Today, I attended an academic conference with my colleagues. There I met a researcher came from the Czech Republic. He had developed a monitoring service for schizophrenic patients and presented a brand new method for relapse prevention. It was very exciting to listen to him.
After the lecture, we talked about the culture of Japan and Czech. He mentioned that Japanese people were so practical. Instead, the Czech has experienced several wars due to the conflict of ideologies, such as religion. He seemed to be interested in the productivity and tolerance of Japanese.
Actually, the Japanese celebrate Shinto, Budda, and also Jesus Christ occasionally. Buddhists are so tolerate to other religions that they hold a ceremony for the person who had invaded the sanctuary of Buddhist, as I wrote. It seems that Japanese are indifferent to a particular ideology.
On the other hand, Japanese is much concerned about some kind of habits. We take great care of the hierarchy in the society. Impolite people are severely blamed. Strangers are likely to be excluded in some regions. I am doubtful that all Japanese are open minded.
In addition, Japanese tend to worry about some detail. Japanese craftspersons acquire extremely good techniques after a long term training. The masters of some Japanese traditional culture, such as Judo, Kado (flower arrangement), Shodo (lettering), are deemed as demi-gods.
Some people say that Japanese have their own religion. It means no particular faction. The Japanese traditional lifestyle itself is quite religious. Thus, we tend to show allergic reaction to a religious topic, especially a matter of new cults.
There is another hypothesis about the Japanese sense of religion. It is eclecticism. We always combine valuable things into traditional ones. Buddhism is familiar with this thought. This concept may be a key to accept other cultures.
I love this concept. I would like to admire the point of view of other persons. It will help to grow me up.
I think all Japanese are "not serious Buddist". That's it. We have quite characteristic culture compared to European countries, mainly because Japan is isolated island... Czech has long, long tough history, because there are always strong countries right next to it. Sometimes such countries use religous (or ideologic) matter to invade Czech, then people became careful for talking about it.
ReplyDeletePeet