comparisons between Japanese and American Culture ??

1. Homogeneity. Japan is one of the most homgenous peoples in the world, and the United States is one of the most fragmented. Apart from the aboriginal Ainu, native Japanese are remarkably uniform in their cultural and genetic heritage. The immigrant nature of how the United States was patched together from many peoples and cultures is the diametric opposite from what we see in Japan.

The greater homogeneity tends to make for a more chauvinistic view of outsiders and differences. People strive in such systems to avoid seeming to be different, or to challenge the existing way things are. In systems like we see in the U.S., individuality and difference is celebrated. That makes for a much more contentious society, but one that is more dynamic and willing to accept rather large variations between individuals and groups. Japanese are traditionally very conservative, especially in comparison to Americans.

2. Size. Japan is a small island with very limited resources and carrying capacity, while the United States makes up a good portion of the North American Continent. Japanese population is very high density compared to the United States. There are places in the U.S. where the population density is less than 100/100 sq. miles, in Japan the average density is much greater (sorry, my reference to the actual number is in the library downstairs... try googling it).

Population density also is a factor that makes one society more conservative and socially static compared to the other. When you are the only person from here to the horizon, you don't much give a damn how Yankees behave. That is one of the things Americans and Australians have in common. American culture is the result of over two hundred years of opening the frontiers, while Japan hasn't had a frontier in a thousand years. Americans move easily and families are scattered from one end of the continent to the other. Most Japanese never leave home, and even if they do the distances will always be short. That makes considerable difference in how the two cultures developed.

Because Japan is a small group of mountainous islands, its resources and carrying capacity is limited. Agriculture has to be intense because the demand for food is always growing, and the amount of productive farmland is very limited. Rice and fish are major staples by necessity. Americans, on the other hand, have so much agricultural potential that no one starves, meat is plentiful and there is still enough surplus to feed a good portion of the rest of the world. The vast open spaces of the American west are also exceedingly rich in natural resources of every sort. Poor Japan has to import virtually all of the raw materials required for modern industrial production. One result is that historically it was easier for Americans to become wealthy. They could discover high grade ore, or run free-range cattle on ranches half as large as one of the Japanese home islands. Americans are used to finding opportunity on every hand, where the Japanese find their opportunities in relatively rigid social discipline.

3. The State and Religion. Japan is ruled by an Emperor believed traditionally to have descended from the gods. The State itself was until the end of WWII run by military warlords who ruled in the name of the divine emperor. One's class was rigidly fixed at birth, and it was pretty difficult to rise above one's station. The State religion was Shinto, a shamanistic religion with the Emperor and royal family at its top. Buddhism, like many other cultural features associated with the Japanese, had been imported from China and was practiced by large numbers in conjunction with Shinto. For instance, the Japanese system of writing is derived from the Chinese, and artistic forms and formulas are Chinese. The most popular form of Buddhism in Japan was Zen, and it lent itself well to the Japanese aesthetic. The world as illusion, a floating bubble, that obscures a deeper Reality fit comfortably with Japanese culture.

The United States on the other hand, is still so new that the warrantee might even still be in place. Here there is a representative republic designed and put into motion by the People themselves. A person can be in any class they choose. Aristocratic families within a generation can be reduced to poverty, but a beggar may rise to unbelievable heights. Americans are about taking risks and reaping rewards or taking a fall. Few Americans will even entertain the notion that anyone is better than they are themselves, no matter what their station in life.

The U.S. was largely settled by Europeans, and they brought with them all of the contentious religious ideas of their ancestoral homes. Mostly the country is Abrahamic. There are Catholics, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Jews ranging from liberal to ultra-orthodox, Lutherns, Methodists, Episcapals, Prespreterian, Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, and probably several hundred, or more, other little sects that are daily being born out of the Judeo-Christian mix. In the last 25-30 years appreciable numbers of Muslims have started showing up in American life, and every sect of Islam will have its own adherents. The number of American Buddhists has also grown steadily since the 1920s. The "New Age" religions that hark back to witchcraft, or that look forward to greeting space aliens with pyshic powers claim large numbers of our citizens, and perhaps half the population is either agnostic or atheist. In the U.S. religion is, and will remain, a hot topic. On the other hand, no religious grouping in the U.S. is completely dominant, though the Judeo-Christian foundations are almost universal in the country.

Is that enough for you?

Re: comparisons between Japanese and American Culture ??


In Japan, I once lost a bag with paper money and a camera in it. The next day we went to the police station to retrieve it (Japanese will generally turn in any lost items they find).

In Japan, I once asked for directions on how to reach a location over 20 miles away. The person who I asked took me there to make sure I found it.

These things arenot extraordinary in Japan. They would be extraordinary in the US.