Comments on: Japanese conformists, American rebels

By: yuki-onna-desu

yuki-onna-desu — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:30:56 +0000

THANK YOU SO MUCH. It kills me when people ramble on about how “conformist” Japan is. Every society has conformity, but America has far more than Japan ever will. It’s just so deeply engrained that people don’t even realize it’s there. People who say how conformist Japan is need to take a good, long look at the psychology term “PROJECTION.” If I walk into a store here, everyone glares at the way I dress. When I walk into the Japanese grocer or language school, no one bats an eyelash, or even more shocking to the cloned sheep around here, *compliment* me.

By: JP

JP — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 14:11:19 +0000

Joel,

The wrong link was my fault. Thanks to you it is now fixed.

Apologies to Marie!

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 13:47:27 +0000

Yes. Very nice post. One small correction. The Amazon link goes to Material Child by Steve White, not to Merry White’s Material Child (with a different subtitle).

By: stu

stu — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 10:37:20 +0000

marie – yoku yuta! touche!

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Japan: Characters and Conformity

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 09:48:45 +0000

[...] lly jug band Tokyo Limelight Circus. Marie Mockett at Japundit compares U.S. and Japanese teenage conformity and reflects on the social stereotypes of both countries. Jose Manuel Te [...]

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 04:47:11 +0000

Wonderful post. Can’t wait to read more by Marie!

By: Ampontan

Ampontan — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:29:23 +0000

Excellent post. I’ve always believed there is a lot more individuality in Japan than people give the Japanese credit for, and a lot less in the U.S.

During my days as an English teacher, I did hear parents tell me that their children were going through their “hankoki”. The last one was a sweet woman whose son was one of the most well-adjusted kids I’ve ever met.

To be fair, however, I wonder if the problem in the US is that people are still stuck on the 60s paradigm. I was a high school student in the mid-60s, and there was definitely a feeling of “we’re different” in the air that was natural and not co-opted by Madison Ave. The cement hadn’t hardened yet and there were no expectations about how a rebel was supposed to behave.

Everyone who’s come after has had that precedent to live up to (or down to), which I think has tended to inhibit real personal expression despite the fact that times have really changed.

By: ghoti

ghoti — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 22:46:03 +0000

Nice post.

When I first came over many years back, I wanted to connect with the “underground,” the rebels, the subversives. When I saw there was none, that even the punks’ attitude was put on and off like a mask, I assumed that all Japanese were brainwashed consumertrons.

Then I reflected on what exactly was this underground culture I was looking for?

In the end, I became aware that it was simply adolescent vanity, pathetically carried into adulthood by many Westerners.

There are real rebels and undergrounds where there is real repression, in unfashionable places like China and the Soviet Bloc. The idea that Americans in their teens and twenties, in their carefully chosen Che t-shirts with their expensive educations and generous indulgences, are fighting the power is ridiculous.

For the record, there are all kids of Japanese sub-cultures out there, more than there are in America, I think. The difference is that they don’t pretend to be the Great Resistance.