What really surprised me when used to talk to my co-workers was the lack of general knowledge. They used to come up with "What is the national (?) in Europe?", "Che Guevara? Is he a character of a new Manga?", "Is Paris an Italian City?"

I was a bit surprised about this but even wen I inquired about their own culture, literature and history...I used to get the same sort of answers. They were even more sureprised bacause a "gaijin" knew about Kabuki, Noh and Samurai...

I wasn`t a language teacher in Japan but sometimes I did enjoy teaching languages, just as a hobby. It a nice way to get to know more about the locals.

I remember once, I was explaining "where do/does + subject + live". I asked my two students "where does the kangaroo live?"...one of them said in Japanese "wakaranai"...so I repeated the question slowly. The other one replied the same again "wakaranai"....
I started being a bit confused...
I asked in Japanese what the problem was, but they didn`t answer.
I explained the whole structure again, and asked the same question.

The first answer was "the kangaroo lives in Africa". Well, I started laughing my head off...saying in japanese: sorry your grammar is fine but you just said something really outrageous. The other guy soon broke into the conversation saying: "no no it`s wrong, the kangaroo lives on the mountains somewhere".

Well, I couldn`t believe myself. Two business men, with a degree, who travelled the whole world that didn`t know anything about kangaroos living in Australia.
When I told them the correct answer, they both replied in Japanese "ehh honma?"....

In a European school you learn these things on your first day of school, when you are 5 or 6. If you ask the same question, in any European country, to any kind of people with or without dgree, everyone knows the answer.

In other occasions I asked other people, co-workers, friends, acquaintances, about the education system in Japan. It seemed quite clear to me that the only subject they study everyday is koku-go. No Geography, no History, nothing whatsoever...just Japanese!

The result is: they grow up in a fairy tale, and when they go abroad they realize how the real world is.