Stereotypes and the Sunshine English Textbook

Kumamoto City uses the Sunshine English textbook. While it isn't the worst of the five Ministry of Education approved textbooks, it is rather bad. One thing that I never really noticed, but was brought to my attention by a student drawing a picture about Mario, the exchange student from Brazil, was his huge nose. My students were each required to write about someone: a friend, a pro baseball player, a family member or whoever. This student chose Mario. When he was writing his sentences about Mario they were along the lines of, "He is from Brazil. His friend is Li. He likes ramen. He has a big nose." This kind of surprised me, because some foreigners do have bigger noses than the Japanese, but should a government approved textbook really be propagating this stereotype?

The above picture illustrates this well. The main character, Yuki, arrives in Seattle to visit her aunt Mari and uncle Gorge. Both Yuki and Mari have small bumps for noses, whereas all the Americans (or other foreign travels) have huge noses! The only exception is the boy in the purple t-shirt, Andy. In the top corner Yuki is thinking, "Wow, there is nothing but foreigners! I wonder where my aunt Mari is." Well Yuki, you're not in Japan any more, you're going to have to get used to being surrounded by nothing but foreigners. In the lower right picture Yuki is thinking, "Ooh, I have a good feeling about Andy." Do you think they gave Andy a smaller nose than the other foreigners to make him more attractive to Yuki?

The following picture is from when Yuki visits Tacoma, not too far from Seattle. Here she meets Andy's uncle, a cowboy. What I can't believe is the size of his nose! What a beak! He then gives Yuki an improbably large sandwich. All my students think that this is a standard size sandwich in America. This is why ALL Americans are fat, and why ALL Japanese are thin. One of my teachers (who is overweight himself) brought in some pictures of his trip to Texas two years ago. He showed the kids pictures of his host family and of the steaks they ate one night. The steaks were as big as dinner plates! While Texans may eat big steaks sometimes, and his host family was all overweight, it is too bad because it really does add to the stereotype of fat Americans. Being Canadian, Eden's been asked a few times if Canadians are as fat as Americans. Often late night variety shows in Japan feature fat Americans stuffing their faces and spilling food all over themselves. Be glad that you're Japanese.

The last page from the first grade textbook I'll introduce is Yuki's conclusion of America. Having visited Seattle and Tacoma for a week or so, she concludes, "EVERYTHING is big here. Big houses, big yards, big hats... and big sandwiches!" What this basically boils down to is that Americans (and Canadians through association) are wasteful. We use more natural resources and are fat. Japanese people are efficient and thin. However, Yuki did enjoy her trip and her souvenir (omiyage) will be her many pleasant memories.