There are mountain, farming, seaside fishing communities, and metropolitan cultures, as well as northern and southern cultures. They are all different. So much so, that everybody thinks we are all alike, although we are all different. Indeed, many people believe that there is no such thing as cultural differences because each culture is made up of all these different people. But even taking into account the vast differences within each culture, there are definite, distinct, and huge generic differences between Japanese and American culture.
Some cultural aspects are so different that they are difficult to imagine.
I would like to point out some of those differences in this article so that as you study Aikido, you can appreciate the very differences in Japanese culture that permeates and helped to create Aikido. Japanese and American cultures stems from the religious beliefs of the culture, and how we experience them as children. This is a big difference. Whether you are a devoted churchgoer or not, these concepts in our respective cultures influence both our thinking process and the foundation of our behavior. Americans, in general, tend to separate things into two aspects.