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Show I ' : n . OU CM-UK 'Illiterate' Americans have 'yen ' for apology The recent attack on American workers by Japanese Prime Minister Min-ister Kiichi Miyazawa, who called them "lazy and uneducated," has been retracted by the Japanese government But not before the damage was done. Miyazawa may not have mortally wounded trade relations, but he has certainly bruised the egos of American workers. More Americans can read than Miyazawa bargained for, and when his criticism appeared in print, Americans were outraged. As ridiculous as it was for a high ranking Japanese official to verbally verbal-ly attack the workers of the country which furnished the bulk of the technology and the money which brought Japan from rubble to a respected entity, it has raised some questions. As one of the most advanced countries in the world, is 13 percent illiteracy too much? A recent CNN report stating that 87 percent of all Americans are literate lit-erate must have been a shocker for Miyazawa and his cohorts. The news that 95 percent of the so-called so-called "inept and lazy" auto workers are also proficient in their reading skills could only have increased in-creased Japan's embarrassment While the Japanese may be correct cor-rect in calling the U.S. system imperfect, the Japanese system is not the ultimate either. Reports have shown that the average Japanese man spends longer hours at work man his American counterpart counter-part and the majority of Japanese women live in what many Americans consider the patriarchal society of the ice age. According to an executive of Novell, a Provo-based company, Japan is interested in maintaining a status quo. Just as the women remain re-main second-hand citizens, com panies which are currently No. 2 will remain No. 2. But it is little wonder that the Japanese ridicule the American way of living. First of all, the Japanese are taught to be loyal. Hie Japanese worker who leaves one firm for the higher pay scale of another generally gen-erally nnds companies calling him disloyal and finds himself unemployable. Meanwhile, the Americans constantly leave one job for another to raise their standard of living and move closer to that omnipotent om-nipotent goal of wealth. Japanese CEOs who make only seven to ten times the salary of the individuals furthest down on the pay scale are punished financially for mistakes they make. The American CEOs are ridiculously untouchable making hundreds of times the salary of their Japanese counterparts and seldom suffering financial damage for poor decisions. deci-sions. As a result, Japanese officials, offi-cials, unlike the Americans, have not lost touch with those further down in the company. The Japanese seem also to have a better attitude toward education than do Americans. The Japanese attend school for the sake of educationpurely educa-tionpurely to gain knowledge and insight, while here in America, each level of education is generally associated asso-ciated with a greater pay scale. A high school diploma puts us at one salary level, while a bachelor's degree and any additional diplomas or certificates are simply seen as steps to higher income levels. But does an education always matter, here in the land of opportunity? oppor-tunity? Not always. As a young man in Kokomo, Ind., one very talented basketball player quit high school to work for the local Chrysler plant Even without his high school diploma, he was making $38,000 per year. While his talent may have given him an opportunity to play ball in college, money, as with most Americans, was the real goal, not the education itself. But Americans have not been all bad. Many of the products which Japan has exported in the past were American inventions. The telephone, the sewing machine, the television and the computer, which may seem to be the product of an innovative Japanese, were all invented in-vented by Americans. Even the production line, which has been used to a large extent in Japan, was an American touch. While Americans may not have all the answers to all the problems, the Japanese should not be so quick to judge. Building one's country through cheap labor and copycat production isn't the most honorable claim to fame. It's taken America only 200 years to achieve its place as a world leader. Japan has been a nation for many centuries. |