Gambaru, Kawaii and Mentsu - The Three Pillars of Japanese Culture.

Gambaru = Perseverance. Kawaii = Cuteness. Easily the two most obvious traits of Japanese culture to the layman/gaijin. Unavoidable in your daily life in Japan. To the positive, almost always.

But the one you may not quite realize you're also dealing with everyday, until you've been here for a bit, and the one we'll be focusing on today, is mentsu. Or, in English, reputation. Or more casually and commonly to westerners talking about Asian cultures, "face."

Yes, all people in all cultures work to some degree to maintain their "rep" and appearance to some extent, but it's been my experience that Japan has spent many a century perfecting the establishing, honing, and defending their "face." Forever worrying about what others might think or the impression you might be making is something the Japanese culture has sharpened to a fine edge. [And I hear-tell from a friend or two of Chinese descent that the Chinese, as a culture, can make the Japanese look like amateurs.]

Regardless, the vast majority of time, it's a good thing. And it's certainly, historically, been an evolutionary advantageous behavior in a small country with limited resources requiring lots of teamwork just to survive.

But.

It also leads to nonsensical bullshit like this:

Air Force chief sacked for essay about World War II | Japan Probe:

"General Toshio Tamogami, the head off Japan’s Air Self- Defense Force, has been sacked after writing an essay that downplayed Japan’s occupations of China/Korea and stated that Japan was not an “aggressor” in the war:

In the essay, titled “Was Japan an Aggressor Nation?” Tamogami said it was “certainly a false accusation” to say Japan was “an aggressor nation” during World War II.

“The current Chinese government obstinately insists that there was a ‘Japanese invasion,’ but Japan obtained its interests in the Chinese mainland legally under international law through the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and so on, and it placed its troops there based on treaties in order to protect those interests,” he wrote.

He also claimed life under Japanese occupation was “very moderate” and cited a rise in the population on the Korean peninsula during Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation as “proof that Korea under Japanese rule was also prosperous and safe.”

Tamogami also claimed that Japan was tricked into attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Japan was “snared in a trap that was very carefully laid by the United States in order to draw Japan into a war,” he wrote."

The inability of some, admittedly minority sections of Japanese society, even at the highest levels, to admit culpability and responsibility for the things it's done... it's just mind-numbingly mind numbing. [I am strong with the adjectival power, I am.] Concern for reputation and face transmogrifies into this absurd beast of denial, where Japan can never be at fault, ever, for anything.

All nations all these kinds of nationalist idiots, but Japan's obsession with appearance and reputation - mentsu - feeds the stupidity of the beast to an inordinate extent, IMHO.