How selfish are Japanese?

[HelloKyoto]

Generally speaking here: Do you think Japanese people are more or less selfish than other South East Asians?

Do you think Japanese culture encourages selfishness?

In your personal experiences, which Asian country is the least selfish? The most?

 

[MajideSaiaku]

Considoring my girlfriend spends the better half of her time worrying about everyone but herself, hardly, but, thats just one japanese individual out of millions so, who knows.

(Really, her selflessness gets annoying sometimes.)

 

[nice gaijin]

most of the japanese people i know put the people close to them (especially their families) first. Everyone has their selfish moments but you really can't generalize an entire nation of people like that.

so I guess to answer your question, neither.

 

[Tim33]

I would not put them down as selfish at all. Ive generally found Japanese people to be extreamly helpful even with no gain to themselves. Its quite hard to find that in England i know that, not impossible, but hard.

Although you cant generallize a whole nation i would have to say the majority of people i met were extreamly nice and so i would say the Majority were really kind and helpful. Everyone has there bad apples.

 

[MajideSaiaku]

Its been beaten to a bloody gorey puply death but, as they sa...

...Japan is made of individuals the same as the rest, there's some god awful punks that sometimes make me feel they quite rightly deserve to be aborted after birth, and then there's the most angelic nice kind folks who wouldnt hurt a butterfly (or run scared from one).

 

[Maciamo]

That's a pretty strange question if you ask me. If you really want to compae with other East Asian countries, it would be better to compare with each country individually. Even so, it's extremely hard to generalise on something as vague and personal as "selfishness" (with whom ? in what situation ?) even in culturally very homogenous countries. Japanese people are known to worry a lot about others, family, friends and clients especially.

But never forget that confucianism values are such that there will always be a hierarchy, and that senior people tend to worry less about junior ones, and in fact expect their junior to respect them and do what they say. That doesn't mean more senior people are necessarily more selfish, as they feel a duty to protect ("mamoru") their junior in exchange. Human relationships are very complex, so your original question is in fact one that would require a whole book to analyse in detail - and there probably wouldn't be any conclusive answer..

 

[lexico]

[1]How selfish are Japanese ?

Generally speaking here:
[2]Do you think Japanese people are more or less selfish than other South East Asians?

[3]Do you think Japanese culture encourages selfishness?

[4]In your personal experiences, which Asian country is the least selfish ? The most ?

"Japanese" is either an adjective of Japan or noun for the language. A referent of an adjective or a language are not considered selfish or generous -- the question would be illogical if read literally. Therefore I prefer to insert a definite article "the" before "Japanese"; the corrected question would become

[1]How selfish are [the] Japanese ?

I agree with posters who feel the question is making a broad generalisation that makes it very difficult to respond to. But to answer your question as best I can, I tend to think in terms of industrialisation, birth, and education instead of selfishness; people from a more industrialised, more capitalistic, more materialistic, or more work-oriented culture might indeed appear colder and more calculating. Also people from extreme poor families, of low birth, under-educated, or with a bad upbringing could also behave like a wolf-boy/girl, but not always.

Koreans make fun of Seoulites, and the Chinese do the same of Shanghainese, that they are selfish. Recently my sister living in Seoul got really, really mad because of her neighbours' uncoureteous behaviour regarding parking and noise. I'd simply say they are city bumpkins of low birth who didn't know any better, but that didn't calm her down--she had suffered for some time !

I think the other questions all suffer from not being specific enough; although there may be various reasons why certain Japanese people you've met or discussed by others appeared really annoying, to generalise on that might be unfair at least from the scope of your questions. I'd like to suggest being a bit more specific; for example if you had asked,

"Are the Japanese as a nation selfish enough to care about their atomic bomb victims and to try to sue the US for war crimes while neglecting the sufferings of the victims of Imperial Japan, refusing to give individual apologies, not giving fair court rulings, and denying their right to be compensated ?"

Then my answer would have been "The Modern Japanese as a nation represented by their gov't officials and individually as voters who put them there have been absolutely and undeniably selfish indeed in that area of modern history, and I can prove it beyond doubt."

 

[Davey]

my girlfriend also think of other people first, sometimes to much if you ask me. but isnt the Japanese society like that? think about other people? or is it more about not being differnt from others?

 

[Dharma]

I really agree with Maciamo. How would you define "Selfish"? In fact, sometimes too much caring about the others also could be interpretted as "selfish". Is the love between men and women selfish? Even mostly I should say in Asia, the love from parents to their children sometimes could be seen as "selfish". Possessive love could always cause pain and conflict.

One could write a book about it. Selfish is un-comparable, just like Love, unless we are starting like this: " In order to .... I am going to build a model/Formula to observe this specific issue....only assume the following conditions remain unchanged or do not play a part in my model-analysis...."

 

[gaijinalways]

Maciamo and Lexico are both correct in saying the question is vague as to the situation and how we define someone is selfish. Some Japanese have been very helpful, but in general I would say that they are much more helpful to people they know. In that sense, they may be seen as selfish as they may pass up helping someone who they don't know even if it would take a minimal effort. But to be honest, in a big city, many people might fit this bill, but I would say Asians are more likely to look at a person's perceived relation to themselves before helping someone (then compared to most Western Europeans and North Americans).

As to helping someone in 'their' group, often very sharing and helpful.

 

[budd]

enryo and gaman is some baloney
she is not gone do nothing but waste my whole night and nothing is gonna happen, nor do i want it to happen cause she is crazy plus look like grover from sesame street and is highly nationalistic to boot. but i need her for other things
oh well, she always pays for dinner.