Generation gap
I’ve realized recently how much I dislike talking to young (twenties) foreign English teachers here. I’m talking about the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme) teachers who come to Japan (mostly from the U.S.) to teach English on short contracts (between one and three years). They’re fresh out of college and they are here for an adventure before returning to their home countries to pursue other things, like go back to school, or join a company, or sometimes using their Japan savings to travel some more around the world. Most of them know little about Japan - or about practically anything, really, although they are full of whatever they recently graduated in. I often dislike talking to them because they know so little that it retards our ability to talk, demonstrating the point that conversation, like culture, requires and uses shared templates - templates of religious, or political, or historical information and experience. In addition, I often dislike their manner. I don’t mean their personal manners. They are usually quite friendly people. I mean their outlook and approach to things, the ways they conceptualize things and express themselves. It’s a Generation Gap thing, I guess. They don’t know what I know, and similarly I don’t know what they know. Who knows what uncomplimentary things they think of me?
They are so young that they don’t know (or care) when World War I happened; they don’t know who the first man on the moon was; they don’t know who Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan were; they never listened to The Beatles; and, they’ve never watched any of the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter movies not to mention any of the classics - Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Orson Wells, John Wayne, etc. They are hard pressed to identify countries on a map. They confuse “holidays” with “festivals” and cannot explain the reasons behind their own holiday traditions (if they even know them), which is a handy facility in Japan. (On November 1st I got angry at an American woman who, after I wished a Japanese woman “Happy Halloween” and explained that the previous evening was Hallows Eve while Nov. 1st was Hallows Day, just like December 25th is Christmas Day following Christmas Eve, contradicted me by telling the person in front of my face that I was joking. I angrily insisted that I was not joking and told her not to contradict me in front of people if she didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I advised her to check Halloween on Wikipedia. She did and afterwards was surprised that she basically understood nothing about the background and meaning of Halloween and Halloween customs. The stupid cow!)
The current crop of JETs were born in the mid-1990s (younger than my daughter), and they have no memory of things that happened before the New York City terror attacks in September 2001. That conditions their sense of what is ‘old.’ By contrast I certain do not consider things old that occurred before my birth. I have a tougher sense of time and duration than that. They use atrocious grammar and spelling in their language, not to mention that they have no experience working - I mean dealing with children or their adult Japanese co-workers in a working environment. Teaching here is their first job. They don’t impress me. Or, they impress me all wrong. They don’t read. Or, they don’t read in a manner that I consider ‘reading.’ They don’t read books so much as browse them - and boast about it! They don’t read newspapers, they harvest random information from the Internet. Broadly speaking they lack the ability to write coherently or even well beyond a couple hundred words, because that is how the limitations of digital devices and media have trained them. Modern technology has cultivated them for brevity. By contrast I find depth, analysis, insight and truth in longer formats - like newspaper stories, essays, entire novels and entire record albums. Their use of language pushes all my buttons because language is my business. I’m sensitive about that. I believe that if you cannot write then you can neither think nor speak, and your reading and other entertainment options are a reflection of your mind. They are all connected. Their spare time is chatting with each other on their iPhones.
I could be wrong.