Westerners often find it takes Japanese a long time to make decisions. I believe the training for decision-making starts at an early age, when Japanese children are conditioned to be shy.
"Which do you like, Taro," you ask, "the red candy or the blue one?" Taro will not answer because children in Japan never have to make decisions. "Hazukashii desu!" ("He's so shy!") interjects Taro's mother with a smile, clearly praising the boy's behavior. And once will not be enough. She'll repeat "hazukashii" several times. When Japanese adults talk to children, they compliment the parents by saying, "Hazukashii desu ne?" (Just count the "hazukashiis" next time you are around a Japanese mother and her child. I bet sometimes it gets up into the hundreds. Then imagine twins!). It's no wonder Japanese kids are so shy -- they are constantly told to be. While the child smiles and buries his face behind his mother, we never find out which Taro likes, the red candy or the blue.
So I suppose it should be no wonder that by the time students get to my writing class at the women's university where I teach, it can take an entire 90-minute class just to decide on a topic for an essay. This is not to say the students are doing nothing in class; they are thinking, trying to decide on what to decide. It goes like this: