A traveler to Japan was narrating an incident. He said:
“I was waiting for my train after buying a ticket at a Japanese railway station.
A homeless, destitute Japanese man came and bought a packet of chips for himself. He sat on another bench, facing a Japanese woman who was sitting with her small daughter.
When the poor man started eating his chips, the little girl kept watching him attentively. He tried to offer her some chips. The child reached out and took them.
Her mother noticed this. When she saw her daughter eating the chips, she gently scolded her in Japanese. I understood that she must have told the child to return the chips immediately.
The little girl instantly got down from her bench, bowed in the Japanese manner, and thanked the poor homeless man. Then she returned and sat with her mother and continued eating the chips happily.
Both the man and the woman smiled, and then they began talking to each other in their language as if they were old acquaintances.
These are very small lessons of upbringing.
For example, one mother, upon seeing a poor beggar, says to her child: ‘Study and work hard, or you will become like this beggar.’
This creates fear and hatred for the poor in the child’s heart.
Another mother says: ‘Study and work hard so that when you grow up, you can help such people properly.’
This plants love and humanity in the child’s heart.
People who are homeless and broken by time and circumstances exist in every country—those who have fallen behind in the race of life.
But in Japan, even they retain their dignity. People do not humiliate them, because upbringing there teaches children love and respect.
And this is what humanity truly is.”
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