Japanese "In Groups" and "Out Groups"

If you've studied Japan much, you've probably read about or gotten a sense of the Japanese concept of "in groups" and "out groups." One's "in group" can be one's family, one's social circle, members of one's company, or even one's country--it really depends on the context. It follows, of course, that the "out group" is made up of anyone who doesn't fall into the "in group" one's discussing at the time.

This all seems pretty readily understandable. These groups determine with whom you share your actual opinion, how much of yourself you reveal, and it also changes your level of formality or how aloof you appear.

I thought I had a decent understanding of this concept. And then I started shopping.

In stores here, even in relatively small ones, if there are departments, employees are assigned to one, and they do not intermingle. I used to work for a grocery store where everyone did everything: in a given shift, we'd stock shelves, unpack shipments, work on the register, help out in the flower section, etc. Basically the complete opposite. And here's how I came to understand this:

I'd ask an employee who'd be near to the department where the product I had a question about or was looking for was--they'd be standing on the other side of a walkway between some shelves--and they wouldn't know a thing about it. They wouldn't know where it might be, they wouldn't know what brands they might have, nothing. This is also the case at my school--it's like that idiom, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, has come alive. One department has absolutely no idea what is going on at another. And this is even in the office that is dedicated to helping foreigners' times at the school go smoothly. They don't know if the career center can help me, they don't know what cafeterias are open, I have no choice but to go out on myself to individual areas of campus and find the answers.

Another example of this concept's integration into daily life here is the sheer amount of divisions they have for geographical areas. In the States, we'll have a library system for a given city or geographical area and then branches for various neighborhoods, but they all are part of the same library. Here, instead of having an Osaka library system, there are dozens of libraries all completely independent of each other that do not trade books back and forth or look anything remotely like what we have in the States. Also, my host family does not make it out of their neighborhood very often. They have a community center and the girls' schools here, their grocery store close by, all their friends live within a few blocks, and that my host dad's parents live a 20 minute drive away is considered far, so we only saw them about once a month, as opposed to my host mom's parents whom we saw about every week.

It is definitely different from the environment in which I was raised. A very key concept, and helps one to understand a great deal about Japanese culture, so please look into it! What is the culture like where you're from? Is it one large community, or many small? Is it as clearly divided as Japan? Let me know in the comments!