tate shakai
Japanese culture is based on tate shakai, or “vertical (or class) society.” This is a system that Westerners might compare to the relationship between a parent and child. It influences relationships between employer and employee, teacher and student—most relationships in Japan. Ideally, it’s not so much a strict hierarchical relationship as it is a system of mutual service and duty, patronage and respect, alternating from one level to the other and back again. See sempai and kohai.
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