During the 1980s, when Japan's economy was roaring and people were writing books with titles like 'Japan is Number One,' most Japanese college students didn't make the effort to become fluent in English.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Had I not gone to Japan in 1986, had I stayed home and majored in English literature as I'd intended to do, I might indeed have become an investment banker, an outcome that perhaps would have proved a more severe blow to the health of the U.S. economy than to the history of the novel.
When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.
I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan.
Japanese is a very difficult language.
In high school, I actually thought I was going to have to learn Japanese to work in technology. My big feeling was I just missed it, I missed the whole thing. It had happened in the '80s, and I got here too late. But then, I'm maybe the most optimistic person I know. I mean, I'm incredibly optimistic.
I didn't read so much Japanese literature. Because my father was a teacher of Japanese literature, I just wanted to do something else.
I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.
Increasingly, corporate executives who don't speak Japanese are coming into Japan. Unlike their predecessors, they expect their employees to be able to communicate in English.
The fact of the matter is that fewer people in Tokyo are able to do business in English than in many other big Asian cities, like Shanghai, Seoul or Bangkok.
Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.
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