ABSTRACT
In the Western world the impression of the Japanese as very diligent, hard workers is possibly the strongest stereotype about them. This stereotype seems to have been created sometime after the First World War, when thanks to a labour force which was being recruited rather slowly Japan was able to impress the world for the first time with her economic successes, having overcome the hurdles of incipient industrialisation. Usually accompanied by a negative statement (’the Japanese are very diligent, but. . .’), this stereotype is still very much in use. Unlike some other foreign views of the Japanese, this opinion has also been taken up enthusiastically by the Japanese themselves. The Japanese National Character Survey every five years asks for the strong points of the Japanese, and always kinben (diligent, hard-working) is chosen by a majority as the most popular characteristic. 1 Every Japanese, reporting in a newspaper his experiences in a foreign country, tells his fellow countrymen how little Europeans and Americans work, and nowadays—after the advance of Japanese enterprises into South-East Asia—Japanese managers are complaining constantly about the low working ethos of the South-East Asians.
