Japanese do really well in these aspects!(Week11)[Assessment]

Hofstede concluded six culture dimensions to described a culture.

a comparison between Japan and China.

At 92 in uncertainty avoidance, people in Japan are intolerant of the unexpected and threatened by ambiguous. Using the cultural relativism view to say, they think take precautions are the right and necessary things. This characteristic of Japanese is attributed to the fact that Japan is constantly threatened by natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.

  

Japan Practices Disaster Prevention Drills

Here is another example of their well-prepared ability. In Japan, kids travel to school on their own from very young age, earlier than China and some western countries.

They do worry about their Children's safety, so they designed this school bag for primary school students.

randoseru, the large, sturdy backpacks used by Japanese elementary school children

This bag uses the material which can make you float when you fall into the water and can protect your head when earthquake.  Each students also have a phone with GPS, so parents can know children's positions.

While in China, without some emergency measures, parents worry about the children's safety, so they pick up their children from school everyday.

There exits plenty of differences between cultures, one of the aims of anthropology, is to reduce our ethnocentrism when facing different cultures. 

I admire for Japanese ability of planning everything carefully to minimize the uncertainty. They try to figure out what's the problem and then find out how to solve the problems from the roots. 

Under these precautions, Japanese can keep calm no matter what happens, and try to live peacefully with the uncertainty. While with a relative low level in uncertainty avoidance, Chinese do not take precautions as much as Japanese, we just let it happen which lead to panic when uncertainty happens. That's where our culture should learn from.

a big issue between Japan and China (Week 10)[Assessment]

Japan and China have a a long historical origins' complicated and tension relationship. From the second world war to the contesting of the Diaoyu Islands(called senkaku islands in Japanese).

Nowadays, the 'big issue' in tourism between these two countries maybe the consistently mutual unfavorable impressions between the general population accompanied by the increasing number of Chinese tourists in Japan.

tourists increasing in Japan

Here is a A Japan-China Relation poll.


Only 11.3% of Chinese public hold a favorable impression of Japan, but approximately 90% people in each country have a express antagonism towards another.

However, recent years, Chinese spending power have become the biggest part of Japanese visitors income. 'About a quarter of the $17 billion outlaid by tourists in Japan in 2014 came from Chinese visitors.'

Despite the anti-Japan sentiments, Japan has strict food and medicine safety supervision system, and also prior technology, Chinese public prefer to shop overseas due to China's frequent product safety scandals.

Japanese store use Chinese slogan to attractive Chinese visitors

Chinese customers receipt in Japanese duty free

With the unfavorable impressions, Japanese media create a word 爆買い (crazy buying or buying spree) to describe how Chinese people shopping in Japan. 

While around 95% people in Japan and China said they access the information about each other through the media. People in Japan may resent to Chinese tourists' behavior due to these kind of word-with-prejudice. While response to Japanese' antipathy, some people in China may have extreme views, such as to boycotts of Japanese products.

As far as I am concerned, we should not forget the history, the past. To remember is not to bear grudges, but to draw lessons from the past and apply to the future. Japan and China can benefit by associating together, achieve a boom is tourism.