There are many books on this subject. Some claim to help you understand Japan by using strange archaic language and others by taking you deep inside the bushido warrior culture. Non of this helps very much. Here is an author with a different approach.

Mr Boyé Lafayette De Mente has written several books on Japan. Two I highly recommend is Japan Unmasked and Kata.

For people doing martial art the concept of kata is well known. It is a series of movements performed in a set pattern. All movements should be performed exactly as prescribed. There is no room for changing it to your liking. No matter that the stances are uncomfortable and the techniques are not really applicable in actual fighting. It’s kata. Period.

In this book Mr Boyé Lafayette De Mente gives the background to Japan as a kata-ized society. For many years Japan was a place where everything in life had its own kata. How to talk, eat, work, dress, socialise, even how to have sex. Exactly everything in the daily lives of people had a very detailed description of how to go about doing it. The origin for this structure came from the discipline needed to organise wet rice farming. During the time of the shoguns military dictatorship, breaking even the smallest rule was punished with death.

Things have of course changed in Japan, especially since after world war two. The book goes into how kata affect Japan today and what the role for it will be in the future. Knowing the background of a society based on kata is a good way to understand who the japanese people are today.

If you want to learn about Japan, I recommend these two books for the top of your list.

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