In the cult I grew up in, throughout my childhood, there were some very strict expectations about how one was to behave. One was always to behave in an “upright” manner – to be honest, the ideas of tatemae and honne are not really all that foreign to me, as I lived that as a child. One was to be “in the world, but not of it”. Practically, this meant we had our own set of traditions. For example, we would celebrate a somewhat bastardized version of the Jewish Holy… Read More »Normalcy
Note to Japanese readers: if you are not prepared to accept a rather harsh criticism of your culture, please stop reading now. A couple of days ago, I learned about the behavior of the Japanese in the second world war, and it rather shocked me. I didn’t really understand why the Japanese were (and to some degree, are) so reviled in South and East Asia, but after hearing about some of the atrocities that were done in Manchuria, China, and the Philippines, among others, I think I understand it now. … Read More »Uncomfortable
As I have said previously, there are many things to admire about Japanese culture, and quite a few things not to admire as well. I have always strove, in this blog and elsewhere, to look at Japan with an unflinching lack of bias – acknowledging the good, acknowledging the cultural differences that are legitimately morally relative, and also calling out the unquestionably dark sides of Japanese culture that sometimes rear their heads. Honestly, though I hear it’s recently changing, the biggest thing about Japanese culture that actually deters me from… Read More »Hagibis and “Black Companies”