I watch a fair amount of anime, usually in bursts, and lately I’ve been watching a lot. A very common theme which shows up in anime is the importance of school. Some specific examples are:
1 - Cram school or extra tutoring,
2 - Passing an exam to get into a high school; and,
3 - Being expelled from school and having nowhere to go.
Generally, the child sees these things as being very important and something very positive. A sense is conveyed that it is the child’s duty to be a good student. In one recent series I watched, a child states that doing well in school would mean that he is a decent human being. Of course, I’m not asking about individuals, I’m sure that individual attitudes vary, I’m asking about the general attitude and culture towards this. In Western culture, secondary school is often presented as being a chore and/or boring. Extra tutoring would appear as something only a overbearing parent would do that doesn’t understand that children need to have fun too; whereas, in anime extra tutoring is presented as being very positive. Generally, entrance to university is considered to be the challenge in Western culture, and not high school. And of course, it is very unusual for a teenager to be expelled to a degree that they can no longer go to school at all (although it does happen), more typically culturally it would be the student drops out on their own.
The second part of this is the parent/child relationship. As mentioned above, anime presents a strong sense of duty on the part of the child to the parent. In many anime, the parent makes decisions for the child concerning where they go to school, what career they should follow and in some case whom they should marry. Now again, I know that yes of course parents make decisions for their children probably the world over, I’m asking more about the cultural expectation that conveys a sense of duty from the child to the parent.
I’m pretty familiar with the history of Japan and the samurai culture. I’m read books about the samurai code, such as the Hagakure and the Book of Five Rings, but I’m not so familiar with modern Japanese culture.
Can anybody educate me? Note, please feel free to take this beyond this semi-specific question. I’m genuinely interested.
Only a small observation to contribute. I’m Japanese-American (my mom was Japanese, raised in Japan during WWII and the immediate post-war period), and the stories she told about the life of a kid 70 years ago leads me to a few conclusions.
Japan is culturally highly conformist. A telling popular saying is “deru kugi wa utareru” (“the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”) Everyone is expected to do what they’re “supposed to do”, and what the individual wants doesn’t really matter. Mom was a bit of a rebel, not inclined to meekly take crap, and told a lot of stories about getting “hammered down”. It’s probably a reason why she was willing to leave Japan with Dad.
Education always seemed highly esteemed. High-education professions garnered respect and a parent’s ambitions for a kid always seemed related to doing super-well in primary school, getting into the best university, and becoming a doctor of something.
Everything in Japan is politely hyper-competitive. To get the best things, you have to out-perform everyone else. That’s why cram schools and other academic extra-curriculars are so popular: everyone’s looking for an edge. Now that they’re not even much of an edge (since they’re so popular), the only thing they do is differentiate against those who can’t or won’t participate.
Japan also has a deep cultural aversion to quitting. Much of the Japanese mindset is “never, ever give up.” We in the West also love the idea, but we honor it mostly because the ones who really embody it are rare and wonderful creatures. Whereas in Japan, never quitting is absolutely expected and the ones who drop out are scorned, shunned, and even socially banished (i.e., un-personed).
And all of this is normal. Criticism of the norm is popular media would be rare, so anime depicting kids as cheerful and happy under these stresses would also be normal. Conformity, right? So if the above is a set of accepted social mores, a popular light-hearted anime would be realistically expected to depict that as normal. Undertaking to criticize the norm would probably require a dystopian setting not obviously related the status quo, but much more allegorical.
American, not Western. In countries where it is not possible to pass a course without passing every subject, and for the middle class, tutoring is seen as normal if you’re failing and as a possible boost if the child is interested; “extracurricular activities” are not done through the school and may include starting certain subjects beforehand. Summer daycamps involving language immersion, arts or science activities are popular from Sweden to Portugal, often organized by City Hall; the same activities may be available throughout the school year in smaller groups and indoors.
The part about going to a specific HS, you get it whenever you have HSs which are hard to get into. For example, in Sweden there are some HSs which are extremely difficult to get into, with incoming processes not so different from those of an elite college (essays, visits, interviews…). In Spain there are some HSs which have incoming processes beyond “have you passed primary school? Yes? ok, you’re in”; the ones I know of are Arts Track, you need to present a portfolio or equivalent and convince the school that you really want to go the Arts track as a profession and not a hobby.
As far as high school goes, I read somewhere that up until fairly recently getting into university was the hard part; once you were accepted into university, you would get recruited by a company no matter what your university performance was actually like so you could start slacking off. So the education cycle there was one step further down than in the U.S. I.e., instead of trying hard to get into a prestigious university and then busting your ass to get good grades in college (and worrying about flunking out, etc.), you end up trying hard to get into a prestigious secondary school and then busting your ass to get good grades in high school. But I think that is starting to be no longer the case in Japan.
I’m sure someone will come along shortly and point out my many misconceptions, however.
After the war, Japan was rebuilt under a few large companies who control everything.
The expectation was/is that you would get hired by one of these companies and work for it until you die. In return for this, you will get great benefits and never be fired. You will be promoted, largely, on a regular, seniority-based schedule. But, the promotion trajectory depends on where in the company you started.
Basically, once you’re in the “real world” everything is on a very mechanical escalator that will take you up at a set rate for the rest of your life. But where you start from depends on what university you went to, and which university you get into depends on what high school you got into. And in both cases, these are largely down to how you score on your entrance exams.
If you fail to get into university at all, then your choices of career are basically:
Construction
Cooking
Mafioso
None of these jobs is viewed with much respect in the country. (Unless you break into the top 0.1% of chefs.)
In theory, getting into a good school means that you can get a better job, making more money, and have a happier home. In reality, the Japanese work such insane hours and the kids are all either too busy studying, or participating in club activities, that families rarely see one another. And they never have time off to make it worth buying anything. But no one is willing to step up and suggest that the current system is ill-conceived.
Surprisingly, the suicide rate in Japan is really high.
And what happens to Japanese people who have disabilities? People I’ve known who visited or lived in Japan have said that you just don’t see disabled people, of any kind, out in public. They have to exist somewhere.
Women can get administrative jobs for a few years, but they’re expected to quit and start a family before they turn 30. Getting a nicer job allows them to go on better vacations in their 20s, before they marry. Though, I feel like there’s no strong divide between encouraging girls to do well in school and boys, even though their success will largely go nowhere. They also tend to be the targets of the men who need someone to bully, in the office.
I’m not sure about disabled people. I saw far more club-footed people in Japan, than in the US, and they were working regular jobs. I never saw someone in a wheelchair.
I’d venture to guess that, like the US in the 50s, people with disabilities are cared for by their parents, at home, for their lives. But I do not know that that’s true.
What follows is my opinion, offered in GQ because it seems most of the posts about Japan so far are also unsupported opinion. My background on this topic is that I lived in Japan for a year in 1979-80, and since then I have lived with a Japanese person for all but one year of that time, including being married to one for 24 years. Due to spending so much home time with a Japanese person, I have watched a LOT of Japanese TV, which I would expect to reflect popular culture to a significant extent. Also I have been back a number of times to visit the in-laws.
To the OP: yes, doing well academically, getting into a good HS and then a good university is very important to anyone taking that track. Working people may not expect lifetime employment (which meant until age 60, at which time you got a lump sum and were expected to go work as a sort of senior advisor to some smaller company in the same kind of business) but they still strive to get into the best companies.
Working women come into 2 categories: office ladies and career women. There are plenty of career women, just not as many as in the US. Office ladies do relatively menial office work like word processing, and prepare the tea. Career women have regular jobs and can expect to be treated like their male counterparts (but they may be disappointed). Career women may at some point have a child, but they will only take a minimum time off work for this. There are of course shadings in all these things.
Handicapped are still seen in public only very rarely.
Conformity is important, even conformity in rebellion (go to Harajuku some time and watch different groups of teens in their severally identical costumes and dancing in unison to their group’s music). You can be an individual and be different from other people, but woe to him or her who is not successful at it. Be an artist, or a jazz musician, or something else that requires individuality, and you can do very well in life. However, one path taken by those who can’t or won’t conform is to just stay home all the time, to stop trying to succeed, and to live off their parents. I forget the name for this, but it is a disturbing cultural phenomenon. As is the prevalence of suicide.
There are lots of jobs for people who don’t go to college other than those specified by Sage Rat. Perfectly respectable jobs. There are lots of people who don’t go to college and who wear zipper jackets instead of coats and ties at work. They are still civilized and respectable. The range of such jobs is probably about the same as here.
Family is still important. Rebellion against parents is not unknown but it is much milder than is often the case in the US. However, I doubt that choice of career is often up to the parents; if there is a family business there is probably a lot of pressure for at least one of the children to go into that line. Otherwise the talents and desires of the offspring will probably contribute the most to that decision. As for marriage, the arranged meeting (omiai) is not uncommon, but the actual choice is pretty much always up to the individuals involved rather than their parents. Just because you meet someone at an omiai it doesn’t mean you have to marry them, or them you.
These are my impressions from close outside. I am not Japanese and I don’t live there. I know we have posters who do meet those two criteria.
Secondary school is often boring and a chore for many Japanese kids as well. Not that many people really love to study.
However, kids pretty much are going to be signed up for cram schools, typically in math and English. A lot of the students don’t want to be there, but go because their parents force them. Others enjoy being there with their friends.
Getting into good universities is a challenge, and then grades don’t matter as long as one graduates.
As in the States, the better the university, the better your chances are of getting a good job. It’s probably more important than in the States.
In order to get into a good university, it’s better to attend a good high school, which are competitive to get into and hence most students go to cram schools in junior high as well.
Getting into a good junior high does help one’s chances so many kids go to cram school in elementary school as well.
There are a few places which take it all the way down to competitive kindergartens, but that’s on the extreme side.
There is a much higher degree of parental involvement in Japan, but it can also be easy to over portray it as well.
I live in Taiwan now which does have some similarities in culture. Last week one of my student, a recent graduate, was told by her parents to cut her hair because taking care of long hair consumes too much time and she’s just a student so she doesn’t need to have long hair. I would guess that that would be on the extreme side for an American parent, but it’s only a little overbearing here.
Parents will have more input on which school the kids go, but not typically making that decision. Likewise, it’s not common for parents to dictate the career and the days of parents deciding who the children should marry are long gone, and that was only for a few.
The samurai culture is one of the most misleading things about Japan. Modern Japanese culture evolved much more from the farm communities than from the samurai, but that doesn’t make as exciting movies.
The whole group culture in Japan runs really deep.
Shortly after we put our daughter into day care twice a week as a baby, the mother-in-law stayed with us for a few months. Since we couldn’t take her of out day care (the daughter of course, mother-in-law could manage on her own), without losing out slot we had to keep sending her. Normally it started a 9:00 but we had grandma take her there at 10 or 11. After a few days, the school complained to us that she really needed to be there at 9:00 for the morning assemble in which all the kids are there, from babies to age four.
This was another WTF, but they do love their group identification.
My take is that this also comes from the group identification. You are part of the group or not, with lines clearly drawn.
One thing you see a lot more in Japan than in the US is that beginners of a sport will often purchase a lot more equipment and spend more money over there. As a child, we’d play tennis in old shorts, tee shirts and all purpose sneakers where a Japanese would more typically buy coordinated outfits and specific tennis shoes.
I saw this for skiers, hikers, windsurfers and golfers as well as even joggers. Of course, golfers worldwide spend too much money on things, but that’s not the point.
The idea is that you can gain “group acceptance” by purchasing the equipment and showing up. You don’t have to demonstrate any particular proficiency, if you dress the part, you become one of the members and gain acceptance. You then become are of the group and people can now relate to you.
If you quit the group, then boom, you’re gone. And with it any connection to the group.
I believe it was in You Gotta Have Wa that Robert Whiting talks about how much more effort Japanese players will make on the practice field than in games.
To be fair, the longer I’ve lived outside the States, the more I see US media also conforming as well. Not as much as Japan, but still quite a bit.
No factually incorrect.
This was only for a small percent of the population which did work for the large corporations. Smaller companies, including wholly own subsidiaries of the large corporations did not guaranty lifetime employment and many, many Japanese would move around in companies.
Promotions would be made based on years of seniority, BUT not everyone get promoted and it does not depend on where you start in the company. Something I actually have no idea what you mean.
Partly but not completely.
This is such utter and complete bullshit and has no place in GQ. For one thing, only about 50% of people elegible to attend university do so. Cite. There are entire industries filled with people who didn’t attend college.
None of these jobs is viewed with much respect in the country. (Unless you break into the top 0.1% of chefs.)
From what I’ve read, that attitude is not the case - indeed, many men, when riding the subway, will use both hands to grasp the handlebars above them at all times in order to have an alibi in case they are wrongfully accused of groping someone.
So how does the school thing work? Here in Canada (and I assume, in the USA typically) there are public high schools. You go to the one nearest you. In some situations, you can choose to go to a different school, but the local residents have priority and going outside the area of the school board (typically, the town) you reside in presents even more difficulties. There are some stories about kids “going to live with grandma” to qualify for a different school. The only exception - some provinces have a parallel public Catholic school systems too (legacy of the Good Old Days). These systems are free.
There are private schools, but generally these receive minimal or no funding from government. Most are religious based - the school I went to was $350/year when I went in the 60’s. Today, with fewer nuns and such to teach for free, they have to pay real salaries and meet standards. Last time I asked, a child would cost $7,000/year and this was one of the cheapest in the city.
So what’s the deal in Japan? Are the better schools religiously or otherwise affiliated, or is the “public school” system organized differently? If I understand right, in New York City, for example, there are some elite high schools that are public and have competition to get in. Is Japan’s school system along the same lines?
Japanese public high schools are actually superior to most of the private ones. An example of a private one which is better are those which belong to “escalator” school where acceptance into the system gets one into one of the elite private universities.
Most Japanese go do public elementary and junior high schools with less than 10% attending private ones, but about 55% of students attend private high schools.
Compulsory education ends at junior high, so even public high schools are not free.
As a note, about 20% of first graders attend a juku, or cram school while almost all high school seniors who intend to attend college are enrolled in these after school and Saturday programs.
A few of the private schools are religious based but most are not.
“An example of a private one which is better are those which belong to “escalator” school where acceptance into the system gets one into one of the elite private universities.”
Because of the perception of the private school has a better chance of getting you in the ivy league (for them) university as noted above
Also in the past being in a Japanese uni had the atmosphere of a frat/sorority house … with odd courses
Now the new trend is go to school (here or there) get a job in the us/Canada even Europe have and raise kids there and then have the retirement in japan
which has people worried as the native Japanese birth rate is almost less than 0.5 …
I’ve heard this is one reason why Japan dominates the photography industry, and also where the stereotype of the Japanese taking pictures of everything came from. Because work and school life is so rigorous, it’s much harder for families to schedule vacations together. Or at the very least, dad is unlikely to be able to go with the rest of the family. So taking lots of pictures of their respective trips allows them to share their experiences with each other. It may also be the case that an extensive photographic record is a way to relive and extend the utility of a short and rather hurried vacation.