Obey, obey

There is a Japanese saying,
「出た杭は打たれる」 = ”A nail that stands out, is bound to be hammered down”.
Reasons to why it is widely favoured in Japan to conform to the mass and its societal norm, remains a mystery to me. Although we might not be able to throw the full blame of societal problems onto our school systems, I suspect that complying to such detailed rules forced upon your own body, already from your utmost formative years, surely has an impact on how you view the world surrounding you. It trains us to think the power we have in our own hands is scarce, and nurtures apathy because why bother speaking up, when it is much easier to just live as you’re expected, as most people around you do? In the meantime, corruption, militarization and discriminatory politics continue to thrive in Japanese parliament. “Obey, obey” is my first approach to taking a closer look into school rules I myself grew up with, with the hypothesis that they have much more to do with parts of Japan’s society I do not get along with, than my 14 year old self would have imagined.