German Elections

Recently there were problems with the German elections. The vote was (almost) too close to call. Schroeder, who narrowly lost, refused to step aside. After weeks of arguing he finally did, after his party made the other side agree to a grand coalition in which his party keeps several important cabinet posts.

I do a class on current events, which to the students usually means "Anything stupid George Bush did this week." I just want ot point out that I didn't vote for the guy in either election.

So when it's my turn to choose a topic I like to broaden the subject matter a little. So I brought in an article about the German elections and another about Europe's reluctance to allow Turkey to join the EU.

All of my students had no idea about any of these events. This is a class whose English is near fluent, educated, ho9ld good jobs, travel and so on. Fair enough, it's not the most fascinating topic, even if it was a big news item at the time.

One reason I brought the topic to class was because I thought there were a lot of parellels for japan. Japan too faces economic problems similar to germany's. Japan too is wondering what to do about immigration and a declining birthrate.Many international newspapers were comparing the recent elections in both japan and Germany and concluding that japan was making progress while Germany was stuck in a deadlock.

What did I get from this lesson?

- When a transfer of power in a close election happens in the States, it is a disgrace and the system is broken. When it happens in continental Western Europe (Austria, Germany) it means they care about thier democracy.

-Many students' reaction was "How are we supposed to klnow this? We can't know about these things. Our news is only America." Which is kind of true, but the way people said it was as if Japan was at a disadvantage due to geography or something that prevented it from getting news. I put this in the "Japan is a poor small country" myth/excuse that people often cite to explain why certain things are the way they are.

My students are often shocked to learn that there is high unemployment in Europe, or that taxes are high or if there is some violence of something.

I'm not trying to bag Europe but just point out that most japanese think it's a kind of fairytale place where people put on gowns, go to balls and discus art all the time.