Japanese are a good-natured people, presumably because they have had little contact with aliens in their long history. Also having lived on their small islands in a frugal way with what little Nature could offer, Japanese are not rapacious by nature. But this good naturalness is sometimes carried to the extreme and no doubt gives the impression that the Japanese are a people of rather infantile mentality.
Recently a Japanese trading firm invited one of their British associates to visit Japan, as usual with all expenses paid by the host. While in Tokyo the visitor, a chronic diabetes patient, fell ill and was taken to a foremost hospital. Upon hearing the news, his wife, who happened to be in Australia at the time, flew to Tokyo to see her husband. In the meantime the hospital attendants had taken scrupulous care in their efforts to keep the patient on a strict diet. When the man's wife arrived and saw that he was craving certain things to eat, she gave them to him without the hospital attendants' knowledge. The patient's condition worsened and he died. His wife then took issue with the hospital, and blamed the host company for failing to look after her husband properly while he was a guest in Japan. The company officials did not refute the allegation the woman had made, or even if they had, not sufficiently. The company, I hear, paid to this demanding woman a considerable amount of money as a solatium.
Side by side with good naturalness, emotionalism can also be cited as a characteristic of the Japanese people. The Japanese have been taught to remember indebtedness. If someone was kind to them at some time or other, the recipients of the kindness are expected not only to remember but also are expected to repay the kindness in some form or other whenever an opportunity presents itself. Apart from this sense of gratefulness, the Japanese are an extremely touchy people and are easily moved by emotionalism. When a Japanese athlete wins in some event in the Olympic Games, Japanese spectators almost always have tears in their eyes. When a Japanese team loses in some highly competitive game, the team members often weep and bewail themselves and make an emotional crisis out of it.
I still remember a pathetic scene at a railway station in Sendai many years ago when the American occupation came to an end. On the platform there were hundreds of young Japanese girls who had worked as maid-servants for the American occupation personnel's families of a military camp near the city. These girls were all in tears—weeping and sobbing and some were even wailing, as the American military train slowly pulled out of the station. None of the girls smiled at their former employers. It was a sad and tearful farewell bordering on a wake. In fact, just before the train departed, I saw on the platform not a few American housewives, gently patting the Japanese girls on the back, entreating them not to cry. It was like a mother trying to silence a crying baby. No wonder General MacArthur opined that Japanese had the mentality of 12 year olds.
Putting aside MacArthur for a moment, the Japanese as a whole feel a deep inferiority complex toward foreigners, especially Caucasians. However much the Japanese may disclaim this, an inferiority complex is so ingrained in their character that it often manifests itself in their daily life.
Recently my wife told me of her experience while traveling on a Japanese airliner bound for Europe. Sitting next to my wife, who is native Japanese, was a European man who looked to her like an Englishman. A Japanese stewardess who was in charge of the cabin, made a point of offering drinks, food, and cigarettes to this European passenger first, and then to my wife. My wife told me that this gentleman himself was visibly embarrassed by the stewardess' unchivalrous etiquette. No wonder the Japanese airline advertises its "pampering" service. "Pampering" is all right, but it is limited to Caucasian passengers!
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