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spikels

Almost everything is better in Japan!

- Taxi doors open themselves (and the drivers wear white gloves)

- Subway maps light up to indicate where you are

- You can hold your table at a cafe by leaving your phone or keys or wallet & nobody will steal it

- Take out coffee often has a piece of tape so it won't spill

- People are friendly & cheerful when you met them (although they are much the same when you get to know them)

- Goods are packaged beautifully (if perhaps excessively)

- Sexuality is much more specialized (if sometimes bizarre)

- French pastries are better than in France

- Even ice cubes are better

- I could go on and on...

While Japan has many flaws almost any "thing" you can point to, if not always better, is usually better. What is perhaps more interesting is the things that are worse.

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"What is perhaps more interesting is the things that are worse."

First and foremost I believe is resistance to change. The reasoning of "because that's the way it has always been" and general bureaucracy means change is very slow to come. When change is actually put into motion it occurs with amazing efficiency but initial resistance seems much stronger than many other cultures.

Anyway, my personal counter list might go like this:

- Blatant sexism

- The work emphasis placed on quantity (time) over quality

- Despite a reputation of High Tech, requiring paper (printed) documents for nearly everything.

- Meeting people outside of work/school is so unusual that often you can make someones night by striking up a conversation in a bar. Great for the visiting tourist but seems suffocating for many Japanese.

- Fantastic food often ruined by the people chain smoking right next to you.

Still really enjoy living here, but I fortunately don't have to deal with the Japanese work environment like many of my friends do.

I hear from friends who are not Japanese / Asian who work there a lot that Japanese are generally quite xenophobe; is that true generally or in certain regions or?

Yes, Japan has a long history of mutual xenophobia with China and other countries around southeast asia. I'm not sure if you were referring to that or xenophobia of westerners though, which I've also heard about. Despite that however, it seems like a great place to live.

They were referring to westerners as they are those and feel discriminated against in mostly subtle but sometimes not so subtle ways.

- Cheese.

A friend of my family knows a few female Japanese expats. They are all very adamant that they absolutely would not go back to living in Japan due to the sexism.

Another thing to add to that list is the Japanese justice system: no trial by jury at all.

Not having juries is pretty common is countries that use a civil law approach rather than common law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_%28legal_system%29

Don't forget trash cans. I regularly spend 10+ minutes walking around looking for a trash can. I know they got rid of them due to terrorism but c'mon that was 15 years ago.

That's not true. They generally consider it people's own responsibility to take care of the trash themselves by taking it home & disposing of it there.

Most people don't stop to think: it costs money to dispose of trash. Here they just don't believe the city should have to foot the bill for your garbage. Different way of thinking about it, is all.

No, it's a lack of consideration. That's the paradox of Japan. They consider a lot, say spending zillions on the care of vegetation by the municipality. But then you find that there's not enough waste cans to dispose of the trash from the street food you just bought. They could tax the vendors a bit more, have them pay for the waste removal they are ultimately generating, then everyone's happy.

Then there's the lack of soap dispensers in restrooms. you know where you might have just had an accident, you get to clean up your hands with just water. Then jet dry all the particles into the air on that overbuilt $1900 unnecessary hand dryer. You know for the sake of cleanliness. I guess dry hands are clean hands right?

It's a different way of thinking about it. So the guy who had shit on his hands, cleaned it up, but it's still on the faucet. Now I've touched the faucet (with my had because no towel dispenser of course) and I've got his shit on my hands. Real cool. But they good thing the hedges outside the restroom look so nice.

To the untrained eyes, it may appear that there is no where to throw trash away in Tokyo. This is because the Japanese have cleverly disguised the trash cans as vending machines (PET bottles/aluminum cans) and convenience stores (other garbage).

I'm not sure.. there are trash cans in certain public places like parks and subways, but they're rare enough that you have to spend time looking.

And sometimes it's not practical to carry your waste the whole day - I have seen trash piled up beside the street on occasion.

I have trash anxiety from spending time in tokyo.. whenever I buy something I have to consider the wrapping and whether there's a trash can nearby.

thank you for mentioning this.

What, no mention of Japanese toilets?

I live in Thailand where most toilets have a handheld sprayer next to them -- part bidet and part firehose. Awkward at first but it's hard to tolerate a paper-only cleansing after you get used to them. While European-style bidets have their charm the furthest expression of this luxury is the Japanese toilet. Push button controlled, temperature regulated and with a drying cycle that's like a spring breeze on your privates. After using one it's hard to understand why they're not the norm.

I think most Americans (such as myself) are grossed out by the idea of a bidet.

Japanese toilet != bidet. The former are as sanitary and hands off as the process can get.

Count me out against most Americans. How on earth is cleaning your butt with water gross, but smearing shit all over it with paper sanitary?

if you smear something greasy on your arm and dribble water on it nothing happens. Imagine a bidet as a gentle spray of water and it wont clean anythung.

if you imagine a bidet as a pressure washer, you get soaked clothes and soaked legs and filth splashed everywhere.

if you imagine it as something you need toilet paper with - wet toilet paper is awful and useless and turns to chunks.

if you imagine it like a shower with soap and water then you need a towel afterwards.

The idea of one in a public toilet is disgusting!

Yah, when I get my hands muddy playing in the dirt, a few wipes with a paper towel and I'm set for the day!!

> a handheld sprayer next to them -- part bidet and part firehose

"Bumgun"

There is something about Japan that leads foreigners to alternate between extreme admiration and complete negativity. There are varying opinions about everything of course, but with Japan the same person will alternate between the two extremes. One minute you find yourself marveling at how nice, thought out and efficient everything is in Japan, and wish every country could be like that. The next minute you despair about how backwards, inefficient and hopeless Japan can be.

As a contrast, western expats in China seem to be all about the complaining. Except when they suddenly start defending party policies when discussing with a foreigner who is less knowledgeable about China.

Well the "CCP are evil tyrants destroying the freedom of chinese" gets frustrating when you are sitting in china watching the destruction of poverty and rise of the middle class wealth and power. ;-)

> CCP are evil tyrants destroying the freedom of chinese" <snip> destruction of poverty and rise of the middle class wealth and power.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, most people believe both are happening. I don't think anyone doubts the middle class in China is on the rise, the question is, "at what cost?" If they're rising because of China's economic bubble, when it crashes, they're going to be worse off than before. Potentially much worse off. Some economists believe that when China crashes, it will be the worst economic disaster in recorded history. Now whether that's true or not is another matter, but the fact that people are even making those claims can't be good. There's some substance there.

There is rarely any substance in people predicting the future.

I don't really understand the prediction that china is a bubble, you have a huge population getting education and experience, and you are doubting there is a huge amount of value to be derived from them? People think predict it's a bubble because it's ridiculously huge, but that's just as likely to be because China is ridiculously huge... no?

Almost everything? These people live in shoe boxes, and you have to be a millionaire to get a parking spot in Tokyo. The men work all day long and then have to get drunk with their coworkers in the evenings. They smoke and drink too much, and you can never get a straight answer out of a Japanese person.

If you're a foreigner there are still a lot of landlords who'll refuse to rent to you. The cops are famous for beating confessions out of suspects.

And local protestations to the contrary, you can't get a good steak in Japan, as if you could afford it anyway.

You can get excellent steak in Japan. The best steak I ever had was at a teppanyaki restaurant in Ginza. You pay for it though (~¥50K for two people, at that place).

Have you ever had steak in Japan? In my experience, it was uniformly excellent, much better than what you can find in most places in the US.

And the same parking spot issues apply in Manhattan as well. But it's moot because you don't need to own a car in either place, and you probably don't want to, because it's a huge hassle.

You can get the best steak in the world "Kobe" in japan.

> These people live in shoe boxes

So "downtown Tokyo" = all of Japan now? I lived in Japan for 14 months and I can tell you right now they don't all "live in shoe boxes". Hell, my rental flat in Japan was bigger than my 2 bedroom house here on the outskirts of Sydney, oh and it was cheaper.

> and you can never get a straight answer out of a Japanese person.

Let me guess, you got all your information on Japan from Debito or that Gaijin forum?

> - French pastries are better than in France

Is this a joke or something ? I live in Japan, I'm French, and there's no way the pastries you buy over here are as good (or even as cheap) as in France. Or you must have been to the wrong part of France.

They're not as good as Paris, but they're getting better.

The first time I went to Japan, I had a number of experiences buying a perfect-looking french pastry, only to find that the inside was cakey, or filled with hot dog, or some other weird thing. It was like the form of the thing had been perfectly copied, but not the substance.

Went back again a couple of years ago, and the average pastry was much closer to what I'd buy at a decent shop in France. I figure they've got another few years before they're competing with the MOF winners. ;-)

You can never get pastries as good as in France for a simple reason: humidity. It influences the cooking process in such a way you can never get the same texture, and your pastry will become soft within hours of cooking because it soaks ambient humidity.

Pastries in Japan are still quite good, but they can never hope to compare with French ones - they developed their own style and adapted it to Japanese tastes as well, so you can't even expect to get something that has the same taste either, even if it looks alike. And for certain items, you just can't find anything that even matches the supermarket form of it in France : take Pains au chocolat, most of them scream of utter failure in Japan when you bite into them. And I've tried numerous ones, even in expensive bakeries, and was always disappointed.

And let's not forget pastries in Japan are way more expensive than in France. That counts, too.

"You can never get pastries as good as in France for a simple reason: humidity. It influences the cooking process in such a way you can never get the same texture, and your pastry will become soft within hours of cooking because it soaks ambient humidity."

France is a big place. I'm reasonably sure that humidity levels differ between French cities, yet they still make French pastries.

I mean, I get it: you're always going to find some reason to like French pastries better. But "humidity" is a pretty bad reason, since you can actually control it.

No, this is precisely the explanation that was given to me by pastries making companies based in Japan. I'm not inventing anything. And France never gets 90% Relative Humidity. Check the data. Japan's humidity is way higher.

> French pastries are better than in France

I can't say I agree with that… (source: French person living in Japan).

Thank you Sacha for holding the fort :)

Yeah, I was slightly offended by that remark, too.

The politicians are more... interesting... too :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuumGX-6uc

For a second, I thought you were alluding to Mac Akasaka.

Turns out this one's just as insane... I can only imagine this being a comedy sketch or something.

> - Subway maps light up to indicate where you are

That's certainly not unique to Japan.

"Almost everything is better in Japan". Let me guess, you're a man, right? You are! How did I know this?

If Japan is so much "better", why did birthrates start falling in 1974 without stopping, to the point they are now at or near the "lowest low" from which no society is known to have every recovered?

Besides the immediate problems (including the prefectures dropping on the floor the information necessary for old age pension payments for way too many who didn't work for big companies, those in the high risk/low reward part of the economy), e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan, there will be no Japanese people by the end of the next century, and given the tough neighborhood they live in, "the end" will probably come much sooner.

They are going to need to manage that. Japan is overpopulated and too expensive. The right people need to think about new models and processes for population decline. Bringing in foreigners is the solution people throw out. Why the hell wouldn't you want to shrink things down and embrace what can be done with that?

They need to slow population decline but a decline is good for that country for a little while. Way too many people, too long of lines. They need more leisure time and less stress there.

"Why the hell wouldn't you want to shrink things down and embrace what can be done with that?"

That's simply not an option for a country with as big a welfare state as Japan's, unless of course they take the Soylent Green approach, which would seem to be at odds with the cultural respect for the elderly, ancestors, etc. (maybe that's changing). Add the government essentially misappropriating the people's wealth to fund decades of extreme fiscal deficits, to the point of 214% of GDP per the CIA and 238% per the IMF (per Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_de...) ... as more and more people retire, the money they thought they had in their e.g. Japan Post Bank, they're not going to be able to withdraw it, at least in vaguely similar economic terms.

I don't know what the hell they can do, that doesn't involve serious inhuman stuff.

> serious inhuman stuff.

This is one of the reasons they are investing heavily into robotics. That is the inhuman that might save them.

I don't see that as being financially viable in the way I was referring to, taking care of the elderly. I was thinking of something more like warehousing them, at best.

Their economic system is so broken I'm not sure more robotics would make a qualitative difference in the outcome.

If birth rates are a measure of the success of a society, then Afghanistan, Niger and Mali must be the most successful nations on Planet Earth.

The countries at the bottom of this list seem much more pleasant to live in than the countries at the top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...

You're looking at the wrong thing.

If you don't replace yourself, you're a dead end, a historical curiosity at some point if you're lucky. Imagine a Japan that is one day remember mostly for and about it's anime and manga.... And, oh, yeah, they found a superior way to make good quality cars, assuming we're still using those in the 24th and a Half Century.

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