Cultures Represented in Everyday life: Japanese and American Values and Culture

Abstract

Culture is an important factor in a country because of how it displays the values of the people within it. Japan is a homogenous society that has been around since 600 B.C., the culture created since early in age. While only having been officially founded in 1776, America has also grown to have a culture of its own, heavily due to it being a vast melting pot of a country. Both countries hold aspects of culture and their values within society that are similar and different. This paper examines parts of everyday life that the culture and values of the two countries are shown: family life, school life, and work life. While both countries began with different family structures, Japan and America’s family structure in the modern day is most commonly the nuclear family. Japan is a collectivist society, opting for everyone to have a hive mind, while America is an individualistic society, encouraging people to have their own thoughts and actions. These opposing societal views represent themselves in each country’s school and work culture, causing little shared values. Family, school, and work are all things that people partake in every day, unknowingly continuing their country’s culture.