The following quote really struck home with regards to my own personal observations about Japanese culture. It is from the prominent anthropologist NAKANE Chie, famous for her work on Japanese societal structure and her theory on the unchanging Japanese character:
The Japanese way of thinking depends on the situation rather than the principle — while with the Chinese it is the other way around. … We Japanese have no principles. Some people think we hide our intentions, but we have no intentions to hide. Except for a few leftists or rightists, we have no dogma and don’t ourselves know where we are going. This is a risky situation, for if someone is able to mobilize this population, we have no checking mechanism. … If we establish any goal we will proceed to attain it without considering any other factors. It is better for us to remain as we are. For if we are set in motion toward any direction, we have just too much energy to check its direction.
As quoted in Kenneth Pyle’s Japan Rising (pp. 48). The italics are mine. One thing I always though about the Japanese, once they get something in their head, they run with it good or bad.
Get the RSS
Comments to this entry
Aceface
December 7, 2007
2:00 am
"Once they get something in their head,they run with it good or bad".
And this I thought was more of an American characteristics,either that Americans joining WW2 after the Pearl Harbor,or cold war or shift of political trend after 9/11 or even that Iraq war...
tomojiro
December 7, 2007
4:28 am
After that she wrote several text books about social organization comparing East Asian social organizations (based on her readings) and South Asian social organizations (based on her own field work data).
Unfortunately, her most popular book (in and outside Japan) was a book published for the general public in which she wrote her impression about Japanese character trying to explain it with types of social organizations.
Not an academic book, and it is quite a long time that Social Anthropology has discarded such kind of comparing methods based on static analysis of social organizations (explaining every aspect of society reduced to social organization) as meaning less.
zenpundit
December 8, 2007
12:05 am
The Germans of Asia.
Sonagi
December 8, 2007
5:43 pm
I don't know that I agree with that statement. Based on my living experience in China and my observation of China's participation in world affairs, the Chinese are very pragmatic and flexible according to the situation. I don't know enough about Japanese culture to compare, but perhaps the Chinese are more principled than the Japanese but far less principled than North Americans. Likewise, the Koreans are guided very much by circumstances, rather than abstract principles, in making judgments and decisions.
Skippy-san
December 9, 2007
3:28 am
Aceface
December 9, 2007
5:18 pm
Saru
December 14, 2007
1:06 pm