Survey on Value Systems between South Korea and Japan 

Are Korean students quite different from Japanese students?

Authors:  3rd-year students 

Division:  Nagano-ken Nagano Nishi High School

Instructor: Miyao, Hisae 
hisae@nagano-c.ed.jp

Introduction

   
   With the recent boom of Asian culture,  we can often see various Asian things in our town.  Asian music, movies, magazines, food at restaurants, etc. are becoming more and more popular here in Japan and many people have witnessed such dramatic changes and pictured great expectations of the development of Asian culture.  Actually lots of young people in Asia are becoming open-minded and generous in taking in other cultures regardless of nationalities, although they might have an idea that the historical facts in the past are often hard to accept.  This phenomenon has been distinctive between South Korea and Japan. While people do not forget the past events in their mind, exchanges between the two peoples have been surely promoted so far and many people have come to be favorable toward each culture. Accordingly, on the citizen's level we might be able to confirm the relationship between South Korea and Japan is becoming much closer.  
   On the other hand, in spite of such better circumstances it is impossible to understand people and culture completely.  We are often faced with the question that our image of Korean people and their culture might not be true since it is mostly fueled by mass media through which we gain the most of the information about Korea.  In fact, we might have little knowledge of other peoples' value systems, which are very important for our communication and mutual understanding. 
  Then, we decided to make a research on "values", placing emphasis on the comparison of "people's values between Korea and Japan".  Peoples' value systems must have changed through the history, however, we don't know much about how they have influenced on our ways of thinking, attitudes, or behaviors, etc. 
  In this research we also have much interest in the process of getting rid of our stereotypes finding the differences and similarities of the values between Korean students and Japanese students.  We made a survey on high school students' values as a part of our research of the 100 students at each school. 
                                                                              (Mina and Eri)

The main points of this survey are as follows.  

1) Similarities and differences of peoples' value systems
2) Are the students' consciousness and thoughts group-centered or individual-centered?
3) What kinds of values and beliefs have influenced on people's behaviors?
4) How can we develop the good relationship based on mutual trust between Korean students and Japanese students?