Certainly they (the Japanese) are working hard to clean it up because it's been a great embarrassment.

In the end, we forget the details of our lives that embarrass us or are too painful. We just lie back and allow ourselves to float along calmly over the deep waters, with our eyes closed.

Disclosure is much less comprehensive in Japan than it is in the United States, so there are a lot more secrets floating around.

It's a sensitive topic now in Japan. The whole issue of corporate governance and shareholder rights is one the Japanese are having trouble dealing with.

There must be no more sticking heads in the sand. No more embarrassment and no more hiding behind a veil of apathy,

What is embarrassment? In general, embarrassment is an emotional response to an innocent mistake. The major reason that some of us are embarrassment-prone is that we’ve been conditioned to set unrealistically high expectations for ourselves and to judge ourselves negatively when we can’t possibly meet those standards. A second reason that makes us susceptible to embarrassment is that we’ve been taught to take our cue in evaluating ourselves from what we assume (often erroneously) to be others’ opinions of us.