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Now let me point out six salient symptoms of today's Japan which show what must be cured for the sake of Japan's survival and her peaceful co-existence with the world in the rough waters of the 21st century.

However long foreigners have lived in Japan, and however perfect their command of Japanese is, they are still alienated here--they are still gaijin--and this inequity provides them with enough grounds for resentment. One of the most eloquent examples is the case of the Korean residents, the descendants of whom were abducted during World War lI.

Of course every country and ethnicity has its own unique culture, but for many Japanese that matters little. What matters is that its culture is 'uniquely unique'; that no matter how hard foreigners try, they can never understand the 'unique' subtleties inherent in it.

The point is that it is quite anomalous to ordinary Japanese that there exist foreigners who thoroughly understand and comprehend Japanese which is so complicated, so delicate, so subtle, so cunning, so sophisticated and so ambiguous.

This tendency, in my view, stems from the Confucianistic philosophy that produces a strong 'group mentality', which forces people to kill their individuality and assimilate into the community they belong to.

In a sphere dominated by this mentality, any deviation from conventionalism is frowned upon because an expression of individuality produces unpredictability, which is anathema to a community that prizes mediocrity.