Cultural Differences
Culturally, the adage contrasts with that of the Japanese proverb, "The stake that sticks up gets hammered down", or "The nail that stands out gets pounded down," illustrating cultural differences between the West and East. However, a sentiment similar to the Japanese focus on modesty and humility is also reflected in the idea of tall poppy syndrome, which is popular in commonwealth countries.
Read more about this topic: Squeaky Wheel
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or differences:
“We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)