21/05/10 15:46:18.68 wtZTElLN0.net
Hello, I am a Wisconsinite who worked in Tokyo.
Through the staying in Tokyo and other Asian cities (Peking, Shanghai, and Seoul), I got a jolly good impression of the Asian people because they generally kept their face smiling.
Therefore, I guessed at first that they were gentler people than Westerners, and the happy and peaceful lives were lived in Asian countries. But I now awfully sympathise with them after I learnt the reason why they were smiling.
In short, it is not because they want to smile, but because they have to smile.
In Asia, it is the most important to be polite and obedient to their superiors. When one fails to smile to his superior, he is regarded as very impolite and offensive.
Hence, Asians have been obliged to remain smiling to those who are superior to them. Subordinates have to smile to their bosses, as well as wives to their husbands, students to their teachers, and commoners to their kings.
I shuddered to hear that one who was a little impolite to his lord samurai was doomed to have his head cut literally in the 19th century Japan.
I hardly need to say that the current situations about Asian people are not so bad as those in the pre-modern era, but even now freedom of emotions is more strictly restricted in Asia than in the West.
Indeed, if you follow anyone, you will do without being hurt. But what I want to tell you is that you can say "No".