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Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 248 из 270In the upper echelons of government and business, though one might find one or two men who did a stint at graduate school at Stanford orperhaps taught at Harvard in an exchange program, there is no one in a position of influence whose mind was shaped abroad at a young age.
The Ministry of Education, having by the end of the century fired all the foreign teachers at national universities who had longtime careers in Japan, and bankrupted the American colleges established in Japan during the 1990s, can breathe easy. It has successfully protected Japan against the «pestilence of foreign bad habits.» Closing the door to foreign influence on education is one of the biggest drags on real change, for with business and bureaucratic leaders all educated to have exactly the same mind-set, new ideas can rarely gain the ears of those who are in power. A truly different point of view cannot reach the top.
Traditional cultures everywhere face the problem of how to resist the overwhelming assault of Western, primarily American, civilization. The problem is not limited to Asia or Africa; Europe, too, has agonies over this issue. Some countries choose to erect legal, religious, or customary barriers to the outside world. For those who are studying how to use this model, Japan provides a good test case. Erecting barriers can have unintended effects, for, strangely enough, foreigners can help to preserve the local culture; what was quintessentially Japanese in its material culture might have survived better had there been more foreigners and Japanese with a broad worldview to appreciate it.
One could blame the decline of Japan's countryside and historic towns partly on the lack of foreigners-tourists, of course, but also others who might have an impact on design and preservation, such as resort and hotel operators, scholars, artists, or independent entrepreneurs. In Europe, preservation of natural and historic beauty did not come about as a means of pleasing tourists; it sprang from a long civic tradition among the people themselves, and tourism was a by-product. In Asia, however, modernization came so quickly that such civic traditions had little time to grow up; instead, rampant development is sweeping all before it. One of the few forces standing in the way of the development wave has been tourism. Foreigners living and traveling in countries like Vietnam, where the explosion of tourism is bringing in higher standards of design and service, have directly contributed to the restoration of old neighborhoods and the revival of traditional arts. But by keeping foreigners at arm's length, Japan never really felt the impact of international levels of taste-and thus the conquest of aluminum, fluorescent light, and plastic was complete.
The Ministry of Education, having by the end of the century fired all the foreign teachers at national universities who had longtime careers in Japan, and bankrupted the American colleges established in Japan during the 1990s, can breathe easy. It has successfully protected Japan against the «pestilence of foreign bad habits.» Closing the door to foreign influence on education is one of the biggest drags on real change, for with business and bureaucratic leaders all educated to have exactly the same mind-set, new ideas can rarely gain the ears of those who are in power. A truly different point of view cannot reach the top.
Traditional cultures everywhere face the problem of how to resist the overwhelming assault of Western, primarily American, civilization. The problem is not limited to Asia or Africa; Europe, too, has agonies over this issue. Some countries choose to erect legal, religious, or customary barriers to the outside world. For those who are studying how to use this model, Japan provides a good test case. Erecting barriers can have unintended effects, for, strangely enough, foreigners can help to preserve the local culture; what was quintessentially Japanese in its material culture might have survived better had there been more foreigners and Japanese with a broad worldview to appreciate it.
One could blame the decline of Japan's countryside and historic towns partly on the lack of foreigners-tourists, of course, but also others who might have an impact on design and preservation, such as resort and hotel operators, scholars, artists, or independent entrepreneurs. In Europe, preservation of natural and historic beauty did not come about as a means of pleasing tourists; it sprang from a long civic tradition among the people themselves, and tourism was a by-product. In Asia, however, modernization came so quickly that such civic traditions had little time to grow up; instead, rampant development is sweeping all before it. One of the few forces standing in the way of the development wave has been tourism. Foreigners living and traveling in countries like Vietnam, where the explosion of tourism is bringing in higher standards of design and service, have directly contributed to the restoration of old neighborhoods and the revival of traditional arts. But by keeping foreigners at arm's length, Japan never really felt the impact of international levels of taste-and thus the conquest of aluminum, fluorescent light, and plastic was complete.