One bows with respect, but doesn't touch. This makes for a hierarchical framework of society. The plus of this is a reverence for age and experience. But it also means that young voices are not always listened to. At work, young people are expected to follow and so don't learn to lead.
Experiencing shame is pretty much the worst thing a Japanese person can experience. It is not uncommon for a mistake at work or a bankruptcy to result in suicide rather than live with the results.
Girls and boys date late, and without any discussion or experiences with feelings, so they fall in love and marry within weeks. This results in a lot of marriages that are either short or containing two separate lives and not a lot of real happiness.
Japan is also full of contradictions that are hard to figure out. Mothers are revered, and are quiet and gentle with their children, who can be quite clingy. But children taking the bus or train on their own to school is common. Life is lived in sober seriousness at work and school, but in the evenings there is much drunkenness and shouting, as if an adolescent is let out of an adult body after the sun sets. Work is so all consuming that time off is a day or two of full-on activity someplace away. Day trips are common, with every minute accounted for, souvenirs purchased, new clothing worn, and experiences paid for, complete with 8,000 photos.
Nature is revered and yet every leaf is picked up. Covered shopping arcades are in every town to encourage mass movement regardless of the weather and enormous enclosed pachinko halls (a cross between pinball, slot machines and video games) are filled with individuals in their own overlit, incredibly noisy world. There is no immigration - Japan is very exclusionary, and yet there are very few Japanese flags seen anywhere except on the rare government building. Japanese people seem to care a lot about what other people think, and yet whale is still hunted for fine dining, and plastic encases everything. Male and Female roles are distinct - it is still very much a male-oriented society, and yet the most popular celebrities are androgynous in appearance. Smoking is unlawful on many parts of town, and there are tiny sad little smoking rooms on train platforms, and yet there are still a lot of smokers. The Japanese don't seem to invent, but they are incredible innovators - they can take an idea, such as a steam train build by some other country, and turn it into an electronic future in only a few decades while other countries are still on diesel. Squatter toilets are preferred by many and the sitters have all these amazing sensors and attributes. Most meals include chicken or pork or beef and yet I did not see one farm animal in 5 weeks of travel. Every station on the main island has its own fake bird song over loudspeakers. Dairy is not part of the ethnic heritage but coffee is always served with the thickest cream. There is very little solar power but Japan is the master of water irrigation. There is wood everywhere, but picnic tables and railings are made of concrete, to look like wood.
In Japan, the most common music heard is jazz. Road vehicles are parked with incredible skill. Crows sound like humans. Everything is on time. Monopoly companies are common. Not every inch of land is cultivated. But every inch of cultivated land is filled. Forests include flowering vines and trees, even if no one sees them. Design shapes everything, and there are photographic images just waiting to be photographed:
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