Job Discussion Forums

[Black_Beer_Man]

I'd like to explore this topic, the notion that the Japanese are a group culture.

It's a popular belief among people worldwide. But how true is it?

COMMUTING - I see pure selfishness when I am walking on the sidewalks (or shoulders of roads) and taking the trains here.

It would kind of be nice and practical if the Japanese as a group could agree to follow a simple rule and walk on the left side (this is the correct side as evidenced by the fact people stand on the left side of escalators), but I'd say about 1/3 of people in Yokohama walk on the right hand side. These people don't consider the fact that they're getting in the way of the majority of people who walk on the left side.

As a result, this year I have seen pairs of salarymen collide directly at full speed. In each case, they just gave each other a dirty look and moved on. In all my life, I have never seen such a scene anywhere.

People wearing their backpacks on crowded trains. "To hell with everybody else. I'm not making more room by putting my backpack on the floor."

And the selfish smart phone zombies walking around staring at their smart phones slowing everybody else down...seems like an Asian habit. I saw them in Korea too this year. However, I didn't see any when I went to Europe this summer. But, I digress. This thread is about Japan.

AT WORK - My students have told me that the atmosphere in many Japanese offices is hostile and dog eat dog. Some managers act dishonestly taking the ideas of their underlings and then taking credit for these ideas from upper management saying they came up with them.

Office workers are pressured to go out drinking after work with their boss and colleagues. The image of these workers all having drinks together looks like "group culture", but most Japanese people that I've talked to envy Westerners who can just go home after work.

APARTMENTS - I am told that it's a big city thing, but I am not totally convinced. That is the fact that neighbors here don't talk to each other at all. Zero. Back in North America, neighbors in big cities do talk to each other. Their relations generally are not as deep as people in the countryside, but there is communication. In Tokyo and Yokohama, there is none.

MONOCULTURE - One argument for a group culture came from a Japanese person who explained that he liked living in a monoculture because he knows what kind of behavior to expect from other people. Japanese people all behave similarly.

CONCLUSION - From what I see and hear, a lot of the so-called group behavior is coercion to fit in a group from having to wear uniforms in elementary school to going drinking with your colleagues as business people. The nail that sticks up, must be hammered down is a phrase that's often used in Japan.

From talking with Japanese people and observing their commuting manners, I argue that there is not much of a group culture here. People feel pressured to conform to certain mores. Every culture on the planet has this, but in Japan the pressure seems to be a lot stronger.

[steki47]

Some decent observations here. Much of the collective nature of Japanese society does in fact come from peer pressure and the threat of ostracism.

On the other hand, American society pays a lot of lip service to individualism but one can easily see collective trends and behavior.