Reading the Japanese Mind: The Realities Behind Their Thoughts and Actions

Who are the Japanese? This question has tantalized and bewildered the West ever since Japan opened its borders to the world in the last century. Are the Japanese really the guileless, polite, and hardworking people that they appear to be? Or do appearances mask a calculating, secretive interior? Can we ever understand their ways of thinking? Robert March - psychologist, management consultant, and long-term professor at a major Tokyo university - spent nearly twenty years living in Japan and, as the ultimate insider, offers fresh insights into these and other questions.
Deploying a wealth of sources, March delves behind the social mask that the Japanese present to the outside world to reveal their "inner culture." He highlights their modes of thinking and communication, the originality of their culture, the central role of social status, their ways of making friends and influencing others, and their addiction to perfection.
March also addresses two topics of prime significance to all students of modern Japan. He reflects on the "goodness" of the Japanese people and the ethical quality of their society and business practices. And in the final chapter, he discusses the social and political significance of Aum Shinrikyo, the bizarre cult responsible for the indiscriminate gas attacks that terrorized Tokyo in 1995.

Robert M. March, Ph.D. was a visiting professor of Japanese studies at the Copenhagen Business School in 1996.