how much is our age important?

First, I'm not going to complain the work.
I really like to work for my company, and I am really glad that I can work there.

A topic this time is "the importance of our age in Japan."

Still in Japan, people are very strict to our age; how old we are or how much older we are than others.
It's good to respect seniors, but it's good not every time.
In Japan, we have a strict hierarchy regarding our age.
Usually, older people have more power than younger people.
In extreem case, olders people think young people should only serve them. They do what they want to. No freedom to younger people when they are with older people.
Therefore, many younger people don't show themselves to older people. And, they flatter older people.
We see this in all situations, and we live in such a environment.

This situation applies even when they are a year older than them.
To tell the truth, it's very starange to me. I even think it's ridiculous.

As I said, it's good to respect seniors.
However, it's good not everytime. It's very inefficient.
I don't think we can make friends with others in this system.
In this, we can't make friends with seniors.
Even when we knew each other a lot and are in a good good relationship, we are not friends because our age are not same.

I have been very skeptical to this system in Japanese society.

I need to adopt a good Japanese custom, but I'm sure that I don't need to know this custom regarding our age.
I want to make friends with many people. I don't want to make myself weak when I'm with seniors. I'm trying to see seniors as one of my friends.
So, some people think I am inappropirate because I don't flatter seniors.

We had a big party in my company.
I drunk with many of workers at my company.
Even before that, almost all of them knew me because I introduced myself in front of them in the first day of work. I raised a hand and started it in a morning gathering.
After that, a president told me that I didn't need to do that. Usually, fresh workers do that a week later and a president tells them to do that.
However, many workers told me that I am not a usual college student.
They said we can't do that usually because we hesitate to raise our hands in front of others.
So, they liked me.

Also, I talked with some workers and they found me that I'm interesting.
All of them say I don't look like a freshman at the company.
I think it's my good point that I can enjoy talking with people from the first.


Back to the story of the party, I talked with seniors just as my friends.
But, some of them were very strict to me because of that.
Some of them hoped me to just listen to talk of seniors, nod my head and pour beer in their glass.
You know, I'm not such a kind of person.
I don't think this is good that juniors cannot do what they want to do only because they are a little younger than them.
In my company, many of workers are very young. The average is 26 or 27 years old.
And, this is an IT company. You know the atmosphere.
They said this company is not strict to the age as much as other companies, and I guess so.
However, it's very strange for me to follow this custom.

I will learn parts of the custom, but I am not going to acquire all of it.
I don't want to do what I don't think it's efficient and wrong.

What do you think about this?