First: Happy New year and あけましておめでとう！

Next: Do Japanese people say shouganai more often than Westerners emit the equivalent? I'm not looking to argue for the heck of it; I think you'd find a lot of agreement for your statement. But it's precisely the sort of thing I want to know for a fact, and not take as an assumption. Has someone, somehow, made a measurement of such a thing? Are people influenced in what they hear by the common pre-existing belief that shouganai is uttered with great frequency? Do people commonly fail to hear the English equivalent because it's spoken in so many forms, rather than via one easily-identifiable phrase? 

More importantly, even if shouganai is uttered with unusual frequency, does that mean anything? Here we brush up against one of the most pervasive flaws in culturology, as I see it: the assumption that every action, word, proverb, etc. is revealing of deep insights into culture. I'm not saying that that can't be the case, but let me offer one off-the-top-of-the-heard example: English speakers run around greeting each other with a non-stop barrage of "How are you?". Should we take this as an insight into the deep concern English speakers show for each other's well-being? Or should we see this – more correctly, in my opinion – as a phrase that just happens to be the standardized thing to say? I offer that the same question applies equally to shouganai, should it actually prove to be a very common expression.

As for relative political apathy in Japan: Again, maybe that's a verifiable reality; I think you'll find lots of agreeing voices. Though I wonder how many people in the West are truly politically engaged, as opposed to just sitting in front of a TV muttering at the national news. I don't know. But I think it's safe to say that in many other areas of life in Japan, people are very proactive and non-passive – as I noted, world-class levels of economic, technological, and lifestyle development are a grand example. On balance, I think you can find a combination of passiveness and non-passiveness in Japan... which, unless some qualitative difference can be shown, is an equal (if simple) overview of humanity everywhere.

So in summary, I have no refutation of anything you say, which may all be quite spot-on. I'm just taking it as one possibility, while leaving my mind open to more and more evidence.

Thanks for the thoughts!

I really enjoyed reading your post, keep up posting such exciting stuff.

..I am out and out begginer in all this - but while starting learning this, one idea arised in my mind - that the reason of huge success in Japan or any other Eastern countries etc. of this quality man. system (besides necessity) can be mainly DISCIPLINE of the nation (region).
I am from Central Europe - not really used to it here.. 
PS: thanks for the detailed explanation - very clear and simple. 
 

this word and the "mythologizing" has been on my mind for sometime and your post has helped refine the topic's interest for me - i'll no longer hold to the view that the japanese are harder workers than anyone else because they have folks dying at their desks - i'm now interested in "how much goes without saying" exists in all cultures and is that called character

With all due respect, I have enjoyed your dissection of Kaizen.  It is very entertaining and clearly sheds light on mythmaking.
My experience of living in Japan is that there is such an enormous population living in such a small space, that culturally it is like a human beehive - so highly refined in every aspect of existence. Refinement is its' wellspring of exceptional, exquisite brilliance.
Kaizen  refinement
 

I only know a smattering, and am not qualified to say much. I certainly find Chinese pronunciation hard... Anything particularly easy or difficult that you found?

And many lands outside of England and Japan use school uniforms, too.

Lots of business suits here in Japan too. The US has gotten much more casual about suits in recent years. Japan is heading that way, too, though I suspect lots of guys will be in suits for many years to come. : )

Anyway, for casual readers of this site or the original site in question who might wonder about clothing in Japan, I just wanted to point out that jeans are very common here. Kimonos, on the other hand, are much more noteworthy and interesting, but worn quite infrequently, for those ladies who wear them at all.

(There are some interesting variances, of course: Women in traditional restaurants, or running traditional inns, etc., may wear a kimono nearly daily as a "business uniform"!)

My apologies in return for a slow reply. I've been in the US part of this month.

Some points:

Re "mixed" culture:

I expected there was a source for your thought here; I don't imagine that you're making things up! : ) My beef is precisely against many books with names like "Insight Guides: Japan", which I've found over long years to be often filled with goofiness. Not as part of some conspiracy to mislead, but simply by way of not thinking through things critically.

The above is a case in point: the "purity" of, say, Christianity is a myth. Take its holiest day, Christmas: Celebrating the birth of a Jew who added new teachings to traditional Jewish ones, it originated in pre-Christian winter solstice celebrations, borrows its date from an ancient Roman sun-worship festival, picked up Germanic and Scandinavian pagan elements like trees, wreaths, and "Yuletide", and is jam-packed with things like Santa and presents that have no connection to Christ/God whatsoever.

Mixing up religions, without contradiction, is the norm for humanity, and not some special Japan thing. (I know Christmas isn't labeled with multiple religion names, like Buddhism+Shinto, but placing labels over substance is exactly where such books go wrong. ...Ack, it's a big topic, more blog fodder for later! : )

Anyway, I certainly don't fault you for going by what supposed experts say. Lord knows how many misbeliefs about the world I hold, based on "expert" claims that I'm not in a position to debate!

Re Kaizen: Well, let me support your side here. I'm right when I say that "kaizen" in Japanese doesn't mean "continual improvement" or have any deep meaning whatsoever. But how about the newer English word "kaizen"? The word is now part of English – I assume first used by management guru types – and arguably has precisely the meaning you ascribed to it. So you can say you're right!

I'd just like to take the opportunity to let the world know that the Japanese word differs.

(Incidentally, I wonder, with tongue in cheek, how the word first came to English. Maybe in the same apocryphal way as "kangaroo". Like this:

American management guru: "Wow, the work you've done in this auto plant is amazing. Please, you must tell me, what is the Ancient Oriental Secret behind it all?"

Japanese factory guys: "Hmm? Nothing, really... just 'kaizen' – that is, we just make improvements when we see someth..."

Guru: "Astounding! I must tell the world of this mystical Asian 'Kye - Zen' philosophy! If only the Western world is ready for it! My book will prepare them - coming soon, only $29.99!"

Factory guys: <look at each other, scratch heads>  )

Re "the Japanese" making the robot: I know, you're only using shorthand when you say that. It's no crime, and is common practice. But it's a shorthand that does impede understanding in the big picture, IMHO; so many people do read too much into such shorthand. (As in, "Hmm, 'the Japanese' made that robot, so 'the Japanese' must be adept at robot-building, so..." And it all goes downhill from there.)

My peeve is that saying "the Japanese built a robot" is no less silly – and I do mean not one iota less silly – than saying "Northern hemisperians built a robot..." or (if an all-male team) "males built a robot..." or "dark-haired people built a robot..." etc.

I'll just never fathom the world's obsession with filing human activity under the utterly unrelated labels of arbitrarily-drawn political entities. But that's just the orneriness talking. : )

Finally, your mention of "the next level" was a good choice of words. I know it's not a level you were aiming for, and isn't the focus of your blog, so I don't want to nitpick things. It's just the way the Internet goes: post something, and someone else may take that chance to run with the topic onto other tangents. Thanks for the opportunity!

Hello again...as before, I'm just going to respond to a few of your points.

- Credit cards. My trip to Japan was in April 2008, so no, not 20 years ago. I spent 6 days in Kyoto, and 2 days in Tokyo. I suppose it's possible that some of the stores I visited do in fact accept credit cards, and I just didn't ask. But I didn't see any "we accept credit cards" signs other than at Kyoto Handicraft Center. Before going there, I asked my hosts how often I'd use cash vs. credit cards, and they said you have to use cash all the time, that they don't take credit cards anywhere (or checks, for that matter). A simple Google search shows that this isn't something I'm just making up.

- "Just started putting toilet paper in bathrooms"? Say what? There were, and no doubt still are, public toilets that expect you to bring your own, but for the most part, public toilets or those in an establishment will have TP. Again, I have to wonder what times and places the author is talking about. Maybe he chanced upon a restroom that'd just been "cleaned out" by a heavy user, and decided to label it a national issue. I don't get it."

Again, my trip was in April 2008. My source for this information is what my friends told me, They said that people used to have to carry tissues with them all the time, and that's why there are people on street corners handing them out. I didn't personally see any public toilets without toilet paper, but as you say, they still exist even today.

- "When I was a young'un in the US, we learned writing using that paper with the little lines indicating the baseline for letters, the height of capital letters, where a "t" stops, how far down the "y" dips, and so on. All very controlled and prescribed; penmanship sure wasn't a lesson in "do things your way". How is that any different from the Japan example given?"

The difference is that the penmanship requirements stop after grade school. No one cares that I draw my e's differently from other people. I used this as an example because drawing a box seems like such a minor thing to regulate.

- "Discrimination is a big topic, and books can and have been written about it. But the particular example given above is pure silliness. Traveling, studying, and working overseas are utterly mundane things in modern Japan, at least in the cities; outside of some oddball crowds, they will not get one ostracized."

I don't know what to say here. According to what I read (which I think was "Kata: The Key to Understanding and Dealing with the Japanese"), what I said is perfectly true.

- "At any typical moment, a good 99% of the people in view in Japan will be wearing jeans or business suits or dresses or some other form of what we'd call "normal Western" clothes."

I must have seen hundreds of kids wearing school uniforms. Did I just happen to arrive during "wear a uniform to school week?" And my point was about casual clothes, not "normal Western" clothes. Business suits would certainly count as non-casual.

- "But there has never been, as far as I know, a specific claim that Japanese can't digest American beef."

I got this from the book "Insight Guides: Japan."

- "So, back to the list item: Japan is "too proud" to accept imports, right? WRONG. Japan is a huge importer of goods from all over the world."

I do agree with this. I was just pointing out some weird things they have against some imports.

- "Hmm. I wanted to make this a more agreeable post than the last, but it's gone the other way."

And as with your other post, I have no problem with this one. This is perfectly reasonable criticism, and I appreciate your input.