General Japanese Culture Thread

If I go to Japan, which is on my list of things to do, I'm doing it for the trains. The Japanese are the only nation to rival the English in being train-nuts, it seems. And there are so many idiosyncratic little lines there to explore and photograph, and a lot of them involve exploring bits of the country less visited by non-Japanese tourists as well.

They've got the busiest rail network in the world. They're even now advising us British on High Speed Rail and Hitachi are soon going to be building trains here.

Well, exactly; why else would I want to go there so bad? But I meant that Japanese train obsessives are just as obsessive as the British variety; perhaps more so.

I'd have to testify that the U.S population includes a big chunk of railroad buffs, albeit whom are mainly based in the western ex-frontier states where railroad development had played major parts in their histories such as California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington State.

Not so sure about the Russians and Eastern Europeans, but the fact that they've got one of the world's absolutely largest railroad networks (i.e the Trans-Siberian) ever since the days of the Tsar must have had some following with the population.

They've tried to set up high speed rail networks in the US, but there's just too much real estate and not much serious demand for it (everyone either has cars or buys plane tickets). Many cities have their own metro rail networks though (New York's subways are famous, of course, Dallas has the DART bus-and-rail system, etc.)

edited 11th Aug '14 1:34:30 AM by AFP

Japan is a lot more densely-populated than the US^note  And remember, most of Japan is mountains. And in Britain, demand has exploded so much, we're running out of capacity on the busiest lines.

IIII've ben wowkin' on the wailwoad, all the livelong daay...

Japanese rail photography is also exquisite; I often buy their railfan magazines just for the photography, and I'm quite willing to struggle through translating the text when I need to find out what something is. But then photography is another well-known Japanese obsession.

I got a job with a company with a Japanese CEO. The official website in English shows his full name. Is he Mr. [first part of his name] or Mr. [second part of his name]?

The first name you see will be the family name. That's the one you use unless he specifically allows you to use his personal name (should that happen, it'll not be for public consumption, either: only in certain settings). And, only then: don't ask to use it, either. That's very rude in a subordinate.

Print some very nice, personal business cards to swap — you may not need to, but it'd be good to have them just in case to look prepared. Whatever you do, don't put swapped cards in your back pocket: use a wallet or something dedicated for cards and use a breast pocket or briefcase. Always say something nice about the card you're given first, though — no matter how inconsequential you might think this is. It's polite to make a show of looking, even if you only talk about how lucky you are to get one when you didn't think you rated and must therefore apologise for the relatively shocking state of your own.

You'll probably get away with not exchanging cards in a totally proper manner, though: you are a gaijin, after all. These are just the utter, utter basics. (You'd probably be forgiven for just taking anything offered to you by one hand, for example... rather than the two.)

edited 15th Aug '14 12:45:11 AM by Euodiachloris

Do you think they'd notice if you just started quoting American Psycho while admiring the card?

As for first name or last name... it depends. In Japan, the tradition of course is that the family name is first (after all, your family is more important than any individual member of it, right?), but they also put the family name last when dealing with Westerners. I've been told that their business cards will capitalize or bold-print the family name for clarity.

If all fails, can you ask?

Thanks, I'm familiar with using two hands for giving and receiving, the Chinese did that too.

So, for those who have knowledge about Japan's culture, how does their populace view their history regarding WWII?

It's a hugely generational thing. Surviving veterans (hey, it's Japan. Wouldn't be surprised if they have the last surviving World War II veteran when that generation finally meets its end in the next decade or two) may still remember it "fondly" in a sort of nostalgic way, even if they may have disagreed with the war privately. People who were younger but alive when the war was on (the Grave Of The Fireflies generation) are most likely to be the most fiercely pacifistic, because they don't recall the glory of serving, only the immense hardships the civilians had to face. The postwar generations, meanwhile, who grew up with prosperity and with Japan on the rise, are less likely to be as militantly pacifistic, as their experience was with Japan as a power of a different sort, and they may feel, like the warmongers of the 20s and 30s, that Japan has been denied her place at the table due to Article IX, despite being otherwise more than worthy of being a world power.

The younger generations, post-recession, are likely to be more pacifistic (but not militantly so), but also very apathetic about politics and foreign affairs in general. More pragmatic than the "Fireflies" generation, but with a much diminished sense of national pride that would lead to a desire for a strong military. Like their Generation Y/Millennial counterparts in most other OECD countries, they just want to live and let live (unless there's a real threat out there).

This attitude about militarism thus reaches to their attitudes towards the war. Veterans will see it as My Country, Right or Wrong (even if most of them are sorta aware it was wrong), the Fireflies will see it as a terrible, terrible thing, not really laying blame at the Americans who wreaked the devastation or the Imperial government who "allowed" the devastation by refusing to surrender until the second Nuke. The Miracle generations will have a grudging awareness that Japan was in the wrong ultimately, but not have a very well-refined sense of why exactly those Chinese and Koreans keep bitching about something that happened 75 years ago. The younger generation too will see the war as a bad thing that happened, but have less appreciation for its significance than earlier generations, being so far removed. Being a bit more cosmopolitan though, they'll take cultural sensitivities more into account.

In terms of media, ever since the late 80s/early 90s, Japanese fiction has returned to a sort of admiration of militaristic and warrior culture virtues. Based on my research, that is the entire point of the Anti-Intellectualism side of the Japanese Spirit trope.

Further, there's been a recent push to have the ban on a real Japanese military repealed.

This seems to happen when a society becomes removed from actual war for a while. America was rather anti-war for a while after Vietnam, but by the time I was a teen, we were pretty keen on romanticizing it again.

Anti-Intellectualism is part of a lot of nationalistic ideologies, but i would think it would be less prominent in Japan, where nationalism and imperialism go hand-in-hand with modernity and scientific achievement. There isn't this love of ignorance that you see seeped into American paleo-conservatism, or the belief of brawn over brains that comes in European fascism. Intellect is a facet of human excellence, and the Japanese Spirit has a place for it. It's what you DO with that intellect that's more important, but brainy guys have their place.

I agree, but the trope is very anti-intellectual. A common example is the prominence of the Idiot Hero or Hot-Blooded protagonist. While not unique to Japan, there is more of a lean towards "act first, think later" in Japanese media. Japanese culture puts more emphasis on sincerity and resolve than Western media does.

But again, this is not unique to Japan. It is, however, part of an ancient cultural identity. Japan has long seen itself as an underdog struggling to stay unique amongst more powerful and more academic invaders. Even now, Japan lags behind other first world countries in some fields.

I really don't get the whelo paint of thot "stay unique" obsession. Where's the value in that?

The "Wa".

To be Japanese means to seek harmony. Harmony means to seek conformity. To conform means to be absorbed into the Japanese.

To that end, what won't conform isn't harmonious. What isn't harmonious is toxic to all that is Japanese.

"Wha...?" is indeed the appropriate sound.

Keep in mind that Japan is a very hostile volcanic island. Most of the archipelago is unlivable mountain, and growing crops there was very difficult. Further, earthquakes, tsunamis, and eruptions happen constantly, meaning that not only did the early Japanese have to learn how to work hard and work together, but that lives could be snuffed out by some random disaster by the thousandfold in the blink of an eye. They had to learn how to make that shit work.

To that end, Japan is collectivist largely because life was so fragile. Shinto belief also started that disasters were caused by bad people. So if you didn't shape up, you were literally the cause of ALL of their problems. The "Wa" was what they held onto to survive.

So Japan's general populace more or less knows that they were in the wrong in WWII. It's just that they don't realize the extent of the atrocities some of them did, hence why they get confused and the like when China and Korea get outraged at their textbooks and stuff.

As a result, when their PM does stuff like this, do you think the general public have problems with it (though, Abe isn't exactly the most popular PM in even Japan)?

Depends. Most of the populace are against the war, especially those from the left. Some of the extreme right-wing would like to see some aspects of the anti-war thing gone.

IIRC, the textbooks thing is somewhat overblown. It was something like 0.05% of Japanese schools actually use the New History Textbook. I suspect that plenty of American homeschoolers are taught things that are considerably worse, and British schools are free to whitewash - at least by not addressing - the atrocities of the Empire.

Isn't Heart of Darkness mandatory reading?