From: bogin yahoo co jp> Date: 18 aug 2004 Subject: Re: The myth of the "kanji barrier" Your free subscription is supported by today's sponsor: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Amazing Diet Patch The fastest - Easiest way to lose weight! Try it now FREE! http://click.topica.com/= caacvgta2i6YsbnuqMaa/MyDietPatches ------------------------------------------------------------------- I just like to add my own thoughts to Richard Sams post on the "kanji barrier". I myself have lived in Japan for quite a long time so I understand exactly where you're coming from. But, those you have never lived in may have a hard time really understanding your argument. The reasons why some Japanese may feel that kanji are to difficult for westerners is all that hard understand. Even today, for some Japanese, their only actual exposure to foreigners ( Westerners ) may be only those that they see on TV. There are quite a few popular foreign talents or sport= stars that can speak Japanese quite well, both colloquial and standard, but= can't seem to really be able to read or write worth a lick. Verbal communication is much more important than reading and writing in their line= of work. However, there many Western academics, researchers, and other professional that are quite proficient in reading and writing and active in= Japan. So, obviously the so called "kanji barrier" myth is shot down right there.=20 Unfortunately, these are not the people that most ordinary Japanese associate with or even hear about. So, for those Japanese a foreigner that can read kanji ( or do anything considered to be Japanese ) is still a novelty. Afterall, there are still Japanese people out there that are still= amazed to see a foreigner use chopsticks. How many times have you been asked then question in the past 15 years? Perhaps, you have even been asked= while you were actually using them while eating! It is not only in the West were some people feel that kanji is too difficult. I have also met quite a lot of foreigners in Japan that insist that the kanji-system must be dropped because it is too difficult for THEM to understand. They feel that everything would be so much better if everything were written in one of the kana alphabets or even worse in romanji. I actually find kanji to be one of the easiest parts of the Japanese language to study, and think perhaps the fact that some foreigners= in Japan have a problem with has more to do with their method of study and the effort they make than with kanji itself. I recently saw in the Japanese language study section Daily Yomiuri newspaper ( an English language newspaper printed in Japan ) a cartoon that= was trying to teach the usuage of some simple Japanese expressions. The cartoon was in three parts. In the first part a Japanese and a foreigner were having a conversation. The foreigner was boasting that his Japanese was fluent. In the second part, the Japanese, with a sly grin on his face, hands the foreigner a book ( or something ) and says "if your Japanese is so good then read this". In the third part, the foreigner is sweating bullets and shaking all over because he can't read the book while the Japanese is grinning and thinking "see I knew your Japanese wasn't so good". This was an article designed to help people learn Japanese and I am sure the author actually saw nothing wrong with it. In fact, I showed to some Japanese people and nobody thought anything of it. Obviously, this way of thinking is not unique to Japan. Many Japanese probably talk quite alot unpleasent experiences they had in the West. But, Japan is still a relatively closed society compared to most Western nations. 99% of its population is Japanese. Regional differences do exist but they are not as pronounced as in some Western countries. Overall, the society is pretty homogeneous so naturally this effects how Japanese view things including how they view shogi. I think that organizations such as the ISPS can be an important factor in the future development of shogi. However, when they talk about this so called "kanji barrier", they are basing their assumption more on what they actually see here in Japan than on what they hear about overseas. They are also basing it more on secondhand knowledge and stereotypes. Sort of like when some Japanese say that foreign skis are no good in Japan because Japanese snow is so much different from snow in other countries. It seems they think that kanji must be so difficult for English speakers because it is so different from English. And, since English is so hard for us to master, Japanese must be near impossible for a foreigner to master.=20 Actually, surprisingly, more than a few times when I have gone to a shogi club some Japanese have refused to play me becuase they couldn't speak English! The fact that I might be able to speak some Japanese didn't even pop into their mind even though I was talking to them in Japanese.=20 Shogi in Japan is thought of as being more than just a game. It's tradition, it's culture, it has a code of honor and it has a history. It's something more than just pieces and a board. A game is something simple that a child can learn. It requires only a superficial level of knowledge (ie: the rules). So for many Japanese, shogi is something more that requires a much deeper level of understanding; something that is perhaps too difficult for non-Japanese to understand. They seem to be wrongly assuming that one must actually learn Japanese first before one can learn the culture of shogi. And since most Westerners can't learn or are unwilling to learn Japanese then all they are capable of learning is the game of shogi. The Japanese element must be taken out of the equation to make shogi easier for Westerners to learn. It is only through the de-Japanification of shogi that its popularity in the West will increase. It seems like they simply fail to realize that what makes Japanese tradtions and culture so attractive to so many people are their "Japaneseness". I like shogi for many reasons. I like the culture and the tradition but I also enjoy it as a game. Both aspects of shogi are equally important in my eyes. So, while I can see how westernized sets can help to explain the game= to beginners ( especially children ), I don't feel that they are or should be necessary for shogi's development. They are a novelty in the same way those character chess sets are. They may attract the attention of people unfamiliar with the game but I doubt they will keep them captivated for very long. There must be some kind of standardized type of piece if there is hope of creating a unified international shogi organization with international tournaments. And, unless you're planning to exclude a vast number of Japanese players, it seems pretty hard to find a better option than the current kanji pieces. Perhaps, instead of looking for substitutes for the kanji pieces, shogi could be best served by looking for better ways= to explain the the game. If kanji pieces turn some people off then maybe we= are just not doing a good enough job explaining them. If even after trying our best it still turns them off then maybe that's just the way it is. You can't bend over backwards and try to force feed something to people who don't want it. Learning shogi does require some effort and motivation on the part of the person doing the learning. Unnecessarily long and probably pointless. But, I've had nothing better to do for the past couple hours.(^-^) Bill Gaudry __________________________________________________ GANBARE! NIPPON! Yahoo! 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