I think shame is a really useful thing in the context of society and something I feel a lot of Western cultures would benefit from. I've never understood the "don't X shame me" thing, there are a huge number of things that people should feel shame for that I think western societies have normalised.

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.