Japanese culture

The first chapter I read in Global Society: Introducing Five contemporary Societies, Third Edition by Linda Schneider and Arnold Silverman, entitled “Japan: A Conforming Culture,” It appears on pages 3 through 66.
Japan is a society in crisis. It is a culture that is highly resistant to change; a society that places a high value on each member’s conformity within highly structured layers of Japanese society. Japan is an island nation, consisting of the four large islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. Together they are approximately the size of Germany or the State of California, and it has a population of approximately 126 million people (3).
Japan has a large population in relation to its land mass and as a consequence most Japanese people live crowded together in an urban corridor squeezed along the eastern edge of the Japanese islands. A result of this crowding is that Japanese place a high value on public harmony and the avoidance of any conflict, especially in ...