J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

Conflicted Attitudes towards "Violent Groups", a photo by timtak on Flickr.

The seperation between honne (what people really think) and tatemae (the front that one shows others) is something that I find very difficult to cope with, or even to know which is which. Do the Japanese really want to get rid of violent groups, or do they just want to make a show of doings so?

"Violent Groups" are legal and registered in Japan. And yet their members are portrayed as animals in the rather shocking poster above. Perhaps the police feel that they can get away with this portrayal because they have represented themselves as the Puffer Fish bottom right? In any event, the police legally register violent gang members and then berate them as being like pigs and baboons. Call me old fashioned, or English, but this does not seem fair.

The poster says No! to violent groups, reporting the fact that there are now laws against doing business with them. Now the public must be scared of the groups and the law.

Labels: honne, japanese culture, nihonbunka, tatemae, 建前, 日本文化, 本音, 欧米化

# posted by Timtak @ 1:13 PM