131–140 of 191 posts
I'm pretty sure it's not honor. Middle Eastern cultures also put plenty of emphasis on honor and dignity, but there are many poor pockets of society that simply ignore these values during times of crises.
Japan takes a lot of criticism for being a closed off culture. After living here for a while I have started to believe that it is necessary to support these values. Multiculturalism means lowest common denominator. There are efficiencies you can gain by having a monoculture. Nobody has to lock their bikes, subways can have nice cloth seats and you can walk around in any neighborhood and be safe. When I came to Tokyo,…
"There are efficiencies you can gain by having a monoculture. Nobody has to lock their bikes, subways can have nice cloth seats and you can walk around in any neighborhood and be safe." Bangladesh is 98% ethnic Bengali; you can read about their crime here http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1011.html#c... ("U.S. citizens should avoid walking alone after dark, carrying large sums of money, or wearing expe…
When I visited Zurich a couple of years ago I saw things unimaginable for my city, like people leaving their unchained bikes outside their apartment buildings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Vending machines are so ubiquitous in Japan that they are an icon in itself More pertinent example: Several Japanese vending machine companies build into their machines backdoors to dispence products for free in the case of an emergency http://inventorspot.com/articles/vending_machines_japan_offe... Compare this to the vending machine in the Computer Science department that is always being probed for new attack vec…
I think you'll find that vending machines in the United States can be unlocked with a key just as easily as vending machines in Japan. The distinction in the inventorspot.com article is that in Japan the keys are made available to the landords/administrators of the property. In the US, I imagine folks would just reuse the axe provided with the fire extinguisher, and not hassle over a key in a time of emergency.
I am surprised nobody mentioned this yet: Japan has a much MUCH lower level of income (and wealth) inequality than the US, Haiti, etc. [1] There are just a lot fewer poor people in Japan. So if your house got leveled by the tsunami, you can go to your friends, relatives, family, etc for a little help because they aren't half impoverished already. I don't mean to demean the theory regarding social differences. I'm sur…
Japan takes a lot of criticism for being a closed off culture. After living here for a while I have started to believe that it is necessary to support these values. Multiculturalism means lowest common denominator. There are efficiencies you can gain by having a monoculture. Nobody has to lock their bikes, subways can have nice cloth seats and you can walk around in any neighborhood and be safe. When I came to Tokyo,…
"There are efficiencies you can gain by having a monoculture. Nobody has to lock their bikes, subways can have nice cloth seats and you can walk around in any neighborhood and be safe." Bangladesh is 98% ethnic Bengali; you can read about their crime here http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1011.html#c... ("U.S. citizens should avoid walking alone after dark, carrying large sums of money, or wearing expe…
This is something that really surprised me about Japanese culture. I went there in 2008 for a study tour and one of the things that really impressed me is how different their attitude towards shared property and public space is. On numerous occasions I saw things where I thought: wow, in my country (The Netherlands) this would totally get abused, vandalized or stolen. Not that my country is not safe or dirty, just th…
What would be the challenge or rule-breaking here? If you can just do it, there's no accomplishment. The more you guard something the more valuable breaking it becomes. Reminds me of the old story of a mainframe operator who, having grown a frustration against users hacking the system to have it shutdown, simply added a suid script accessible to everyone that shut down the machine. The machine stayed online from that point on.
I went there in the 90s and remember leaving my wallet in a store, then walking down the street a man tapped my shoulder from the back and when I turned I saw the store owner giving it back to me. Man I was touched by that gesture. A couple of stores down the road we entered a jewelry and my gf tried some expensive pearl necklaces just for the fun of it (like Y3M a pop ($30k back then)) and she forgot to return the l…
Same thing happened to us in a Spanish clothing shop. Wife went out with some blouse she tried and somehow this didn't trip that alarm at the door. While groceries shopping nearby we notice the blouse.
>And we did, they guy thanked us like a million times. We felt the most honorable people on earth.
We go return the blouse, the alarm starts while we enter then we have to fiddle explaining in half-Spanish what we meant to do.
We end up paying for the damn blouse, with the guard next to us but we don't get a receipt because that's company policy (I'd guess a form of punishment so you couldn't return the item).
In the end we both regretted returning it and kinda ruined the whole evening.
Not sure if this is a valid Spanish/European-Japanese comparison but it certainly is a corporate versus humane shop comparison.
From Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! ; Feynman and a colleague are staying at a traditional Japanese hotel in Kyoto: The next morning the young woman taking care of our room fixes the bath, which was right in our room. Sometime later she returns with a tray to deliver breakfast. I'm partly dressed. She turns to me and says, politely, "Ohayo, gozai masu," which means, "Good morning." Pais is just coming out of the…
They don't feel embarrased if naked public, at least until sometime in twentieth when they finally prohibited child porns. They still have public spas that allow both men and women in one tub. I don't think your story represents Japanese people's personality regarding not looting. Read .
What do you mean "allow"? Where I live (Europe) there are no restrictions in spas, and people can sit in tubs in any combinations they want...
From Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! ; Feynman and a colleague are staying at a traditional Japanese hotel in Kyoto: The next morning the young woman taking care of our room fixes the bath, which was right in our room. Sometime later she returns with a tray to deliver breakfast. I'm partly dressed. She turns to me and says, politely, "Ohayo, gozai masu," which means, "Good morning." Pais is just coming out of the…
White friends of mine recall looking for a flat in Japan and being constantly rejected with "you're white, we don't lease to whites", which is not a problem there. There are second-generation Koreans living in Japan who can't get citizenship or the vote.
Japan is an awesome place and the people are very different to a great many other places, but can we keep the cultural cringe to a minimum?
I also find it interesting in the story that there is no mention of Feynman making a fuss about a colleague being stark naked in the same room. Does this mean he's also much more advanced and civilised? Why doesn't Fernman mention this; why is it beyond notice? Why is the maid's lack of reaction that much more noteworthy than his own lack of reaction?