Description


This article is from the American misconceptions about Japan FAQ, by Tanaka Tomoyuki ez074520@dilbert.ucdavis.edu with numerous contributions by others.

Disparity: Americans view Japanese more inaccurately and ... negatively than Japanese view Americans

---- (1.1) from Endymion Wilkinson, [book] "Japan versus the West"

"The key difference is that Japanese images of Europe and the
USA have tended to be more positive and closer to reality than
European and US images of Japan. The reasons are clear: at the formative period of modern Japan, Westerners were regarded with a mixture of fear and respect, two excellent reasons for wanting to learn from somebody else. Westerners, on the other hand, until recently regarded the Japanese with indifference; sometimes with scorn and sometimes with fear, but seldom with respect." (Page 32)

"But it [inaccurate Western images of Japan] also derives from
the Japanese inability to project a clear and unambiguous
message abroad." (Page 241)

---- (1.2) a TIME poll

in an issue of the TIME magazine (1992 2/10) with the cover
story "America in the mind of Japan / Japan in the mind of
America", on Page 20 there is a graph showing the results of
telephone polls (500 Japanese adults and 1000 American adults):

-----------------------------------------------------------

which words describe what     which words describe what

people in Japan are like?     people in America are like?

        THE AMERICAN VIEW     THE JAPANESE VIEW      (diff)

friendly              59%             64%              5%

competitive           94%             50%             44%

devoted to fair play  35%             43%              8%

lazy                   4%             21%             17%

hardworking           94%             15%             79%

prejudiced            53%             41%             12%

violent               19%             23%              4%

crafty                69%             13%             56%

poorly educated       12%             21%              9%

-----------------------------------------------------------

                (the numbers in the rightmost column are (the absolute

                values of) the differences that I calculated.)

three large differences exist: those for "competitive",
"hardworking", and "crafty".

in short, these results show that where a large disparity
exists in the general attitudes between the two peoples,
Americans view Japanese much more negatively than vice versa:

--- competitive, hardworking
Sections (2.9) (4) (5) describe how these are negative
as presented by US media.

--- crafty (or sneaky)
in present-day American English, "crafty" is chiefly
used negatively.
the definition of "crafty" in on-line Webster:
1 dial chiefly Brit: SKILLFUL, CLEVER
2a: adept in the use of subtlety and cunning
2b: marked by subtlety and guile < a crafty scheme> 
syn see SLY
synonyms of "crafty": cunning, sly, tricky, sneaky ...