When I first saw my home town, it dawned on me that the Japanese are strongly traditional. It never really hit me till I saw the shrine from a distance...it's barely changed. What do you think?
----Shigeru
Shigeru----
Do you really think that Japanese society is so strongly traditional? Maybe you see these aspects of it, because you are home in Japan after such a long time away, and you're looking for things you knew once, things you know because you've sort of distilled a Japan in yourself away from Japan, things Westerners say about Japan.
Oversimplifying and stereotyping are always risks for the observer, even for someone observing his or her own culture: Americans tend to stereotype other people, and I often say to them: remember, when you do that about other people you're also doing it about ourselves.
