In his very interesting book "Kicking away the ladder", the Korean economist Han Joon-Chang quotes US merchants discovering Japan for the first time in the 1860

In his very interesting book "Kicking away the ladder", the Korean economist Han Joon-Chang quotes US merchants discovering Japan for the first time in the 1860s. They all marvelled at how lazy the Japanese were. Surprising, isn't it? Fact is that 1860's Japan lacked all sort of resources, particularly natural ones. In the absence of resources, there isn't much that you can do to bootstrap yourself. With all the workers you need and the money to pay them, you can't build a house if there isn't any timber, mortar and bricks. Therefore, you're better off simply doing nothing, or things that don't require much, like playing music and writing poetry.