The question of “What makes the Japanese the way they are?” is an interesting one, and I’m certainly not the first gaijin to ponder it. While the U.S. is viewed by Japan as a “horizontal” society in which everyone is more or less equal, Japan’s society is considered “vertical,” with relationships that change based on relative age or status in a group. One example of this are the concepts of senpai and kohai, words that describe an upperclassman in a school or senior member of an organization, and underclassman or junior in a group, respectively. Another example is how the concept of, say, “brother” is split into separate words for older brother (oniisan) and younger brother (ototo), and it’d be difficult for the Japanese to think of the idea of a “brother” without classifying older or younger in his mind. (In the case of twins, by the way, the one that pops out first is the older brother.) My personal theory is that the the majority of Japanese social imprinting occurs in Junior High School, a unique period of three years in which students are first exposed to the strict reality of these top-down relationships for the first time. It’s in Junior High that kids are forced to join clubs and engage in “club activities” with older kids, which includes greeting senpai in a loud, clear voice, showing respect at all times, and putting up with some hazing, no doubt. This period of intense social pressure seems unique to Junior High: in Elementary School, kids are still treated as kids and almost never interface with kids at other age levels, and High Schools function like a miniature version of the university system in Japan, with students choosing which school fits their study goals and academic abilities, so there’s less social pressure (although there are plenty of other pressures, like college entrance exams).
