Part of Peter's Unified Theory of Japan is that America is a country of idealists while Japanese are generally pragmatists. In many areas of society, Americans seem to reach for the stars, trying to attain great goals like total equality between the sexes and different races, holding down taxes down while guiding democracy all over the world, including Iraq. Japanese, on the other hand, seem to have a national joshiki, a "common sense" that all Japanese tend to share, which tends towards more realistic goals. While there are laws against sexual discrimination or harassment in the workplace, the roles of men and women are more clearly defined in Japan. For a family to be happy, the husband should be the daikoku-bashira (lit. "big black pillar") that supports the house financially, and so, the number of women who desire high-paying careers is much lower here than in the West. Kids should go to school to receive an education that makes them feel that they're a part of the larger society, and so there is no homeschooling in Japan. The ultimate pragmatic slogan in Japan is one you can hear quite often: sho ga nai, or "it can't be helped, so I guess I'll just do nothing." To be honest, it's kind of refreshing living in a society that admits that there are things beyond its ability to change. What do you think?
Oh, and if you find you don't have enough common sense, there's a DS game to help you out. Just ten minutes a day!
4 comments:
Hey, this post has no title!
"Shou ga nai" can be annoying sometimes. Once I was in a restaurant in Osaka and amazingly they had a no-smoking section that was a totally separate room. Lucky! So we sat down happily, but then noticed the people at the table next to us were lighting up. We asked the waitress what's up and she said (in Japanese) "The smoking section is full, so... shou ga nai!"
Argh! I always want to say "shou ga aru yo! ARU!" (ie. Yes, there IS a way!)
I read somewhere that one in five Americans smoke. Must be a substantially higher figure over there, ne?
Yes, Shou ga nai (also Shikata ga nai) is a pain. We'd go to restaurants that didn't have a non-smoking section back when my wife was pregnant and they'd try to seat us next to a smoking person. I don't think so!
Timo, it's higher here, although I don't know how much higher. And yet the Japanese live a long time, so that's kind of confusing. Maybe tobacco all by itself isn't that bad, but tobacco + stressing out over it like we do sometimes is what's bad.
I think I remember reading the smoking rate was about 50% for men (60% in Osaka!) and 20% for women. Keep in mind though that those figures are combining all ages. I bet the rate for young women is much higher, and older women lower so they average out to 20%.
Smoking is bad for you, but other things are worse. I heard that a smoker who exercises is still better off than a sedentary non-smoker. I think the senior citizens in Japan get a lot more exercise than the old folks in America. (Look at all the older people in Japan hiking in the mountains, riding bikes, and doing their radio "taisou".) The Japanese diet is a big factor too.
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