An Australian On The Japanese

SM Stirling's Montival has formed an alliance with Japan and there has been combox comparison of Poul Anderson's Merseians with the Japanese (see here) so what does Ian Fleming's Dikko Henderson tell James Bond about the Japanese and is Dikko's account reliable?

When asked why the Japanese drive on the left, he replies:

"'God knows... The bloody Japs do everything the wrong way round. Read the old instruction books wrong, I daresay.'"
-Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (London, 1966), 4, p. 38.

Tokyo is too hot, too cold or raining;

daily earthquakes make you feel drunk;

in a typhoon, do get drunk in the stoutest bar you can find;

the first ten years are the worst;

expensive to live Western;

you have got to know the language and when to bow and take off your shoes;

there is still plenty of samurai underneath;

the Japanese think in terms of centuries;

an ON is an obligation, almost as important as "face";

you must pay back an ON with a larger gift, thus putting an ON on the other man;

shikiri-naoshi is making someone wait;

sumo wrestlers use the great stone face on their opponents;

all Japanese have a permanent ON towards their superiors, the Emperor, their ancestors and the gods;

you discharge an ON by doing the right thing as perceived by your immediate superiors, thus passing the buck up to the Emperor who embodies the ancestors and gods and can therefore get on with his hobbies;

the British do much the same in big corporations or the Services;

this is not demokorasu because the Japanese are a separate species, basically samurai although most of samurai is a myth!