Hej Stephan,
Just had to poke my head in here, and when I read you post, I had to comment. I too live in a foreign country. I live in Sweden. I have also been a teacher here.
I have lived in this country on and off for about 8 years, and I have to disagree with you in part.
Cultural differences are as most things on many levels. It is easy to point out the turist in a crowd based upon more general differences.
I banged my head against a wall for several years wondering why many of those I lived around and spent time with could not understand why certain things just didn't work ie political,economical and social views.
Of course I was basing my arguments on my own cultural upbringing, and even though I had adapted to much of what was Swedish, there were still many layers or nuances that I had yet to reach.
Most often we allow our view to cloud the issue at hand. How do Swedes,the French, or Japanese deal with their problems. On the surface we may feel we have a grip on how things work. Even when we have been around awhile to study the habits and behaviors of said peoples, we are still missing a large part of the whole picture.
I have had the experience a living for a long time in Sweden. I am married to a Swede, and my children were born in Sweden. I still find myself at times missing a step here or there when faced with different issues. This I especially noticed when I began to teach the equivalent of Jr. High School students.
The US media is telling us that many investors are jumping ship and that the markets are down because they do not feel that the Japanese are not taking the issue of their economic problems seriously enough.
IMO, it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall of the leadership in Japan, to see how they react amongst one another concerning this problem. Then to fly over to each of these individuals homes and watch them when they are with family and especially when they are alone. To be able to read their thoughts. Getting that deep would definately make a different sort of headline.
I would be more inclined to believe that the Japanese government is extremely serious about the problem, but that their ideas of how to go about solving it differ from Western views, which may lend itself to appearing nonchalant.
Of course perception is a major factor in how markets react(key word "react") People read headlines and panic without caring one way or another about why.
Just my two cents on a dime
Dug |
