In the classes I took, everyone was treated the same. There were no nikkei in my classes; everyone was Japanese except for myself. I'm sure you know my opinion of using the gaijin card.This would never have worked anywhere I have worked.
I see you strive for mediocrity. Godspeed, sir!
Mikawa, so how many Nikkei did you beat out in your class? You must have had a tough time in a class that has all Japanese. But I doubt a Japanese majoring in Japanese would not get much respect. You know the jump they make from second to third year really messed me up as there should be two grades or so in between. When I see that, I wonder to myself if these programs are designed for the Japanese or Nikkei students who want to take courses in their own mother tounge rather than lets say study french. I see many Japanese coming in as first year students taking Japanese at the third year level if they speak Japanese. Many begin by knowing less Kanji, but their vocabularies are often exceptional. I have heard many times, when this is the case, that because they are only needing to work their kanji and learn the terminology for grammar (In english and Japanese) the teachers have told them to go to the bookstore and learn the Kanji on their own time and catch up the 2 years that we had to learn. Amazingly, by the end of the term, most have not only caught up, but write kanji more naturally than I could after 7 years (counting high school).
Some have actually not learn the kanji, but because the marks are weighed only 7-8 percent on the actual writing of it, they manage to get through. A Japanese who is fluent and can has natural command of grammar can get even as high as an A- writing all his exam material in hiragana and katakana, using no kanji, as long as he or she can read it.
I have seen one fellow who took Japanese because he didnt want to learn french or something, and did it and beat me by 5%. I knew way more Kanji than he, and he even told me that growing up in Canada, it is too hard. He even commented how I am finding it, and told him that I forget it usually, and it takes too long to write the exam often. Satoshi told me to not worry about it as no one in Japan is going to laugh to a white guy for not knowing Kanji, and only he would be laughed at. Remebering what he did, I felt that I could relax with the actual writing of Kanji as recognition is enough to type in Kanji, and to date, I discovered that I could only write 213 kanji, if I go from memory. (I took a pen, and paper, and counted it).
I was assured by other Japanese that these days, many Japanese can't write kanji just like how many of us can't spell that well because of the spellchecker. Japanese IME has destroyed them too. So as a foreigner, I am more than excused. I feel that being able to speak and comprehend the Japanese is more important. So what if I write in hiragana lots?
I did hear however, in the Japanese educational system, however, students are more heavily weighed for the actual writing of kanji much more so than we are in the west relying mostly on being able to produce prestine translations.
The Japanese taking Japanese while they know more words, I see that many are less precise (kichomen) in their translation, as they are more careless about translating every word precisely. I still think in English and speak and write in Japanese, so I have to translate in my mind anyway, but the Japanese are less used to translating.