One thing I'd say about the Japanese is their incredibly resilient, like I've never seen a race of people who can put up with so much rubbish and not even complain at all. While it can be seen as a strength, In my opinion it's actually a problem, there's way too much apathy in Japan and in my view, Japan is going backwards, not forwards. They'll likely need another Meiji to get them out of the death spiral they're in.
All of that being said, I absolutely love Japan and the culture ad the people, it's truly fascinating and ancient and "special", I just think it's a shame it have this view of perfectionof Japan from the outside, but the problems are mostly going unaddressed and nothing changes for the actual people of Japan, who are so kind.
It's like a hidden autocracy, people in the west probably think it's a democracy here. I mean, people can vote, but there's really only a single party with the same old ideas.
I once read that the reason Buddhism became popular in Japan so quickly is because it gave people a break from the rigid hierarchy everyone was used too. I often wonder why it's less popular now and whether that's an accident.
As far as I can see we're not so different from Japan, other than the fact we have more crime and our cities are dirtier because individualistic Westerners are too lazy to use rubbish bins.
People can be very individualistic in Japan as well, it just expresses itself in a different way than more Western cultures. It is very broad generalization, but in the west we like to show ourselves as more individual than we really are, while it tends to be the opposite in Japan. Open conflict avoidance is certainly more common in e.g. corporations in Japan, at least in my experience. But that's a very narrow definition of collectivism.
In my opinion, the issue with this collectivist society attitude is, very few people think for themselves unless they're explicitly told what to do. This has been the issue in Tokyo and Japan in general, it's wear masks, social distance, but get on a packed commuter train. People just do it, although it makes no practical sense and everyone knows it's stupid, it's just done.
Look at the case numbers in Tokyo though, not going well.
But I get your point. People doing collective things is not necessarily good. "Hey everyone, lets go to war" Ok.
Of course in the ideal world only the people that are correct would think for themselves or everyone would be correct all the time. But it doesn't work that way, usually people that think for themselves are wrong. When a culture has more people willing to go against the grain sometimes they will be right and make things better but more often they will be wrong and make things worse.
That's not limited to Japan, we have plenty of it in the Anglo-sphere as well.
I go out and I almost NEVER see people without masks.
Canadians held doors, helped each other, and apologized for being in the way because we had a deeply ingrained belief that everyone is equal. When every human being is equal to you, of course you would help, or point out TP on a shoe, or applaud their culture.
However, at some point in the last 20 years “Excuse me” has gone from “We both have an equal right to this space, and I had not noticed I took more than my fair share” to “I’m dirt, and not worthy of taking space at all”.
People who believe they are equal is perceived as “high and mighty”/ostracized, while people who believe they are dirt are welcomed as fellow commiserators to complain with.
Fair warning: I’ve lived in Canada my whole life, and have watched a lot of shifts that either break my heart or frustrate me.
As a Canadian ... what are you talking about? What's oppressive? Oppressive compared to what exactly?
The human mind is designed to work with a "tribe" of about 150 people. Above that and we have to layer culture and learned behaviors on top of innate traits to make the whole thing not implode.
Japan is awesome as a visitor, but there are some weird things going on. Some of the older grandpas are just straight up pervs, I think years of being subservient and closer to death, they just give up the charade. I was traveling in Japan with an ex who had large breasts and several old men would literally follow her around and stare at them with zero shame.
In Chinese, boss is spelled lao-ban, teacher is lao-shi, wife is lao-po, and husband lao-gong. Lao means old. There are a lot more of these in the language. I wouldn't be surprised if its similar in japanese(at least considering the society itself)
The way I imagine it is, is that society is self-balancing in the sense that if you go out of line society reminds you that something isn't ok. But at some point in time when you're old the society just respects you for being old and gives you a pass whatever you do. In east asian societies being old might be one of those conditions. In the US it might be more related to how much money you have, and how successful you seem.
I do wish backup beepers would be banned worldwide and replaced with white noise warnings.
The parody future is now!
If people know this, it would be a incentive for consumer to buy all from the same brand. If all manufactures knows this, they would need to pay more attention to security (or at least resilience).
Not sure what/who wins in the end
Imagine having to discipline your appliances after they blame each other for starting it.
Then you probably haven’t been living there for long. There are tons of things to change, one of my biggest pet peeve being the lack of house insulation and inefficient warming options (reverse air-con, petrol burner instead of central heating). Another is having to sort recyclable material into different categories which are collected at different days (and just once a week) instead of having a dedicated common bin for them. Speaking of that, lack of trash bin in public space is very annoying too.
> How did Germany get the efficiency stereotype and Japan didn’t?
Because it’s a deeply inefficient society. Good results is achieved by throwing more humans, usually doing almost jack-shit, to problems. 10 workers cleaning the same square meter, 16 people on a task for few hours, 4 secretaries at a very small clinic, salaryman staying at work bot producing anything just to keep a good image, etc. I witnessed dozens of such examples. European countries are way more efficient in general in part because they know when to stop, and can’t afford to pay too much people being idle.
Here in Czech Republic we have separate recycling nests each having one container for paper, plastic and glass. Some nests also collect old textile and electronics. And it actually takes quite a lot of space, not to mention not being the most tidy spot arround. And you still need to place your regular communal garbage bins elsewhere, taking up more space.
Japanese engineering is pretty amazing if you ask me.
If you want an example of a culture where work is broken into absurd bits, there are better examples than Japan.
Conversely, German culture is known for it's irrational clinging to cash opposed to electronic payment, obviously Corona is making it reconsider a bit.
In Germany, there is a large line where products are manually scanned, paid for in cash, return calculated, and handed back, and before this cash had to be acquired from the a.t.m.; only slightly to the west in the Netherlands, products are chipped and all automatically scanned when passing through a gate, and paying is quickly done with a no contact card.
In comparison here in Europe many smaller shops still refuse to take cards or you used to be charged extra when paying with card.
So I'd say that's easier than your setup.
[1] Maybe don't throw out glass or metal on the weekend or during the night
As an American living in Japan, part of the reason I moved here is that I think I'd die waiting for any sizable fraction of Americans to demand more rail capacity! I'll happily choose a train full of sweaty salarymen over, say, rush hour traffic in Atlanta any day!
Rip out the trees! Rip out the bike lanes and side walks! Rip out a row of houses! MORE LANES! This really is generational, I only get it from baby boomer relatives and friends. X don't give a crap. And the younger generations say we should walk or bike everywhere. Will it last? Or will they be subsumed into this seemingly never ending Americana story line?
And then they also say, more trains. Because you can combine walking and cycling quite good with a train.
So normally they might seem unnecessary yet their role might be crucial for directing the people flows during the rush hour.
In the west, humans are becoming less employable as they're displaced by automation--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU is a good video if you haven't seen it, and it's from before AI/ML took off! Japan seems to have mitigated it by making automation an addition, instead of a replacement, in many cases. It's certainly not the efficient, capitalist thing to do, but maybe it's the better thing to do.
Everything in Japan still mostly relies on widespread use of fax machines due to their stubborn continued usage of personal wooden seals ("Hanko stamps"). Everyone at every level of management and burocracy has his/her own personal seal which has to be stamped on paper documents, which are then either scanned or sent via fax.
This and a general stubborness on giving up certain deeply rooted but antiquated habits is one of the main reasons Japan is not famous for efficiency.
Also, it's not just Japan. Fax machines are still integral to the American medical system [1], for instance.
[1] https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/10/30/16228054/american...
Excel.
It's used for everything.
I haven't lived in Japan but I've spent a considerable amount of time there. I accept that Japanese people are much more socially conformist, but it's interesting from a visitor's perspective as I've always felt the cities there feel a lot less homogenised in a lot of ways. Tokyo has always felt far more of a city of people doing interesting and creative things than London, to me at least.
One wrong move and you, your family, and your employer are trending on twitter and national news and apologizing for your entire existence while everyone publicly announces that they're cutting ties with you.
Japan has incredibly strong defamation laws, where half the stuff that hits twitter in the US would land people in trouble in court in Japan for trying to ruin someone's reputation (even if it's justified).
I argued with a colleague who worked for a japanese import/export company, he said they were crude, dumb and sleazy.. mostly succeeding by hiring hard working foreigners. That's one viewpoint, but I've also seen documentaries about early semiconductor industry in japan, and while they lifted a few patents, they did do their own share of hard work to turn them into workable devices (to the point where Japan became a reputable country in the field, from audio to computing).
Same goes for animation, Akira was a masterpiece of detail. The gaming industry was great. Ancestral toolsmith (famous katana blacksmith process).. samurai code.
More recently the manufacturing paradigm (toyota/lean).
There's a lot to love from there.
HN people are filled with Westerners fascinated by Asian culture, and then get disappointed once they realized that Asia being Asia and do not want to have the West problems by introducing diversity and PC talk.
I’m not exactly a globe trotter but I was thinking of various South American countries, Thailand.
I don’t want to put any of those places down. I love visiting almost anywhere. Mexico is amazing too.
Japan just stands out as a bit different. Like they’re on a different trajectory somehow.
That's a terrible thing to say. Maybe people weren't friendly to you because you have a horrible attitude.
Saying that neighbouring countries hate Japan is more or less a cliche. It's like saying neighbouring European countries hate Germany. In fact, Koreans for example commonly go over to Japan for a weekend trip.
And it just may happen that I'll stay in Japan for my retirement. We'll see. In any case I'll go back as soon as, or if, the pandemic situation is over.
Internet SJWs on HN respond to reality by downvoting. Yes!
It has nothing to do with race; there are many similar North-West European proverbs that describe a similar tendency that advise against attempting to be exceptional.
U.S.A. society is opposite; it is known to celebrate and encourage exceptionalism and to reward those that have achieved it, or were simply born so.
And even if your interpretation were true, I see no reason why your country of residence would præclude you from criticizing something you disagree with. — the man who feels responsible for the actions of other by association, I find is is also very often the man who assigns responsibility to the innocent by association.
For the record, maybe you haven't met a nice non racist Japanese person yet, that's why your reaction is like that. There are quite a number of mixed ancestry in Japanese society, most of them do fine.
You will find that there are few “western” countries that are similarly interested in “p.c. talk” as the U.S.A. is. — that is very much a condition commonly associated with the U.S.A. culture war.
“Anglo-Saxons” is a common term to refer to all descendants of the British Empire where English became the majority language.
There are several cultural commonalities of Anglo-Saxon nations; one of them would be it's aversion to swearwords on television and strict adherence to social protocol reflected in it's “p.c. culture”.
For example (if you need one aside from trees growing out of other trees) the trash collection trolleys that other countries just see as a horrible dirty thing, in Japan play a happy tune as they go. I miss you Japan. When covid is gone I'll be back.
Edit: and I forgot about the talking, singing, massaging toilets!