After two decades of regarding Japan as a role model, Malaysia is now learning from Japan's mistakes, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

Mahathir pioneered what he called the "Look East" policy in 1982, which aimed to adopt eastern labour ethics, morale and management capability to spur Malaysia's economic and social development.

But Mahathir said Japan's eagerness to adopt western culture had contributed to its economic woes and chided Japan's youth for rejecting their culture and wanting to be blonde and more like westerners.

"Japan wants to change its whole culture completely and adopt western culture," he said when asked at a conference here whether the Look East policy should be discarded as the world's second largest economy was unable to pull itself out of its recessionary mire.

"The young people are taken up by the west. I have never seen so many Japanese blondes before. They dye their hair and most of the time, they are in Hibiya Park dancing away to the music."

Mahathir, who has been in power for 21 years, said such western culture appeared to have also seeped into Malaysia with "a few Malaysians too with earrings and wearing torn jeans."

Praising Koreans

"I am old fashioned. I don't understand these things ... if you follow that culture, you are going down. But we can still look at Japan to see what they are doing wrong, so we can avoid doing that," he added.

The veteran Southeast Asian leader however, praised the South Koreans for their high productivity and patriotism which had helped their country rebound quickly from the previous economic downturn.

Malaysia should learn from the Korean experience which showed that "strong nationalism and discipline can overcome most of the problems and you must have good work ethics," he added.

In the past two decades, thousands of Malaysian students have gone to Japan and South Korea to learn various skills. Malaysia spends RM72 million annually for the education programme. AFP