I had an interesting discussion with a Dutch friend of mine on Facebook recently, about manners and discipline of Japanese and Dutch/Westerners:
He spoke extremely highly of Japanese, for their good manners and respectful behaviour to others, while he was very ashamed of Dutch/Westerners for being contrary. As a Japanese myself, it was nice to hear, but at the same time, I felt a bit uncomfortable, because I see it from a different angle, knowing the inside situation in Japan. Instead of continuing the discussion on his facebook wall, I would like to write about it on my own blog.
It started when he posted a story about the “Project X” sort of party-crash on 21 September in a Dutch countryside: A girl in a small town, just wanted to celebrate her 16th birthday party at home, sent out Facebook invitation, having forgotten to indicate that the party was private. The word spread quickly like a virus to around 30,000 people. Although she cancelled the event, it was no use: the party was transformed into “Project X Haren” on its own, and more than 3,000 “guests” came to her home and led to a riot.
“In Japan, this is absolutely inconceivable”, the friend of mine above said on his wall. “I regret to say that the Japanese culture is far, far superior to ours when it comes to this aspect. We Westerners simply have no manners and no respect.”
It maybe so. Even when Tsunami hit nearly half of Japan last year, there was no riot, nor vandalism reported. It was written in a lot of newspapers all over the world as a praiseworthy story. It is good, of course, and we should be proud of that, but still, I feel a bit stuffy about it.
In Japan, there is hardly a riot of such, but there have been a quite some numbers of spree killings like the Akihabara massacre: one Sunday afternoon in June 2008, a 25 year-old guy on a two-ton truck assaulted a pedestrian precinct in Akihabara, Tokyo, hit 5 victims at first, then got out of the vehicle and stubbed 14 with his dagger at random. 7 people were killed after all.
If this was just a one-time-only case, we can believe that it was an unfortunate vicious crime committed by a crazy individual, but it was not the only one. There have been too many of such: The Osaka School Massacre in June 2001 (8 children killed, 13 children and 2 teachers injured), Tsuchiura Serial Murder in March 2008 (2 killed, 7 injured) , Mazda Factory Rampage in June 2010 (1 killed, 11 injured), Toride Bus Station Stabbing Rampage in December 2010 (13 injured), Osaka Shinsaibashi stubbing in June 2012 (2 Killed)...
Each time, people tried to find a motive of such random killings, and somehow conclude to something like lonesomeness, poverty, unjustified resentment, bad childhood experience, etc. etc., but nothing was very convincing. These cases, however, seem to be suggesting one thing: there has been some air in Japan lately, which drives certain kind of people into wicked madness.
Still, just like the reputation saids, Japanese people normally are polite and gentle, however, it is not only because of the nature, but also because people are always watching each other. If someone violates a rule (written or unwritten), they will reproach or bash the violator severely. It is as if the society does not tolerates mistakes, and more importantly, differences.
The above mentioned friend of mine on Facefook said "it is just a small price to pay" to keep the order of the society, but is such a "price" really so small?
The problem No. 1 of such mutual surveillance society is that, if something shameful (such as bullying) is actually found in a closed society (such as a school, company, etc.), the members won't admit the existence of the problem, and hide it from the public. In such a situation, a double-standard is easily created: in a society, where troubles are supposed to be not tolerated, the mischief, like bullying, is permitted as long as it is not seen by the external world: The members would pretend like they do not see it. Only sometimes, it becomes too big to be hidden because of a suicide of the victim, etc. , and appears on a news for the public: (http://news.yahoo.com/kids-laughing-teachers-bullied-suicide-teen-143011024--abc-news-topstories.html") ;(http://japandailypress.com/school-finally-apologizes-to-cigarette-burned-student-for-not-recognizing-bullying-1812539)
The problem No. 2 is that the “rule” can just be a feeling of the majority, the tide of the time, or atmosphere of the place. If you cannot read the signs in the air properly, you will be in a trouble. For example, three young volunteers went to Iraq in 2004, wishing to contribute to the society there in their own way, though it was quite naive. Unfortunately they were kidnapped by the arms there, and the rescue mission became quite troublesome and expensive for Japanese government. When they finally came back to Japan, they received violently harsh blame and criticism, instead of warm embraces of relief. Afterwords, not only themselves, but their families also became targets of extremely severe public censure. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/international/asia/22CND-JAPAN.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=a6980f3e83f3bf87&ex=1083470400)
The problem No. 3 is that many Japanese tend to just punish the violator of a "rule" socially, for the sake of the rule itself, intoxicated by a sense of justice, or on the strength of moral, without a rational judgement of their own. When a popular female pop-star was arrested for possessing and using illegal stimulants, the media reported in such a tone as if she killed someone. OK, it is illegal to use a drug in Japan, but practically, her using the drug did not matter so much for most of people, did it? She took the drug herself and damaged her own body and mind. It was a big pity for her son, but why so many Japanese people, who were not even fans of her, accused her like a murderer? They would say their love was betrayed, or buying of such a drug drops money to an underworld, but then, when it was found out this year that a famous and very popular baseball coach had paid hush money of as much as 100 million-yen (about 1 million euro) to a mysterious party (obviously but not clearly mentioned that it was a member of a mob) to hide his love affair in the past, there was not a very big fuss. It does not make any sense to me!
Go back to the first "Project X Haren" topic, it WAS stupid for Dutch or whoever participated to make such a ridiculous riot just to have fun, but after all, nobody intended to kill anyone, and nobody actually died. It was just an escalated practical joke. One of the simplest solution to prevent such an incident is to ask Facebook to change the default setting of its users: at present, if you start using Facebook, the default setting is "Public", that means whatever you post there will be open to everyone all over the world, unless you make it private by yourself. If you are careless, you can cause a turmoil like "Project X Haren" yourself. This is dangerous. If Facebook make its default setting "Private", it does not happen. In this way, if you carelessly forgot to make your article "Public", only trouble you will get is that nobody reacts to what you post .
Although Dutch sometimes become "Party animals", usually they are very rational people. The virtue of Dutch people is that they always think by themselves. They do not just blindly follow orders or trends. They do not care so much about what somebody else would think about them. They are also very tolerant. Here, they respect different people with different opinions, different cultures, different looks, different background, etc. etc. This attitude have made the society very open. I like it that way. It is true that they are sometimes rude and careless, and I do think it would be nice to introduce more self-discipline and moral education in this country, but it should be done in a way to enlighten people, and not just to make them watch each other to enforce one-sided justice.