[K-BOOK] Koreans who cross the line, Japanese who draw the line ... Too different neighbors

South Korea and Japan are closer than any other country, but they are the opposite of what they show each other. When Korean theaters are filled with choruses, they applaud quietly in Japan. There are all kinds of bad words in South Korea, but there are no particularly noticeable bad words in Japan. In South Korea, role-playing games that can be enjoyed by a large number of people, such as the "League of Legends," are popular, but in Japan, console games that can be enjoyed by one person, such as Nintendo games, are popular.

The cultures of the two countries are different, but there is not much effort to understand this. Especially in 2019, with the "No Japan" movement that started with Japanese trade sanctions and the recent "K content" boom, there is an atmosphere in South Korea that turns its back on Japanese culture. However, the author, a cultural psychologist, says it is necessary to look at the cultural differences between the two countries in order to correctly understand why South Korea has crossed Japan.

According to the author, the decisive difference between Korea and Japan, which share Confucianism and groupist culture in the same race, is the difference in their attitude toward themselves. The author analyzes that "Koreans see themselves as 'existences that try to influence others', while Japanese see themselves as 'existences that try to accept the influences of others'." It is said that it was from such a difference that Koreans gave emotions based on subjective intimacy, and Japanese people felt burdened by the social role they were given and tried not to bother them as much as possible. Is the author's explanation.