I think you said it. Good luck to the people launching off on their neverending crusades (just read the Letters to the Editor in the Japan Times for the last 50 years), to change 2000 years and a whole people's cultural and experiential mindset. They would have just as much luck as Japanese playing cultural missionaries themselves landing in the USA and trying to change American people's outlook and cultural traits as well. We'd just give them a Bronx cheer and a middle finger. This battle is not worth my time and massaging the egos of those with chips on their shoulders who cannot for whatever reason adapt to Japan, is not my responsibility. Thanks DT.
"This battle is not worth my time and massaging the egos of those with chips on their shoulders who cannot for whatever reason adapt to Japan, is not my responsibility."
Oh, if only I could reach the stirrup of your high horse, what joy just to touch the sole of your boot.
Whenever, since 1945, there has been a conflict between US interests and Japanese interests, the Japanese have whipped us like red-headed step-children, precisely because of attitudes like that.
I was involved closely for five and a half years with a dispute between the US military and the Japanese government, that eventually reached the Prez-PM level, and failing there precipitated the first-ever DOJ lawsuit against a foreign entity in their courts. The primary impediment to our eventual success was not our opponents on the Japanese side, but Americans who simply refused to understand what they were dealing with.
The truth is always worth knowing, and writing it off as a matter of "ego" is useful in no way.
I think we could learn the ideas of language, borders, and culture from the Japanese. I would like to make it the 51st state or help them completely rebuild their military - - no more worries about SE Asia as a hotbed of troubles for the USA...