Kwai Chang, the one you are named after would not have handled it the way of which you spoke, not the Shaolin way. My Sifu is “his” teacher…

May… Tea always takes the bit out of reality. I wonder why? Coffee or a good wine can do the same thing. Strange, isn’t it? Can anyone think why that might be?

Hello Kwai (Kwai Chang?)... Welcome! I haven’t seen you here before. It’s nice to hear your contribution to the conversation. I’m surprised by your reaction, coming from someone who, whose background at least, is Chinese. I grew up in Japan and, though I do have a big proportion of non-Japanese feelings, a lot of Japan is deeply a part of me. There is always a feeling here, and I’ve experienced it a lot among my Chinese friends too, that harmony is often much more important than personal triumph and satisfaction. It’s why sumo wrestlers never speak about or show too much pleasure in having beaten an opponent, or why during great disasters, like the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, Japanese in most cases react with restraint. It’s also why in the movies monsters like Godzilla are not considered evil and there is never really any defined, cut-and-dry evil villain in so many of the TV animations. And even why it is so hard for the Japanese to define the idea of an evil war hero (and so hard for non-Japanese to understand how the Japanese cannot be “repentant” for their war crimes). Things simply are never seen as black and white; always the context and the inner conflicts of all those involved are considered, remembering always that humans are humans, everyone is fallible, and rarely, if ever, do people do anything out of pure malice. Even contracts in Japan are always fluid, always with room for the changing nature of human interaction, with very little strict adherence to the “letter of the law”. Things are done this way because Japanese feel that you can’t solidify something that never stays still.

How does this relate to my scolding myself? Well, I never felt I was going home with my tail between my legs. I felt bad for embarrassing the man and for causing a disharmonious situation. While I didn’t agree with what he was doing, I’m pretty sure he is not a bad man and probably even somenoe who has many redeeming qualities. While I do also feel that Japanese need to express their opinions more and take more stances on important things, they also carry an ethos about living harmoniously that westerners could learn a lot from. There are no Ten Commandments here, no one God they have to look up to for answers, no concept of Original Sin. Instead, their morality lives in themselves, in first accepting without doubt, that humans are good and also fallible, that most of the terrible things and little problems that happen in the world are due to the experiences an individual has and to miscommunication (which is also defined here sometimes as saying too much, spilling too much information or expressing too many strong opinions). You have to ask yourself why there is so little crime here compared to so many other societes, and why it is that crime has increased here so dramatically once western values and information took a hold.

Besides, who I am to spout righteousness? How do I know that my anger is truly justified? I make people angry with my own bad habits.

I don’t know, Kwai Chang, do you think it is inappropriate to feel bad about making another person feel bad in such a situation? May I ask what you would have done? And if anyone can enlighten me with a better and more effective way to deal with such instances, I would love to learn how to go about doing it!

I have to focus on the positve, otherwise I would be too depressed to leave the house. Children and music and trees—all those things make it possible to keep from screaming. Sometimes!