It's either English or stay in the dark

By DAVID APPLEYARD

One of the most compelling reasons for learning English in this far-flung corner of Asia is the need for access to reliable information. The indirectness of the Japanese and the vagueness of their language too often leave what is said open to individual interpretation. 

Although we are exposed to any amount of subjective product promotion in the form of advertising just about everywhere nowadays, corresponding objective information seems much harder to come by in the Japanese language than it is in English. In Japan there are few, if any, nationwide watchdog organizations who carry out independent spot checks on products and then seek to protect the interests of consumers by publishing their findings. In 'restaurant guides', for instance, the quality of food and service is not assessed after surprise visits; restaurants merely pay to be listed. Star ranking of hotels by motoring organizations of the kind you find in Britain would also be unthinkable here. In Japan the consumer first has to purchase a product or service and is then left to form his or her own opinion about it. This very hush-hush arrangement protects bad businesses from bad publicity and new customers are prevented from benefiting from the experiences of older ones. 

One area that concerns everyone is health care and access to information on the performance of the country's medical institutions. To protect its members from 'discrimination', the Japan Medical Association opposes any kind of quality ranking for providers of medical treatment. There would also seem to be a far greater emphasis on curative rather than preventative medicine. It is not hard to understand which is the more lucrative. 

On a pack of cigarettes in most English-speaking countries you'll read that smoking can kill you, plain and simple. The corresponding warning text in Japanese simply tells you that too much smoking is not very good for your health. Most hospitals here not only allow smoking but make additional revenue from strategically placed cigarette vending machines. It's rather like having broken glass strewn on the ground in front of a tire dealer's. 

Vital information relating to AIDS prevention is similarly sanitized in the Japanese language. If someone is found to be HIV-positive after anonymous testing,  no warning is passed on to any third person or authority; it's left entirely up to the individual not to infect any number of others.

The fact that even terminally ill cancer patients are kept in the dark here — surely grounds for legal action anywhere else — is famous throughout the world.  

But it is probably in the field of news coverage that one has the greatest benefit of being able to understand English in Japan. Although this country prides itself on having one of the highest per capita newspaper readerships in the world, the vast majority of these papers are sold on a subscription basis with the help of the world's most importunate door-to-door salesmen. Once trapped into signing up for a whole year in order to get one month free, the less discerning reader can be relied on to show almost undying loyalty. Newspaper companies, generally dominated by other business interests, tend to concentrate on maintaining a diehard core customer base rather than attempting to excel in the field of journalism. 

Newsstands are kept few and far between and so editors are not under any pressure to come up with eye-catching scoops to raise over-the-counter sales. They are particularly wary of investigative journalism that might upset existing or potential advertisers, or for that matter relations to the political establishment. According to Freedom House's 2001 Press Freedom Survey: "The press is independent, but not always outspoken. Exclusive private press clubs provide major media outlets with access to top politicians and bureaucrats. In return, journalists often practice self-censorship regarding the financial conditions of troubled companies and banks and other sensitive issues. The press rarely covers organized crime."

Television news is hardly any better. Although the news is one of the very few live broadcasts in Japan, just about every utterance is carefully scripted and there is little or no room for spontaneity. Commercial TV even allows corporate sponsorship of its newscasts — a practice deemed quite inappropriate in, for example, the UK. 

State broadcaster NHK boasts the largest TV audience of the day with its 7 o'clock evening newscast. This "nice" but tediously parochial news program — with pauses for what's going on in the countryside — will report the details of one domestic scandal after another, but rarely draw any useful conclusions as to how the same corrupt practices might be prevented in future. At the same time, little effort is made to track down, name and shame wrongdoers. If caught on camera, faces and voices are disguised to protect them from the rule of law. Off-the-cuff interviews with politicians are exceedingly rare and most other interviews carefully choreographed. 

Why then this sorry state of affairs? Because just as with the newspapers the existence of a captive audience means there is little pressure on editors to come up with anything outstanding. Every single year NHK's budget is passed unanimously by politicians right across the board who appreciate it for simply not bothering them. Contrast this with Britain's BBC, whose outspoken and investigative journalism usually manages to ruffle quite a few feathers during the course of a year. Whenever it wants an increase in the modest license fee to enable it to keep up with commercial rivals, the corporation usually has to lobby hard to secure sufficient support in Parliament, as well as among the general public. 

For Japanese with a more serious interest in world affairs, NHK operates a satellite channel, BS1, which is subscribed to by some 10% of the population but actually watched by considerably more (I should point out that many viewers evade the ostensibly obligatory NHK license fee with impunity, thus making it unnecessarily expensive for those who do pay). This non-terrestrial service features edited clips from domestic newscasts in East Asia, the U.S., the U.K. Russia, Spain, France, Germany and occasionally Italy. Other important areas of the globe such as India, Africa, South America, Australasia and Canada remain largely ignored, and the service is suspended altogether as soon as there is any PGA golf or Major League baseball involving Japanese batting stars Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners or Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees. 

So there you have it. In order to get the full picture here in Japan there is simply no substitute for the Internet or direct satellite broadcasts from the likes of CNN or the BBC. The Japanese need to be informed like everyone else and this should provide them with an even greater incentive to learn English.

©David Appleyard 2002-2003   All rights reserved.