Japan is a land of beauty, a jewel set in the middle of the ocean. Because of her location and history, Japan has developed a unique culture: fishing is a mainstay and family closeness is a given. Any foreigner wanting to live in Japan must first understand the dynamics and uniqueness of Japanese life and thought.


Japanese culture places high premium on human relationships within a constituted group - group consciousness is strong and one is invariably pressured to blend harmoniously into the group. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Japanese can only speak of having a corporate identity rather than a personal identity - Personal identity is derived from a person’s relation to the group. Group identity refers to the family, the school, the work place and many more logical relationships binding an individual to the corporate social bodies he belongs to. The largest group with super-identity covering all groups big or small is the Japan Nation, a homogeneous country.


Foreigners would very soon find such cultural dynamics paradoxical: On one hand, Japanese value relationships highly; On the other hand, many Japanese, especially the younger ones, feel the strain of having to constantly conform to the norm through group pressure. Such intolerance of non-conformity and fear of being ostracized by mainstream has created violent teenage crimes and school bullying in Japanese society.


Most western foreigners also find it hard to blend their western propositional logic into Japanese way of viewing reality. Japanese mode of thought tends to be non-rational, intuitive and emotional. Rather than taking an interest in the exact details of external events and objects, the overall tendency is to avoid complicated, structural thinking and lean towards simplicity and concreteness.


Living in Japan is to know how to make friend with Japanese. The Bible encourages us to make good friends. Proverbs 27:10 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend”. Friendship with Japanese is excellent way to sharpen one’s personal social skills. When a foreigner learns to integrate Japanese style of introspectively ponders and explores the domain of inner experience, he will expand his horizons and be rewarded with long-lasting friendship.