First of all, not anglophone by birth. Second, my Asian friends (mostly Viet and Chinese) also find Japan inscrutable and weird. I've traveled to China multiple

First of all, not anglophone by birth. Second, my Asian friends (mostly Viet and Chinese) also find Japan inscrutable and weird. I've traveled to China multiple time for business and while it's not exactly my favorite place I get pretty easily why folks behave the way they do, I actually noticed that beyond some cosmetic differences the culture is very similar to southern Europe (everything is negotiable, highly transactional relationships based on feigned goodwill...). When I go to China or Korea it just feels like a different part of the world, when I go to Japan it feels like a different planet.