My Western friend says that I'm a nice and polite Eastern girl, who's more respectful in general, and that I should give him tips on how to improve. Actually, I'm lying. Again. But he is really convinced that the cultural difference between the Western him and the Eastern me is that which leads to my being more respectful to the people around me; he is convinced that a more respectful society essentially means a better and more orderly environment. Really?Are Easterners really more polite and respectful?Is that what makes our society a better one in that respect?See. That's what I always seem to do. What was originally a single statement, has been magically changed into a series of questions. Why can't I just answer the question as it is? Why do I always insist on asking more questions out of the question? I complicate things don't I?You know what? I really am not into doing the writing analysis thing in my blog. In fact, I'm not into doing the writing analysis thing at all. Plus, I'm not too intellectual to boot, so I'm afraid I'm not able to do an insightful linear dissertation on the above topic at all. But what I can do is to list down some observations on the above topic, and you intelligent readers can make your own conclusions.Let's 'observe' Japan. Japan is the mose polite and tolerant Eastern society in, well, the whole world, and it is also one of the most ******* and *********. In developing and third world countries like Thailand and wherever else, one big reason why the sex and drug industry flourishes is due to the incredible poverty that has the country in its stronghold, so people sell what they have to sell and are able to grow for money. But in Japan, the country that brought porn places it's never been before (pardon the pun), people eat sashimi off naked women who are strategically covered, girls sell their used underwear online, schoolgirls have sex with older working men and star in porn movies for extra pocket money, and it's also the place when the concept of love hotels was, erh, spawned. And although usually demure and gentle, the sporadic acts of violences that do take place are truly violent and all the more so horrific because they were chillingly pre-planned and methodically executed in a usually gentle environment. As opposed to random senseless violence which just happened because it did. Which is a lot of times the case in horribly violent acts of violence in the 'Western' world.
Moving on, if we're talking about cultures and values, the differences and the gaps between the two main cultures and societies are becoming less as the world becomes smaller. In fact, it's happened years ago. American Idol is no longer the sole property of America and Korean drama serials are enjoyed everywhere else in the world. So is there any real difference left, really?What am I saying? I am being silly, of course there still are cultural differences, which are too many to list down and I don't want to even start.One main difference that I can think of is, guns and drugs has yet to be accepted as a way of life or part of the package of men's "unalienable rights". In fact, in some countries, you literally dies if you're found with any one of the above-mentioned two items on you. (They even even kill you twice over if you are found with both on you!)That is assuming they catch you, and by they, I mean the people who are legally allowed to put you behind bars and hang you. And no matter how good a policing system you have, some invariably will get away, because they know magic and can disappear into thin air or by some other methods. Whatever it is, violence and chaos will stay, as long as we still have human beings existing. (Or even monkeys for that matter, because we have taught monkeys how to shoot guns.) It's a problem from almost the beginning of time. I mean, it wasn't too long after God made everything and declared that "It is all beautiful" before the first murder took place. And I'm convinced even before Adam and Eve, dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the earth because they all ate one another up. (I'll tell you more about that another time. Remind me to.) So really, the problems seems to be people.Seriously, even if we suddenly become God and we get to re-boot whole societies build them up from scratch again, making right all the things that were done wrong, there is still no promise of a perfect place. I mean, we had a good example of the post-Ark age. Down came the water, and washed the evil people out, and where are we today still? I mean, since then, we've created things to kill bigger numbers of more people in shorter times! So I think we can forget trying that idea out again.So, having said so much, what is the conclusion? I don't really know. Why don't you tell me?
