Category: Education

Japanese commuters podcasting their way to English fluency

On my morning commute, my fellow salarypersons with a hand free to read are usually doing one of two things – reading the newspaper or studying for something. Of those studying, maybe half are studying English, while the other half appear to be aiming at one  nationally recognized qualification or another (very often real estate related). For those who don’t have a hand free, most listen to their iPods. Occasionally I can overhear a particularly insensitive music lover playing B’z or Koda Kumi, but otherwise I have been left to wonder just what sounds they might be pumping into their skulls.

Well, it looks like I have my answer, at least for the one in seven who are regularly listening to podcasts: The podcasts in Japan are absolutely dominated by English lessons. Take a look at the top 20 podcasts on Yahoo right now, listed by number of subscribers:

  1. Nihon Keizai Shimbun podcast
  2. ECC Eikaiwa Podcasting
  3. Classical Music Sound Library
  4. Mainichi Quick Listening Lessons Podcast – lessons based on CNN stories
  5. Bakusho Mondai Cowboy
  6. Podcasting rakugo
  7. NHK English News
  8. Hikaru Ijuuin’s Late Night Fool Power
  9. Oricon album top 20
  10. Jazz Piano Small Pieces
  11. Eikaiwa eChat Vancouver
  12. English as a Second Language Podcast
  13. Tokio Hot 100 (with Chris Pepler)
  14. Let’s Read the Nikkei Weekly (the Nikkei English edition)
  15. Fresh topics from the editor-in-chief (Nikkei Business)
  16. Melody’s “Oh! Kanchigai (cluelessly mistaken) English”
  17. Takuro Morinaga – Economy Column
  18. ALC Podcasting Station “English is training!”
  19. Cream Stew All Night Nippon
  20. The Jazz Suite

That’s eight of the top 20.  iTunes is similarly full of English lesson podcasts, though for now I can only list the top 5 since I don’t have the iTunes application on my desktop:

  1.  EnglishPod
  2. ECC Eikaiwa Podcast
  3. Bakusho Mondai
  4. CNN News
  5. Nihon Keizai Shimbun podcast

Why is Berlitz thriving?

My recent post about the eikaiwa industry by the numbers has made the rounds of a couple ESL job forums, and it seems to have a few people worried. My intention wasn’t to scare people off of English teaching entirely – the demand for learning English is high in this country, and while there is something of an oversupply of teachers amid slumping sales, Japan possesses some serious advantages, such as high living standards and the rule of law, that make it a better choice than some other destinations. So if some of them are still reading this blog, I just want to remind them that English teaching isn’t dead in Japan. The issue is just that the business is headed for a rough patch, not that every teacher will have to put up with crappy wages and dismal work conditions, though that may be true for many.

The private-sector eikaiwa industry appears to be hurting badly, ever since various events in 2006 led to the ignominious business suspension, flailing attempt to save through shady financing deals, and eventual collapse of former industry giant NOVA (so carefully documented by the Japan Economy News blog) shattered the image of a once booming industry and, with the disappearance of the well-known NOVA rabbit mascot, symbolized the sudden end of long-running profit machine and source of easy employment for thousands of young Westerners interested in life in a new country.  The rest of the “big four” schools also faced serious difficulty, most notably LADO which is no longer with us.

Today I want to pass on some things I learned after learning about the worsening management-worker relations at Berlitz Japan:

Benesse – happily cleaning up after NOVA?

Benesse, a long-time provider of education services, chiefly juku, jumped feet first into Japan’s English conversation market when it acquired veteran language teaching company Berlitz International in 2001. The company caught my eye when some of its unionized teachers in Japan were sued on grounds that they striked illegally. Without commenting on the merits of the dispute itself, I would like to react to one passage of the Japan Times  article (while I am generally pro-union, I simply don’t know enough about the case to have any opinion one way or the other. Feel free to discuss in the comments though!):

The financial health of Benesse Corp., Berlitz Japan’s parent company, also influenced the timing of the strike. In their annual report for the financial year ending March 31, 2008, Benesse recorded their highest-ever earnings. Operating income grew 11.4 percent and Berlitz International Inc. achieved its best result since being bought by Benesse. Operating income for Benesse’s language company division rose 36 percent from the year before to ¥6.35 billion, in part due to higher revenues and profits at Berlitz International, which benefited from “an increase in the number of lessons taken worldwide, particularly in Japan and Germany,” according to the report.

Curious about exactly how Berlitz is boosting its “number of lessons,” I decided to take a closer look at their latest annual report for FY2007 (PDF) in the hope that they would explain exactly how they could enjoy such growth as the industry as a whole is caught in a horrific vortex. It is also interesting to see Berlitz on the rise, considering that it had long lost market share to the other big chains. I came up a little disappointed, as annual reports are not the place to broadcast your super-secret business strategy to the world. But one passage did at least seem to hint that they were up to something:

[As for the business environment of] our language business area, while there are concerns over the  global economic slowdown, the demand for language learning remains robust.  However, in Japan the collapse of a major language school has led to increased selectivity of language schools among customers. (Page 11)

Considering that they are giving record numbers of lessons in Japan, one can assume that while they won’t come out and say it, this explicit mention of a flight to quality means they must be enjoying some benefit from former NOVA students in need of tutelage.  Plus, they have maintained one of the world’s strongest language teaching brands, and they don’t seem to have had the same customer service problems as NOVA, whose six-month business suspension for unfair refund policies spelled doom for the company.

Other wisdom from Benesse

In addition, it is interesting to note that the management decided to explicitly state an intention to use between 20 and 30 billion yen for acquisitions over the medium to long term, including in the language business (Page 18). Could they be looking to scoop up some underperforming rival to pick up more market share?

In the business risk section of the report, they remind investors that while they are prepared for the conventional consensus on Japan’s shrinking population (their main business is juku, so fewer kids = bad), their business will be screwed if the population ages even faster than expected.

They are also worried that the government’s measures to combat declining educational standards as measured by the international PISA tests.  The measures as listed by Benesse (to be implemented between 2009 and 2013) fall under the banner of “life skills” and include more classroom time throughout the curriculum, mandatory English instruction at elementary schools, as well as “training to develop skills in using knowledge and not merely acquiring basic knowledge.” They worry that this “increased diversification of demand” could negatively impact their business if it progresses at a more sudden pace than expected. In other words, juku have traditionally filled the gap left by the deficiencies in classroom instruction, so if the schools actually get their act together then Benesse (and to a lesser extent Berlitz) could be in trouble.

English teaching in Japan by the numbers

(UPDATE – See my follow-up post for more measures of the industry)

To follow up on my earlier take on eikaiwa as the gaijin community’s whipping boy, I want to try and paint a dispassionate, quantitative picture of the eikaiwa industry itself.  

Back in summer 2006, I noted that the number of participants (newcomers plus extended contracts) in the JET program had been falling steadily after peaking in 2002 at 6,273. A quick check of the MIC website shows that this trend has continued through 2008 (click image and scroll down for better resolution).

 

The 2008 total was 4,682, 25.4% down from the peak. I would expect the pace to slow down a bit, considering they recently extended the maximum contract length from three years to five.

Non-JET ALTs/eikaiwa

In the private sector, METI figures (Excel) show the number of instructors at regulated “foreign language conversations schools” peaked in 2003 at 13,365, but stood at 9,591 as of the end of 2008, down by 28.3% from the peak and 22.4% since the JET Program’s peak.

Figures are less forthcoming about a third segment of the market, non-JET ALTs at schools across the country, but they are available. According to an October 2008 report from the Chunichi Shimbun (thanks Let’s Japan),  the number of non-JET ALTs surpassed JETs in 2006, and by 2007 represented 60% of all ALTs or nearly 8,000 people.

(A quick aside: There is some evidence that the education ministry views the issue of “temporary and contract” ALTs as a considerable problem, as these non-JETs can fall through the cracks in terms of supervision, training, and visa compliance. In February 2005, the ministry issued a letter to boards of education nationwide warning them to ensure that contracts with non-JET ALTs are “appropriate” (apparently in response to unfavorable press coverage) (source).)

Unfortunately, I am having trouble locating the exact figures for non-JET ALTs over time. They can be found by combining the totals of education ministry surveys given to schools asking the status of their English-language education. The only trouble is, the surveys are separated by scholastic level; and they aren’t neatly organized by year.

But I was able to find the total for 2002: 3090. So put together, here is the breakdown of “market share” of instructors in all three segments for 2002 and 2007 (click for full size):

image0011

image0021

Non-JET ALTs appear to be quickly becoming the dominant employment type in the industry. JETs went from outnumbering non-JET ALTs 2:1 from being outnumbered by them 3:2. Possibly on a related note, this ratio (1/3 of all instructors are temp/contract) is consistent with the overall ratio of non-permanent workers in the overall workforce.

The tables were turned for conversation schools vs. ALTs as well. The end of 2007 was right when NOVA collapsed, and before that several other schools went bankrupt. This no doubt pinched the number of private teachers.

Interestingly, the totals of both years indicate that the pie was still growing as late as the end of 2007: the total number of teachers grew 7%, from 21,729 in 2002 to 23,130 in 2007. This growth rate matches the 7.0% growth in US citizen registered foreigners over the same period, though it underperforms the overall 16% growth in the number of registered foreigners (PDF). Japan’s total workforce (seasonally adjusted (Excel)), meanwhile, declined 10.1% during this period.

(Note that there are some considerable limitations to this data, though I think it at leasts provides a good chunk of the overall picture. First, I have included all JETs in the total, out of the consideration (emphasized by Curzon) that ALTs, CIRs, and those special physical education instructors all serve the purpose of “internationalization.” Also, “conversation schools” cover languages other than English, though I think it is safe to say English continues to be the overwhelmingly most popular language. There may be some overlap in the “conversation school” and “non-JET ALT” category as some businesses classified as conversation schools might also list non-JET ALTs as “instructors” resulting in some double-counting. These numbers also do not cover private lessons and unregistered schools, nor does it cover some of the related markets, such as private-sector study abroad, English teachers at universities, full-time foreign English teachers at schools, English teaching services provided by foreign governments such as the British Council, Internet services/podcasts, broadcast lessons such as those given on NHK, and book and CD publishing, all of which could add up to hundreds more teachers.)

Prospects – private sector

Although the supply of teachers grew backed by the surge in non-JET ALTs, eikaiwa as a business appears to be shrinking very fast (Excel). After falling for three years starting in 2003, sales boomed in 2006, whereafter the bottom appears to have fallen out from under the industry (Y axis unit = 1 million yen. Click for full-size):

image0042

This precipitous drop coincides with reports at the time of oversupply in the eikaiwa market as the big schools such as NOVA rushed like mad to open schools in every corner of the country. The following years saw the collapse of several schools including NOVA, the former market leader. (UPDATE: this drop also coincides with legal revisions that made it easier for dissatisfied students to request refunds). Teachers may face some serious difficulty as the excess supply adjusts to match demand. This drop in sales far outpaces that of firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which are expected to face a year-on-year 6.5% drop for FY2008 (final profits are a different story, but without sales there isn’t much hope of making a profit, is there?).

During this time, Japanese households’ discretionary income fell 1.9% (though slightly less in real terms). With the reputation of the industry damaged and Japanese households concerned about their basic livelihoods, it seems hard to expect that the workers’ desires to make their skills more competitive will save any but the highest quality businesses in this industry.

Prospects – public sector

Meanwhile, recent economic turmoil (annualized 12% GDP shrinkage for Oct.-Dec. 2008 makes Japan the hardest-hit G-7 economy) could put pressure on the public sector as well, as described in a previous comment by Aceface:

I have to wonder how many eikaiwa community understand gloomy future ahead of them. Many local government are now facing rapid decline of corporation tax income due to the down sizing of production in Toyota factories, ANd under such circumstances we can no longer justify this 21st century version of “Oyatoi-Gaijin” we know as JET/ALT.
Aichi, Shizuoka, Gihu,  Mie and Gunma need as much Portuguese/Japanese bilingual staffs as possible since there are tons of works must be done starting from job education for the unemployed. And since they have no extra budgets,most likely gone will be “international exchange”related posts.

While I am not sure what the rules are for funding non-JET ALTs (I am assuming schools can choose to use local taxes, or private schools their budgets), the JET program is funded by redistributed local taxes (chihou koufuzei), doled out to prefectures and municipalities at a pre-determined ratio, plus extra for local administrations with particular plans to use the money. The funds come from “the five national taxes” – income tax, corporate income tax, consumption tax, alcohol tax, and tobacco tax.   The income taxes have been on a downward growth trend since the 1990s, while consumption tax has emerged to rival those as a revenue generator. The sin taxes have maintained a consistent, relatively low holding pattern. The redistribution amount peaked in 2001 and has been falling roughly in line with the corporate income tax. Though 2008 tax receipts were forecast to be up slightly (possibly due to the tax bills for earlier profits), original finance ministry estimates appear to have fallen far from the mark, failing to anticipate the dismal corporate earnings, rising unemployment, and stagnant consumption. This means the major tax revenue sources are expected to fall significantly.

Conclusion

English teaching in Japan looks like it is in for a very rough patch. While this exercise hasn’t been exactly a happy one, I hope it’s been informative. It certainly has been for me.

UPDATE: I have posted some more data on the industry in a follow-up.

Let’s stop hurting each other – negative gaijin competition

(Updated below) (Updated again)

When I lived in Washington, DC, one of my part-time jobs was to teach TOEIC strategies mainly to Japanese bureaucrats and businessmen who were stationed in the area for one reason or another. They usually came as invitees of the State Dept. or, in the case of salarymen, sent by their companies to study the US patent system, auto crash test system, or other relevant area depending on their career track.  The school was somewhat unique in that it was specifically set up to cater to Japanese customers, making it effectively an eikaiwa school in the US. 

I was never a particularly good teacher. My experiences studying Japanese (at the time I had two years of study abroad in Kansai and the JLPT Level 1 under my belt) actually got in the way of my being an effective teacher, since I usually became so star-struck and curious about their government roles that it hampered their progress in getting through the TOEIC drills. Despite that (or perhaps because of it), the job was a very instructive experience for me, not least in terms of how adults try and learn second languages.

Students were typically early/mid-career bureaucrats in their late 30s or early 40s with no relevant international experience. Hence, their English levels all tended to hover around a fairly low level (TOEIC of around 500 or so, decent reading skills, next to no speaking and listening skills). This helped create a sense of community among the students, who often congregated for small-talk, safe in the knowledge that they were all in the same boat.

Intermediate students threatened this balance. “Intermediate” in this sense simply means a student who can express himself relatively fluently in some situations and maybe has some cultural fluency as well. Though the lessons were mostly one-on-one, during group lessons with the school’s president the intermediate always gained a reputation as “the fluent one.” As a result, the other students would defer to this more advanced student and consider him the standard for progress. Each time this happened, there was always at least one student who became discouraged and grew reluctant to express himself or really try and move forward on his own terms, especially in the group lessons. At the same time, I could detect a kind of jealousy of the intermediate students for getting ahead of them.

The intermediate students could sense how the others felt about them, and some seemed to even relish their top dog position. They tended to be prideful and resisted my suggestions that they needed help with key concepts. It became pretty frustrating at times because even the intermediate students couldn’t successfully understand our teaching materials, which consisted mainly of old TOEIC tests and NPR archives. Basically, they were riding high on the difference between a 600 TOEIC and a 700 TOEIC, which in reality isn’t all that significant.

In the end, this was a form of negative competition. Even if the people around you are more advanced, that doesn’t mean you have to compare yourself with them (at the school we would try and separate intermediate students if possible). And just as important, if you are ahead of your peers, that is no excuse to sit on your laurels. Since the wider world is much more competitive than your circle of acquaintances, it is important to identify your own strengths and weaknesses, and work from there.

Gaijin Hierarchy

The same thing happens among foreigners in Japan, and I am just as guilty of this behavior as anyone. Typically, even in casual conversation people in the Japanese as a second language community as well as the eikaiwa community will rank each other on their relative prowess in Japanese, and I am sure most readers of this blog have endured the utter awkwardness of the Japanese-language/Japanese culture knowledge “pissing contest.” I noticed this tendency very strongly over the (mostly off-topic) discussion at Japan Probe related to the allegations of fund misuse in the JET Program. Here is a typical example of this need to impose hierarchy (UPDATE: Not really, but it’s a good lead-off for discussion nonetheless. See comments for clarification):

Comment by Darg:

I’m a former JET, although I wasn’t an ALT. I was a CIR (Coordinator of International Relations), and have had this convo many times before. I really think the proper solution should be to put more focus on the international understanding and relations and less on the English teaching, and as a result have more CIRs and less ALTs.

I believe the CIR job is closer to the original intention of the JET program, and that is to promote cultural exchange. The problem is, most people don’t even know what a CIR is and think the JET program is a big waste of money because of the portion of ALTs that come out here and screw things up for the majority who actually try and get something done.

If they required a minimum of teaching experience for ALTs and raised the CIR:ALT ratio, I think a lot more people would appreciate the JET program.

This is objectively false (UPDATE: again, see comments for how I misunderstood what he envisioned CIRs doing). The program is called “Japan Exchange and Teaching Program” for a reason – historically, it was set up to place foreigners inside school classrooms to help with the drive to “internationalize” Japan through better English learning. The job of a CIR, on the other hand, is secondary to that priority – they typically assist with the “international” programs of a local city hall. The only basis for concluding that CIRs are more beneficial to the JET program than the ALTs – and this view appears to be common – seems to be the desire to believe that the advanced Japanese language requirements for CIRs actually mean something, as opposed to those illiterate ALTs who are allowed to come to Japan equipped with nothing but their English skills and the enthusiasm to teach kids.

In fact, while I have heard of a productive role for the Portuguese-speaking CIRs who help facilitate communication in towns with high Brazilian populations, others complain that CIRs are often given the basically pointless jobs of promoting multicultural events and maintaining sister city relationships. That these jobs require some Japanese competency does nothing substantially to improve the objective “worth” of these positions.

It is easy to make Darg’s mistake of dismissing ALTs’ role in supplementing the current, generally poor state of English language teaching and general proficiency, including among Japanese-national English teachers. This won’t go away overnight, and in over 20 years of the JET program not much seems to have changed. Commenter Jake brings this up:

Anyway, my point is that having a warm foreign body in every classroom in the country has become the status quo and nobody seems to be questioning that system itself — just figuring out how to maintain the system while cutting costs (i.e. handing all the contracts over to Interac). Then again, retooling the system to teach English in a manner that enables students to actually speak would also mean retooling the entire test-based educational system, and until that happens, pretty much any new policy implemented is going to be nothing more than a band-aid on a brain tumor.

Suggesting Japan should “retool the system” is MUCH easier said than done. Consider some of the moving parts involved:

  • All schools, from elementary to university level, would have to turn their fundamental principles of education upside down (and have the talent infrastructure to understand and accept this new system); progress in the form of all-English education has been made on this front.
  • Japanese-national teachers would have to become functionally fluent in English.
  • Universities would have to reform their entrance procedures to emphasize English proficiency as it’s understood by most of the world (this is apparently underway).
  • Parents would have to change their expectations for how their children study.

And on and on. Feel free to squabble over the details, but it’s clear enough that in the current environment, parachuting in “warm bodies” seems like a pretty good compromise. So despite all the insults I have dished out in the past, I really don’t think there is anything these ALTs/eikaiwa teachers should be ashamed of. In an imperfect system, they are playing an important role.

Yet I would argue that for the purpose of leading a productive life, it’s necessary to leave the whys and wherefores about eikaiwa aside. To a certain extent, supply and demand are beyond direct human control, and as a result much overarching debate on “the system” ends up being just another extension of the pissing contest.

But this point remains lost on too many with a vested interest in this issue – the teachers and those who look down on them in the milieu of gaijin society. Again and again, jobs that require Japanese in Japan are seen as more worthy than the dreaded English teacher position. Roughly speaking, I see the hierarchy as falling along these lines:

Japanese-speaking corporate executive > Professor > Interpreter > Token gaijin at a large corporation > Translator > Gaijin tarento > JLPT 1 passer > eikaiwa teacher-turned-entrepreneur > Journalist > CIR > Convenience store clerk/electronics salesman > Eikaiwa teacher >  Street performer > Hostess

Relatedly, the group of Western expats who work for foreign companies and generally live in a Little America (think Hiroo in Tokyo or Rokko Island in Kobe) are usually not even included in this universe of possibilities, despite there being substantial overlap in practice.

Could there be anything more arbitrary and meaningless? In every other corner of the word it seems like people understand that people of different skill sets and living situations have different career needs, prospects, priorities, and ways of life, so why do the gaijin need to bitch so much?

The majority of non-soldier Western expats in this country are eikaiwa teachers, so it is an interesting phenomenon to see that many even in the profession see it as pointless and counterproductive to their careers. The people within that group easily end up like my former students — forming a pecking order based on Japanese language ability and overall J-savviness.

Why? For one thing, the gaijin community can be pretty isolated – it is a small subset of wider Japanese society, so if language or cultural barriers have kept you from really assimilating with the mainstream, the only real alternative is to stay with the people with whom you have common ties. A thousand and one Japan bloggers will tell you this can be lonely and frustrating. For another, it cannot be denied that there is some truth to the idea that many people who end up in Japan were either single-mindedly obsessed with Japan from the beginning or simply didn’t give much thought to a career until graduation rolled around. People whose jobs came as an afterthought might welcome a distraction from their own situations.  

But most importantly, placing the eikaiwa teachers or those with poor Japanese on the bottom of the totem pole is a convenient and easy way to make people feel better about themselves. But again, it doesn’t actually help anyone – it’s just another form of negative competition. I hope the people living and working in Japan will step back from these false distinctions.

In terms of careers, eikaiwa teachers should try and think honestly where they are and consider where they would like to be, without worrying about whether their Japanese is up to snuff. Japanese is a lot of work, but it is doable and it will come. Or not. You will have to make the cost/benefit analysis of where your career is headed and whether it is worth it to stay in Japan at all costs or whether you might have better prospects back home, or even in a third country (I had a great time living in Bangkok). The economy isn’t all that great at the moment, but now is a good time to brush up on your strengths or the skills you wish were your strengths, whether they are Japanese language, network engineering, hip-hop dancing, or even English teaching.

Oddly, it’s the people supposedly on the top that might have the most to lose by “winning” this contest.  Even if you have passed JLPT 1 and “escaped” eikaiwa, why not take a look in the mirror and consider your next move? Many of the people who have succeeded somewhat in assimilating did so by going out of their way to avoid contact with other Westerners, out of the fear that overexposure to their native language would hinder the Japanization process. While there is some merit to that, especially at the early stages, at some point you will have to stop seeing other foreigners as competition. You should feel comfortable enough in your position that you’re happy to help others.

Despite all the praise you might get for speaking good Japanese, Japanese language alone does not make a career (and if you want to be a translator/interpreter, it’s harder than it looks). Nor will it make you a very interesting person if that’s all you’ve got. And remember, if you become too self-satisfied with your supposedly lofty achievements you may be in for a rude awakening.

YET MORE UPDATES (No more Chuck Norris…): Here is an updated hierarchy thanks to the comments section (again, this is just a rough estimate based on my assessment of the state of gaijin discourse):

The emperor if he actually has a surfer dude accent > Steven Seagal > all foreign sumo wrestlers except Konishiki and those Russians that got caught with weed > Naturalized Japanese citizen (some overlap here)* > Street performer who hooked up with a famous idol > Japanese-speaking corporate executive > other foreign fighter/athlete> Attorney > Professor >  Interpreter > Token gaijin at a large corporation* > Translator >  Konishiki > Mombusho scholar > first-generation JET/BET who was totally not an English teacher > Translator who pisses on people > Professor who only teaches ESL > Jesus in Toyama > Gaijin tarento > JLPT 1 passer  > JLPT 1 passer who speaks in dialect to show off  > Genki English guy* > NGO Worker > eikaiwa teacher-turned-entrepreneur > Foreign Geisha > Journalist > high school exchange student > Akihabara tour guide (with Son Goku costume)* > Portuguese-speaking CIR > CIR > Convenience store clerk/electronics salesman* > Eikaiwa teacher >Bonsai (or other traditional Japanese craft) master > Bonsai (or other traditional Japanese craft) student > Buddhist convert > Shinto convert > Headhunter >  Eikaiwa teachers who are milking the system > Street performer > Hostess > guy handing out event fliers in Roppongi > Foreign psychic > Evangelical Christian

* Position in hierarchy in dispute.

Pinyin in Taiwan

The Taipei Times printed an interview the other day with Yu Bor-chuan of the Taiwan Pinyin League, and head of the team that designed Tongyong Pinyin. He is of course a heavy promoter of Tongyong Pinyin, saying that it is better suited to Taiwan than the internationally accepted but PRC originated Hanyu Pinyin. He has some interesting background on the history of various kinds of phonetic writing in Taiwan, and of course makes his argument for avoiding Hanyu Pinyin.

That the MOE did not cite the source of the Hanyu Pinyin charts constituted an act of plagiarism as the phonetic system was approved by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and ratified by its National People’s Congress in 1958.

This is just a weird statement. He seems to be arguing that any discussion of Hanyu Pinyin MUST be centered on politics and not linguistics, which to me is an utterly absurd position.

As for the false information I mentioned, the MOE said Taiwan’s street and place names are spelled using Hanyu Pinyin on maps and atlases published by most countries and international organizations. This is not true, since the international community generally goes by the guideline of naming a person or a place after its original name.

There are hardly any countries or international organizations that use Hanyu Pinyin to spell places in Taiwan except maps published by China.

This, however, is correct. Of course, with romanization in Taiwan being so unstable, foreigners often have no idea which system they should be using.

TT: The main reason given by the government to adopt Hanyu Pinyin was to bring Taiwan in line with international standards.

Yu: If that was the real reason behind the policy shift, the government should have replaced the traditional characters used exclusively in Taiwan with simplified characters, because more than 95 percent of the [Chinese-speaking] population worldwide uses simplified characters.

He’s really mixing apples and oranges here. While it is kind of true that making all language policy decisions on the basis of international standards would lead to the adoption of simplified Chinese, Yu is being very disingenuous about the logic as it applies here. While traditional written Chinese is used in Taiwan as the national and official language and the medium of instruction for all Taiwanese, Pinyin in any form is used ONLY for the benefit of foreigners. Most Taiwanese simply do not learn Pinyin, whether Tongyong, Hanyu, or Wade-Giles. The argument that a supplemental writing system which is used only to accomodate foreigners should follow international standards should in no way mean that the primary writing system, used for the primary Taiwanese national language by its citizens, should also be changed.

Adopting Tongyong Pinyin will not pose difficulties for foreigners.

For foreigners who do not understand Mandarin, whether a road sign is spelled in Hanyu Pinyin or Tongyong Pinyin makes no difference, not to mention that Tongyong is more friendly to English speakers than Hanyu in terms of pronunciation.

The primary differences between the two systems are that Tongyong uses “s,” “c” and “jh,” which corresponds more to English spelling, instead of “x,” “q” and “zh” as used in Hanyu Pinyin, which English speakers without Mandarin skills do not usually know how to pronounce. There wouldn’t be a problem as long as street signs an maps were spelled consistently everywhere.

This is largely true. Consistency is the most important thing such a writing system, but why is consistency between the spelling of identical place names or syllables in Taiwan and the rest of the Chinese-speaking world a bad thing?

The Hanyu Pinyin system is not entirely suitable for Taiwan given the fact that not every Chinese character is pronounced in Taiwan as it is in China.

Maybe something is lost in translation here, but this sentence simply makes no sense. While some characters do have a different common pronunciation in Beijing-accented Mandarin or Taiwan-accented Mandarin, Taiwanese Mandarin uses exactly 0 sounds that do not exist in Hanyu Pinyin. I have a Chinese dictionary from Taiwan in which it notes-in Hanyu Pinyin-both pronounciatins where they differ.

Immediately after Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the government in September, the MOE promulgated guidelines for using Hanyu Pinyin to Romanize Hakka, replacing the application of Tongyong Pinyin for teaching Hakka.

As Tongyong has been used for the Romanization of Hakka, even some KMT lawmakers were against the new guidelines. They said that it would make learning Hakka more difficult because Hanyu Pinyin did not accommodate sounds in the language.

This is getting into a more complicated area, but it is easily avoided. Hanyu Pinyin is a romanization system for Mandarin. Hakka, while a related language, is not Mandarin, and should have its own romanization system designed for it with no consideration for the romanization system used for other languages. While I am generally supportive of the move to use Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin despite it being partly based on a political agenda, extending Hanyu Pinyin to other Chinese languages (or dialects, as they are known by Chinese nationalists) is a purely political choice that makes no sense from a linguistic, educational, or practical perspective.

The most serious problem is how our names are to be Romanized.

Although the Hanyu Pinyin guidelines allow individuals to decide the spelling of their name, it suggested using the format of surname first, followed by given name without a hyphen between the syllables … If my name were that way, my initials would be [Y.] B. instead of [Y.] B.C. in Tongyong Pinyin … How can the government ignore the fact that Taiwanese people have used a hyphen in their given name … for about 20 to 30 years?

No one has the right to arbitrarily decide what other people’s names should be. By the same token, Taiwan has every right to decide its proper names.

We should not give up autonomy over this as it is a representation of our sovereignty.

No real arguments here. People should be free to write personal names as they wish, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a recommended orthography. One thing that isn’t addressed even here is while for most Taiwanese (aside from ethnic aborigines) primarily write their name in the same Chinese characters, their primary language may be Mandarin, Taiwanese (Hoklo), or Hakka. Shouldn’t they be able to choose to romanize their name for international use in the system of their primary spoken tongue, and not based only on Mandarin?

Japan, where two different Romanization systems have been used since 1954, could serve as an example.

In 1954, Japan’s Cabinet announced a program including the Hepburn and the nippon-shiki [“Japan-style”] systems, under which the Hepburn Romanization system devised by an American is employed in overseas Japanese-language teaching materials, while the nippon-shiki system is used to transliterate local names and for domestic education.

Japan’s experience proves that the adoption of two Romanization systems does not hurt a country’s competitiveness. In addition, [there is] compatibility between the Tongyong and Hanyu Pinyin systems.

This is sort of true, but the nippon-shiki (actually the modernized version is Kunrei-shiki) serves almost no function. It is largely the same as the far more common Hepburn standard, much in the same way that Tongyong and Hanyu are largely the same, but has several minor differences which serve only to confuse. Even in Japan pretty much nobody actually uses anything but Hepburn romanization, and when he says “Japan’s experience proves that the adoption of two Romanization systems does not hurt a country’s competitiveness.” he should really be saying “Japan’s experience proves that the adoption of two Romanization systems is inconvenient, and everybody not legally required to use the less popular system will gravitate over time to the more popular one.”

One arm of the JET program possibly misappropriating funds

Very interesting post at Japan Probe on possible quasi-corruption at CLAIR, the affiliate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in charge of its share of the JET program:

The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR), the governmental organization responsible for the JET Program, could be in trouble. Popular Osaka governor Toru Hashimoto has started questioning CLAIR’s use of funds and has announced that the Osaka government may reduce its financial backing to CLAIR next year　(90% of CLAIR’s financial backing comes from money paid by local governments, and Osaka pays a big slice).

The JET program is one of those rare Japanese government programs in which overlapping ministries successfully cooperate – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in charge of most of the administrative details of selecting applicants, the education ministry places them in schools, and the internal affairs ministry coordinates with local governments. Well, it looks like part of the compromise reached between the ministries was that at least the internal affairs side gets to set up a swank suite of perks for retired bureaucrats.

As I have done before, I am cross-posting my comment at Japan Probe to encourage discussion of the issue on my comments section. I began in response to earlier commenters who apparently take any mention of the JET program to debate on the JET program’s merits and the usefulness of eikaiwa teachers in general (of course I would never do that):

Did you notice that this issue has NOTHING to do with the merits of the JET program itself? The problem is that the bureaucrats have turned parts of the program into their own slush fund, which enriches their post-retirement accounts and improves their golf scores at the expense of the Japanese taxpayers and maybe even people who didn’t get accepted to the JET program (since part of the acceptance cutoff is no doubt due to budget constraints). It’s so laughable for them to have overseas offices since they don’t even process the applications – that is the foreign ministry’s job.

This misappropriation issue isn’t any reason to end the JET program. In fact, considering all the extra money they are raking in it looks like they could be accepting even more JETs. I have argued elsewhere that it may have outlived whatever functionality it had as an English teaching program, but as Yomiuri documented around its 20th anniversary the program itself has by and large been extremely beneficial to the teachers who come and have a once in a lifetime experience (or get a foothold for a life in Japan), the schools who want foreign English teachers, and Japan’s soft power as the program generates massive goodwill and a niche workforce of Japan-savvy English speakers.

But if one of the organizations involved is being exploited for no real reason but to provide an excuse for internal affairs bureaucrats to get post-retirement salaries and live the Japanese dream of endless enkai and golf with their coworkers, then Hashimoto is right to use his spending authority to try and put an end to it. As much of a showboat as he can be, that’s an example of real leadership and sticking up for what’s right.

I understand the motivation for post-retirement income, but what I will never get is why these oyaji seem to love drinking in their work suits and basically never leaving the damn office. If you are going to misappropriate funds, at least do what American politicians do and get sweet renovations to your house!

They have 12.7 billion yen a year in unused funding! I propose using that money to send free cookies to every woman who gets pregnant. It will help alleviate the low birth rate AND I’ll only overcharge the government 50 billion yen 5 billion yen a year — big savings!

All applicated

I just finished my interview for the MA program at Kyoto University, the final section of the application which consisted of a written exam on the 3rd and a written application including a 20,000 word paper – with all of these parts done in Japanese. When I stop to think about it for a moment it really all feels a bit unbelievable that I am doing this in a language that 5 years ago I could never have imagined being sufficiently proficient in, and 10 years ago could never have imagined even studying in the first place.

Stimulus or investment? Japan vs. USA

Ever since the start of our current financial disaster various economists and pundits have been comparing first the US banking problems with Japan’s, and then more recently the infrastructure-heavy stimulus program with Japan’s construction state. Today’s NYT has a substantial article that easily marks the most high profile comparison yet. I’m certainly no economist and I’m not even taking the time to look at numbers right now, but my quick take on the issue is that the comparison is being significantly overblown, but it is still a very worthwhile comparison to make, so that Japan’s various successes and mistakes can be absorbed as lessons. See the following summation of Japan’s massive pork spending:

Dr. Ihori of the University of Tokyo did a survey of public works in the 1990s, concluding that the spending created almost no additional economic growth. Instead of spreading beneficial ripple effects across the economy, he found that the spending actually led to declines in business investment by driving out private investors. He also said job creation was too narrowly focused in the construction industry in rural areas to give much benefit to the overall economy.

He agreed with other critics that the 1990s stimulus failed because too much of it went to roads and bridges, overbuilding this already heavily developed nation. Critics also said decisions on how to spend the money were made behind closed doors by bureaucrats, politicians and the construction industry, and often reflected political considerations more than economic. Dr. Ihori said the United States appeared to be striking a better balance by investing in new energy and information-technology infrastructure as well as replacing aging infrastructure.

Japan’s huge boom in public works spending was less a national stimulus program than a gigantic rural welfare program of pork-barrel projects designed to prop up the ailing LDP in its long decline. The money was largely directed not to the areas where it would benefit the largest number of people, but the areas where it would benefit the largest number of politicians. This was not done entirely out purely cynical political motives but also due to a genuine desire to arrest the decline of the rural regions themselves, in the face of continuing urbanization and a decline in Japan’s traditional and lionized (if anachronistic) agricultural lifestyle. Regardless of intent, a huge proportion (I won’t use words like “most” without looking at actual numerical research) of the spending was “stimulus” but not “investment”.

I am very, very wary of the general principal of “economic stimulus.” I am not opposed to government spending, or even large amounts of government spending, as long as it is being spent on something that is actually necessary or build further value in the future, i.e. services or investment. I think this attitude should be obvious from the mass transit funding letter I wrote and posted here a few days ago. In short, I worry that the discussions on spending currently ongoing in Washington may turn into a series of worthless boondoggle projects oriented at unpopulated rural areas, combined with random tax cuts and other expenditures poorly aimed at short-term (i.e. one election cycle) economic recovery, while continuing to ignore the trillions of dollars in outstanding repairs or upgrades as well as vital new investment that the country needs. I think it’s safe to say that politicians are going to spend this money. The question is, what will it buy us? Would we rather have a bunch of bridges to nowhere, vacant museums and amusement parks in virtually deserted rural towns, and paved-over mountain tops, or would we rather have a modern electrical grid, mass transit that at least meets late 20th century standards if not 21st century, a safe and reliable water system, bridges rated to not collapse, and maybe even an adequate system of public health care?

New Joyo Kanji

The Kanji subcommittee of the national language study committee of the culture commission has announced an addition of 191 kanji to the list, which brings it to a new total of 2131. Looking at the full list of the now officially common kanji, I am actually struck at how common so many of them are. In fact, I went through the list and did a quick count, and I saw at least 125 for which I knew at least 1proper usage in Japanese (i.e. reading plus definition or place name), and a couple more I decided not to count because I only know them in Chinese. If I know this many of the 191, with still well under a decade of study of Japanese as a foreign language, I think it’s a safe bet that pretty much any native-speaker high school student knows almost all of them, plus a LOT more. If nothing else, I think we can safely put to bed the myth that “you only need to know about 2000 kanji to read Japanese fluently” because there are only about 2000 on the list of kanji that high school students are officially required to know. The joyo list really is a joke, and while I’m sure in reality you don’t need to know nearly as many characters to be fluent in reading Japanese as you do in Chinese, the numbers are probably not as far apart as is commonly believed.

Interestingly, 5 were also removed from the list, and the one example they give, 銑, I have no recollection of every seeing before, although I’m going to guess it is some sort of farming implement.

Thanks to Curzon for mailing me the article.