English responses, page 7

I am male, 81 years old, a veteran of last Second World War, served at Mongol for 1944-1945. War prisoned at Tienjin, China.

Your message appeared on Asahi this morning has attacked my heart and I can agree with your opinion indeed.

I have a good female wire friend in U.S.A. She will come to here in November, We have 7 years contact and met three times in Japan. She is a widow aged just same with me, her husband passed three years ago, he was a veteran of U.S.Air Force and served in Japan at 1945-1947.

I read your article in the Asahi of Sunday and agreed to your idea of using E-mail for closer relations between Japan and the United States. I wonder if I can do something for you.

Sick and tired of the current Internet because of too much useless information, I have zeroed in on E-mail in English and Japanese using a battered computer I got at a junk-dealer half a year ago. Please let me know if there are some requirements for me to join your activities.

I work for a Japanese company. We use E-mail and E-mail-in-company (Shanai-mail,社内メール) eveyday. We write E-mail in Japanese. But some of the elderly persons don't like to use E-mail. The main reasons are,

1. They haven't hit the English typewriter's keys ever. They have allergy to the key board.
2. They worry that the computer will breack, when they order a comand to the computer.
3. The E-mail manual book's letters are too smalle for them to read the book. (Because they have presbyopia.)
4. They want to ask the yonger persons how to use E-mail, but they can't ask it. Because they think that they don't ask the same quetions many times. But They feel strongly that it's time to use E-mail in bussiness. So they try to learn the English-key-places on the computer key board and the simple way to send & read E-mail.
In our bissines communication, E-mail is the second way, I think. So we will call our custom at first. And if we can't talk them, we will leave a message for our sending E-mail, and send E-mail. Because the E-mail system have no sign of receiving E-mail on the computer desplay, and we lost to read E-mail often, when we have to read it. In my opinions that Japanes pepole dislik to send E-mail to the world pepole, many morden Japanes pepole don't tend to send letters basically, and like the discussions historycaly. (Of course, they have allergy to English, you pointed out.)

In my case, I use E-mail in my office, but don't have E-mail at home. Because I don't like to spend a lot of my own free time on E-mail. And my freinds are enjyoying my letters with my original drawing pictures.

I totally agree with your opinion. We, Japanese have to use this great invention more. Most of my friends in abroad have cumputer and use a lot, but some of my Japanese friends are hesitate to use it. They said they didn't know how to do and they are interested in it, but it is too much trouble to learn how to use. They should change. I use email at work, but it was not enough so I got email at home as well. Were you in Saga by JET Program? Some of my friends from America came to Japan by JET Program as well.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I agree with you and I am sure that Japanese will use email more and more in the future. They need some people who encourage them like you especially for young people such as Junior high and High school students.

Please remind that there is a Japanese who send a mail to a stranger, even he is still shy.

My name is Kahoru Komine. I was interested in your article. So I'd like to express my feelings in cross cultural communication. Please excuse my poor English.

I think Internet (e-mail) is so fun and it must be effective in cross cultural communication. How nice it would be if school children could exchange the messages through Internet.

Some people say that Japanese children couldn't understand English. But I think it doesn't matter because exchanging the messages don't need difficult vocabulary. If necessary, they can use dictionaries.

Children are full of curiosity and great imagination. So the messages which they make must be fun. By exchanging the messages, they would discover a lot of things and notice cultural diversity.

So I hope cross cultural communication through Internet would be popular among scool children and a lot of children would enjoy exchanging their messages. Thank you.

I read your article yesterday, I wanted to write in English to you. I went to your country on the first, 1996. I entered English school to study English. I am old, but I was able to admit to the school. I studied English about one years in EPI ( English Program for Internationals ) USC.

Because my age people cannot speak English, so I thought I'd like to try studying English. I lived in by myself. I met a lot of internationals there. Now I think 1 year is too short for me to study English, at least I need 2 years. And I came back to Japan last May. I learned how to use computers there. I bought the computer as soon as I came back to Japan. I wanted to make friends in the world, because I was interested in different culture, countries and people. I corresponded with many people in the world through inter- net. I disappointed! I knew that they just look for their partners on e-mail. They didn't send me e-mail when they knew my age.

In general Americans are friendly, but they don't have obligation and warm-hearted. "Give and Take" is their motto. It is sometimes bad, and we can' t understand them. You are young ( my daughter is as old as you ), maybe you can't understand me. I just wanted to let you know that I have young mind and volition even though I am Japanese. I don't worry if I made mistakes in my letter. I like this proverb "Failure is but a stepping stone to success."

I am student at Osaka Prefecture University. I am majoring in Physics and Electronics,and I am interested in different culture. But I have never been to foreign country,and I have enough money to do so. So I want to communicate with foreigners by this computer. My Japanese friends want to do so,but they don't have opportunity. And I hope that the days when we can communicate with foreigners easily comes.

I agreed with you that it would be very useful for us to know how to communicate on the Internet. I think writing a letter is also useful for us to know each other. I have a pen pal who lives in Minnesota. I started to write a letter to her when I was 13. Those 35 years made good relationship between us. I visited her before I married, we sent our childrens' photo and X'mas cards and so on. It is defenate that writing a letter takes more time to get know each other than the Internet does. But I wonder if the Internet communication helps us to last long and good relationship. I think I try to find out within next 30 years.

You mentioned differences using internet between Japanese and American. For American people it's very natural enjoying internet because English is your native language but for us sometimes very complecated even though we want to enjoy it. I guess this is reason that we don't fully enjoy it. We think try to speak perfect English even nobody expect us it, so these things make us nervous using English.

Enjoying internet is really great for me because it's easy to get information that I want, and talk with somebody who I don't know like this.

Well, I sometimes feel this is not fair that English is int'l language in the world. Just joke.

I'm 34 years old, a house wife, have two daughters, elder 3 years, younger almost 1 year(birth Sep.3). I agree with what you write as Japanese' shyness, but about the internet, you better not compare so easily between Japan and USA. One reason comes from the country's size; America is so big as they have time difference in a same country, so e-mail might be a very convenient tool not only on the business. And, we japanese often use internet on business, so some people are very hard user of it. Well, we need some more time to spred the use of internet between the normal citizen such as child and housewives, because there aren't nessesary to use. I think I am a rare one.

I found your name and address inthe newspaper "Asahi-shinbun" yesterday. According to the information about you in there, you are also interested in research on the Internet of yourself aren't you? And then you have tried about your plan that exchanging mail between American students and Japanese students. That's sounds great! I think you have another chance to success which is you become " a go-between". Please try to it again. In my opinion, I think the e-mail which is very convenient and easy to contact with someone. Nowadays I can not stop using on the e-mail in my life. I am interested in about foreign culture, customs and so on. As for me, I am as old as you. I have been to U.S 3times. When I was student I went to Oregon, 2years ago I went to CA for meeting my friends, and last year too. I am thinking about study abroad. According to the information about you in there, you are also interested in research on the Internet of yourself aren't you? And then you have tried about your plan that exchanging mail between American students and Japanese students. That's sounds great! I think you have another chance to success which is you become " a go-between". Please try to it again. In my opinion, I think the e-mail which is very convenient and easy to contact with someone. Nowadays I can not stop using on the e-mail in my life. I am interested in about foreign culture, customs and so on. As for me, I am as old as you. I have been to U.S 3times. When I was student I went to Oregon, 2years ago I went to CA for meeting my friends, and last year too. I am thinking about study abroad.

I, too have used e-mailing system a lot. I started emailing first at college in order to keep in touch with my host sisters in Minnesota. Also, emailing was helpful while I was studying in the US in '95-'96, this time between me, and my family and friends at home in Japan. Now I am back here and I keep in touch with friends in Japan, US and Scandinavia. This system is amazing! It's so easy and fast. You are thousands miles away and you still get to hear what's happening at someone's kitchen almost right away.

I agree with you that Japanese people are not good at speaking foreign languages including English due to their shyness. I believe there is also a psychological factor behind it. Japan's huge "complex" against the Western cultures blocks Japanese people from freely communicating in other languages. Everyone gets nervous when you start speaking in a new language because you are not sure if you are making yourself understandable. Japanese people get super-nervous as the situation that they are talking with "foreigners" is overwhelming and uncommon?

It is a negative factor that there is not so much opportunity for them to get used to speaking and being with people with multi-cultural backgrounds. Well, the foreign residents population is rising, so if Japanese people look for the opportunity, they'd probably find one. That would be a big success if Japanese people were less shy or introvert, though. You pointed out that Japanese people are less social with total strangers than Americans. Some elderly women can be friendly enough to start talking with people sitting next to them, but the majority of people here seem very indifferent to have an instant friendly conversation. Once you open your mouth, people give you a funny look, labeling you as "the weirdo". I think it's too bad because I, personally, enjoy talking with new people.

You mentioned there are cultural differences between US and Japan on using Internet. I have not seen that much as my friends here and there do pretty much the same things on the net.

I'd like to write about two subjects you raised in the contribution. One is the use of the Internet in Japan and the US. I often search the web to get information. If the subject is universal, useful information is more often available from web sites in the US than in Japan. It seems that Japanese people are less eager in making their useful information available through the Internet than Americans. I don't know whether this is related to Japanese people's "shyness." I think that Japanese people are less aware of the importance of information, its exchange, and efforts for making it available to other people.

The other is Japanese people's shyness. At present, in a train, we don't speak to the passenger sitting next to us. However, this isn't a long-lasting tradition in Japan. I'm 56 years old and also studied in Kyoto (hometown was Tokyo). In a train from Tokyo to Kyoto, or vice versa, I was often talked to by adjacent passengers and I talked to them. It was said that Japanese and Americans were similar in that they didn't hesitate to speak to people they weren't acquainted with and that they were different from Europeans in this respect. Probably, something changed during these several decades in Japan, but I cannot identify that "something."

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