I think that Japanese society is very violent. I get a sense that people are under enormous stress here and are always able to snap and become extremely violent if pushed far enough. I think that this is a a characteristic of Japanese society, in which self-restraint is considered admirable, but that rigteous fury when you have been pushed to far is also allowed. (See, for example, the story of the 47 Ronin.) The trouble is that people keep a lid on things so long that the only reaction to a perceived trespass are no reaction or an explosion. Recently, because of 10 years of recession, people seem to be under more stress than usual and more likely to explode with less provocation. This happens a lot among children and young persons nowadays. No one seems to know how to deal with friction in society except by exploding.

I don't know where people get the idea that Japanese are non-violent. This is only government policy.

I find the number of nine deaths by knife pretty hard to believe. You hear about knife attacks all the time in Tokyo.

Japanese society is also very racist/nationalist. I believe that many Japanese consider themselves superior to Koreans, Chinese and other Asians. This was part of the wartime indoctrination in an attempt to provide a foundation for Japan's conquest of Asia, but I think these ideas are still very prevalent. They certainly consider themselves genetically distinct from other Asians. Japanese are extremely concerned about racial purity.

And when most of the population in a country is relatively poor, they shift their "anger" elsewhere, in our case, possibly hate crimes.

I remember just 2 or 3 years ago, there was mass riot in Indonesia to kill off Chinese decendants because the people "thought" the Chinese decendant are hogging all the resources and financial power.

An example of "developing country at later stage" would be Singapore, South Korea, HK and Taiwan, where almost every standards to qualify these countries to be a "developed" country are there, but some are still not there yet. Is Indoneia a developing country? Definately yes, but no where near the "later stage". Are they building high rise building? Yes, but only the few and elite can afford them.

An example of "developed" country in Asian would be Japan, who's also a member in G-7 (or is it G-10 now)

quote:

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an under-developed country cannot afford the education for their citizen, and that make all the difference

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A school is more a less a miniature community or society, in which we learn what are acceptable and what aren't an acceptable behaviours through books , courses or lectures.

We also learn how to best interact with peers, how to be popular, how to be nice, and how not to be "a pain in the ass" for others.

While some of the learning we do by ourselves, some others are "taught" by elders.

And you think school does not have the slightless trace of "social engineering"? What school do you go to? Does your teachers not teach you right and wrong, punish you for doing the wrong thing? You make school sound like a anarchy type of place, where total freedom flourish, no rules or guidelines are enforce, and everything goes. Man, let me tell you, that ain't a good education system. Hell, a place like that would be the exact replicate of "Lord of the fly"!

Prior to starting 7th grade, I moved from Adelphi, Md to Columbia, Md and entered public school. Blacks, hispanics, whites ... wow! It was damn near overwhelming being with so many people who weren't white. Oh, sure, I'd known some black kids from my old neighborhood, but for the most part, the black kids and the white kids didn't play together -- except for the occasional social gathering our parent's dragged us to.

Not so at Wilde Lake Middle School. Did the teachers try and teach social behavior? Well, they didn't really have to, aside for arranging seating assignments so that you didn't have all the white kids on the left side, the latinos in the middle, and the blacks on the other side.

Social interaction between races is the key to eliminating racism (and, hopefully, homophobia, too). Look at the movie Remember the Titans. It was based on a true story -- except, in real life, the black kids and the white kids were best of friends and tight as a team could be after the football camp -- the movie stretches that out a bit.

"We also learn how to best interact with peers..."

That's a rather difficult thing to explain to someone, considering that interaction is different w/ every single person...

"...how to be popular..."

That's a horrible horrible thing to teach a child.

"...how to be nice, and how not to be 'a pain in the ass' for others."

That's the sort of thing parents are supposed to teach their kids before they even start school.

And PUNISHING right and wrong acts is very VERY different between TEACHING the difference between right and wrong.

I went to public school, and I survived just fine. I ALSO had strict but generally fair parents. They also happened to be teachers in another school district, so I got a double-shot of education.