It may be recalled that the American presence in the Philippines, particularly the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, posed a strategic threat to their southward expansion. This historical fact should be a constant reminder of what could be a repeated history of our current times.

Manila fell within two weeks, followed by the surrender of Bataan on April 9, 1942 and Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942. This part of Philippine history etched the infamous and horrific Bataan Death March where thousands of starving and wounded Filipino and American prisoners of war were forced on a brutal 65-mile trek under harsh conditions and died from exhaustion, dehydration, maltreatment or summary execution. Historian Teodoro Agoncillo writes that “the Death March stands out as [the] single most savage act of inhumanity perpetrated by the Japanese during the entire war.”

The late Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, a Manila resident during the war, recounted that “we heard rifle fire, screams, then silence. The next day, the smell of death hung heavy in the air.” Women were frequent victims of rape and sexual assault.

Valiantly, guerrilla movements emerged across the archipelago. The tide turned in 1944 with the American invasion of Leyte. After a series of brutal battles, it culminated in the surrender of Japan in 1945. The cost of liberation was immense: millions of Filipinos perished from war violence, famine and disease. The country was devastated and spent decades rebuilding not just its physical infrastructure but also the spirit of a nation that had fiercely resisted a ruthless occupation.

Since then, the Philippines and Japan moved on with their national lives. Japan has gone far since then, and the Philippines is where it is, as we know.

Through the lens of a young industrial engineer

My 24-year-old son Lambert Arthur, an industrial engineer, reflects on and shares three lessons that we can all learn from. This is published in his Medium account.

First, don’t eat while walking. This is not just meant to be taken literally, as it is disrespectful in Japan to walk while eating. This is meant to serve as a reminder to be present and mindful of what you are doing. Japanese people tend to only do one thing at a time, not because they cannot multitask, but rather because they appreciate putting their entire focus on doing a single task and giving their full attention to that at hand. This oddly makes any task stimulating enough and gets rid of boredom.

Second lesson is progress over perfection, progress through perfection. Japanese craftsmanship is a product of years of mastery and training, only to produce one thing. This is reflected in their stores which sell only one kind of food, clothing or item made of a single material.

Kaizen is a word that means continuous improvement or “good change.” Japanese craftsmanship is all about never being satisfied with how things are done, because you know that it can be improved while being at peace with the fact that it is a process that will never be perfected. Progress is better than waiting for perfection, but progress is done through trying to perfect a process.

With their products, the process is also valued more than the actual output. How something is made is more emphasized rather than how perfect the output is. Handmade and analog-made items have a “wabi-sabi” characteristic, which means finding beauty in imperfections.

Third lesson is to put society over self, but focus on the self because it is what you can control. Japan’s crime rate is low, and this could be attributed to the idea that its sentencing philosophy is to focus on the safety of its law-abiding citizens and their culture of harmony. They have a strong sense of collective responsibility where they do things such as line up properly and clean the surroundings, because they know (and even expect) others will do the same.

This social contract of “I will conform because others will, too,” can also be rooted in social pressure, where you wouldn’t want others to offend you, so you would not want to offend them. Japan is also known for its “loner” culture where people eat, spend time and hang out alone. This does not mean they are all lonely (although maybe a lot can end up lonely because of this), but rather because they focus on their own thing. They don’t mind what others are doing, but they are mindful of the presence of others.

Ultimately, all you can control is yourself, and how you deal with how others control themselves, and this is seen in their very “solo” yet “collective” culture.

Lambert concluded by saying that the systems that makeup Japan can be traced back to their culture of mastery, mindfulness and efficiency.

Japanese art and way of life

Many Japanese who achieved great works came from normal, even poor families. Equal opportunities for raising one’s social status provide the Japanese with incentive to do one’s best and resilience to hang on, referred to as gambari — one of the highest Japanese virtues.

Japan has become an achievement-based society provided by the educational system that creates a competitive world. It reinforces the gambari spirit. They become very diligent, to the point of being workaholic and perfectionists. The extreme negative result is karoshi, or death from being overworked.

Common expressions in Japanese reflect the steps to follow the form (kata ni hairu), perfect the form (ni jukutatsu suru)and go beyond the form (kara nukeru). All practices take place in an atmosphere of quietude, obedience and respect, mirroring the absolute obedience and respect of the master-student relationship. Silence (Chinmoku) can be viewed as a communicative skill, not just a form of emptiness between spoken words. This is anchored on Zen, which emphasizes the importance of acting naturally, gracefully and spontaneously in whatever task.

Bushido is a determined will to die, an ethos traced back to the samurai. Seppuku, suicide, in the pursuit of honor, is the most honorable death.

Modern Japan is neither without weakness nor threat of globalized influence that endangers its well-founded culture and tradition. But they have lessons to teach humanity that they moved onward, forward and strongly rooted inward. There were breaks in their history and present journey, but one thing is sure — the Japanese know kintsugi, the art of beauty in broken things. They use gold to add more value in fixing broken things.