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Japanese Culture

by Pylon Sentinel

In Japan one of the most recognizable icons is the uniformity in which this society is constructed. Anyone has seen on some media or another the image of a sea of black suits limply moving through subway tunnels and be packed into trains to be shipped off to the office.

In a country where the nail that sticks out gets nailed down, one must wonder what is the possible benefit of this environment to the Magician? Predictability, the knowledge of the rules of a system allows for us to know the manner in which the components of the system will react. It can be uncanny in how utterly uniform individuals within certain positions can be. Upon meeting the president of one of the companies I work for, a friend commented, "do they all go to the same secret school or something" as it seemed that the president in one of his previous employers was a carbon copy. This brings up an interesting chicken or the egg question, did the personality traits of the individual create the societal position, or did the societal position create the personality traits?

My theory has been that the position creates the behavior. In Japanese society we have a hierarchy of authority, and the levels of which the behaviors therein become evident with study. And of course the behavior changes when one is dealing with a higher or lower status component in the system. We can begin with surface details. Physical dress is an easily readable sign of someone's social status in Japan. The office worker will dress in a black suit, hair is short, glasses are generally gold frames or dark colored plastic. Individuals who work in slightly more creative offices (design offices, entertainment industry,etc), may be able to get away with having long hair (for men). Female office workers will dress only in skirts and blouses. Those in more creative office situations may wear pants. Generally there are only a few certain colors accepted and quite often an issued uniform. This covers the bulk of the slaves that make up the work force.

Signs of seniority become more evident in behavior, a guy in a black suit looks like a guy in a black suit wether he is doorman or vice president. Senior positions offers the ability to unquestionably issue commands. Challenging these commands is an extreme rudeness in this society and very rarely done. In which case an individual challenging a superior will receive no support in their claim from same level individuals, and can expected to be scorned by same level individuals.

The senior individuals become accustomed to the issuing of commands, and will carry this on to anyone in whatever terms, not necessarily within the office, but to the waiter or in any other circumstance.

Behavioral Traits:
-a deepening in the voice, and perhaps the addition of a grumble often approaching a slurred speech. Volume is increased, and quite often the rapidity of speech is increased as well.
-posture becomes relaxed. Lower level slaves keep a straighter more attentive and aware postural position. However seniors become overly relaxed, in a general physical attitude that advertises. "I own everything. Let me take up as much space as possible"
-The relaxed posture filters into the over relaxed walk. The feet are shuffled about clumsily, as opposed to the more careful and concise walk of the lower status. The higher status can carry this relaxed attitude into anything, while the lower status constantly keep and attitude of being busy and attentive. This does change however when the higher status individual meets with someone if an even higher status, in which case he must defer back to the lower status behaviors.
-The delicacies of the choice of words is worth noting in this article, but not worth listing unless one can speak Japanese and apply these towards Japanese. Within Japanese speech, there is three levels of politeness, basically 1.rude 2.business 3.ultra polite. Of course the higher status individuals use levels 1 and 2 while lower status must use levels 2 and 3.

I have used this to my benefit when interacting with individuals who are on the lower levels of the scale. When returning a defective item, questions being raised about the product were quickly forgotten when I put my glasses on the end of my nose, slouched over, lowered my voice, and started speaking at a higher volume with an increased rate. Suddenly, people started running around and several apologies were made.

Out of the System:
What makes this apply so well is that it is so utterly ingrained into the system. Japanese have grown up with this and it is embedded into their consciousness, even those who try to disregard the system (artists,etc) cannot help but to be effected by the conditioning in their mind- etched in during formal years by parents and schooling. Recently a three year old who was accepted into a more prestigious preschool was slain by a jealous rival parent. A critic of the Japanese schooling system rightly observed, "In Japan we don't treat our children like humans in schools here, rather we act as though we are training dogs in obedience school."

This can be what makes being a foreigner advantageous in some ways. The rules do not apply. And for those who try to apply the rules, the foreigner can ignore them. This opens a reality hole, a place where the rules do not apply, which most often brings confusion (a useful condition for an opponent to be in). Though one must be careful as anger can also be the result. The downside is of course that the foreigner, is always outside of the system, and is unable to infiltrate the interior components of the system, as it is refused to aliens of the system.