The culture blog post can be found at the link below, and my comments are represented below the link.
エミリー ガーネト (10:03:12) :
This post offered me a lot of food for thought - more so than is actually represented in my comments, I'm afraid.
The first thing that struck me was the difference in behavior and behavioral repercussions between Japanese and Americans - especially after watching the video clip and talking to Sazawa-sensei. I was amazed by the lengths that some people would go to in order to protect their name and the utter shame that they felt at even minor muck-ups. I found myself thinking, as I touched on in my comments, of mental illness, as someone displaying this sort of behavior here would probably be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder or panic disorder. Going along that path of thought made me wonder if those diagnoses were just societal constructs here in the United States, where we build a fence if we don't like our neighbor instead of moving out. I wondered then what kind of place, if any, those diagnoses had in Japan, and how they might be different. The clip then led me to wonder about the differences in media portrayal of righteous characters - as I said, characters like that are generally painted as a little out of it in American media. It made me wonder how this system of justice affects stereotypes in Japan, as I'm not familiar with them.
I also wondered about the garbage management system itself - a zero-waste environment is a lofty and admirable goal, but A) is it achievable and B) could the system be streamlined at all? Some of the waste that's produced today is extremely hard to break down, and if the Japanese have come up with a way to recycle it, then props to them, but why haven't I heard about it over here? Or, have I heard of it, and does my ignorance pay tribute to the fact that the environment is not at the forefront of many Americans' minds? As far as streamlining goes, the system that's in place seems to work well enough in Japan, but I can't help but wonder if it could be simplified - it seems like an awful lot of work goes in (at least on the civilian end) to keeping the trash separate. However, saying that makes me wonder if I'm only thinking that because of the culture in which I've been raised, where convenience is king.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I chose this post because I felt like every question I asked or answered led me to another line of thought, which (although it doesn't show in the writing) set me off on a huge research binge. I still don't have answers to all the questions I came up with, but I guess that's to be expected. Either way, one simple topic led me to a huge volume of information - and that's something I particularly enjoy.
I have to admit that when I saw the video clip, I laughed. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I, as an American, have been set up to look at ultra-righteous characters as ridiculous and petty. Saying that, however, makes me feel kind of backwards and insensitive, especially given that (as portrayed in the above articles, at least) this sort of upkeeping of rules is a big deal to the Japanese.
I guess this is another cultural divide - It’s a view held by many Americans that they don’t need to worry what other people think about them, so they’re free to do and act as they please. Even though I was aware that much of the Japanese culture is focused on keeping up appearances, I was a bit shocked to learn the extent to which it controlled people’s actions. I get the feeling that someone behaving this way here would be regarded as overly anxious at best and somewhat mentally ill at worst. It makes me wonder how foreigners living in Japan and subject to these new rules of society feel, and conversely, how Japanese living in America (where all these rules don’t exist to the same extent) feel.
As far as the garbage sorting goes, I’ll agree with the poster above me that it sounds quite confusing, especially for people who aren’t used to it, and it makes me wonder if there isn’t a better way to go about sorting the garbage - is all this micromanagement of waste by each household really necessary, or could it be streamlined in any way? Kudos to these towns for their efforts to protect their environments and eliminate waste, however. That’s really something to be commended.