If a Japanese is accosted by a Westerner in the street and asked the way, the Japanese will often go out of his way to show the stranger how to get to his destination. This is an act of kindness that is appreciated in any country. But in other matters also, Japanese accedes too readily to the wishes of a foreigner. Japanese also gives in to a foreigner's threat too easily.
At the Tokyo Olympic Games held in 1964, the French contingent of athletes arrived in Japan, and upon arrival was handed a program of various events printed in English by the organizers of the Games, the Japanese National Committee for the Olympic Games. But the French athletes refused to accept the program on the ground that it was not written in French, the "international" language. Now it is well known that Frenchmen have been in the habit of using the French language as a lever to enhance their national prestige whenever practical. In fact it seems to be their national policy to do so.
The Japanese Olympic officials, at the protest of the French athletes, tendered deep apologies and hurriedly went to the trouble of translating the entire program into French, and had it printed and distributed to the French visitors. I do not know whether such a regulation exists within the Olympic Committee in regard to the printing of programs in both French and English, but even if there were, if the same incident happened in other countries, officials of the countries concerned would surely ignore the protest as unwarranted. After all, it was a trivial matter which merely related to the program and any Frenchman could very well have read or understood it. I even doubt if the Frenchmen would have refused to accept the program in English if the same thing had happened in Europe or America. The Japanese good naturalness is such that it is often taken advantage of by other peoples and, in many such cases, the Japanese must give the impression of being quite childish.
The Japanese tend to believe wholeheartedly what foreigners, especially Occidentals, tell them or what they have to say. Hence a Japanese scholar, when writing a thesis, quotes freely from Western writers in order to make his thesis appear more authoritative. A Japanese lecturer tells an audience that an American or European authority has said such and such a thing in order to substantiate his point of view.
Since the end of the war, the Japanese generally have less regard for and are little interested in the emperor either as a person or as an institution. But a few years ago when a British journalist published a book on the present Emperor Hirohito, and when the Japanese translation of the book was published soon afterward, the book became one of the best sellers in Japan. The contents of the book were nothing new to the Japanese, but the fact that a Westerner had written a book on the emperor of Japan was enough to impress the Japanese reading public and to revive their interest in the emperor.
Certain Japanese newspapers have special arrangements with the Times of London or the New York Times, whereby they are authorized to reprint some of the articles appearing in those papers. Of course the Japanese newspaper companies have to pay huge sums for such services, but it nevertheless is the best way to promote newspaper sales. The Japanese reading public places more value on reports appearing in the British or American papers than on those emanating from their own Japanese correspondents stationed in London or New York. Such credulity of the Japanese may be due to various factors, such as their blind reverence of things Western and their inferiority complex toward Occidentals, but it also betrays their rather infantile mentality.
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