Hi! I had a lot of reading yesterday. I have to be a good reader to be successful here. I have to read fast and at the same time I have to understand it. I'll get used to it in a month may be.
Well, at my Doing business across culture class, I thought that I really like Japanese culture. Many people in Japan think it is not good to be a typical Japanese person because we are don't say things straight and because we are in a collectism culture. Even though it is widly acknowledged that not saying things straight is not good, it still has good features. If we act like that we can save others face. Japanese and other culture try to save others face, but on the other hand, people in an individualism culture try to save their own faces. I'm not saying that which is good and which is bad, but personaly I think saving others face is a good trend because we can maintain harmony.
The best thing about our generation, is that people all around the world like other cultures and they are willing to experiece those ohter cultures. There are still political issues across countries but we young generations still like each other. I had a chance to talk with a Korean girl, and we talked about the Takeshima problem. We were both not interested in the issue. Even there might be some conflict between Japan and Korea, we personaly can be friends, and I really want to be friends with them.
I thought that our generation will never force others to be or act like their culture, because se respect other individuals. But the bad thing is that people who are older than us try to make us act like a western person. Back in Japan, one of my American teachers was always saying "Don't be Japanese." I didn't feel confortable about that, but I couldn't explain it then. But now I think I can change his way of thinking of his. Culture is different, it is good to compare it as a study, but there is no right to say my culture is superior than the other culture. That way of thinking is Ethnocenterism.
There are too many thing that I think about culture, so maybe I'll talk about it some time.
Jin