Are the Japanese different?

A group of tourists watch the sun rise from the top of Japan's iconic Mount Fuji. STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe disaster has put the global spotlight on Japanese culture, for good and for illJapan's volcanic geography shaped its culture, as limited land fostered tight communitiesThe vagueness of Japanese language has raised criticisms in the nuclear disaster"This can be a very good opportunity to awake and to realize we need to start changing" (CNN) -- As the nuclear crisis mounted in Japan after the one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami, announcements on the public address system at Go Watanabe's Tokyo office last week became increasingly strident.

"The first day it was, 'You may go home'," said Watanabe, a 33-year-old employee at Sumitomo Corp. "On the second day it was, 'You better go home'. By the third day, it was, 'Go home'." Yet Watanabe stayed at the office as late as 2 a.m. each night to finish reports as the March end of the fiscal year loomed.

Watanabe's diligence at his desk in the face of national crisis exemplifies Japan's legendary work ethic. (After all, this is a nation recognizes karoshi -- death by overwork -- as a legal cause of death.) But the three-fold disasters facing the world's third largest economy has put the global spotlight on Japan and its culture, for good and for ill. Underlining much of the coverage seems to be this question:

"The Japanese love to say it themselves -- this Nihonjinron thing, talking about 'we Japanese'," said historian John Dower, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II." "The Japanese are always stressing their uniqueness ... but the very topic is fraught with peril."

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