It is difficult to determine whether the Japanese are simply a nation of perfectionists with an almost fanatical obsession for detail or they are just as lazy and careless as the rest of us but have been bludgeoned into 'not screwing up' by the incessant peer-group pressure they encounter from pre-school onwards - but whatever the reasons, the effects are the same; they want to 'get things right'.

In general, people here want to be good at what they do, to be seen to be doing what is expected of them, to follow the rules to the best of their ability and never to mess up - or at least never to be seen to be messing up. It's like a national disease - or enviable trait, depending on your point of view.

This behaviour, though, has its repercussions. Repercussions that have a profound effect on so many aspects of life here.

On the one hand, the desire to get things right is largely responsible for a lot of what makes Japan such a great place to live, such as, for example, making the trains run on time. All the trains run on time, all of the time. The subways publish timetables you can set your watch by. It's a good job they do too, because no self respecting Japanese can tolerate being late. That would be undeniable evidence of messing up (see above). But, do the trains run on time because everyone has to be at least ten minutes early for everything, or do they run on time because someone, somewhere would have messed up if they don't?

Twenty years ago, during my first ever trip to Japan, I was travelling by 'Shinkansen', (aka bullet train) from Tokyo to Osaka with a small group of people accompanied by our thoroughly efficient (see above), fluently bi-lingual (etc.) guide and helper, Akira. I had been jaw-droppingly impressed by the precision of our huge, streamlined train as it had rolled into the station at exactly the predicted time, stopped with it's doors aligned with the markings on the platform where we had all been told to stand exactly ten minutes before it was due to arrive, opened it's doors for about 25.5 seconds as we all piled on to find our pre-allocated, spotlessly clean seats, and then departed so smoothly that we had to look outside to check we were moving.

For someone like me who's last UK train journey had been in grimy thirty year old slam-door British Rail stock who's adherence to a timetable was more a matter of luck than design, the whole Shinkansen experience was a revelation. I pointed this out to Akira and asked him if the bullet trains ever ran late. He looked at me as if I had just uttered a word that his incredibly expensive education had somehow omitted and he was going to have to admit to a linguistic failing that might result in him being fired or, worse, publicly humiliated. 'What do you mean late?' he said as if exploring a new concept in semantics. I tried to illustrate by comparison to my standard experiences of UK public transport by means of metaphor and colourful expletives. 'If the trains come in on time, they can leave on time' he said to me as if explaining basic maths to a six year old. 'And if they leave on time, they can come in on time can't they?' I've never been able to answer that question with anything other than a shrug and a sorry nod of my head. He was right, of course; they can, and they do, every day.

Punctuality is one thing but it is just a ‘given' in the realm of ‘getting it right' on the trains. I have experienced so many small and wonderful examples of this that my only sadness is in the complete inability of any of my Japanese friends to see how fantastic the facilities they daily take for granted really are. They expect everything to work properly. They are not in the least bit impressed when the ticket machines take the equivalent of fifty pound notes and give change, or when the platform staff delay a tube train for an extra fifteen seconds so a hundred school kids can get on safely (knowing they can still be on time for the next station), or when a white gloved attendant gives a slightly drunk, non-Japanese person their money back, with a bow, when they have missed their last train on a Saturday night from the busiest train station in the world. Try that at Piccadilly circus.

And then there's the pointy men.

The men that stand on the platforms and point. They point up and down the platform edge before a train arrives, perhaps to ensure no-one is foolishly trying to retrieve a dropped mobile phone (they have a special long tool, on hand, for this purpose) and then after the train has arrived, they point at each other and then at the guard who has already pointed at the floor (we are still talking white gloves here of course) to confirm the stationary status of the train before getting out to hit a button to warn of the impending departure before a whole load more pointing goes on, the doors close and the train departs with some final goodbye type pointing, all of which is repeated about six minutes later. They don't hang about either, my local station has a long flight of stairs down to the platform from the ticket barrier level. If my train is coming in as a get to the top of the stairs, I can just make it to the train with the doors snapping at my arse. I wonder if age and infirmity will one day make trying to catch the train a fatal activity. Only for me of course, the Japanese will have arrived ten minutes early for their train. In which case, they will have caught the one before.

There is, on the other hand of course, the slightly maddening aspect of all this urgent desire to get things right and that involves the associated principal of ‘sticking to the rules'. If you want to get things right, you have to know what getting things right is measured by and that means doing things according to the rules as laid down by someone who you have probably never met. It doesn't mean making things up as you go along, because that might not be right and it doesn't mean asking why the rule might be like that in the first place because there is probably no-one to ask. It certainly rules out initiative for the majority of workers - and that's just fine by them, because no-one ever gets fired for following the rules.

By way of a light illustration, I'm reminded of an incident that occurred a few years ago while having a quick lunch with a Japanese colleague. Towards the end of the meal she accidentally swallowed something 'the wrong way' and started choking. The traditional slap on the back had no effect (does it ever?) and tears started streaming down her face as her coughing got louder. I turned to a nearby waitress and asked urgently, in my best Japanese, for a glass of water. The girl said something back to me in a stream of unintelligible words (to me at least, my Japanese language skills being a bit of a sore point). I turned back to my blue-faced friend and asked her what the hell she had said. 'She wants to know if you want ice with that' she managed to cough out between gasps for air.

Just following the rules. Nothing freestyle about that.

With a greater metropolitan population approaching 30 million, (depending on where you draws lines and who you believe) there must be some native Japanese people who do engage in freestyle activity. There must be, surely. However, I suspect anyone inventing a 'freestyle' form - whether it's streetballing, wrestling, unicycling, canine dancing, skiing, skateboarding or 'shouting one yen coins into empty beer glasses' (I'm not making that up) - if it's admired in any way, you can bet that the first person who wants to join in will want to know the rules, which kind-of negates the whole idea of being freestyle in the first place doesn't it? This whole idea was succinctly summed up for me the other day in one phrase; 'we are a manual culture'. It doesn't mean they do everything by hand, it means that for everything there is a rule book to follow - and that is good.

A letter from Steve Baker - http://stevebakermanagement.com

Photography by Steve West - http://homepage.mac.com/mecan