The Kago Suihen Textbook Series and Japan’s Business Language Education in Early Twentieth-Century Shanghai

ABSTRACT

This paper examines a remarkable artifact of international business education, a four-book business Chinese language series published in Shanghai from 1916 to 1933 by a Japanese business school. Language-centered business education, they concluded, could break Japanese dependence on intermediaries and provide a significant competitive advantage over their western competitors. We carefully tabulate the main content of each chapter in this textbook series and draw on the theory of Situated Learning for our analysis. We find specific lessons in this historical content for teachers, business faculties, and government agencies currently tasked with improving today’s international business programming with respect to the dynamic Chinese business environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Language education
• Chinese language
• situated learning
• compradors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Western scholarship has generally seen Japanese business education in prewar China as part of Japan’s larger imperialist project on the continent. (See Duus, Myers, & Peattie, 1989, for example.) The authors of this study do not disagree with this appraisal. However, the innovative nature of this early international business programming, including its clear relevance for today, has been ignored. This study attempts to remedy this lack.

² The lean management theorists write “gemba” rather than “genba” because the old Hepburn Romanization scheme uses “m” instead of “n” when the consonant that follows is a “b” or “p”.

³ Reynolds (1986) provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the 1901 curriculum offered at the Tō-A Dōbun Shoin. Sinclair and Kitahara (2017) discuss the institution as an innovative business school.

⁴ Due to significant space limitations, the four tables have not numbered the chapters. Chapters were numbered in original text.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Sinclair

Paul Sinclair is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of Regina. His recent research has focused on business Chinese education conducted by the Japanese in early twentieth-century China.

Dongyan Blachford

Dongyan Blachford is Professor of Chinese Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Regina. Her recent research has focused on topics related to language and minorities in China.