Japan's Modern Myth

In 1830, North Carolina passed a law stating that "any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in the State having jurisdiction thereof." As an American living in South Korea, I have suspected that the Korean people were similarly hostile toward foreigners learning Korean. Although this book is about Japan and not Korea, someone suggested that I might understand the Korean people better by reading this book. On pages 262-263, we are told that the Japanese people traded with the Dutch throughout the Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries, but forbade the Dutch people to study the Japanese language. I would not be surprised if the Koreans passed a similar law. All the same, I still cannot understand why anyone would object to a foreigner learning the language of a host country. Do they see a language-literate foreigner as a threat, as the White people of North Carolina saw a literate Black person as a threat? For almost ten years, I have been teaching English in Korea, and I have yet to figure out the Korean philosophy of foreign language education. Why do Korean English teachers have to translate everything rather than allow the student to think in English? Why don't Korean English teachers reprimand students who speak Korean in class? Why don't Korean English students practice English with each other? This, too, seems to be a peculiarity of Southeast Asia in general. I once attended a Korean class with students from other Southeast Asian countries, and I noticed that the other students would not speak Korean to each other. But I still cannot understand the Asian point of view, even though the author gives a lengthy discussion of the faults of English education in Japan. Maybe the author cannot explain all this because he cannot understand it either.

In 1830, North Carolina passed a law stating that "any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in the State having jurisdiction thereof." As an American living in South Korea, I have suspected that the Korean people were similarly hostile toward foreigners learning Korean. Although this book is about Japan and not Korea, someone suggested that I might understand the Korean people better by reading this book. On pages 262-263, we are told that the Japanese people traded with the Dutch throughout the Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries, but forbade the Dutch people to study the Japanese language. I would not be surprised if the Koreans passed a similar law. All the same, I still cannot understand why anyone would object to a foreigner learning the language of a host country. Do they see a language-literate foreigner as a threat, as the White people of North Carolina saw a literate Black person as a threat? For almost ten years, I have been teaching English in Korea, and I have yet to figure out the Korean philosophy of foreign language education. Why do Korean English teachers have to translate everything rather than allow the student to think in English? Why don't Korean English teachers reprimand students who speak Korean in class? Why don't Korean English students practice English with each other? This, too, seems to be a peculiarity of Southeast Asia in general. I once attended a Korean class with students from other Southeast Asian countries, and I noticed that the other students would not speak Korean to each other. But I still cannot understand the Asian point of view, even though the author gives a lengthy discussion of the faults of English education in Japan. Maybe the author cannot explain all this because he cannot understand it either.