LL-L "Cultural contacts" 2009.01.11 (05) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 11 January 2009 - Volume 05
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.11 (02) [E]

Luc wrote:

Even today however, the concept of "theft" has cultural bias. I remember a
Japanese girl telling me she had a real hard time living in a close-knit
community of Koreans (they were sharing flats), because the Koreans were not
only sharing the flat, but absolutely everything. If she bought some food
she wanted to eat later on, it had often disappeared within a couple of
hours, because everybody was using/consuming everybody else's stuff.

Having lived in Japan so long and more specifically Osaka, with the highest
concentration of "resident Koreans"* of anywhere in Japan, I think there MAY
be more to what the woman was having toruble dealing with than meets the
eye.  Japanese have a "special" relationship with Koreans. For example, the
"resident Koreans", mentioned above, are people whose grandparents were
"citizens" of the Japanese empire from Korea, broght, often forcibly and
sometimes as near-slaves, to Japan, then int he late 1950s illegally (by
international law anyway) deprived of their Japanese citizenship and forced
to claim either North or South Korea nationality. Most now living have never
seen Korea (North or South) and speak little if any Korean. They have their
own schools in Japan, but the girls have mostly stopped wearing the
tradional uniforms, tradional Korean dress, as too many of them were being
attacked by the "locals" ... whenever media etc brought up anything negative
(i.e. anti-Japanese) about either Korean state.  (On the "up" side, many of
these "resident Koreans" have recently taken PRIDE in who they "are", and
have now in much larger numbers started using their Korean names, instead of
"their" Japanese ones. ... )



In reality, that style of "sharing" is EXACTLY how Japanese college kids
sharing apartments, and dorm kitchens behave (the difference being that if
given the choice, most Japanese would probably chose NOT to share apartments
or live in dorms), ... though they seem to not have so hard a time dealing
with it.



BUT, keeping to the topic of relativism, my question is: someone comes to
India from Japan and is charged DOUBLE the going rate for a taxi ride of X
kms because they are a "rich" Japanese (say the equivalent of 400 yen) and
that is called "robbery". What then is it called when someone from India
goes to Japan and pays the GOING rate for the same distance by taxi (about
4000 yen)?


And, getting back to Luc's example, MY humble (or not so) opinion is, if, as
described, it was "a close knit community of Koreans", and they had their
social values (and rules), and the Japanese woman chose to live there with
them (cause it was cheap, i suspect!), then she should have better accepted
the values or ship back home!  I have spent too many hours listening to
ex-pats (alas sometimes myself included!) complain about the "way THEY do
things here". As THEY say in the good ole US of A,



a) if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

b) my country, love it or leave it

c) there's two ways of doin' things:; my way and the highway!



(that was a multiple choice test; did you pass?)


Mike || マイク || माईक || Мика || માઈક || მაიქ || ਮਾਈਕ
מייק || மாஇக் || Miqueu || U C > || ما یک || Mihangel
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Ishara Foundation || ईशारा फॉउंडेशन  || イシャラ基金
Mumbai/Bombay *|* मुंबई *|* ムンバイ/ボンベイ (インド)
www.ishara.org
+++++++++++++++
Одной рукой не поднять двух арбузов
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