The Great Harmony

Majestic palaces, imposing castles, forbidding fortresses, airy arbors; a variety of architectural styles. Writing about structures almost inevitably means focusing on how they look and feel, and no sane writer would ever consider describing foundations lest a piece of creative writing turn into a manual! However, to build a structure, one must lay a foundation, first and foremost. Japan has proven that, even if on a much bigger scale, building a country is not that different.

Country foundations, unlike those built for houses, are made of ideas rather than concrete. Some countries perceive themselves as "a land of opportunities", others focus on prosperity, or safety. Brazil's foundational idea is even immortalized on its national flag bearing the "Ordem e Progresso" (Order and Progress) inscription. Japan had taken it a step further by weaving its raison d'etre into its original name -Yamato (or "Wa" depending on the reading of the kanji). The Great Harmony.

While, contrary to popular beliefs, scientists aren't likely to be able to reconstruct an entire skeleton from a single bone, the essence of Japan can indeed be grokked from one picture featuring a simple bench and an equally simple note: "Please, take a good rest". The picture was taken in Arashiyama, a Kyoto suburb famous for its Otagi Nenbutsu temple. The bench is located on a hilly road leading to the temple - and right across the local Doll Museum. In other words, it sees plenty of tourists passing by, and that's who the note is addressed to - and that's why it's written in English rather than Japanese.

There are many psychological theories discussing particular nuances of human behavior but most of them can be summed up in one sentence: "whatever people do is either to avoid suffering or to increase pleasure". Unlike hedonism reducing pleasure to sensual self-indulgence, such theories (one of them being Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) consider a broader spectrum of incentives, including financial success, sense of achievement and, ultimately, self-esteem. That is, human beings would usually choose to do something that increases their chances to gain money and/or fame, break through or receive a positive feedback. For obvious reasons, none of it applies to the anonymous benefactors of foreign tourists in Arashiyama whose only possible motivation must be to make complete strangers feel a little bit more content. That motivation inevitably implies that there is a connection between strangers' happiness and that of the Good Samaritans - or, at the very least, that the latter believe so.

It is this belief that seems to permeate the Japanese society as a whole and be responsible for every meaningful aspect of Japanese social relationships. If there is a, so-to-say, common pool of happiness everyone can draw from and is entitled to a fair share of, providing that share is tantamount to preserving harmony in the community as a whole - be that community as small as a village, or as big as our world at large. If helping someone is helping everyone, then it suddenly makes perfect sense to treat every customer as a VIP, to change plans and take detours to take care of a stray tourist, or even to jump in unasked upon seeing someone in trouble or just confused. While there might be a certain positive bias towards tourists (who are perceived as more vulnerable because of language limitations), such and similar behavior seems to be ubiquitous within Japanese society as such - simply because it goes beyond one's individual goodness and enters the realm of collective beliefs. And that is, arguably, the most important and impressive of all the plentitude of wonders Japan has produced throughout its long and complex history.