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Comment by quadrifoliate | Hacker News Reader

I would love to read your article about the beautiful medieval crests on British fire engines, too! No joke, feel free to link something in reply to my comment as well if you have existing articles.

I feel like there has been a lot of unnecessary pushback about 'Thing in Japan' articles on the internet. Guess what, there are cool things everywhere; including Japan. Write about the ones you know about!

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>I feel like there has been a lot of unnecessary pushback about 'Thing in Japan' articles on the internet. Guess what, there are cool things everywhere; including Japan.

That's the point of the whole meme. People think it's interesting because of Japan not because of the content itself is interesting.

Did you know there are 12,000 Zabka stores in Poland and they are almost as ubiquitous as konbinis? Guess what, no gives a fuck because it's not Japan but an eastern European country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBabka_(convenience_store)

"no gives a fuck" is a bit dramatic

there are memes about zabka on social media as well (i've personally seen some on insta and tiktok), maybe not in the same scale, but there are.

There are over 12,000 7/11s in the United States, and probably hundreds of thousands of competitors (certainly if you include gas station stores). The thing that's different about Japanese convenience stores is that, 24/7, they sell food that's incredibly high quality compared to what you can get in American convenience stores at extremely low prices, and that doesn't seem to be the case for Zabka?

I think what stands out is that American 7/11s sell particularly low quality food.

Americans focus on Japan, but they could make the same comparison with many other countries.

Maybe because it's OK to be worse than Japan (it's Japan! The orient! The mystery!) but embarrassing to be worse than Poland.

And you do see a bunch of articles and videos online about Buc-ee's

If you write an article about Zabka stores and what's unique and interesting about them I'll probably read it.

I think the point is more that nobody thinks weeb content is good except for weebs.

Or, if you like, it’s still all just orientalism.

IMO the author kind of opened themselves up to it when they said:

> And still, in my life here in the United States, words are still needed to convey meaning.

As if the US doesn’t have easily identifiable police and firefighters. Or handicap placards/license plates. Or public transportation logos (such as the NY MTA logo).

I think Japan does a pretty good job with signage in general and some of it is interesting to read about. Some things like the newbie sticker might be worth adopting elsewhere. Other things like the old people sticker might be considered age discrimination in other countries.

But framing it like only Japan knows how to use symbols or “read the air” is just dumb.

The U.S. does tend to use words where other cultures often use iconography. Road signs are a prime example.

And the American symbols symbolize what they signify, too. A stylized wheelchair to indicate physical mobility. An ear with a line through it to indicate deafness. Less poetic, maybe, but the point is to communicate.

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