NATIONAL CHARACTER
I have decided to start with a very interesting article. I was a regular reader of Roger Pulvers column Counterpoint in the Japan Times. He had a unique perspective firmly rooted in broad cultural experiences and substantive scholarship. I was struck by his insights in this column and I will excerpt some of it for you.
"What is national character, and how does it differ from custom, manners and fashion? People talk about "the Japanese" as if referring to a nationality with an immutable quality that has existed and will continue to exist throughout the ages; and yet, Japan and the Japanese of the past are so different from what we see here now. Or are they? ......So what is it in the Japanese character that can serve to help Japanese people through this muddle both at home and beyond?
I think, perhaps, one answer lies in the word "civility." The Japanese social contract is not really based on legalities, as it is in the West. Rather, it is ensconced in the silent code of ethical civility that virtually all Japanese people share: that it is wrong to cause trouble (in the sense of meiwaku, meaning "annoyance") to others; that it is right to act properly, non-aggressively and decently, at least in public.
It is this, more than anything, that governs public behavior. If Japanese people start doing something they haven't done before, like holding hands in public (even old couples), or cease to do something once thought acceptable, like a husband acting in a condescending manner toward his wife in public, then this is because the rules of civility have changed.
But the civility itself remains rock solid. In this, Japan may not be unique. But there are not many countries whose people act civilly and unaggressively toward each other as a matter of natural course, as part of the elemental climate of the nation."
I think that the attention to manners in Japan is a reflection of the shared and communal commitment to civility. We seem to have lost the concept of public civility in the West. Did we ever have it? Yes, I think we did. The concept is certainly alive and evident here in Japan. It can be seen in the overt consideration for other's feelings, as well as the reluctance to cause others to "lose face" in a public sense.