security ninnies. Cf. Christie Blatchford, “The truth in a nutshell, or what I won’t read on vacation,” in Globe and Mail, June 27, 2008 (link): “When we boarded a little later, I asked for the ninny’s name. He refused and hissed, ‘If you make a scene, I’ll call the pilot and you won’t be flying tonight.’”
typical of Far-Eastern cultures. See Dave Barry, Dave Barry Does Japan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), p. 146: “Cheering is very much a designated group activity at Japanese sporting events.... [Y]ou virtually never hear a lone voice yell or heckle. Such a display of individualism would be highly embarrassing in Japan.... [T]he cheering is done by specific groups standing in specific areas and performing precise, unvarying cheer routines, which are repeated over and over and over.” See also Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation (New York: Vintage, 1990 [1989]), p. 23: “I believe that the Japanese are individuals, all 120 million of them. Not all may want to assert their individuality; most, having been so conditioned, do not. But I have met quite a few who want to be taken for distinct persons, rather than as indistinct members of a group. These independent thinkers are disturbed [by the conformist society around them]. In many cases they have withdrawn into the private world of their own mind.”