U.S. freedoms sweeten for one exchange student
While I understand university students are really busy between a full-class load and work, I’ll admit I was quite surprised by the fact that class time is often lunch time.
Just when I thought I was almost used to American culture, a student next to me started eating a chocolate snack during math class.
People say America is the country of freedom.
I can tell you from experience — it is free. Schools in the United States are quite relaxed when compared to schools in Japan.
When you look around an American classroom, there are students who barely say a word during lecture (some even sleep), and those who do also chew gum, drink frappuccinos from Starbucks and eat lunch leftovers.
It’s quite a different story in Japan.
I remember when I was in junior high school, and my friend and I started eating some candy after tennis practice. Unfortunately, we had to hide the candy from our teacher since it was against school policy to eat sweets.
As luck would have it, as we were enjoying the forbidden taste of some candy, our teacher caught us, scolded us and even went as far as preventing us from joining tennis practice for a few days.
From an American standpoint, this probably sounds bizarre, but students in Japan hardly have freedom. The rules control almost everything in the school.
In addition to the banning of sweets, students in Japanese schools are not allowed to bring magazines to school, wear makeup, dye their hair or get piercings.
And that’s just the start of it.
You cannot find any “samurai” or “bushi” in Japan today, but this interesting Japanese philosophy is originated from the “bushidou” (the soul of Japan) and accounts for behavioral practices of the country. The bushidou is preached in four lessons: “gi,” meaning justice; “yu,” meaning to behave rightly; “jin,” meaning sympathy; and finally “rei,” meaning modesty.
How does this belief system tie in?
Bushidou sets a high standard for how people should act. It teaches them to be responsible for their behavior, sometimes at the sacrifice of personal expression.
All the excessive rules are a kind of promise between schools and students, which is believed to help students mature.
Although most Japanese people do not believe in any religion, bushidou somewhat represents Christian morality teachings that guides how people should act.
I am proud of the bushidou. However, I also think Japanese people are missing out on a lot of enjoyment that they could otherwise be having.
Needless to say, I now feel comfortable here in the United States.
And I am also glad I can eat candy whenever I feel like it.
Seiko Kamikariya is a columnist for The Nevada Sagebrush. She can be reached at editor@nevadasagebrush.com.
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October 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Doesn’t Japan have one of the best education systems in the world? Their schools don’t encourage too much thinking outside the box, but Japan is always at the top of education ratings. Our schools, on the other hand, are among the worst in the developed world, with high dropout rates and graduates who are functionally illiterate.
I know this may come as a shock to a lot of people, but the main purpose of a school is to ensure its students will learn something new. Pink-haired pierced kids covered in makeup and running around on sugar high while looking through the latest issues of teen magazines (and I use the term “magazine” loosely) probably won’t concentrate on school all that much - and neither will kids sitting next to them.