Comment by RajT88
2 days ago
> 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 The talking point about suicide in Japan is one of those that's 30 years out of date.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