Japanese ideology and culture

[ssslll]

I'm doing a questionnaire for my college project to find out peoples opinions on japanese ideology and culture.
Could anyone please give me some suggestions on what questions I could ask?

[pipokun]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsJGABoziAk&NR
Riot, Japanese National Railways in 1973
Background
Criminal incidents
...
As such, the relationship with labor unions was always a difficult problem of JNR. Since public workers were prohibited to strike, they carried out "work-to-rule protests" that caused trains delay. On March 13, 1973, delays of trains caused by such protests resulted in a riot of angered passengers at Ageo Station in Saitama Prefecture (Ageo incident)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_National_Railways

Japan Railway was privatised 20 years ago.
I have never met any strikes of public transportaion and I don't know how lazy the Japan National Railways was, but the French strike is a catchy topic now, so how about a question why the Japanese transporters or passangers become tamed ideologically?

Mizuho Fukushima, a leader of quite a small party, SDPJ (former Socialist party), went to Europe for her summer vacation while ex-PM Abe did not take any vacation and got sick.
She loudly claims that we have the horrible rich-poor gap and the tax revenue has extremely decreased since the bubble economy. But I suppose the party would have claimed "the bubble must be the cause of evils" then.

In the early 70', a female member was killed by other members of Japan Red Amy, the notorious far-left terrorist organisaiton, just because she wore a ring which was not supposed to be inappropriate for their revolution.
It was merely lucky that there had been no war-on-terror then.

A question idea: Why did SDPJ or the far-left lost popularity?

I do not have any data, but I suppose Japan was the country where most universities taught Marx economics outside communist countries.
There still remains the schools, though the government trys to find a way to be a leading financial centre like your country...
Waseda University
Welcome to FUJIMORI Laboratory !
http://www.fujimori.cache.waseda.ac.jp/index-e.html
Keio University
Welcome to The Home Page of Mitsuru Nobuchika
sorry, Japanese page only
http://www.econ.keio.ac.jp/staff/nobu/index.html
And more...

[amazingjapan]

Nice information, tnx:)

[Glenski]

Japanese (or any other country's) ideology
Japanese (or any other country's) culture

Two topics that are massive and need further paring down in order to do any sort of decent surveys.

What specifically are you interested in?

[centrajapan]

Can you use chop sticks?

[Tollen]

ssslll's last actiity = nov 29th the day he created his user name... time waster methinks...never mind a stupid question
recommend it gets locked

[ssslll]

Thank you for helping pipokun I hadn't considered politics or the law but I could include a more general question on these topics to see what people know about events in japan.

Thanks for your response Glenski, I want to keep the questions quite general as I don't think the people in my class will have much detailed knowledge of japan but I think I want to ask about japanese conventions, behaviour and religion. I'm not sure about arranging the questions or what to ask to get the best answers.

Sorry if its a stupid question i didn't realise how vague I was being!

[nice gaijin]

You could also keep it on the light side and ask about food. It's interesting how many different interpretations of Japanese food there are in different countries.

[GodEmperorLeto]

I'd definitely suggest paring your topic down to a very specific time period. I see you are from England, so I'd suggest asking people from a number of age brackets specific questions regarding Japanese military ethics and ideology during the Second World War. You'll probably get a lot of responders. It's a controversial topic, and everyone has an opinion. Ask questions and provide responses for them to chose from.

Example:

Statement: The Japanese deserved the atomic bomb dropped on them.

a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Undecided
d) Disagree
e) Strongly Disagree

Question: Do you think Japanese military effectively controlled Japan during most of the early 20th century?

a) Strongly Agree
b) Agree
c) Undecided
d) Disagree
e) Strongly Disagree


I wouldn't ask these EXACT questions, I'd refine them a bit. There's plenty of resources for you on this specific topic as well that I can suggest.

Another topic you can focus on is Japanese business ethics and ideology. There is a massive corpus of literature on the subject that you can dig up at the library focusing on the economic "miracle" of Japan, the bursting bubble in the 90s, and Western businesses' fears regarding the "yellow menace". Nice gaijin also mentioned food, which is also fascinating and an interesting topic to pursue.

But simply focusing on Japanese ideology and mentality as a whole? It would take a team of sociologists an entire lifetime to write even a brief and sussinct 7-volume, 10,000+ page treatise on the subject. Whittle it down to something bite-size you can handle. It will also be helpful if you target a specific topic that is tailored to your major (like food if it is culinary arts, or if your major is business or economics, follow the Japanese economic ethics angle).

[Glenski]

Thanks for your response Glenski, I want to keep the questions quite general as I don't think the people in my class will have much detailed knowledge of japan but I think I want to ask about japanese conventions, behaviour and religion. I'm not sure about arranging the questions or what to ask to get the best answers.
Sorry if its a stupid question i didn't realise how vague I was being!
Well it is pretty vague. Consider what sort of vague and general response you would give if someone asked you what your own culture's "ideology" was? Personally, I'd say "on what"?

Japanese conventions?
Eating conventions? Holiday conventions? Business? You're gonna have to be more precise.

Behavior?
When? Where? In what sort of situations? Primary school classrooms? Meeting people for the first time? At a funeral? Waiting for a bus? When one is drunk? On a date? The list is almost endless.

Religion.
This is probably the most precise point, but only because there aren't that many religions here. People will tell you the most common ones are Shintoism and Buddhism, but they are also so nondescript as to be almost nonexistent to many Japanese. Not everyone holds a Shinto wedding, but they have their customs. Buddhist monks/priests conduct funerals. I think that Christians number about 1% of Japanese, and a simple web search would verify that and other details. Just what is it you want to know about "religion" in Japan?

my college project to find out peoples opinions on japanese ideology and culture. Whose opinions are you interested in? Foreigners living here? Foreigners who only visit? Foreigners who have never visited? Japanese people? Japanese who travel abroad a lot, or not at all? People married to Japanese or not? College students (foreign or Japanese)?

You gotta narrow down this survey to something manageable, or the data is almost meaningless.

[moyashi]

Interesting that such issues like this are never brought up over here.
More interesting topic would be what the TARENTO are doing ...

Oh well ...

[ssslll]

Thanks for helping everyone! I think I should make separate surveys for the different aspects of Japanese culture? As I realise now there is a lot to ask on each.