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Japanese culture perceives time differently than western culture. For example, a train in London is considered "on time" as long as it's within 14 minutes. In J
by jkyle 11y ago
Japanese culture perceives time differently than western culture. For example, a train in London is considered "on time" as long as it's within 14 minutes. In Japan, a train is considered late if it's not within 1 minute of schedule. Those perceptions of "lateness" permeate throughout the culture.
I don't claim any authority, but it's important not to project our own views of cultural permanence onto other cultures. Japan has businesses that have spanned over a 1000 years contiguously. I would not be surprised if Japan had a view that spanned much further into the past (particularly during the days of the Emperor).
Oh, just another side. Those are only a couple of examples of Western aggression in the previous century. Europe and the U.S. had been quite active in South East Asia. There likely would have been Japanese alive at the time who had a living memory of events like the colonization of Vietnam.
- krapp 11y agoI think that's less about perception of time as it is cultural expectations. Plenty of people in Europe would consider a train that's 15 minutes late "late," it just happens often enough that society has to take the slop of inefficiency into account. But, my point is that even conceding such a long view of history, the US probably didn't look more menacing than Europe. The US was a minor political and economic power, whereas Europe was much more powerful and had its own much longer history of imperialism and territorial expansion by divine right. The implication seems like a bit of historical revisionism in hindsight, based on how threatening the US seems to a lot of people now.
- learc83 11y ago>The US was a minor political and economic power I agree with you that the US was under-powered militarily at the time, but by the 40s the US had been the world's largest economy and industrial power for decades.
- afarrell 11y agoHow long have they held that perception of time? I'm under the impression that in the Anglosphere it is only as old as railroads.
- jkyle 11y agoThe paper on cultural time perceptions I found, which I'll have to dig up again, attributed the difference to a deep cultural value placed on timeliness in Japanese society. e.g. the value predated the specific train result. edit Though I've read papers that also trace a shortening of the window of timeliness to the appearance of public clocks. Like Big Ben.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago> For example, a train in London is considered "on time" as long as it's within 14 minutes. That may be true in London, for all I know, but it's definitely not true in western culture as a whole.
- DanBC 11y agoIt's not true in London. Trains delayed by 4 minutes count as late. There are different times for when you can actually do anything about it - mostly if a train is delayed by an hour you can get a refund (if you chose not to travel) or compensation (if you were already travelling before the delay happened), but it's a bit complicated. For London tube trains you can get some refunds if the train is 15 minutes late. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/dec/18/how-claim-train-delayed http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/dec/18/how-claim-train... > Transport for London (TFL) offers refunds if a passenger's journey is delayed by more than 15 minutes. For tube passengers, this amounts to the fare for the single journey you were making, whether you have a season ticket, or have purchased a single fare. London Overground users get the same, but only when their train is delayed by more than 30 minutes