5/31 class record

Yesterday our discussions were mainly about politics. In response to why only 50% of Japanese citizens vote, my group talked about loss of trust in the government and lack of political advertisements directed towards different age groups. I know the whole voting process should not be about how attractive or entertaining it should be, but I definitely think election ads like the ones we saw in Sylvan's class would make it more interesting.

Our second topic was about what qualities make a person belong to a certain country. I was reminded of my Indian teacher who taught Japanese History at my school who could speak Japanese more fluently than any Japanese person. Or a young American couple I randomly sat accross in a train, who got up faster than anyone to give a seat to an elderly woman. OK, so maybe providing a seat to somebody doesn't make anyone Japanese but... there are many instances where "foreigners" are more in line with another country's culture. And yet, they are not seen as being native to that country no matter what proof they have. In the context of Japan, I thought the underlying issue here is sakoku. Because they had isolated themselves and were finally awakened to the shock of the modernized outside world when they finally opened up, maybe they still have this xenophobic perception that foreigners are just really different or even superior than they are. This reminded me of how Barna said that Japanese have this feeling that they are totally different to the world; they think that they understand others but don't feel understood. Could something that happened so long ago still have an effect on the way Japan sees the world?