JAPANESE CULTURE AND TRADITION
Gaman — The Gritty Japanese Word for an Integral National Characteristic
Children who learn this from an early age become remarkably resilient adults
In 2016, Angela Duckworth published her research on what she called “Grit” — a winning combination of passion and perseverance — that she posited as a crucial component of success.
That is the closest thing I can think of to what the Japanese have been calling gaman (我慢) for centuries.
What is gaman?
My dictionary defines gaman as “patience, endurance, perseverance, tolerance, self-control, and self-denial.”
Gaman is a characteristic that is imbued into children so deeply that it becomes a given. It is why we see adults lining up in an orderly fashion at train stations and stoically dealing with natural disasters like the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Restraint, self-control, tolerance. These are characteristics built into Japanese character.
We, humans, are not born with this high level of patience and endurance, as anyone who had cared for a baby or toddler well knows. So how do children in Japan develop this important trait?
