3-5 Famous American / Japanese Figures (Q. 29)

At the end of this questionnaire, we put down "write three Japanese people you know, excluding personal friends" to American students and in the same manner we asked Japanese students to write American names to identify what kind of information each respondent has quality-wise and quantity-wise. We have asked the same question over the last twenty years with a five-year interval, and basically we are unable to find a drastic change in this survey as well.
First of all, we must say the majority of American students do not have anyone in mind when asked to write Japanese names. It is more like asking Japanese students to write the names of Malaysian people, which 67% of the Americans left blank. Previous surveys have shown that the three most famous Japanese figures were Hirohito, Tojo, and Bruce Lee. The fact that many put down Bruce Lee illustrates that most Asians look alike to the American majority. Although the total number of American respondents amounted to almost 500, 18 votes comprised the first rank, proving that Americans are hardly aware of any Japanese who have had an impact on American society.
for Japanese students to write three American names is an easy task. In fact, what troubles them is how to choose only three among the many notable figures that they know. The summary is shown in the table below. Among the "Best 30", 9 were politicians, 5 sports athletes, 15 entertainers and Bill Gates, who does not belong to any of these categories. By gender, 22 are males and 8 are females. It also is interesting to note that in spite of being only twelve percent of the whole population, ten out of the thirty names mentioned are African Americans.
The famous figure of the day, such as Leonard DiCapprio this time, is always mentioned, indicating that American culture is immediately exported internationally and simultaneously linked by the Japanese with American society. When we think of Japanese society where "foreign films" overwhelmingly refers to Hollywood movies, and " international news" derives mainly from the US, we need to be aware of an ongoing cultural colonization quietly threatening our identity. Unless we speak out and assert our long cherished, decolonized way of doing things, it would be difficult to establish a wholehearted, sound relationship with the United States of America.

[Write three Japanese people you know, excluding personal friends]

Emperor Hirohito	18
Yoko Ono	17
Jackie Chan	14
Emperor Meiji	11
Miyagi (Karate Kid)	10
Tokugawa Ieyasu	9
General Togo	9
No answer(Nobody)	418名中280名

[Write three American people you know, excluding personal friends]

Bill Clinton			202
Leonard DiCapprio			89
Michael Jordan			84
Brad Pitt			79
Abraham Lincoln			74
John F Kennedy			61
Michael Jackson			56
George Washington			51
Mariah Carey			33
Harrison Ford			32
Arnold Schwarzeneggar			26