Comparing Countries after Disasters: a Study of "National Character"
The Japanese and the Chinese often refer to a concept of 国民性 (roughly translated as "national character), which states that citizens (and long-time residents) of a particular country share certain similarities in behavior because they have been residing in that particular country for a long time. This concept tends to be much broader than that of "customs" used in the West to denote practices shared by people of a particular culture. The Chinese and Japanese have such a strong faith in this concept of 国民性 that in attempts to find it out about other countries, their "research" often border racism in their incessant desires to generalize the patterns and trends of different people of one country into a formulaic one-fits-all stereotype. For example, just after meeting a few Indians in the company, some Japanese colleagues made no hesitation to talk about "those Indians ALWAYS do..." But perhaps the one instance when this idea of 国民性 actually does make