[abjwam]

Reminds me of the "I have a black friend" argument.

>"It’s probably truer to note that a significant segment of the population isn’t accustomed to reading, or thinking, at an adult level"

This claim is ridiculous. There is no way you can construe this as anything other than racist.

[glandium]

It also completely goes completely opposite from my own experience, which is that on average the Japanese people I know are more literate in their language than the French people I know are literate in theirs (including myself). That sure is anecdata, but it's about as much anecdata as the OP.

Edit: I should mention that I live in a "relatively" small city in Japan (180k inhabitants), that many qualify as "inaka" (countryside), although I wouldn't. So the population of Japanese people I know is not necessarily biased towards highly educated people.

[texthompson]

I've never seen anecdata before. Thanks for sharing that word, love it. :)