The Meiji Restoration was already incredible but I thought the work ethic was there throughout and helped make it possible. I had no idea there was also a revolution of work ethic.
They beat the Brits by about a decade.
Are you sure about that? Compulsory education was introduced in Austria in 1774. Apparently Japan introduced it shortly after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. If anything the UK was particularly late to the game.
Austria had major attendance and implementation issues (e.g., only a 50-60% attendance rate) which apparently weren't fixed until the Reich Public School Law of 1869.
That said, I remember that there was a lot of discussion at one point about how individual behavior in countries that overlapped ex-Austrian/Habsburg territory could be mapped against historical (19th century) boundaries.
Getting back to the original point, Japan was successful because it had high levels of urbanization, which made state directed education more accessible and easier to attain. Other countries/territories implemented compulsory education well before Japan (e.g., Massachusetts first required compulsory education in the 1640s), but efforts either had comparatively lower penetration or relied on non-state institutions (e.g., the church or private institutions) to enforce.
There is correlation between stereotypes and GDP.
Any links on this?
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h...
TL;DR (it's a 213 page grad thesis) Old Germany used to be basically Hufflepuff, a simple-minded, loyal, obedient rustic bumbler who's too stupid to really be a threat or even much of a partner. New Germany arose post-German unification and especially post WW1, where the stereotypes shifted to the modern more sinister concept of a nation of amoral mad scientists and clockwork soldiers - largely as an attempt to justify Germany being the great rival of England.
> passionate, melancholy, romantic, and tearful
https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/thomas-dixon/british-stiff-up...
After all some of the most famous Romantic artists came from Germany: Heine, Beethoven, Hölderlin and Goethe himself. The latter's Werther was the most emotional novel until at least Madam de Bovary, which was written about 80 years later.