Soy Sauce 12

         ‘I fancy that there are no people in the world more
          punctilious about their honour than the Japanese,
          for they will not put up with a single insult or even
          a word spoken in anger.’ 
                                       St. Francis Xavier (1506–1552)

So how do the Japanese think about themselves? What qualities do they embrace? 
A homogenous culture with a racial purity hangup, the Japanese believe that their strength and exceptionalism derives from their love of this purity, and a corresponding hatred of defilement. They strive to be as serene and beautiful as a cherry tree in full bloom, Their words distinguish them from lesser mortals: Bukkyo, the wellspring of Japaneseness, Shakkei, creating Japaneseness, Nihonteki, being Japanese-like, Kuuki, the Japanese atmosphere, Miyabi, elegance in things Japanese, Aun no Kokyu, the Japanese sixth sense, Byodo, Japanese-style fairness, Omoiyari, Japanese-style sympathy, Kangeiko, discipline the Japanese way, Kuroto, professionalism in Japan, Shinrai, relying on Japaneseness…  
Foreigners are still considered as either oddities or a menace. Again, they have words: Ato Aji, a foreign aftertaste, Gaijin Kusai, smelling like a foreigner, Hanamochi Naranai, looking down on foreigners, Iwakan, allergic to foreigners… The French despise anyone who cannot speak their language; the Japanese suspect anyone who can. They are brilliantly capable at inventing complex systems of rules, but unenthusiastic about explaining those rules to foreign visitors. Their own historic caste of untouchables, the Eta, have given way to new categories of the defiled. There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the Hibakusha, the ‘explosion-affected people,’ survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their descendants. They are damaged goods, stigmatized as less employable, less marriageable, less worthy of association, and less worthy in their own minds.
The Japanese practice Bura-Hara, a form of discrimination based on the myth that blood type determines personality. Type O people are energetic and social, while Type B's are selfish and whining. Both kindergartens and dating services are segregated by blood type.
There are other dichotomous polarities in the homogeneous impenetrable culture of the Japanese, resulting in the most fantastic series of ‘but also’s’ ever used for any nation of the world- samurai and monk, Chrysanthemum and Sword, politeness and overbearing insolence, exquisite purity and capacity for perversity, deep lyrical quiet spirituality and loud mechanical pachinko parlours, behavioral rigidity and innovative adaptation, submissiveness and indominability, generous loyalty and spiteful treachery, bravery and timidity, traditionalism and modernity, Zen gardens and cartoon kittens. If genius is the ability to simultaneously hold two opposing ideas and keep going, the Japanese are brilliant. Both poles are governed by the same aesthetic clarity, the same will for harmony, the same delicacy of suggestion, and the same perfectionist ideal; not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but unity, discipline and pursuit of purity. Every aspect of life must be perfected, until perfect.