Discipline and Manners
Three days into a trip in Japan and my mother and I were sitting in a coffee shop in Kyoto. In came a foreigner (meaning, a white woman) with two kids. I knew they were trouble, the sort of children to whom everything–including bad behavior–is “explained,” which seems to be a trend in child-rearing these days. The younger child, a girl, had a tendency to scream, to which her mother said, “Now, do you think this is a place where it is okay to scream? If you scream, you will have to play outside.”
The girl kept screaming.
After the third screaming, my mother, ever the ferocious enforcer when she wants to be, turned around and said quite sharply (and in English) “Hey! Stop it! This is Japan. You do not scream in Japan. That is not acceptable.”
Everyone–including me–was stunned. The girl was stunned. Her older brother, her tormenter who had been the cause of the screaming, was stunned. He even tried to defend his sister, but my mother turned her steely eyes on him and said, “No. You do not scream here. That does not work. End of story.” And, really, even though Japan has seriously changes since the Showa era and I don’t get the dog-and-MILF-thing, at least the kids don’t scream.
I felt sorry for the foreign mother. She looked harried, like she was just looking for some place to rest for, oh, fifteen minutes so she could caffeine it up a bit. I thought that her kids looked mixed–like me–but that she was divorced or separated. She did not seem married. Her daughter looked wild. None of them apologized. They just ate as quickly as possible and departed. The Japanese in the coffee shop pretended to ignore the whole thing. I was embarrassed. I hate being the center of attention. I like observing. But . . . I was secretly and enormously proud of my mother. Very proud of her to try to battle social ills and try to set them straight. I love that about her.
At the same time, it can be so unsettling to see your own children publicly scolded like that by a stranger. There have been times in Japan when I’ve had the impulse to stop someone from doing something embarrassing. What are your experiences? What do you think?
I’m not quite sure what it is about foreign (meaning white, usually American) parents in Japan and their lack of ability to control their kids. I’ve seen this many times where the parents either try the ‘explain’ technique or the ‘ignore’ technique and the kids just don’t care. One time in particular was in a coffee shop in Kichijoji where the kid was loud, rude, obnoxious, and the parent didn’t do anything and just chose to act like nothing was happening.
The part that I don’t quite understand is that I’ve seen this behavior more in Japan than America. Do foreign kids feel that since they’re different, they can do whatever they want?
May 14th, 2008 at 12:28 amHere in Dallas Texas I had to do Tobanu, <-I think thats how you spell it, for the Dallas Japanese Association - Japanese School which has pre-K and up to High School. What does that mean. Well because we pay for my kids to go to Japanese school on Saturdays we have to contribute one Saturday every now and then to basically police it. We make sure kids do not run in the hallways and copy papers for the teachers, and assist with little tasks here and there. Once and a while we (meaning the parents serving)are asked to go out and watch kids play. I had such a responsibility and was told to keep kids away from the ditch on the other side of the field. So I did that. I stood there watching children play on their break and then it happened. Side note: most of these kid’s parents work for a major Japanese company here in Dallas and they bring their kids here and usually stay for a few years then migrate back. While So here they come a group of boys and I was standing next to the ditch with my arms crossed. I could tell these Japanese boys were going to the ditch and I looked at them and yelled, “Back away from the ditch! You might do that with other parents, but not today!” Funny, their faces went pale and they backed up where my son was quietly who new better. He was standing far away from the ditch.” So funny to see those boys act as though they never heard a voice of authority coming out of an adult stranger. My son told them “…Thats my Dad guys! Don’t mess around.” They then never came back and played peacefully.
Kelly
May 14th, 2008 at 2:01 amDallas, TX
Japanese children don’t scream, this is Japan, well I don’t know which Japan you live in but in my Japan the children scream and mostly very loud. For five years the younger boy living next to him screamed most of the day but he’s moved on or grown up a little. The child opposite has now taken over the role. I live on a street with many mothers and young children coming and going, and sometimes screaming.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:29 amFrom my observations, many, most Japanese parents don’t try to control their children or scold them preferring to leave them to work things out.
I have never seen a parent scold their children but just try to keep them safe. Actually none of these screaming kids bother me, why should it? I believe even in the schools the kids are a lot more noisy than may be found in western schools but don’t quote me, I’ve never been in a Japanese school, and its tens of years since I have been in an English.
I think there was a recent court case in Tokyo when the parents of a screaming child had to pay compensation to an upset neighbor.
This is a scene that could only take place in Japan. I don’t know about screaming, but one thing I do know: scolding another person’s children is not acceptable in America. No matter how tyrannical the children are, that is such a high offense I’ve seen people come to physical blows over a “Shhh”. That’s not to say a large percentage of American children don’t need it. Some children are their parent’s masters, and I’ve seen children curse and hit their parents if they are refused a candy bar.
Though I will say even in America it varies within specific cultures. I am usually wary of sweeping generalizations, but in my own experience, children of certain ethnic backgrounds tend to behave more appropriately (in the presence of their parents) than others.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:25 amThis sort of Nihonjinron does nothing to promote any sort of mutual understanding.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:42 am“I thought…that she was divorced or separated. She did not seem married.”
Um, how exactly does someone “look” married? And what was it about her that gave you the “idea” that she was divorced or separated?
May 14th, 2008 at 8:56 amIt’s not acceptable to scream in Japan, but apparently it is acceptable to drive your van around public areas with loudspeakers blaring.
I agree with your mom that parents need to police their kids better. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to say that to people.
However, there’s a bit of cultural hypocrisy in her saying, “Don’t do ______ in Japan,” when I’m sure I can find all kinds of ridiculous and annoying stuff Japanese people do both in Japan and abroad, if I really wanted to.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:45 amThe whole post is a waste of time.
What exactly is cultural-specific to: 1. screaming kids, 2. exasperated parents, 3. people feeling put off in a public place by a parent that does not discipline his/her kids???
And yeah: what exactly is the physical description of a person who “does not seem married”????
May 14th, 2008 at 10:46 am“And yeah: what exactly is the physical description of a person who “does not seem married”????”
It’s a fair question, and you rationalists can throw it out of the post if you would like. I won’t be hurt. All I can say is that it was a sixth sense sort of thing–like Mrs. JP just “knowing” about her garlic. The woman had this atmosphere of being unsupported and the expression on her face was almost like she was in grief, or something.
Often, when you look at people on the street, you can see if they have a settled quality or not–in the if they have a stable relationship at home quality or not. She didn’t have it.
If the entire post is a waste of time for you, why, then did you even bother to respond? Which country are in you in at present?
And yes, Vin and Mike, I’m not sure I would have confronted the kids myself, but a part of me was glad that she did. And, again, I don’t recall ever being in a public space like that and hearing a Japanese child repeatedly (over 4) scream repeatedly.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pmonce a young boy threw a snowball at me while I was standing waiting for my wife outside a shop in Tatebayashi.
She spotted the kid as she came out and made haste in pursuit.
Upon catching up with him she knocked him to the ground with couple of heavy blows to the head, and then started lecturing him…just then the mother turned up, and lo and behold happened to be an old school friend of my wife’s..well then it got really exciting, because the mother started kicking and cursing the young miscreant
After lots of apologies and tears from the boy we went about our shopping.
of course this happened way out in culturally unsophisticated Gunma quite a few years ago now but I thin things haven’t changed that much.
All-in-all it was a good post Marie..As I once advised you - don’t get het up about it.
remora
May 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pmMay 14th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Though I am sure we could all start trotting out our favorite stories about obnoxious kids, parental discipline, and pure Zen moments that we have encountered at one time or another everywhere from Tokyo to Timbuktu, the fact remains that isolated personal experiences do not necessarily constitute social trends.
Anyone who says that kids above a certain age in today’s Japan do not scream, or act obnoxious, or misbehave, or do whatever in public has never been on a train transporting Japanese youngsters on a school field trip.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:58 pmBy the way I tried the natto on ice cream. It was lovely however my wife will not get near it.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm1. All I can say is that it was a sixth sense sort of thing–like Mrs. JP just “knowing” about her garlic. The woman had this atmosphere of being unsupported and the expression on her face was almost like she was in grief, or something.
My response: Maybe the woman was exhausted after hours alone with an unruly kid? Do you have children, Marie? Do you know what it’s like to spend a few hours with a child who is in a bad mood?
2. Often, when you look at people on the street, you can see if they have a settled quality or not–in the if they have a stable relationship at home quality or not. She didn’t have it.
My response: When I look at people on the street, I can see to some extent what mood they happen to be in at the moment. Nor I nor you can divine whether they have a stable relationship or not from that. Sheesh!
3. If the entire post is a waste of time for you, why, then did you even bother to respond? Which country are in you in at present?
I wrote a comment in response to your post for one simple reason: I am hoping that my response will prevent other “sixth-sense” type nonsense posts from ruining what is otherwise a highly informative and interesting blog site.
Thanks for reading!
May 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pmNo problem Kudan. I won’t ruin your site! You are free to, and I assume capable, of skipping anything I write.
And while what you say is plausible Kudan, and while I agree that my sixth sense response is going to sound lame to someone like you, that’s how it appeared to me. It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t have a sense of how people, particularly women, might be feeling when you see them in public, that you might be, say, KY.
And again, where are you? And when was the last time you were in the States?
I still maintain kids are overall better behaved in Japan in a very general way. Ed and Kudan, I doubt you’ve spent much time in the US recently–if at all–to be able to really see how social behavior is over here. That’s part of what drove the observation and post. And of course an isolated experience isn’t much of proof of anything.
And no, Ed, I haven’t been on such a field trip. But do come to New York for a day in the subway and you will see a marked difference in behavior. You have been overseas for so long, that you don’t have a realistic sense of how things have changed over here. And it’s entirely fair to say that I haven’t lived in Japan long enough at all to speak with the experience that you do, but you most certainly have not lived with experiences here recently. You cannot imagine the noise level, the “I need to be so let me sing, yack, whatever” that takes place in public.
Finally, if I’m not mistaken, these videos are in rather noisy public spaces, and intended to be funny. I am not talking about an outdoor public space, or kids making “general happy chatter” on a train. I’m talking about a rather quiet eating establishment in which one child occasionally lets out a piercing scream.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:52 pmOh brother. Marie, you seem like a snob and a mamma’s girl. Get over it. Kid’s all over the world scream. I’ve seen a lot of bratty, psycho kids in Japan.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:12 pmThanks for posting, Gavin. Hope you stick around as Japundit always needs new commenters. Please tell us about your experiences in Japan. Congrats on passing your test.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:50 pmEdward is right to say that isolated incidents do not speak volumes about entire societies, but I do agree with Marie in principle.
I have not lived in Japan for years, but when I have spent time there (and I have been all over the country) the children do appear to be relatively well behaved. Yes, of course they scream and throw temper-tantrums. But I’ve seen a lot worse in many other countries.
Marie’s comments on the “explaining” are interesting, because I’ve heard the same from American friends. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point the idea that you should try to “reason” with badly behaving kids took hold in a lot of families. Some years ago a female correspondant for The Times wrote on this subject, starting off with an example of how at she had dinner with friends and their five-year old son was allowed to not just eat with the adults but also curse and spit at the woman, as well as generally cause havoc. The father had a “talk” with the child and he kept doing the same thing.
This was an example, not the total substance of the piece - there was more detail on how such dangerous thinking had spread amongst the American middle classes. I do not know what the situation is like now, but clearly there are too many parents who try to avoid the responsibilities of parenting by pretending that talking to their kids like adults will solve anything.
lilah, I don’t know if you were saying whether you thought it was ok or not, but if a child was spoiling my meal (restaurants are normally the place of trouble) I would make a point to the parents. And if fights start because of that then it says something about the parents themselves.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pmI think it’s well established by now that people can throw anecdotes back and forth all day. That said, is there any quantitative measure of “politeness” or consideration anyway? I’m now approaching a year in Japan and have lived 30 years in the U.S., 3 years in the U.K. and 2 years in the South Pacific. My overall impression is that the Japanese - in general - are more polite, and more concerned with manners and public behavior than those in the U.S. and U.K. I’m on the train and in public every day and while there are things which are annoying and there may be a trend towards a less polite society (judging by what I’ve read here and elsewhere), it is still more polite and considerate. I hear “sumimasen” all the time, people regularly bow in apology, and while teenagers the world over are not what the older generations would like, here they pale in comparison to what you find in U.S. and U.K. malls and other public spaces. And to the best of my recollection, I can’t recall a kid here (in Japan) screaming his or her head off in a restaurant or any other public space and I see kids here all the time.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:21 amThis is funny, because it’s been my experience that young kids in Japan are at least as unruly as they are in the US. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been run into, stared at, prodded, or watched all sorts of unruly behavior in Japan, all with the parents looking on and not saying a word. When I’ve asked, I always heard about the “when they get older, there will be so many rules, so we let them have fun without rules”. That’s an excuse, nothing more.
But in all honesty, your mother seems to believe in the myth of orderly Japan, like your old post about manners on the train. Any time I’ve talked to anyone above 40, they always tell stories about the chaos, disorder and bad manners that were prevalent when they were younger, even as they insist that young kids these days are so much worse. It’s not true, they’re just the ones in the authority position now.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:25 amOh, this is a really interesting point, RTN (no surprise, coming from you). And, yes, I remember all the pointing and staring, especially when I was younger. Not exactly “polite.”
Recently, I was at the Tokyo National Museum and a guy just walked up to me and asked, “Are you a gaijin? Or Japanese? You’re just very tall.” Just like that. And I said, “Gee, I don’t know. It’s tough to say.” And I also, like you, remember hearing mothers talk about spoiling their children because the kids will have a tough life as adults–I often heard this reasoning applied to the way in which the first born son in a family was treated, for example. It was a cultural value I didn’t understand as a young person.
It’s interesting because I’ve now had a number of conversations across Japan with people of my mother’s generation who lament the loss of manners in Japan, and how it has “changed.” I had particularly intense conversations with a lovely izakaya owner in Tokyo, and a Shinto priest in Mie prefecture to this effect. And I do think there is something to the idea that there seems to be a mythical past circulating out there, where everyone got along, where children weren’t murdered, where the news wasn’t dominated by the abduction of yet another young girl, etc. etc. And I wonder; did these things really not happen, or were they just not reported? And I totally take your point that all this hand-wringing might be an idealization of a time past.
But, like Brian and Raj, I still feel like over all, for the most part, there is a kind of civil politeness you see in Japan that’s absent in the US, which is just culturally very different. And I still feel that kids on the whole are publicly better behaved in Japan. But your words have made me think.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:35 amCouple things, those videos made me laugh. The first one is what I love about Japanese tv.
I wonder how much of it is location and class specific. Go into working class areas or circles and you see much different habits than I suspect the Shinto priest or nice izakaya owner partake in. Much less emphasis on the manners, although often more casual and straight forward. You’re also more likely to see straight out arguments and fights. I have a couple good friends who work or worked in manual labor and its a very different world than the polite Cleaver/Saito family you see on TV and in the “Japan is X” mythologies that many people repeat robotically. (btw, all countries have these myths that people repeat about themselves, but that as an individual they do not practice or follow…I’m not singling out Japan here)
I do think there are some changes in behavior, largely because people have figured out that there are few punishments if they misbehave. The old “mura-hachibu” (ostracization/shaming) doesn’t work anymore as localized families and small communities have broken down in large urban areas with mobile populations. Urban areas are just more impersonal. Violence to reinforce authority is also now increasingly seen as undesirable or unacceptable. The stories of violent discipline by parents and other authority figures from people in their 40s and older can be absolutely shocking.
I also think media saturation has a role here. If you look through old newspapers, you see plenty of murder cases, but there’s a real difference between seeing a single short blurb in the Yomiuri Shimbun and watching Asahi TV run extensive and over-the-top coverage for days at a time, all while conveniently providing talking heads to bemoan the breakdown of Japanese society.
Also, the civil politeness can really vary within a country, even the US. Your baseline sounds like it’s NYC. That’s a mega metropolis and fairly notorious for rudeness. I grew up in a rural area in the Midwest and really felt things were similar in regards to politeness. I think most people from rural areas or the Midwest who travel particularly to the metropolitan areas of the East Coast will comment on how rude and impolite people are.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:29 amRTN — Since your last post, I’ve been thinking much along the same lines as you, and, yes, my current baseline is NYC, which, yes, is not a bastion of politeness! Add to that my jetlag, and I’m fairly cranky. Childhood included time in the Great Plains, which I remember as a much more civil place to be, though it, too, has changed significantly.
The class comment is very much on the mark I think, and obviously my experiences (and anyone else’s) are filtered through personal history. My family is an old one in Japan, and, yes, professional class, so in that sense, I’m limited and I’m fully ware that this is off-putting to some. One of the wonderful things about Japundit has been the way it does not, as Ed set out to do, limit itself to tea and temples.
“all countries have these myths that people repeat about themselves”
Totally and completely agree with you. I’ll take it a step further. During this last visit, someone said to me: “But you raise kids in America to be individual and to pursue their lives based on their own abilities,” and I was pretty stymied as to how to go about addressing this idealized picture of life in America.
Shall we add Sazaesan to Cleaver and Saito?
Thanks, as always, for the intelligent and thought-provoking commentary.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:38 am“lilah, I don’t know if you were saying whether you thought it was ok or not, but if a child was spoiling my meal (restaurants are normally the place of trouble) I would make a point to the parents. And if fights start because of that then it says something about the parents themselves.”
Raj, I agree that it says something about the parents. Something despicable. But I wouldn’t dare say anything for fear of unreasonable parental retaliation. Maybe the parents ’round my area are just extra aggressive. Which would explain the kids, really.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:46 amThis is why we will largely stick to not-too-fancy Chinese restaurants around these parts for family outings to dining establishments until our kids are older. There’s certainly a far higher threshold for tolerating out-of-control kids at such places.
I wonder why the lady chose to go into a coffee shop on that particular day (Starbucks on Sanjo?). She should have tried McDonald’s instead. I guess they haven’t built an IKEA (which offers free childcare for an hour - though I don’t know whether this service is offered outside of Canada) in Kyoto, yet.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:11 am