Japanese culture and respect

Respect

I chose this topic because of how polite the relationship between parents and their children is in the Japanese culture. As a matter of fact, Japanese culture is centered on respect of privacy and respect of hierarchy in the family. In everyday life, people treat and talk to strangers with such a big level of respect that one might think that it’s impossible to make friends from strangers.

Form a very young age, Japanese people are taught to value family members and strangers with huge respect. They are taught to behave respectively in the presence of adults. When they are teenagers, they get introduced to a new form of the Japanese language called “KEIGO”. They usually learn this completely new way of talking in class as they learn other subjects. It changes from the already formal way they speak to their parents to a higher level of formality mostly used with teachers, professors, and elderly people. When speaking with elders, they usually bow as a sign of respect. They are many social hierarchies in the Japanese culture are respected and as one moves up the ladder, they get to speak less and less formally and access more and more respect and politeness in the ways that others that to them.

Japanese culture is a great model a hierarchic society based on mutual respect. It emphasizes the respect of privacy and allows those who are distinguished elders to influence the youth through teaching them how to respect each other. And it’s possible to make friends in Japan by slowly getting more and more familiar with the person. This culture of respect is probably one of the reasons why Japan is a great country.