Comment by Yen
3 days ago
I've lived in Japan for a few months. I was about halfway through the article, thinking about how it seemed to be a counter-example, before the author called out Japan specifically.
For all the other differences in culture, the attribute of "People Actually Care" seems to have a huge impact on how pleasant a place it is to visit or live.
I don't know why it seems to be the case there. I don't know how to replicate it. I don't think it's magic. I've heard people bandy about the theory of cultural homogeneity. That might be a _factor_, but I doubt it's the full story.
I suspect if you dig into it, differences in economics are a major factor. In the US, it feels like caring is actively punished, economically. Caring is nice, but someone can only _afford_ to care if their other needs are met.
I also wonder if density is a major factor - not so much for the difference in economy of scale, but the difference of "if my physical space is incredibly constrained, I'm both more incentivized to keep it looking nice, and there's less of it to keep looking nice."
And, of course, it's not like Japan is some kind of otherworldly utopia. There's serious tradeoffs and differences, there's negatives compared to other countries. But it does seem like almost everyone, everywhere, just... puts in a bit more effort. Takes a little bit more time.
> There's serious tradeoffs and differences, there's negatives compared to other countries.
The collectivism of the society which both gives them a public sense of ownership of the whole country (thus, the caring), also yields crazy bullying in school and work, a high suicide rate, and lots of racist and xenophobic attitudes.
Maybe it's changing. It's been a long time since I spent any real time in Japan. My buddy who grew up in Tokushima also is out of touch with how things are there now. Who knows?
This is still pretty true. The xenophobia is waning as Japan's economy stagnates and there's a general vibe that Japan did something wrong economically. But otherwise, these all continue to be real issues in Japan.
These days there's also huge problems with infidelity, marriage rates, and divorce.
The suicide rate in the United States is higher than it is in Japan if you believe official government figures of Japan and the United States. The talking point about suicide in Japan is one of those that's 30 years out of date.
Not sure what the "official government figures" are but the OECD says otherwise: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/suicide-rates.html