Word: reischauer
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American students, on the other hand, do not hold themselves a class apart and actually delve into practical politics, taking part in campaigns. In Japan, Reischauer maintains students remain on the political periphery and merely comment. This is a result, not only of their class aloofness, but of stringent electioneering laws which prohibit them from ringing doorbells and participating in other campaign activities. Actual practical politics are generally viewed as "dirty" in Japan...
Students rarely fail to question him about the political apathy of U.S. students. Reischauer's by now polished answer is simply to reverse the charge: not only is the charge false, he counters, but in fact, U.S. students are actually more politically active than their Japanese counterparts...
Japanese students hold themselves apart as a separate class, according to Reischauer. To be anti-government is to be "political." The result is a sort of utopian movement whose sole function is criticism, and which is separated from the mainstream of politics in Japan...
...result in Reischauer's opinion is that U.S. students are actually more active politically, and in a healthier way, than are Japanese students. It almost invariably comes as a shock to Japanese students, he said, to learn that their American counterparts participate in campaigning, door-to-door canvassing...
...despite much misunderstanding of the United States, the Japanese are greatly interested in the U.S., and developments here are carefully reported in the Japanese press. Not so the reverse. Reischauer feels Japan is "the most important hole in the U.S. press's foreign coverage." Ample reasons exist to explain this lack of coverage--the political scene is highly complex and difficult to report--but this neither lessens the problem nor excuses its existence. Yet, he cautions, "no news can also be good news." If six months pass without a big news story, "it would be a great six months...