Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 17 (2015) 254-255
Metraux: Perceptions USA-Japan
COMMENTARY: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICANS AND
JAPANESE
Daniel A. Métraux
Mary Baldwin College
Ever since Commodore Perry forced Japan to open its doors to the outside world in 18531854, there has been a special relationship between the United States and Japan. Throughout
most of the Meiji period (1868-1912) the United States and Japan enjoyed a fruitful and warm
partnership. Several thousand Americans came to Japan as teachers who introduced their hosts
with both knowledge and technology of the West while many others came as tourists and
missionaries. Thousands of Japanese studied in the United States or came as curious tourists or
as settlers. Americans and Japanese had a very high regard for each other, so much so that
Americans including President Theodore Roosevelt strongly supported Japan in its war against
Russia in 1904-1905.
The era of good feelings between the United States and Japan began to decline by the end
of World War I. Americans saw Japan’s rise as a major Pacific power as a genuine threat to
American security and were openly hostile to the over one hundred thousand ethnic Japanese
living in the West in the 1920s and 1930s. Japanese in turn reacted poorly to the hostile and
deeply racist treatment accorded ethnic Japanese in the United States and Canada. After Pearl
Harbor American feelings about Japanese descended to outright hatred and antipathy as is clearly
portrayed in Richard Reeves recent book Infamy which is reviewed in this issue.
Many Japanese greeted occupying Americans as virtual liberators at the outset of the
Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952). Relations between the United States and Japan
remained very positive during these years and on into the 1950s and 1960s. However, while the
“special relationship” between Japan and the United States has remained strong through to the
present, Japanese perceptions of Americans as people have declined. In the late 1980s or early
1990s I remember a Japanese prime minister characterizing Americans as uneducated and very
lazy. On the other hand, my students at Mary Baldwin College and most Americans in general
have a very high regard for Japanese character.
The following article published in USA TODAY (8 April 2015) by staff reporter Kirk
Spitzer gives a good summary of how Americans and Japanese see each other today:
JAPAN SEES AMERICANS AS LAZY, DISHONEST –YET AMERICANS HAVE HIGH
REGARD FOR JAPANESE CHARACTER
Tokyo: Seventy years after they were mortal enemies, Americans have a high regard for
the character of Japanese. But the Japanese views of Americans? Not as much, a new survey
shows.
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Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 17 (2015) 254-255
Metraux: Perceptions USA-Japan
Americans overwhelmingly think of Japanese as hardworking, selfless and honest, with
few negative personal traits. Japanese see Americans as the opposite, according to the survey by
the non-partisan Pew Research Center out Tuesday (April 7).
Seven decades after World War II and a generation after the bitter 1980s trade wars,
Japan and the U.S. have developed deep mutual trust and respect but see each other’s social traits
very differently. The survey finds 68% of Americans trust Japan either a great deal or a fair
amount and 75% of Japanese say they feel the same towards the United States. However, while
94% of Americans view Japanese as hardworking, only 25% of Japanese reciprocate that view.
And while 19% of Americans view Japanese as selfish, 47% of Japanese say Americans are
selfish. Three in four Americans view Japanese as honest, compared with only 37% of Japanese
who say that about Americans.
Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and a 2014
Sasakawa Peace Foundation Fellow in Tokyo, said that she was surprised at some of the
findings, including that nearly one in four Japanese don’t think of Americans as inventive or
hardworking. “That’s pretty shocking given that America leads the world in innovation, and also
given data on how many working hours and how few vacations Americans log every year,” Lind
said.
Latest figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show
the average Japanese employee worked 1,735 hours in 2013, less than the 1,788 hours put in by
an average American. Bruce Stokes, director of global economic attitudes for Pew Research and
principal author of the survey, said some views expressed in the survey may reflect stereotypes.
“Stereotypes such as honesty or inventiveness or aggression are emotions – not rational views
backed by data. (But) these emotions matter. Such stereotypes help drive broader attitudes about
policy,” Stokes said.
__________
When the Japanese prime minister said that Americans were both lazy and uneducated, a
CBS News anchor remarked that while some Americans are less educated than others, they are
very hard workers. Having taught both in the United States and in Japan at the university level,
my very strong impression is that American college and university professors work a great deal
harder than their Japanese counterparts. I would also argue that the quality of higher education
in most American college / universities is vastly superior to what one will find at many Japanese
universities. And while many American college students are sadly quite ignorant of world
affairs, Japanese students are as ignorant if not more so.
It is quite disturbing to read that Japanese have such negative views of their American
counterparts. In the long run such negative feelings can only sour relations between the two
countries. Fortunately, these feelings have often changed in the past and one can only hope they
will improve in the future.
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