For centuries Japan, although a totalitarian dictatorship, was ruled by figureheads who signed laws formulated 'behind the screen'. Hierarchy still defines everyone's status. The man at the top has power but jeopardizes his position if he ignores consensus opinions. Nowadays fashionable twentieth-century clothing cloaks a contradictory blend of intense competition with a tradition of harmony dependent on close human-relations and complex communal restraint. The Japanese organise themselves in cliques (not groups) which raise barriers against outsiders. Companies are controlled from within;...