Cross-cultural communication（９）　

９）Objections to the idea of lumping together European and American cultures
　 From 1995, I lived in Paris for two and a half years, working as a doctor. For more information about this, please see the Paris section of this website. While I lived in the US for three years in the 1980s, I have also experienced living in Europe. I would like to share my thoughts on my experiences in these two cultural spheres. I have always loved languages, and when I entered Osaka Medical College, in addition to my studies in medicine, I first studied English at the YMCA English School in Osaka. After that, in my third year, I studied French at l’institut franco-japonais d’Osaka, which had just opened in Osaka. Both of these schools had native teachers who gave lessons that included cultural background, and the content was of a very high quality. From that experience, I had a vague awareness that American and French culture were quite different. However, I had always felt uncomfortable with the way that the media, whether on TV or in the newspapers, would often lump Europe and America together and say “In Europe and America...” whenever they had something to say.

　America is, to put it bluntly, a huge country (in a sense opposing urban). Ordinary Americans think that English (American English?) is spoken anywhere in the world, and they don't really care about the political situation in the world. Americans historically have had a poor sense of international politics, and they have been looked down on by the European powers. However, the rich don't fight, and individual Americans are friendly and gullible. In Japan, the impression of America is that it only emphasizes the good points of Americans, and the bad points are hardly known.

　Politically, France is much smaller than Japan in terms of its economy, but it still maintains international influence that is not inferior to that of the United States. The French are argumentative and logical, and of course they love discussing politics. However, they seem to give the impression of being a little cold to others, especially to people they have just met for the first time. Perhaps due to the influence of French Sinocentrism, they are not very interested in foreign languages, just like Americans. However, in other European countries besides France, you can find people who can speak multiple foreign languages due to the need at an individual or national level. Therefore, it is correct to say that America and Europe are different cultural spheres.

　In recent years, there has been a growing interest in Asian countries in Japan, and it is now common knowledge that each Asian country is a different cultural sphere. In the same way, I think it is time to change the way of thinking that groups together the　Europe and America.

| BACK |