroad. These are words I hear a lot of while here in Japan. Of course this is influenced by the fact that I am an international student and perhaps I am wrong in my conclusion. But I believe that these words are used far more in Japan than in the United States. There is a very strong emphasis on watching the international countries. For example I’m always surprised to see Obama’s weekly activity on the news even when it does not pertain directly to Japan. For example this morning I watched Obama meet with the President of South Korea. Almost everyone in Japan seems to know who Obama is while most people in the United States could not tell you a single political figure in the Japanese government.




As I said with the photo above, there is strong pressure within Japan to learn English. Sometimes taking English classes is not an option as with middle schools and high schools. Even some elementary schools and business are pushing their clients to learn English. Also, on entrance exams to enter top colleges there may be an English requirement. All in all, learning English does not seem to be an option anymore. As a citizen of the United States who hears constantly that we need to study Chinese as it is the growing power and language, there is a slight oddness to have such a stress on learning English. Mainly I believe that this strangeness I feel is from the fact that it is always strange to hear that something you don’t always take for granted is incredibly important to a nation of people. The above photo is of the Ueno Zoo in the Tokyo area that I went to on our fall vacation. As you can see, everything is translated into English. This itself isn’t as significant as this is the only zoo in Japan that has a panda and the zoo is also located near Tokyo which makes it a hot spot for tourists. But then again… it’s a hot spot for tourists and Japan is signifying this by making sure that English is displayed. In Japan, English is “cool.” Or at least until students become tired with all of their English classes at school. There are many tv shows which teach English as well as bring in foreigners, who are usually English speakers even if they come from countries that do not speak English, to talk about Japanese culture as well as their own. If you buy a T-shirt there is a high chance that it has English on it and even Japanese brand names are using English letters and/or words.