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Western tribalism is the emergence of a common voice among those who exercise their voice. At least those who take part take part on their terms and by enacting

by unabst 10y ago

Western tribalism is the emergence of a common voice among those who exercise their voice. At least those who take part take part on their terms and by enacting their will. These tribes are, for better or worse, movements. There is no tribalism in Japan. There are clubs and extracurricular activities, and an emergence of groups who find comfort in interdependence. Independent actors have common interests too. That isn't to be confused with interdependent actors simply getting together to avoid confrontation with society.

Waterluvian 10y ago
Aren't clubs and extracurricular activities perceived rather differently in Japan as well? Being part of clubs, from my very limited vantage point, seems to be incredibly culturally important.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I have to admit that I have no idea what the parent posts are talking about wrt to tribalism, etc. I'm not trying to be dismissive, I literally don't understand. But I can talk about clubs in Japan :-) I worked in a Japanese high school for 5 years. Students are required to be part of a club. It is part of high school. Most clubs run 6 days a week and students are a member of a club starting from junior high school. Even when people go to university, they invariably join clubs. I don't know if it is required, but after 6 years it is already ingrained. A club in Japan is very different than a club in North America (I'm Canadian). When you are in school in Canada (at least), you can join many clubs. Most students have many, many hobbies. You are encouraged to try many, many different things. In Japan you have 1 club and that's your hobby. You have exactly 1 chance to change your club -- when you graduate junior high school and join high school (well... you can change again if you go to university). Because you are forced to practice 1 and only 1 thing, you tend to get quite good at it. Japanese students are very, very good at their hobby (note the lack of plural). This is virtually without exception. Most students (in my experience) absolutely love club. They live for club. It's where their friends are. It's the place where they are accepted. It's the place where they are good at what they do. In the middle of winter, with the wind blowing, and the rain coming down, the only way we could get the tennis boys to go home was to turn off the lights at 8 pm every day. They would show up on Sunday (presumably their day off) and keep at it. That's Japanese club. Of course some students don't want to go to club. Some students have no interest in a hobby. In my school we had a kind of rotating "club" for students who hated club. One year it was track and field. When we got a student from junior high school who was very serious about track and field, we had to move the non-club club to cooking. Then some students got interested in cooking, so it moved to the English club. Every couple of years it moves somewhere else (and all the teachers flock to volunteer to supervise it because supervising a serious club is a huge amount of work). It's interesting, though. My school had about 400 students and the non-club club never had more than 60 students in it. Students generally love club. What's more, when a student is in the non-club, you know they have some serious problems. There is not a single happy student in non-club. Like many things in Japan, the whole concept of a single club that takes up all of your child's free time would not work in other places. Japanese culture is instilled in students at school. Teachers raise the children at least as much as parents do. If teachers think that a parent is doing a poor job, they can and will march over to the parent's house and lecture them for hours on end. I once followed a teacher on his "rounds" visiting parents, and I didn't remove my jaw from the ground for at least a day afterwards. When you say "being part of a club seems to be incredibly culturally important" you are right. It's the way you live. Even now, my neighbour dragged me off to the karate dojo because he was worried about me. Too much free time is not good for you :-). I have no choice now (even at nearly 50 years old)!
  - 77pt77 10y ago
    > If teachers think that a parent is doing a poor job, they can and will march over to the parent's house and lecture them for hours on end. I once followed a teacher on his "rounds" visiting parents, and I didn't remove my jaw from the ground for at least a day afterwards. Can you give specific information on what shocked you so much?
    - Nadya 10y ago
      I imagine Canada is similar to America in this regard: a teacher would never in a million years think about lecturing a parent. In the U.S that would probably be a fantastic way of losing your job! The parent's word is "law" and no "stupid teacher" gets to have any say in things. The teacher may try to talk about it or make suggestions during parent-teacher meetings but that is the only time it is considered "okay" and even then it isn't lecturing the parent but trying to guide them. In Japan, teachers are far more respected. The "jaw dropping" part is a teacher visiting parents and lecturing them. Something unheard of in the U.S, and based on the mikekchar's reaction, probably Canada too.
      - Waterluvian 10y ago
        I think Canada and the US could use a balance of the two. Teachers should ha e authority but not to such an extreme
      - mikekchar 10y ago
        Yep. This is pretty much it. However, I remember a couple of specific incidents. One time the home room teacher noticed that a student's lunch box was not very good. It had all sorts of pre-packaged stuff and was mostly filled with sweets. So he ordered the mother in to the school. Amazingly she came and he spent an hour lecturing her on how she was ruining her son's life by giving him crap to eat. After she had cried an acceptable amount[0], he ordered her to come in once a week where he arranged cooking classes for her. She dutifully came in and the home room teacher along with the home ec teacher gave her explicit lessons on how to do the shopping and make nutritious and cheap lunch boxes. It was awesome and terrifying all at the same time! Another time a student was caught smoking behind a convenience store. Smoking is a very serious offence in public high schools[1] and often results in expulsion. The teacher ordered the parents in to the school. He asked, "Which one of you smokes?" The father admitted that he smoked. The teacher lectured him on how he was setting a bad example for his son and ruining his future (you can probably see the pattern here...). So then the teacher brought in the student and they worked on a compromise that would allow the student to stay in school. The student would have a 2 week suspension and would agree never to smoke until after he turned 20. Then the teacher got the father to agree never to smoke in sight of his children again. Failure to comply would result in the immediate expulsion of the student. The level of WTF from my Canadian cultural background in these instances was overwhelming. On the one hand I couldn't believe that the parents would allow the teacher to have so much authority over them. On the other hand, I couldn't believe that this stuff actually worked. For things like this, it's a different world over here... [0] I discovered that students are trained very early on that teachers will lecture them until they cry. If you are not stubborn and you can learn how to cry, you can get away with almost anything. Even as adults it's the way society works. When you do something very, very bad (like line your pockets with public money as a politician) it is expected that you will go on TV, apologise and then cry. Then it seems like it's OK. It's very strange.... [1] There is a public school system and a private school system (not to be confused with "public schools" in the UK -- "public schools" in Japan are mostly government funded, while "private schools" are funded by tuition rates). Students choose to either go to public or private schools. There are many elite schools in both systems. However, if you get expelled from the public system, you can only be educated in the private system. For that reason, there are many private schools that cater to troubled students. Their rules are much, much, much more lax. Students who are about to get expelled and do not have money to go to a private school, must get a job. The school where the student goes takes responsibility for the student and arranges a job for them. In those cases the student is not expelled, but rather "decides that school is not for them and quits to take on a job". Many of those students then enroll in "night school", which is for students that dropped out and want to continue studying. This is also publicly funded (to the best of my knowledge -- although even public high schools have a tuition fee). Essentially the system is set up to filter students into institutions that (ostensibly) are better suited to deal with their specific issues. Sometimes this is abused by crap teachers who have a vendetta against certain students. Life can be cruel.
- unabst 10y ago
  Yes. It is an interdependence. Extended family. Also for the youth it provides the perfect excuse to consume alcohol and be "irresponsible". They drink irresponsibly responsibly. These are all trends of course. Student activism isn't zero. It's just non-existent. Activism is extremely rare.
walshemj 10y ago
What is "Western tribalism" there are plenty of subcultures that young Japanese can get into - where do you think Buzz Rickson got started.

by unabst 10y ago

Waterluvian 10y ago

Aren't clubs and extracurricular activities perceived rather differently in Japan as well? Being part of clubs, from my very limited vantage point, seems to be incredibly culturally important.

mikekchar 10y ago
I have to admit that I have no idea what the parent posts are talking about wrt to tribalism, etc. I'm not trying to be dismissive, I literally don't understand. But I can talk about clubs in Japan :-) I worked in a Japanese high school for 5 years. Students are required to be part of a club. It is part of high school. Most clubs run 6 days a week and students are a member of a club starting from junior high school. Even when people go to university, they invariably join clubs. I don't know if it is required, but after 6 years it is already ingrained. A club in Japan is very different than a club in North America (I'm Canadian). When you are in school in Canada (at least), you can join many clubs. Most students have many, many hobbies. You are encouraged to try many, many different things. In Japan you have 1 club and that's your hobby. You have exactly 1 chance to change your club -- when you graduate junior high school and join high school (well... you can change again if you go to university). Because you are forced to practice 1 and only 1 thing, you tend to get quite good at it. Japanese students are very, very good at their hobby (note the lack of plural). This is virtually without exception. Most students (in my experience) absolutely love club. They live for club. It's where their friends are. It's the place where they are accepted. It's the place where they are good at what they do. In the middle of winter, with the wind blowing, and the rain coming down, the only way we could get the tennis boys to go home was to turn off the lights at 8 pm every day. They would show up on Sunday (presumably their day off) and keep at it. That's Japanese club. Of course some students don't want to go to club. Some students have no interest in a hobby. In my school we had a kind of rotating "club" for students who hated club. One year it was track and field. When we got a student from junior high school who was very serious about track and field, we had to move the non-club club to cooking. Then some students got interested in cooking, so it moved to the English club. Every couple of years it moves somewhere else (and all the teachers flock to volunteer to supervise it because supervising a serious club is a huge amount of work). It's interesting, though. My school had about 400 students and the non-club club never had more than 60 students in it. Students generally love club. What's more, when a student is in the non-club, you know they have some serious problems. There is not a single happy student in non-club. Like many things in Japan, the whole concept of a single club that takes up all of your child's free time would not work in other places. Japanese culture is instilled in students at school. Teachers raise the children at least as much as parents do. If teachers think that a parent is doing a poor job, they can and will march over to the parent's house and lecture them for hours on end. I once followed a teacher on his "rounds" visiting parents, and I didn't remove my jaw from the ground for at least a day afterwards. When you say "being part of a club seems to be incredibly culturally important" you are right. It's the way you live. Even now, my neighbour dragged me off to the karate dojo because he was worried about me. Too much free time is not good for you :-). I have no choice now (even at nearly 50 years old)!
- 77pt77 10y ago
  > If teachers think that a parent is doing a poor job, they can and will march over to the parent's house and lecture them for hours on end. I once followed a teacher on his "rounds" visiting parents, and I didn't remove my jaw from the ground for at least a day afterwards. Can you give specific information on what shocked you so much?
  - Nadya 10y ago
    I imagine Canada is similar to America in this regard: a teacher would never in a million years think about lecturing a parent. In the U.S that would probably be a fantastic way of losing your job! The parent's word is "law" and no "stupid teacher" gets to have any say in things. The teacher may try to talk about it or make suggestions during parent-teacher meetings but that is the only time it is considered "okay" and even then it isn't lecturing the parent but trying to guide them. In Japan, teachers are far more respected. The "jaw dropping" part is a teacher visiting parents and lecturing them. Something unheard of in the U.S, and based on the mikekchar's reaction, probably Canada too.
    - Waterluvian 10y ago
      I think Canada and the US could use a balance of the two. Teachers should ha e authority but not to such an extreme
    - mikekchar 10y ago
      Yep. This is pretty much it. However, I remember a couple of specific incidents. One time the home room teacher noticed that a student's lunch box was not very good. It had all sorts of pre-packaged stuff and was mostly filled with sweets. So he ordered the mother in to the school. Amazingly she came and he spent an hour lecturing her on how she was ruining her son's life by giving him crap to eat. After she had cried an acceptable amount[0], he ordered her to come in once a week where he arranged cooking classes for her. She dutifully came in and the home room teacher along with the home ec teacher gave her explicit lessons on how to do the shopping and make nutritious and cheap lunch boxes. It was awesome and terrifying all at the same time! Another time a student was caught smoking behind a convenience store. Smoking is a very serious offence in public high schools[1] and often results in expulsion. The teacher ordered the parents in to the school. He asked, "Which one of you smokes?" The father admitted that he smoked. The teacher lectured him on how he was setting a bad example for his son and ruining his future (you can probably see the pattern here...). So then the teacher brought in the student and they worked on a compromise that would allow the student to stay in school. The student would have a 2 week suspension and would agree never to smoke until after he turned 20. Then the teacher got the father to agree never to smoke in sight of his children again. Failure to comply would result in the immediate expulsion of the student. The level of WTF from my Canadian cultural background in these instances was overwhelming. On the one hand I couldn't believe that the parents would allow the teacher to have so much authority over them. On the other hand, I couldn't believe that this stuff actually worked. For things like this, it's a different world over here... [0] I discovered that students are trained very early on that teachers will lecture them until they cry. If you are not stubborn and you can learn how to cry, you can get away with almost anything. Even as adults it's the way society works. When you do something very, very bad (like line your pockets with public money as a politician) it is expected that you will go on TV, apologise and then cry. Then it seems like it's OK. It's very strange.... [1] There is a public school system and a private school system (not to be confused with "public schools" in the UK -- "public schools" in Japan are mostly government funded, while "private schools" are funded by tuition rates). Students choose to either go to public or private schools. There are many elite schools in both systems. However, if you get expelled from the public system, you can only be educated in the private system. For that reason, there are many private schools that cater to troubled students. Their rules are much, much, much more lax. Students who are about to get expelled and do not have money to go to a private school, must get a job. The school where the student goes takes responsibility for the student and arranges a job for them. In those cases the student is not expelled, but rather "decides that school is not for them and quits to take on a job". Many of those students then enroll in "night school", which is for students that dropped out and want to continue studying. This is also publicly funded (to the best of my knowledge -- although even public high schools have a tuition fee). Essentially the system is set up to filter students into institutions that (ostensibly) are better suited to deal with their specific issues. Sometimes this is abused by crap teachers who have a vendetta against certain students. Life can be cruel.
unabst 10y ago
Yes. It is an interdependence. Extended family. Also for the youth it provides the perfect excuse to consume alcohol and be "irresponsible". They drink irresponsibly responsibly. These are all trends of course. Student activism isn't zero. It's just non-existent. Activism is extremely rare.

walshemj 10y ago

What is "Western tribalism" there are plenty of subcultures that young Japanese can get into - where do you think Buzz Rickson got started.