When I first arrived in Japan in the 1960s, I was friends with a Western sociologist who was genuinely frustrated. When he went around surveying public opinion, he said that he found Japanese people to be stubbornly reserved and conservative. Apparently, those who responded to his questions about social attitudes voiced a strong aversion to change of any sort. They invariably chose answers that supported the status quo in whatever facet of life he was asking them about.
This near-unanimous reaction may have been an expression of a general Japanese tendency to avoid confrontation. Perhaps the respondents were, in their minds, giving their Western "guest" answers they thought would please him. Certainly, that would be as important to them as voicing their own opinions to a stranger, which is -- by and large -- just not the done thing.
That is why some people who studied Japanese behavior back then were apt to warn, "Never take 'yes' for an answer."
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