There's 'salaryman' life, then there's the rest of Japan.

It's very much "not all Japanese".

You don't work yourself to death for the sport of it, and you can get by, own a home, take vacations (locally), and afford what you need without needing to be busy all the time or devote your life to your corporate sponsor.

> overworking

On average, Japanese work as much as Canadians or Spaniards and generally below the US.

Mexico has been on one of the top spots for years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_annual_labor_h...

Isn't this distorted by the amount of unreported overtime? Anecdotally many of my friends in Japan work overtime but don't report it, or report a smaller overtime amount.

Having worked in Japan and USA, Japanese seem more dedicated to taking a holiday when they have one, also keeping working hours. All my jobs were academic though so I don't know for companies.

Probably varies by industry, in my experience man hours are treated as too precious for this. I worked in a sign shop and there were still old hand letterers in the industry but forced to use vinyl printers and plotters. Doing it by hand isn't even contemplated. Also construction companies don't usually value good graphic design. Hand lettering such nice temporary signs is so surprising.