Polling Japanese Students #7: Famous historical figures….Do you know them?
In this edition of Polling Japanese Students, I decided to see if the students could identify certain famous historical figures from their photographs. The results are as follows [all of the students were 2nd year junior high school students]:
1) Bruce Lee
As you can see, not a lot of students could indentify Bruce Lee. I was expecting greater Bruce Lee awareness due to the fact that I often see “Enter the Dragon” parodied on television. Unfortunately, almost every student indentified him as Jackie Chan, which probably had ol’ Bruce rolling in his grave…
Suprisingly, Lincoln is well known in Japan! Would American junior high schoolers know Lincoln with such frequency? I’d like to think so, but maybe not…
While he might be virtually unknown to Americans, Commodore Perry is known to just about every Japanese student. This American, whose militaristic activities forced open Japan, is viewed in a positive light by many Japanese. I also think he appears on the cover of the Japanese history textbooks used at my school.
Maybe it’s just the photo I used, but most students could not indentify the first emperor of the modern Japanese nation state. While most of the kids simply shrugged and admitted they didn’t know, a few came very close and thought he was a different emperor. [There was no big difference between the ratio of boys/girls who got it right, so I just used one pie chart.]
5) Mao Zedong
A famous leader of Japan’s neighbor. These kids will know him, right? Wrong! [All of the correct responses were from boys.]
General MacArthur and his pipe, such a classic image! About 1/4 of the kids knew this one-time ruler of Japan, which isn’t so bad. [Only one of the correct responses was from a girl.]
It looks like pop culture figures do a lot better than historical figures. Marilyn is right up there with Audrey Hephurn as one of the most beloved American 1950′s-1960′s pop culture icons in Japan. [There was no big difference between the ratio of boys/girls who got it right, so I just used one pie chart.]
Did a single one of these students know that the man in the picture was Harry S. Truman, the United States president who made the decision to use atomic weapons on Japan? Nope, not a single one. I guess poor Harry doesn’t get much exposure in history classes…
So what can we learn from the results of this quiz? Well, it would seem that boys are stronger when it comes to indentifying historical figures. It also wouldn’t be ridiculous to claim that junior highschoolers don’t seem to know much about Mao Zedong or Harry Truman. It also looks like Bruce Lee was before their time….
Any suggestions for questions I could ask the students for upcoming editions of Polling Japanese Students? I’d love to hear some in the comments section! I’ll eventually get to a lot of your previous requests, but there’s always room for more!
Previous editions:
- Polling Japanese Students #6: Is your mother a housewife?
- Polling Japanese Students #5: Smokers in the family
- Polling Japanese Students #4: What foreign country would you like to visit?
- Polling Japanese Students #3: PlayStation 3 vs. Nintendo Wii
- Polling Japanese Students #2: What’s your favorite country in Asia (aside from Japan)?
- Polling Japanese Students #1: PSP or DS? China or South Korea?
