I define here outbound as Japanese people's interests on things in overseas, whereas inbound as our interests on how Japan or Japanese is viewed by foreign peoples.
Outbound case, therefore, should include our interests on people, culture, thought, etc. in overseas. Inbound should should include, for example, how Japanese, our culture, our thought, etc. are viewed by overseas.
I think our strong consciousness towards overseas is largely due to the facts that Japanese are mono-cultural people, and our contacts with overseas have been historically limited, like it or not.
Japanese people's curiosities for foreign related things seem to be becoming stronger recently. For example, the number of TV programs relating to foreigners or foreign countries have been increasing.
These TV programs include:
- Introduction of popular things, such as food, clothes, cultures
- Any Japanese matters which interest foreigners
- Customs in other countries
- Interview foreigners at airports, who just arrive in Japan, the purposes of their visits and follow their trips in Japan
Many foreigners view that Japan is a closed society, which might give an impression that Japanese are not interested in other countries' information or do not like to share with foreigners Japanese related information. I don't think it's true at all.
Living in an island, Japanese have had less opportunities to deal with foreigners than many of other peoples and are not good in dealing with other peoples regardless of our desires. English should be other major challenge which stays us away from foreign people and matters.
The world is getting smaller due to advance technologies, however, there are still many foreign things that Japanese do not know. I'm sure that the overseas consciousness of Japanese people, or at least myself, would be getting higher for a while.
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