Kyoko Baba

6^th August 1999

“Shame” is the key word for foreigners to understand Japanese culture. Many Western people wonder why the Japanese are so shy. They may sometimes just think that they cannot imagine what the Japanese people are thinking, and that the Japanese should be more openhearted. However, the problem is not so simple, because there is an essential reason for the important place of shame to the Japanese.

“Shame” is a crucial point to understand the Japanese because it is the reason for them to do something. It is sometimes said that while Americans work for their fame or self-dignity, English work for their justice, and Chinese work for their ruler, the Japanese work for their shame. Of course these are only tendencies, but we cannot overlook them. The Japanese usually say, “I will try hard so as not to be ashamed” instead of saying “I will do my best”. One of the reasons for this is Japanese education. For example, Japanese parents often say to their children, “Don’t do anything shameful to others.” Since the Japanese try not to be shameful, they worry about what others think of them. According to this way of thinking, the best way is doing nothing particular, or not going against the tradition. If a Japanese speaks few words, makes few reactions, or rarely expresses his feelings, it may be because he doesn’t know how foreigners feel about his words, reactions or feelings, and he is afraid of being shameful.

What brought shame to the Japanese? It is partly because that the Japanese has traditionally valued groups and this strong consciousness of groups made Japanese shame. This consciousness as a member of their group was stronger than that as an individual, so the group’s benefit was more important than an individual’s. If one did a wrong thing which resulted in problems for his group, he caused shame to other members. One kind of groups was a Japanese family. Their consciousness as a family was so strong that they sometimes identified themselves by their group. For example, the Japanese used to introduce themselves, “I am one of the Yamadas.” In each family there was a leader, in most cases a father, and other members of the family must obey him. That is to say, he controlled other members’ behavior. In many old dramas describing ordinary families in Japan, a father sometimes shouts to his son, “Shame on you!” and expels him from his family. The parallel story could be applied to other kinds of groups, for example, villages, companies, and so on.

Even now this traditional consciousness of groups still seem to remain in Japanese society, because Japanese ethics are related to it. Unlike western countries, Japan does not have an only and absolute God. Needless to say, in western countries, it is Christianity that basically decides people’s ethics and morals. However in Japan, there are relatively fewer people who believe in only one god than in the western countries. Instead, groups work like a god. It is the consensus of a group that decides what is right and what is wrong. In an extreme argument, one could be allowed to kill a person if his group agreed. When one goes against his or her group or looks odd in the group, it is shameful for his even if he never troubles someone. One good example is the awful bullies in Japan. In recent years, some elementary-school boys committed suicide because of them, and even in companies, bullies have driven quite a few working people to commit suicide. Bullies indirectly killed them because it was the ethics of their group. In this way, if our ethics should be decided by groups, the Japanese can never be free from shame.

“Shame is the key word to understand Japanese culture. To know about it is to understand the Japanese, because it is the reason for their behavior. Shame was traditionally made up by Japanese consciousness of a group, and it is still survives. It is because a group sometimes works as its members’ ethics. Unless the Japanese get free from this consciousness, they can never escape from “shame”. Though nowadays the Japanese are changing and this consciousness is getting smaller and smaller, it may not be worthless for one, whether he is a Japanese or not, to keep this in mind.