[Urbane Guerrilla]

Marichiko, Japanese social organization has more in common with military organization than civilian-type mores even today. It's been this way since at least the Tokugawas, and seems to have sprung from the Age of Battles between rival power blocs that ended when the Tokugawas came out on top. I think that was after the battle of Sekigahara. Japanese society was very tightly organized and is so today -- every village had its headman, and there were designated persons in charge of every ten, every fifty, every hundred, and they were called according to how many people they were in charge of: han cho is the "captain of a hundred/village headman" and the English honcho is directly derived from this.

Most of the Japanese notion of social virtues are distinctly military -- the Japanese esteem the team player and protest at the eccentric in ways we don't. They are a very disciplined and orderly people in consequence.

Japanese society is so tightly conformist that they establish local festivals for the entire town to have fun together and blow off major steam, and boy do they. They holler, they carry on, they get lit on beer and sake out in the streets, which they don't do on ordinary days, and whiz into the roadside rain gutters (the best kind is very deep and roofed over with perforated concrete lids about a foot long by eight inches wide) -- as discreetly as they may. I like Sapporo and am not so keen on Ki-rin, which is considerably hoppier.