Published on September 5, 2019.
Based on Masayuki Takayama’s essay “Pidgin Is Better,” published in Shukan Shincho, this article examines Japanese English education, faith in globalization, and the relationship between English and colonial rule in white-dominated societies.
It argues that poor English is, in fact, proof that Japan possessed a history and culture valid in the world and was never colonized, and that Japanese people should take pride in their own language rather than worship fluent English.

September 5, 2019.
“In that respect, we, who possess a history and culture that are valid in the world, had no insufficiency in our own language,” the vice minister says.
Being poor at English is rather a source of pride, he says.
Even so, if one wants to speak English, pidgin is better.
The following is from an essay by Masayuki Takayama, published in Shukan Shincho released today under the title “Pidgin Is Better.”
This time again, he splendidly proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
“Among Asians, Japanese are the worst at English,” Professor Kishida Shu says.
Why are they so bad at it?
“The Japanese were raped twice by the United States.
The first time was the opening of the country by Perry.
And the second time was the defeat in the last war.”
He analyzes it by saying, “That became a trauma, and so their hearts hesitate to chatter away in the language of those people.”
Whether that is correct or not, the single point that Japanese are worse at English than Chinese and Koreans was something the Ministry of Education simply could not tolerate.
So it began “English education reform” in response to globalization.
It lowered English education from junior high school down to elementary school.
The other day, when I was watching a quiz program on television, I saw that in elementary school English they even teach “the plural form of tooth.”
That is quite something.
The educational policy also places more emphasis on “speaking,” so that students can have live conversations with foreigners, than on “reading” or “writing.”
University entrance examinations, following this, have also decided to entrust the “speaking” test to private companies.
Encouraged by this, English conversation schools even put out television commercials.
A red-haired foreigner speaks away rapidly in English.
A video is shown of a middle-aged woman who accurately catches what is said and responds fluently.
However, I feel something strange about treating it as only natural that a foreigner who has come to Japan should rattle off rapid English.
If Japanese people go abroad, they read something like Chikyu no Arukikata and learn at least the greeting words of the other country before they go.
That is what international manners mean.
Yet among foreigners, there certainly are those who do not bother to learn Japanese, and who speak away fluently as if English is the international language and those who do not know it are at fault.
To humble oneself even before such rudeness, make efforts to understand rapid speech, and still answer kindly and smoothly looks rather servile.
At the very least, one should begin the conversation by saying, “Speak slowly.”
In the first place, George Orwell writes in Burmese Days that when Japanese people, with yellow faces, handle fluent English, it is precisely those who rattle on in fluent English who momentarily flinch and then eventually show open dislike.
The stage is a clubhouse reserved for whites, overlooking the Irrawaddy River.
One relaxed man asks a Burmese butler, “Is there still any ice left?”
“A little, sir,” he answers, and continues, “I find it very difficult to keep ice cool.”
Hearing this, the white man becomes angry.
“You people should say can’t keeping ice cool.”
It means, more or less, “Do not speak affected English.
Pidgin English is good enough for you, fool.”
Pidgin means conversational English spoken by colonized people, without grammar or tense.
Steinbeck, too, in East of Eden, has the Chinese man Lee speak about the desirable way for non-white races to talk.
Lee is the servant of the Trask family, which forms the stage of the story.
He wears a strange queue and speaks halting English.
One day, when he goes out in a carriage with the Irishman Samuel, Samuel says, “Speak normally.”
In fact, Lee is an outstanding man who graduated from the University of California.
He can speak English fluently, but he hides it, and says that the reason he does not cut off his queue is “wisdom for getting along well with white people.”
If he does that, no waves are made.
That is Lee’s philosophy.
It applies even today.
Abe Shinzo had experience studying at an American university.
That he speaks proper English is clear even from his speech before the U.S. Congress.
Even so, Trump “mocked Prime Minister Abe by imitating his accented English” according to the Sankei Shimbun.
If it were smoother than that, it would probably create friction.
A Turkish vice minister of education whom I met long ago said, “Turks and Japanese are known to be bad at English, but that is proof that they were never once colonized by them.”
The peoples of Asia, including the Chinese, had to speak English in order to survive.
Even after the war, when they became independent, they did not have science and technology sufficient for self-reliance.
In the end, there was no way but to study in the language of the suzerain country.
“In that respect, we, who possess a history and culture that are valid in the world, had no insufficiency in our own language,” the vice minister says.
Being poor at English is rather a source of pride, he says.
Even so, if one wants to speak English, pidgin is better.
It will please them more.