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Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

There are both amazingly good and amazingly bad things about Japanese culture.

The shame of being seen to be not honest or respecting people's property leads to amazing responsibility and kindness.

But it also leads to people being depressed and feeling constrained not to be able to break out of societal expectations.

The very things that make us love Japan, would make you go crazy to live there. So enjoy the privilege of being able to visit and experience the benefits, while not having to deal with the downsides.

And maybe it causes you to reflect that, in the US -- the very personal freedoms (i.e. lack of guilt on being disobedient or trying new things) leads to a society where it's more likely you're not getting your wallet back if you leave it somewhere...

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There was a good blog post about a guy living in Japan.

Here he was in this clean and crime free place, but his bicycle kept getting trashed overnight. Just his bike parked in a sea of other bikes.

He thought it was because he was a foreigner, but finally after he reported it to the police numerous times someone explained the phrase "The nail that sticks out gets knocked down." and pointed out the bikes he was buying were from China.

His bike looked similar to everyone else's bike in the area, but it was made by a Chinese company and there had been news stories about how these bikes were faulty / dangerous / bad (the information apparently was somewhat questionable).

So he bought a proper Japanese bike that looked like the other bikes, and it never happened again.

The contrast of a clean and orderly society with very targeted pressure by random members of society not to do something like buy the wrong bike ... is quite striking.

> "The nail that sticks out gets knocked down."

Ever since I first heard this I've kept both this phrase and the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" in mind at the same time.

Basically, both sides of this coin together ask you "should you speak up?" type of thing; substitute "speak up" with whatever the given situation is.

We Dutch have a similar proverb: "Whoever sticks his head above ground level, his head is cut off. "

That seems a lot less elegant a phrase...

I'm guessing it sounds a lot more elegant in Dutch...

Not really. It's a literal translation, and it's just as bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

Tall poppy syndrome, which can be oppressive in Northern Europe.

Germany seems more relaxed than the Netherlands, and France seems to be worse. I've had friends telling me their Mercedes got frequently keyed for no reason, and the old Mercedes star on their classic even got ripped off.

French guy here.

There is a proverb in France that says that to live a happy life, you'd better keep a low profile (not literal translation which would more be to live a happy life, live hidden) "vivons heureux, vivons cachés".

So yes if you own nice things and show it publicly, you'll get annoying comments, have them damaged or stolen. And it is getting worse.

Unlike in Japan, I would not expect a lost wallet to be returned to its owner, never.

That's very true in Germany. They do have a lot of freedoms, but they aren't very creative as a society. They fall back on strong adherence to rules and their culture re-enforces it.

See this:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/10599631/Why-the...

I don't think creativity and adherence to social rules lie along the same axis. Strictures can spur and channel creativity. And the absence of strong normative behaviors doesn't coincidence with greater creativity--there are plenty of countries, mostly undeveloped, where people generally do anything they want[1], but there's not much creativity going on.

As the rest of the world industrializes and the deficiencies and costs of our own social fabric are revealed in comparison, Americans seem to increasingly like to distinguish ourselves as "creative". But it's really just a euphemism intended to characterize our differences in a way that permits us to claim that we're "better" at something. Back when the U.S. was a leading industrial power house, when our democratic institutions were unique, there was no need to identify a specific quality like creativity to distinguish ourselves.

[1] I've been in at least one country where the very concept of a line seemed foreign to most of the people, who were within months or years (not even generations) removed from an nomadic lifestyle. This was qualitatively different than in some other countries with aggressive line jockeying and cheating.

" and the old Mercedes star on their classic even got ripped off."

That was a competition for punkers. Who could get the most of these stars ...

It is interesting to ponder why we do either.

We hammer nails because we want a flat surface. We grease wheels because we want quite wheels.

If you get the hammer or the grease depends upon what is needed to fix the problem. Do you need a punishment or a reward.

I typically follow that with a warning that the wheel that squeaks too much or too loudly gets replaced. A personal lesson on appeasement or the value of conformity, I suppose.

And in Japanese there are a plenitude of idioms about not standing out. The high post gets hammered down, the tall flower gets pruned, and the speeding car gets stopped are others I've encountered.

Wasn't there a story a while ago how a Japanese school essentially forced (or put a lot of pressure) a schoolgirl to dye her hair to fit in with the other girls, but it failed over and over until she got burns on her head?

Another regarding gender expectations is the recent news that a (maybe more than 1?) Japanese medical school's admissions staff were rigging standardized test scores to disfavor women applicants. This is because they were seen as less reliable / career-oriented or productive (or whatever justification) for not favoring them to receive the education that men deserve.

Expectations.

It isn't an irrational bias thing. Women in Japan are pressured to stay at home to take care of the kids, so they're less likely to work as much as a men.

Bias is bias. Not to mention this can cause vicious cycles where women don't progress in their career due to a perception they'll become homemakers -> are pressured to work less because the career is going nowhere -> continue to not progress.

This wasn't a case of gender discrimination. It wasn't a requirement that girls have black hair specifically, but that students do. The issue is the assumption that black == natural, which for people who aren't ethnically Japanese may not be the case

There was a ban on unnatural hair colours. A foreign student was told to dye her hair black.

This is a good assessment. I believe Japan generally only works for people that already fall in line with societal norms to some extent.

I do wish to believe that a personal freedom society and a society that takes your wallet don't have to be tightly coupled... Although I will say the public shame of Japan is stronger than the private shame of the US.

I remember there was a YouTube video making comparison between Japan and China. Of course Japan is much better in many obvious ways, and the comment sections also reflect most people prefer Japan over China.

Then I saw a Japanese commented when he was traveling in China he saw a lot of employees playing with their cellphones during working hours. He said he was all of a sudden really jealous of those people do that while in Japan he has to work all day long without much personal life.

Michele Gelfand on tight vs loose cultures. There's also a link there to her TEDx talk.

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