[Sangetsu]

One of the things which concerns me is the sense of dependency Japanese have, and their fear of making serious decisions on their own.

Japanese tend to prefer a safe environment where they can depend on others to make the hard choices for them. Most Japanese students who are job hunting prefer to find a large and "safe" company to hire them, even though the work is numbing, and promotions and pay increases come slowly. But in exchange they are not required to bear much responsibility in the company, and have little risk of making mistakes which might cause them shame.

Making decisions always takes too much time. If I ask a company worker a question which is not routine, he will not be able to answer it, he will ask his manager, and the question will go up until it finally reaches someone with the authority to answer. Sometimes the answer never comes.

When an emergency occurs, like at the Fukushima nuclear plant, this inability to make important decisions quickly paralyzes the entire system, and can cause serious failures.