Kazakhs and Japanese. Fortitude and perfection. Almaz Braev

need a letter in the bare steppe, probably so that they understand what is happening. But the Bolsheviks are the Bolsheviks. They said they had come to enlighten the people, so they began building schools and teaching everyone to read and write.

      However, if you put a Kazakh in front of a Japanese again, after fifty years, everyone would indicate who is who, even in the 80s of the last century. First of all, by the Panasonic camera and other things and clothes. And an experienced person would hardly be mistaken who eats who even now. The Japanese are more experienced in urbanization. When the Kazakhs began to receive only with the collapse of the USSR, it was just that everyone received this highest education. And besides, the Japanese are more petite in terms of figures. It is unlikely that the Japanese would have so many sumo wrestlers. After all, these wrestlers were specially fattened in the Middle Ages to entertain samurai. The urban environment strongly influences people’s inner world. It makes them tolerant and democratic. But it can not get rid of the “ghosts of the past,” in the apt expression of Karl Marx.

      Chapter 3

      In what Kazakhs and Japanese are similar

      This book will mainly show the differences between us. But this distinction will be shown for the learning so that we can see the shortcomings. Moreover, there are some shortcomings among the Japanese who are successful in everything today. It’s never a shame to make mistakes; the main thing is not to repeat someone else’s. And it’s even better to learn from others to be proud of yourself later.

      Despite the many differences between peoples so far apart, even though many thousands of kilometers separate us, Kazakhs and Japanese have a lot in common.

      We are very similar in some manners. We are so similar that even a subtle connoisseur of people can get confused. Only the Kazakh or the Japanese will immediately tell who is who by the face and facial expressions. An ethnographer of another nation will have difficulties.

      So, the first similar feature of the Japanese and Kazakhs is the Asian art of diplomacy.

      Japanese are taught from childhood not to lose face. Therefore, the Japanese always retain dignity.

      What does it mean?

      This means never committing such an act that will cause the condemnation of others. Therefore, the Japanese have followed this rule all their lives. They preserve their honor and care for someone else’s honor in every possible way. This does not apply to the fact that the Japanese do not shake hands with each other in a European manner. They try not to even touch each other because it’s an insult (for a samurai. Here, it is a legacy from the past. And samurai are not to be trifled with. In 1963, for example, a world-famous wrestler, Japanese celebrity Rikidozan, and Yakuza member Katsushi Murata quarreled with each other in a nightclub with a tragic outcome for the wrestler. Murata stepped on Rikidozan’s foot. It was a great insult).

      A Japanese person will never tell you the word “no”. Although, even if a Japanese person says “yes” to you, it doesn’t mean anything either. If a Japanese person says “hai” to you, it looks like “yes”; in fact, it rather means “I understand”. If a Japanese person answered “hai” to an appeal, this does not mean at all that he will fulfill your request. To answer you no, the Japanese will turn the situation so that you will never be able to do what he asks you. You need to know this when you sign a contract with them. Thus, the Japanese do not say “no” to you. It saves your face. He protects your self-esteem. First, the Japanese think about you.

      Although we live far from each other, Kazakhs speak in such patterns that sometimes a non-Kazakh will never understand what the Kazakh said to him. What can I say? Even a Kazakh must guess a crossword puzzle in his mind, which his interlocutor hinted at. It’s good that we have lived next to the Russians for so many centuries, so there are Kazakhs who speak directly and are not so colorful. In the yard, after all, market relations. Time is money. But tradition is tradition.

      This is a tradition -ymdau. When a Kazakh speaks by hints, he first wants to find out who he is talking to and in what manner to communicate with the interlocutor further.

      If a person does not understand the hints, then he is either not a Kazakh or a city Kazakh. Kazakhs have excellent, very accurate proverbs on this score. I sometimes wonder who came up with such proverbs. If we could implement these proverbs and follow them to life, then we would overtake even the Japanese. The Kazakh tradition of ymdau resembles the Kazakh game of cat and mouse, which is more cunning and has a rich imagination. No one will lose face here, but everyone will remain with their conclusions.

      (The way of allegory also arose for a reason. To inform Genghis Khan about the death of his son, the great akyn Ketbuga took a dombra and played the kui “Aksak Kulan” (Lame Kulan), and Genghis Khan began to cry).

      The second similar feature between Kazakhs and Japanese.

      Today’s Japanese cities are beautiful: they glow with neon advertising, which takes millions of dollars. The streets are clean, all the sidewalks are clean, and well-groomed green spaces grow all around – it’s nice to the eyes. But not everywhere and not always. You can make up legends about Japanese home cleanliness. Even for the toilet, they keep a separate pair of slippers, not to mention slippers for the house.

      The whole problem

      The Japanese can’t keep everything clean everywhere. They can’t walk in subway slippers, either. It comes out of their understanding of the world. In the subway, Japanese people walk in large shoes and white socks to quickly remove their shoes and put on their slippers again at home. Hence, the phenomenon of alienation: if it’s not his house, he can throw a beer can everywhere.

      “In the cinema, in the car, in the office, people calmly throw cigarette butts, empty bottles, banana peels, candy wrappers, and other garbage on the floor. Regarding neatness inherent in Japanese housing, the Japanese office looks so sloppy.”

      Now let’s talk about our problems

      There is one central street in the city of Aktobe. Probably, there are such “central” streets all over Kazakhstan. But I remember this street especially. Not the whole street, but its edge, which is adjacent to Sankibaya Avenue. Three hundred meters from the intersection, this part of the street was always flooded with water. In autumn and especially in spring, there was a whole lake. Cars overcame this section at first speed, and the spectacle was literally like crossing a river into a Ford. In the spring, when snow was just melting, thawed pits appeared, actually from pits and snow edges – a real obstacle course turned out.

      So what? – the reader will say. There are always such roads in the spring.

      The fact is that private owners built mansions on the edges of this plot. Private traders had been driving out of their own gates directly onto the obstacle course and into the swamp for more than ten years. I am 100% sure that everything is dry, clean, and beautiful in their yard.

      This psychology of “my hut on the edge” applies to society and the whole state. Everything is fine at home, but the state has a puddle.

      Chapter 4

      Japanese nationalism

      Nomadism and nomadism are the worst conditions that market relations would have to face. Although the former nomads have already met with Western civilization and its mission, today, the market trend throughout history has been through an intermediary, Russia.

      If we were looking for the reason for Asia’s lag. However, Asian civilization had cradles of civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although nomads did not create these civilizations, they are not nomads in the sense that we understand today. The long stay of the people in one place creates a deep root of the traditional elite. European