If Only Every Classroom Had a Kissing Machine…

And now for something a bit different…

Common Misconception About Japan #1: That Everyone and Everything is Technologically Savvy and Up-To-Date
False.

Maybe it was all those travel shows I watched or the fact that half the appliances in my American house had Japanese names or maybe I just watched Lost in Translation too many times (okay…I only saw it once), but before coming here I had this idea that the entirety of the country of Japan had fancy, fancy techy stuff, that even the common man walked around perpetually plugged in. I didn’t think that the whole country looked like the pictures I had seen of Tokyo, all lit up, shiny, and eternally flashing advertisements for ramen and karaoke, but I did think that, at least, government-run facilities (i.e., my schools) and the people who worked in them would utilize technology like they utilized chopsticks – with skill and efficiency.

I have come to discover, however, that not really any of this is true. None of my classrooms, even at my top school, have computers or projectors in the classrooms. There are separate technology rooms and computer labs, but even these do not have anything as fancy as Smartboards or document cameras or things that seemed pretty much vital for my classrooms in America. I haven’t been able to locate a color printer in any of my schools. The computer the school lets me use is running Windows 2000 (granted, the full-time teachers do have nicer computers). Most of my teachers can barely handle transferring files via flashdrives, and for all those spiffy Japanese cellphones, most people are still rocking fairly basic models (they do pimp them out with ginormous stuffed animals and wacky colors, however). After talking to Rick and Martha in Kyushu, I think this is pretty much the state of affairs everywhere. Students don’t take or use computers in class – which I think has more to do with an inbred need for homogeny than lack of resources – and I have only seen one sensei use a computer and projector in class for something other than what I was doing.

And yet…some of the hottest tech is coming out of this place. In a way, the Japanese mindset would say that if one school had those resources, than every school would also need those resources, and I can see how that could be a pretty daunting if not unattainable goal, since technology is always improving and consequently going out of date. But the inclusion of technology into classrooms, and even daily life, doesn’t really seem to be on the radar for most Japanese. Students freaked when they saw my iPhone. Teachers want to know everything I can tell them about my Kindle. And these things are as common as driver’s licenses in the States.

So, all this to say, that despite your (and my) preconception that all of Japan is booming with endless access to out-of-this-world technology, that’s just not the reality that I have seen. All of Japan is not Shibuya Crossing, despite what Sophia Coppola would like us to believe.

In their defense though, I doubt the life of anyone would be much improved by creepy things like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PspagsTFvlg