Q. Tell me about Japanese characters.

Question: Mary JONES (Australia)

A. Do you know a famous joke representing written characters of some nations? Just before the Titanic sunk, the captain was letting women and children get into the boats, explaining the following to the adult male passengers.

To British: Gentlemen, we save women and children first. To Americans: As you save women and children first, you can be a hero. To Germans: This is a rule. To Japanese: Everyone is doing this.

This is a good joke expressing one of characteristics of the Japanese. Japanese don't express much themselves. They are not good at taking a leadership role and tend to follow the leader. This may be easy to understand when you see Prime Minister KOIZUMI following President BUSH. Another characteristic is that Japanese gather among themselves, often making it difficult for non-Japanese to join a Japanese group.

Diligence may be also counted. Japanese tend to work hard in any situation and do their job accurately. On the contrary, Japanese lack creativitity. Japanese are known to be good at improving things, but not good at inventing. The primary factors behind these Japanese characteristics seem to have been created from the fact that Japanese are an almost homogeneous race.

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