Personally, what most shocked me is how accepted and common this is.
To the point that when I friend came to study to Spain she asked me: "Why is no one sleeping in the library?"
On the other side, I believe it's also dangerous. I visited Malaysia with my gf, and she would fall asleep in every train and taxi because it's just what they do.
I also commonly see people taking naps during lunchtime in Starbucks. Someone will come in, grab a coffee, take a nap for 30 min, drink the coffee and go back to work. There's nothing wrong with that! (other than I want the table :P)
Unfortunately the corporate culture is not where it should be. There are some companies that want to be like western startups where taking a nap on the office sofa wouldn't raise an eyebrow but those are very rare. In most Japanese companies it would be totally unacceptable to sleep in the office.
They're cultures that you can see "see people at McDonalds early in the morning after a night out" all the time, without having to go there directly from working late...
It is great that you can safely take a nap in a public space without fear of being robbed or worse (as one would have to fear outside Japan), without having police called on you, and with general public acceptance of such action.
Nobody will think you're a bum or a mad or look at you funny. Try that somewhere else and let's see what happens!
Japanese corporate culture is terrible and that is sad. I don't have an answer to that.
Broken according to which cultural paradigms? Just because we have different ideas in the west does not make them better.
In all the coffeeshops in Austin, Texas at least, I've seen baristas wake up customers who are napping. But I understand why they do that: there are many homeless people around and if anyone could just take naps...
In Western terms, I would say it's "bad" from a happiness/relaxation perspective. Not really from the lack of sleep; while I wouldn't say I go as far as the Japanese, I do tend to sleep less than most people... just that all the social machinations around it: e.g. "succumbing" to sleep as a measure of looking virtuous/like a hard worker in front of your peers, for example. I find things like that exhausting and the need to do that would significantly decrease my level of happiness.
But that's just it: happiness is subjective. What makes me happy or unhappy need not be even remotely related to what makes someone else the same. As much as I may think it's weird or undesirable, all that really matters is that the people who live like that are happy with their lives. It's only a problem if they're not.
Yes, but usually we assume that you stop doing that for your health's sake after you finish school.
I often see people napping in all of the above, both here in Russia, around Eastern Europe and in South America. And it's no big deal most of the times.
And things like sleeping on the bus/train or sitting on a bench seem to be normal all over the world.
The catch is, i never been to either Japan or USA, so i can't set the zero properly.
Of course you do see it on public transit in the early and late hours at times, and it's not a big deal, but its definitely not 'normal'. Napping at work is especially frowned upon, with perhaps the exception of someone going out to the park during lunch time.
The general feeling/culture (not necessarily my personal opinion) is that you should have had enough sleep the night before so that you can be productive for the day's work. If you've stayed up so late (partying or whatever) the night before such that you need rest during the day, you're short-changing your employer and teammates. A nap might be the right thing to do to restore your energy, but you should not have put yourself in that position to start with.
Of course these days I don't need to stay up half the night to feel like I need a nap in the afternoon... :)
[edit] After reading the article, I see that the Japanese culture connects the tiredness with working hard/late, which changes the perception. I think in the US and Canadian culture this can happen in some extreme cases - we've all heard (or lived) stories of people working like crazy to meet project deadlines, and sleeping in the office, etc. And road-warriors fighting jet lag are often given some credit for that tired/haggard look. Blue collar workers are more prone to given respect for being particularly tired at the end of the day, but napping or dozing off is still not really rewarded/honored like it seems to be in Japan, because of the quite different work-time expectations.
The real shock for me was when I went back to Canada and realized I'd picked up the habit inadvertently! I would naturally fall asleep in some boring classes and had a lot of difficulty stopping that. Generally the prof would notice and call me out to everyone's amusement, or a neighbor would give me a nudge. It really did not feel acceptable to sleep in class as in Japan.
Honestly, it never really occurred to me that people sleep in public in other parts of the world.
Sleeping in public, sleeping on a train, napping whenever?
The fact of time management that puts you into position that require such naps?
Or something else?
The article implies, but it's not clear for me on what.