Japanese discipline – obedience to the law and order in Japan

Discipline is part of Japanese culture. It is neatly interwoven to the psyche of each Japanese citizen. It won’t be much exaggerating if I say Japanese people are obsessed with discipline.

There was an interview for foreign staff at the work place last year and I was being asked by the interviewer ‘what is your impression about Japan and its people?’

Well, that was an interesting question to answer. Almost naturally, without thinking I answered ‘Discipline of Japanese people’. The interview board was interested to know more about my impression on the discipline of Japanese society. One of the members asked me the spelling of the word discipline. He wanted to check the exact meaning of discipline in his language translator device. He asked me and I spelled D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E.

Probably ‘discipline’ is a bit difficult word for many Japanese people to pronounce. Most of them make mistake in writing discipline and they may write it as ‘disipirin’. The L and R confusion of Japanese people is very well known to them as well as to the foreigners in Japan. Japanese language has only one sound for R and L, the sound of which is in between RA and LA. Then, to many Japanese people, the ‘Light’ will be the ‘Right’ and ‘Law obedient’ will be the ‘Raw obedient’. I remember reading a site ‘Old brains learn New tricks’ in which the difficulty of Japanese military to distinguish L and R is expressed though an example when the GIs in the Pacific theater chose passwords overrun with R's , words like "rabble-rouser" or "rubbernecker." The reason was the Japanese people have a 'ell of a time with R, which they often pronounce as "ell."

He got the meaning of discipline in Japanese and we discussed the discipline and culture of Japanese society. The culture of a well disciplined Japanese society is known throughout the world. In school, the teachers used to tell us about the Japanese discipline and the benefits the Japanese society derived out of their discipline. Getting inside the train, getting out of the train, walking to the escalator (Eskureta in Japanese is modified form of escalator) are some of the occasions we encounter the discipline of Japanese people. I expressed my good feelings on the discipline of Japanese society to the interviewers.

By definition, the discipline is the training and control of oneself and one's conduct, usually for personal improvement. Since long, Japanese society had implemented discipline to its social structure as one of its essential constituent element. The Japanese Kanji character for discipline is 訓練. The Japanese samurai culture was based on discipline as the word indicates. Discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. In one sense the Bushido culture was programmed or instructed social system. Of course those instructions have been proved good to the present day Japanese society.

The obedience of Japanese people has its origin in the disciplined behavior which was instructed from childhood. Small kids will be trained by parents for good public behavior. The obedience to the law, the obedience to the system, the good manners in public behavior etc will be continued and reinforced through teaching in schools.

The culture of Bushido stressed on the importance of discipline. Discipline in English means ‘to instruct a person to follow particular rule, or ‘to adhere to a certain "order." This adherence to the order and the obedience to the order from higher ranking officers made the Japanese military one of the significant forces during World War II. I don’t want to enter into a controversy whether Japanese military was right or wrong during Second World War.

Coming to daily life experience in Japan, I have been observing the public discipline of Japanese people especially in railway stations. The pin-drop silence in railway stations in Tokyo is a live example of the discipline and good manners of Japanese people. The discipline may not be always corresponds to the education only. It depends on many factors one of which may be the level of education. Education does not mean simply holding a university degree, but with a more meaningful explanation, manifestation of the self as 'Swami Vivekananda' emphasized. When the education arms an individual with a powerful social tool ‘Empathy’, the entire society and nation become its beneficiary. Empathy is what many of us lack.

The discipline of Japanese children is incredible! Children too are learned to obey public behavior and rules. Learned from elders, they are not behind any of the adults and on many occasions better than the adults in observing obedience and discipline.

‘Discipline’ is one of the best characteristics of Japanese society, which I admire and would like to proclaim to the rest of the world.

Life as a stranger in Japan

Length of the day is becoming long and now both day and night are in equilibrium. The night was longer and day was shorter. Some how, the longer night is not attractive. Our days are becoming short in this earth?

It is better to be in the space always where there is no sense of time. No sunrise in the space and therefore no sunset. Stephen Hawking’s keyboards were powerful to convey such magnanimous reflections of his thoughts. When there is no sense of time in the space, how the days will be counted, how we get old and how the death come?

Nietzsche was playing chess inside the mind. He will win again. There were children on the street playing. One of the teen ager showed his acrobatic skills and his friend also followed his performances. Let Nietzsche take rest. I don’t want to get lost once again to him.

The black holes and the stars in the unknown and unrevealed places of the cosmos brought enough disorientation and I used to stretch arms towards the sky to get more energy. Is this an apparently meaningless and absurd world? The cherry buds coming out of the Sakura trees have something different to convey. If Sartre and Kafka were born in Japan, existentialism might have lost two strong proponents. Existence is strongly justified in the land of Samurais.

It is not the brief history of time here in Japan. The pavements would have murmured a long history of time if I sit and listen to them. The road is busy with people, but still I am alone on the street. Is this not a strange world, a world full of strange people? I could not complete reading ‘The castle’. The longer days tempted me to walk on the roads like a stranger along with many other strangers. So far I did not like the shorter days.

I become a stranger when keeping myself away from all others on the road. Life as a stranger has no attraction. Being with the mainstream makes the life flow. But is it possible to be with the mainstream? Walking on the road may not necessarily ensure the possibility of being with the mainstream. Otherwise is there anything called mainstream? It is all a feeling individual strangers shows outside as a group to escape from existential fears. Sartre and Camus can sardonically smile.

One Japanese teen-ager threw stones on a tree near to the roadside. Is the tree his enemy or is he trying to find his enemy on the tree? All minds may not like to be forged and there may be odd incidents of aggression.

J-pop music performance at Funabashi by MYST

Funabashi is a lively city, which I realized when I used to travel between Sakura and Kiba. Sometimes I get down at Funabashi and change the train to Nishi Funabashi on the way to Kiba.

Today, for purchasing along with a friend from Singapore, we chose Funabashi. From Higashi Ojima I travelled to Motoyawata in Shinjuku line. From there changing to JR Sobu line, reached to Funabashi. I had to wait 5 minutes for my friend. Just coming out of the Funabashi station’s exit, I could see a group of young Japanese men clad in traditional samurai kimono, singing and telling stories in Japanese. At first I could not understand the subject, but the whole scene was interesting as it was very new to me.

The main actor wearing the Samurai cloths had one sword at one side. While telling story he used to take out the sword and flashed for a while on air. It created a scene of Japanese feudal period and I was totally immersed in their activities. The visual images of feudal Japan that I got while reading the book Bushido written by Nitobe Inazo came out to mind again by seeing the group’s acting.

One girl distributed a notice of the event. It is written MYST on the top of the notice which also looked exactly like a Kanji letters. I could take some snaps of them. The main actor turned a singer suddenly. I thought of J-Pop music by hearing his songs.

Probably that was the fusion music. The group wanted to mix the pop music with the traditional Japanese way. It was very nice a samurai turned into a pop singer! The concept is excellent, though some tradition lovers won’t like the idea. I guess (I can only guess at present) the whole show was a promotion of their music CDs.

The whole show evoked feelings of Samurai Japan transforming to a westernized society by absorbing western music and culture in to theirs. This transformation was not a blind mimic of western culture. Japan by absorbing the western styles made their own style suitable to the land of sun and its people. J-pop is the best example of such fusion of west and east.

The MYST group can be accessible through this link; http://www.kagami.tv/

Till my friend reached, I enjoyed their performance. Right at the station exit, the map of Funabashi city is displayed which is convenient for new people to plan and locate their destinations before starting for a tour in Funabashi. Such guide maps are available in all Japanese cities which make the life easier in Japan especially for foreigners.