(五)
TOKYO-Our kids, the Japanese government announced, have forgotten how to behave. They can’t be bothered with housework. If they see someone being wronged, they probably look the other way.
Few countries have placed more importance on being well-behaved in public than Japan. The simplest requests for directions often result in guided tours. Smiling shopkeepers are still the rule. Lost wallets usually make their way to their owners.
But according to recent surveys, all that may be going the way of the ancient hair-do. And Japan’s government has gone into something of a crisis mode.
A Japanese Education Ministry Survey formed late in 1999 and made public last month found that Japan moves behind other nations in teaching youngsters right from wrong.
It also reported that Japanese children are less helpful and do far less housework than their foreign peers in all classes. But they are better about taking dirty dishes to the kitchens after dinner.
In addition, Japanese kids are more likely to dry their hair and carry cell phones than American and Chinese kids, according to another survey, by a Tokyo-based tank.
Children in about 8 percent of public school classrooms are so disorderly that teachers cannot hold lessons, further recent reports show. children refuse to sit, to listen or to stop talking.
Older and middle-aged Japanese continue to have a solid sense of good manners and social justice, says Professor Yoshina Hirano from Shinshu University, who was appointed to direct the ministry’s survey.
Despite the knowledge of good manners among adults, the breakdown in manners may be spreading, he said.