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Yeah if you just read all these articles about Japan, you'd think that all young men beat off to hentai all day at their parent's home, and that everyone is visiting "love hotels", or buys used panties from vending machines.Firstly, love hotels are a sign of not being lonely. They do not offer a prostitute; those batteries are not included
Secondly, I do not gain the impression from that that all do it, merely that they note that the very existence thereof is exceptional. In particular, of the used underwear vending machines, when the story broke many would not believe it and thought it was a hoax, but it actually exists.
No one thinks that every U.S.A.-man bought an assault rifle at a gas station or got one as a gift for opening up a bank account, but that the practice even exists, that the number of occurrence isn't zero — that is something remarkable in and of itself.
> The media loves to spin up an image of Japan to naive westerners by exaggerating its quirks.
What I must ask is why the term “western” invariably always drops whenever Japan is discussed.
Experience taught me that more often than not “the west” in that context simply means “The U.S.A.”.
There is no “west” relevant to what you claim. All that matters is “Japan” vs. “everything else” or at least anyone not particularly experienced with Japan which applies as easily to, say, India, Russia, Uganda, or Indonesia.
> It reminds me of HN. If you read HN too much, you might think that you can only write applications in Rust and Go using K8s, no JavaScript but Typescript only, but in reality the vast majority of apps being written are using boring technologies to implement CRUD around a relational database.
I find that every time an article about a, shall we call it “exciting language” is posted most of the comments, though impressed with the theoretical innovations thereof, doubt it's real world applicability.