It's this sort of "reasoning by anecdote" that, while convincing to the individuals relating them, can easily mislead others into believing your conclusions are rational.
Edit: I am surprised to find; I mistakenly assumed I have the ability to delete my comments. That seems new...
It's a pest when you post something only to realise a little while later that perhaps it should have been written differently or not written at all.
Happens to me all the time.
Don't worry about it. I -- for one ;-) -- think your comment was appropriate and useful, in this context.
(For example, it provides me with some additional insight to my own occasional interactions with Japanese culture. Most useful, to me.)
Nor do I mean to be overly critical of the critiquing response. Yes, we do need to be aware of anecdote versus corroborated fact. But, as one other respondent has commented, we make some assumption that those on HN can judge this for themselves.
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This comment meant in good spirit, all around. And yes, it's just my opinion.
I did not say it was unreasonable to "gain a sense of the uniquely different cultural attitudes and priorities that are prevalent in a society".
Based on your analysis, I think you have misinterpreted both the intent and premise of my comment.
What I actually said was precisely what I did say: that you should not be quick to publicly espouse these generalizations that you have anecdotally observed. To a general audience of people who do not know you, the words that you write on here are the only basis we have on which to understand you as a person, short of getting to know you personally.
Perhaps you have never been on the receiving end of a racial stereotype or generalization, even an "innocent" one. Even if the comments are not made with malicious intent, and believe me I know the OP had absolutely no malicious intent at all, stereotypes can and do make some people uncomfortable to hear.
Why is that? Well, there are lots of reasons. If for nothing else, it makes the member of the group in question the "Other". If only for a brief moment in time the individual ceases to exist; their racial characteristics are being now being discussed, rationalized, and analyzed by the others in the room.
I really just wanted to give my honest advice to a nice guy (the OP), that it would be wise to avoid allowing this sort of discussion be associated with him as a person, unintentionally immortalized by the internet.
If we all shy away from discussing the interesting and unique different perspectives of different cultural and social norms and objectives, we lose the opportunity to be inspired by one another.
I really dont care if someone later in the future discovers that i said i had an impression of something i saw in a society, and i dont think people need to be shielded from hearing what outsiders think of their society.
As for your suggestion that i have probably not been on the receiving end of such observations, as a non-japanese living in a country that has almost no foreigners percentage-wise, yes, i am aware of what it is like to be on the receiving end of blanket generalizations about "americans" "foreigners" "californians" and other groups, usually by people who have never travelled more than a few km by train from their home town. That kind of empty and idiotic thinking has nothing whatsoever to do with someone simply describing what they have seen with their own personal experience in a foreign land.
Those are not "racial generalizations" (and the fact that the Japanese are asian has little to do with that, it could have as easily been about differences between French and German attitudes).
Of course you can find Japanese who are totally sloppy and against the description given above. But you wouldn't find a Japanese culture where sloppiness is OK, and shame is not important.
Outliers exists everywhere -- but the importance of observation is to find larger patterns and be able to summarily understand your subject. Science starts with labelling things -- and it's perfectly rational.
And of course, observations and conclusions can be corrected as more data arrive.