> You start to wonder whether such training to follow stroke order, "staying within the lines", is a reflection or contribution even to the rules-following soci

> You start to wonder whether such training to follow stroke order, "staying within the lines", is a reflection or contribution even to the rules-following society that Japan is? I've always wondered why different cultures have different relationships with rules and organization. I'm from Europe but spent my teenage years in Northern Africa and have been living in Mexico for over a decade. I think about this all the time. My totally unscientific hypothesis is that it's all about the climate and geographical regions. For example, northern European countries tend to be a lot more organized than tropical countries. In Northern Europe one wouldn't survive next winter without organization, while in tropical countries there is food all year round. As for Japan I always thought that this almost obsession with order, details, and rituals comes from their lack of space for agriculture. Japan has few plains and lots of mountains so by necessity they had to learn to cultivate in difficult spaces to survive. This attention to detail is everywhere in their culture compared to, say, Latin America or Africa. In Mexico particularly there is almost an aversion to rules and imposed restrictions which in turn creates all sort of weird behaviors. A Mexican friend always argues this is in fact a perduring trauma from the Spanish conquest, but I argue that this doesn't happen in other countries.