Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
I think that this is not only typical of the Japanese, but all (South-) East Asians. To illustrate, throughout China's history, people's loyalties could shift easily from the losing to the winning side, because they didn't fight for a cause or principle (including religion), but for more down-to-earth reasons such as food, money or power.
About the "influenceable" and "rational judgement", i'd like to write down some of my feelings. In some popular Chinese bbs, I can feel the radical emotion strongly. Some people's words are even rude and uncivil. Not everything under the name nationalism or patriotism is correct, I think, sometimes too nationalistic seems parochial. I don't know if it has relation with our education system, but i remembered when I was a teenager I knew nothing and cared about nothing except study. Teachers like to see this phenomenon I guess, and they never taught us thinking independently. That's just my personal exprience and feeling, things may have been changing.