Coolness and Anti-foreigner (Lin Te Kuan)

Japan is not a country being famous for passionate but coolness and somehow
anti-foreigner. As living in Japan for almost five months, I gradually find out these
things. Though people tend to blame Japanese for these things, but I find out some

reasons for them that I believe we should respect instead of blame.
Coolness is another adjective that people use to describe Japanese. Japanese
are generally polite and cool. Some people say that Japanese only do that to
foreigners, but that’s not true. Coolness is just the way Japanese handle emotions.
They are also cool other to Japanese. For example, Studying in Japan make me realize
how hard it is to make friends with Japanese. They are polite to me and always smile
to me, but I can feel that it is all on the surface, they are not really open their hearts
to me. I was frustrated until some Japanese told me that this is common because
they also do that between Japanese and Japanese. I little by little understand that
Japanese are just modest, and there is no right or wrong about it. We all know that
Japanese are rational, so it really makes sense that they are cool.
Japan is also known for a country not really welcome foreigners. As a foreign
student in the Japanese university, I sometimes feel not belong to the school
because I am a foreigner. Though feeling not good, I can still comprehend it. I think
this also reasonable. Japan is a nation emphasize on group instead of individual. They
encourage people to fit in rather than stand out. So Japan is a harmonious and
peaceful society, everything happen in a low-profile way. As a nation values inner
groups, it doesn’t surprising to me that they are anti-foreigners.
Furthermore, I take pressure as a big reason for coolness and anti-foreigners.
Japan is a small country with huge ambition. Japan has scarce resourced but still is
one of the strongest industrial and technology countries in the world. In this kind of
circumstance, there is no doubt that Japanese are in great pressure every day. Surely
they are cool to a lot of things. And in order to achieve such a big goal, Japanese
need order to help them regulate every one and make sure every person is doing his
or her job right. Then of course they need people to attach importance to groups. As
a consequence, Japanese, with such big pressure, are cool to other things happening
around them, because they don’t have time and mind to take care of other things.
And it would be better not to get in to any mess. This sounds maybe bad but I can
understand why Japanese act in this way, for one big reason: pressure.
People tend to criticize but forget to find out the reasons for these weird things.
I believe looking things in a different way can help me see things in a diverse way.
And because of that, I can appreciate Japanese attitude and ways of doing things.
Though they are not all good, but I still think this is parts of the culture and is cool.