Japanese Restaurants and Martial Art Dojos Outside of Japan

http://www.nippon-kan.org/senseis_articles/06/restaurants_dojos_outside_japan.html
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There are also Japanese government sponsored organizations that dispatch Japanese Aikido instructors to other countries around the world to teach Aikido. These instructors are given a nice salary and benefit package to travel overseas to teach. It has been my experience however that these instructors are given little in the way of training in understanding the cultures and organizational structure of the martial art community they are entering. As a result, sometimes these instructors do not adjust well in their new communities; refusing sometimes to even learn the local languages or show respect for existing native instructors.
Pride in the traditions of one’s country is a good quality to keep, but for Japanese instructors teaching in a new land, I think it is important to arrive in their new environment fortified with proper understanding about local conditions, politics and the dynamics between existing local dojos. Without proper background research and a respect for new cultures and conditions what should be a positive cultural exchange can turn into a negative one. What starts out as pride in ones own background can turn into blaming others for ones own shortcomings. This ultimately can cause bitterness for these Japanese instructors and the program they represent. This is a waste of time and also a waste of the Japanese tax payer’s money that supports them.
I have lived in the United States for a long time now, and I am deeply involved with the Japanese martial art community and the Japanese restaurant community where I live. In both of these communities I have observed problems and concerns that are similar in nature and origin. In both of these Japanese communities, the root of some of the problems is the same as the problem I see in the Japanese government’s proposed plans to rank Japanese restaurants outside of Japan; a feeling of Japanese ethnocentrism and superiority; a Japan is “Number 1” syndrome.
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Japanese government officials now wish to control Japanese restaurants outside of Japan through “authenticity and tradition” ranking. So do Japanese government sponsored organizations wish to control Japanese martial art dojos outside of Japan through the rules of federations, headquarters and boards of ranking shihan.

Japan’s society has developed to a high standard in the last century, but there are dangerous pitfalls along this road to prosperity. A most dangerous pitfall is a nationalistic sense of superiority. Too much of this thinking can lead to problems that I think are already evident in our martial art world community today.

While reading the following article I hope you will be able to see the similarities in current events involving Japanese restaurants and Japanese martial art dojos outside of Japan.
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