It wasn't always so..
But I'd rather have them as allies than enemies.
Posted on 09/12/2020 4:15:49 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Is Japan a great power or a middle power? It is not a member of the UN Security Council and is ultimately dependent on U.S. protection, yet it is a major regional power that helped contain communist regimes during the Cold War. It has the third largest economy in the world and is ranked as having the world’s fourth most powerful military. Its leaders do not want to revive the militarism of the past, but they are prepared to play a larger role in international affairs. Japan has already acted as peacemaker in Cambodia, Mindanao, and Myanmar. The rising star flag with its 16 red rays, often seen as symbol of militarism and imperialism, is rarely flown by civilians, though Japan has never formally apologized for imperial crimes.
Shinzo Abe, scion of prominent political family, grandson of a prime minister, and son of a foreign minister is the first prime minister to have been born after World War II, and the youngest since the war, when in 2006 he first took the head position which he occupied for a year before resigning due to illness. His second stint as leader started in December 2012 when he was 58, and lasted for almost eight years, making him the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. He represents political stability after Japan went through seven leaders in seven years. His political party, the Liberal Democrats, won landslide victories in 2014, 2017, and 2019. The party won 33% of the vote and 218 of the 465 seats in the House of Representatives, and 39% of the vote and controls 170 of the 245 seats in the upper chamber.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
By: atom6502The problem with Japan is it's utterly entrenched Confucian culture that was adapted - North Korea style - to prevent the rise of Christianity (to great success.)
Japanese culture is deadly - literally. Everything in Japan is about absolute conformity, one shot exams which define your entire future You do not sell your experience or skills in Japan. You get into a big company based on your exam results and are expected to stay in that one company for life. If, as a school leaver you dare jump ship in less than three years no other company will EVER hire you as you are marked as disloyal and a trouble maker. CV's do not mean a thing in Japan because you are not supposed to change company, and even though the work levels do not allow for the 'University to retirement' jobs of the past, the Japanese just cannot adapt!
To show loyalty, employees live for their feudal lord and I do mean LIVE! They work 18 hours a day, they do not commute, they live in the office - some companies have dorms - and employees gather in the morning for assembly to sing the company song!
Knowing new employees are trapped, employers push insane amounts of work on them and... you have death by over work or suicide.
The birth rate in Japan is so low because family has been gutted by the overwork culture and changing it is next to impossible! Staff are terrified of taking leave even when it is offered. Many do not know HOW to take time off. The concept is alien to them as they have had their life controlled from a young age. If they take a day off, they are in work by 10AM as they do not know what to do when someone does not tell them what to do!
Kids who stand out are bullied to the point of suicide.
Kids who do not make it to 'Tokyo U' kill themselves as they think their live is over. There are no second chances in Japan.
[There are also hihikomori's, those who seal themselves off in their room and will not face people because of bullying and 'standing out' which is akin to the demonic there! Try and get the out of their and it get end badly.]
There is suicide from overwork, especially from younger employees who are caught in a form of slavery.
Oh, and there is no such thing as an unimportant job in Japan. Every task, down to sharpening pencils, must be perfect and employers can get into trouble for being 'slackers' on meaningless tasks. Conversely, though, productivity stinks, as employees survive by pretending to work, shuffling papers around, just to stay in the office and show their loyalty by hours in.
I love Japanese pop culture but I am painfully aware of how sterile Japan's actual live and die culture is. It's very cruel and the number one, most read book in Japan is a guide to suicide. There are 'suicide parks' in Japan! No joke... the train stations have posters up asking those who wish to commit suicide not to do so during rush hour. A friend of mine was on a train when such a suicide occurred. This is situation normal in Japan. Cliff edges often have metal cages under them to catch those who try and end it all.
Over 50% of the Japanese are atheist and the whole culture has been engineered to prevent Christianity getting a foothold... with overwork used to prevent free thinking.
S. Korea has had very similar problems but is reforming and is becoming Christian. Japan is stuck and the culture is toxic. Attempts at work culture reform by Abe have gone nowhere because nobody will dare risk change... thanks to the conformist + one shot deal culture. Your exam score defines you and your boss OWNS you! (I encounter this culture with the ethnic Chinese as well.)
And that means no time for family. In many businesses, even if there is a break, the employees are expected to go out for a meal with the boss. In Japan your work is your life... or you have no work.
I wish the country would convert because it needs an ideological change to achieve true reform. Abe did try but nobody was buying into the reforms. And Japanese culture has been engineered (as UK culture has been, in fact) to prevent Christianity ever rising again and thereby threatening the old feudal 'Emperor worship' order.
So sad. And I say that an a severe anime lover. Abe could not fix that and I doubt his successor is going to even understand the problem.
Obviously Japan is an extreme example but I kind of miss the days when you had job security and a job for life and you had family owned companies that cared about their employees and looked after their welfare rather than saw them as disposable commodities and in turn, employees reciprocated that loyalty.
Obviously not all companies were like that but the Lever Brothers (before they became Unilever) where a good example of that. Shareholder owned companies only care about the bottom line.
Japan is one of America’s very few real allies outside the Anglosphere. There are a few others like Israel, Poland maybe the Netherlands, but only a handful.
It’s pretty easy to tell. Your real friends do not grandstand, work against you and seek to make you look bad for their own benefit even on those occasions when they disagree with you.
Japan is one of my favorite places to travel to. They are unique. They are very clean and they follow rules. No crime. No stealing. Its like a very short, very crowded Germany. If you go there you use the trains and a six foot man stands a half a foot taller than every one else. The people are serious. And friendly. They never pollute. They recycle everything. Their food and water are very safe. And they generally like Americans. At least as visitors. They like to keep Japan as Japanese.
China is a cruder, not as intelligent, not clean, crime ridden version of Japan. I could live in Japan. I will never even visit China again.
Yup. Japan is a beautiful country, but I would not want to live in the cities.
I visited Japan nearly 20 years ago. It is a very hardworking culture with high standards, but also kind of a sick one. Lots of perversion out in plain sight and no one bats an eye.
A few things that left a lasting impression:
1. Being in a commuter train where you are packed together like sardines. For a while I thought that was as bad as it could get, but I subsequently had a similar experience on a public transit bus in Rome.
2. The workplace setup. No offices or cubicles. Everyone is at one table with the boss at the head of the table. Absolutely NO privacy for the employees. I don’t think I could work like that.
3. After work, there is mandated “fun”. You have to go out and party with your co-workers. A lot of Japanese do this because its expected, but find it hateful and exhausting.
I also visited the countryside, which is beautiful. It is kind of backward there, but far more livable than being stuck in a big city.
Having been to China too, I still think the Japanese could take the Chinese if they ever really wanted to. In many ways, the Chinese are very disorganized and slip-shot compared to the Japanese.
Having visited both countries, I totally agree with your observation about China. However, living in Japan would drive me crazy eventually.
Great post.
Helps my understanding of Japan a great deal.
I would love to visit some day.
It wasn't always so..
But I'd rather have them as allies than enemies.
Japan bump for later....
Not true. They feel that their government was very wrong. They do blame their leaders. If you go there, I think you find most of them as pacifists who don’t trust their own leaders with an army. But its true they don’t trust anyone else either.
Nope. 1 billion vs 126 million.
That's just too many bodies to overcome....even with nukes.
Really? I’ve never heard that. Did they ever fess up for “The Comfort Women’’ and “The Baattan Death March’’. How about “The Rape Of Nanking?’’?
To me Japan’s only regret is that they lost the war.
The distant past.
Japan had no problem taking territory throughout the Asian Pacific region, despite being a small country. Taiwan was a territory controlled by Japan for decades, and the Japanese modernized Taiwan to their benefit. Korea was a territory also controlled by Japan for half a century. Large parts of China - Manchuria. And they defeated Russia, despite Russia being larger. It's not about numbers of people; Japan can defeat China and probably will if a war occurs.
IF China was still the backward country of the 30s yes. But they’re not.
I consider China to still be a backward country. The Japanese are very quality-control conscious, always have been. The Chinese are inferior when it comes to quality control. They are not as creative. The Japanese excel in science and technology as compared to the Chinese. The Chinese steal technology and copy it. Japan has one of the most advanced military forces in the world, while China is lagging behind many countries. Their navy steals designs from the Russians, and their Air Force steals from the U.S.A. Japan has no need to do that.
China is a paper tiger, very arrogant and backward.
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