10 ms·

I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've

by latch 6y ago

I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been]. Yet there seems to be a fairly constant negative economic narrative about Japan (and this narrative seems to be decades old). What's the deal? Are my observations superficial, or are economists just annoyed that Japan doesn't fit their world-view (low growth must equal disaster).

ginko 6y ago
>I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future That's strange. To me traveling Japan feels like entering an alternative history where the 80s never ended.
- contingencies 6y ago
  Japan seemed to me a case study in hiding sociocultural problems with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition and specifically some sort of perverse derivative of Confucianism. Korea has the same problem. It's a dead-end culture: China and Vietnam finally threw off the shackles in the 20th century at great cost, but Northeast Asia's sociocultural and political economies are apparently still largely running on ideas generated by a 5th century upwardly mobile accountant.
  - baud147258 6y ago
    China's behavior in their Western provinces doesn't convince me they have really dropped their shackles last century
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Uh, they just shackled someone else. This is depressingly common across human history.
  - giantDinosaur 6y ago
    I think you'll have to be a lot more concrete to make this claim particularly strong. What is a 'dead end' culture? How does that contrast with the problems in the West (and yes, especially those in the US)? How did China 'throw off' their shackles in a way different to Japan post WW2? What are the actual 5th century ideas in play?
    - contingencies 6y ago
      Confucianism promotes a centralized and hierarchical sociopolitical system, fundamentally conservative in nature, and deeply misogynistic. Being therefore limited in its adaptive capacity, it is necessarily being phased out even in its homeland. I think you can educate yourself as to national histories in the 20th century. I am not going to get in to comparisons with the west.
  - prewett 6y ago
    Japan seems fairly adaptive. Unlike China in the 1800s, they recognized that they had to open up to the West and did so, taking the West at their own game. They were pretty successful at that for about 100 years, going from feudalism to a modern colonial power faster than anyone else, until the people in charge decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Contrast with China, which refused to open up, got invaded several times, and then embraced Communism which destroyed their economy, and they are still lagging behind Japan in many areas (fashion, literature, manufacturing quality, building quality, general living standard, etc.) It's hard to say that living in Beijing/Shanghai is a better quality of life than Japan, and outside those two cities Japan is definitely better. China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.
asutekku 6y ago
I’ve lived in japan and believe me, what you see as a tourist does not translate into reality. Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world and in some places even more. Sure, tourist facing areas and central tokyo are pretty nice, but that’s not the reality in most places.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world In which areas is Japan behind? What are some of your observations?
  - robjan 6y ago
    When was the last time you used a fax machine? We maintain one specifically for communicating with Japanese companies.
    - cbzbc 6y ago
      It's possible this is for legislative reasons rather than anything else.
      - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        If that's the case, then a fax isn't too bad (compared to some of the bureaucratic contortionism in the west).
      - andi999 6y ago
        At least until a few years back only fax was considered 'in writing', so if like a lawyer wanted to submit an appeal to a court it either had to be a letter or a fax, no email. Now the government invented a new authenticated email system which supposedly is like 'in writing'
    - mrob 6y ago
      Japanese has the most complicated writing system of any language. For a long time handwriting was the easiest means of written communication, and faxes can transmit handwriting. There are good Japanese IMEs now, but if faxes already work why change them?
netcan 6y ago
It's partly related to economics: 2 generations of extremely rapid growth followed by a generation of stagnation. It's partly demographic. An aging population. It's partly cultural phenomenons that seem pathological, particularly among youth. These seem to be connected to the earlier two.
eru 6y ago
> I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been]. Have you been to Singapore?
- latch 6y ago
  Yes, lived there for 4 years.
  - eru 6y ago
    Do you think Japan is a decade ahead of Singapore as well? If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects. (Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)
    - latch 6y ago
      Yes. And I love Singapore. I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality and are more self sustainable (not too much Singapore can do here, but it might become increasingly important). I don't want to speak too much subjectively. Because I've lived in Singapore and I've only visited Japan. So maybe I just haven't seen Japan's dirty side - which was kind of what I was asking in my original post. I've heard (and seen (maid cafe)) that Japan has a sexism issue, but so does Singapore, and I wouldn't know how to quantify them.
      - x87678r 6y ago
        Doesn't Singapore run on $1/hr workers from other countries? It has much higher inequality than Japan.
        eru 6y ago
        Global inequality doesn't go away just because we close our eyes to it. Yes, Singapore has special visas for people to come as construction workers or maids. Some Google suggests they make about 800 SGD/month in basic pay in construction Alas, if Singapore wouldn't hire them, not only would the city lose out on infrastructure projects, but the construction workers would lose out on high paying jobs. (High paying relative to the alternatives for them.) Yes, not hiring them would technically decrease measured inflation in Singapore, but that would be functionally equivalent to deporting your poor people in an effort to decrease measured inequality inside your borders.
gfxgirl 6y ago
What about Japan seems like the future? Maybe you should try Singapore or many of the big cities in China. Singapore's architecture looks far more in the future than anything in Japan at this point. So do many other more modern Asian cities. China has lots of poverty but the big cities are far further along in their switch to digital than Japan. It was a big deal during lockdown that so much of Japan's government runs on paper documents that have to be stamped with official personal seals (hanko). The new prime minister has claimed it's one of this top priorities because Japan is so far behind.
- latch 6y ago
  I've lived for multiple years in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I think they're all great. For the sake of argument, I'll try to keep this about Tokyo, but a key observation of mine is that _all_ of Japan is like this. Objectively, Tokyo has the lowest pollution. Singapore is close, on average, but it can have awful week-long spikes. Tokyo has the lowest crime rate. Again, Singapore is basically the same, but it does have a high incarceration rate. Japan has the lowest income inequality gap (couldn't find Tokyo-specific statistics). Japan has the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate (tied with Singapore re infant mortality). Japan also has the highest rate of people who completed tertiary education. Pollution and income inequality are, for me, major indicators. Income equality benefits everyone; and, as much as I love Singapore (I really do), it's hard for me to consider it an ideal future city because of this (and the inequality has a racial aspect which, I think, is the source of its persistence). The lockdown highlighted the worst in every country. Both China and Singapore had clear failings (and successes). I guess we're measuring "future" differently. Technology vs [e]quality of life.
  - andi999 6y ago
    What I thought as the most striking difference between singapore and tokyo is the noise level feels much less in tokyo.
  - golemiprague 6y ago
    Singapore is boring, the whole place seems like a plastic copy of whatever the original is. Tokyo has its own culture and vibe and it shows, it is just much more fun. Every day in Tokyo you can discover new things, in Singapore the only thing you discover is another international food franchise. So apart from all the technicalities those are not even comparable places.

by latch 6y ago

ginko 6y ago

>I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future That's strange. To me traveling Japan feels like entering an alternative history where the 80s never ended.

contingencies 6y ago
Japan seemed to me a case study in hiding sociocultural problems with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition and specifically some sort of perverse derivative of Confucianism. Korea has the same problem. It's a dead-end culture: China and Vietnam finally threw off the shackles in the 20th century at great cost, but Northeast Asia's sociocultural and political economies are apparently still largely running on ideas generated by a 5th century upwardly mobile accountant.
- baud147258 6y ago
  China's behavior in their Western provinces doesn't convince me they have really dropped their shackles last century
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Uh, they just shackled someone else. This is depressingly common across human history.
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  I think you'll have to be a lot more concrete to make this claim particularly strong. What is a 'dead end' culture? How does that contrast with the problems in the West (and yes, especially those in the US)? How did China 'throw off' their shackles in a way different to Japan post WW2? What are the actual 5th century ideas in play?
  - contingencies 6y ago
    Confucianism promotes a centralized and hierarchical sociopolitical system, fundamentally conservative in nature, and deeply misogynistic. Being therefore limited in its adaptive capacity, it is necessarily being phased out even in its homeland. I think you can educate yourself as to national histories in the 20th century. I am not going to get in to comparisons with the west.
- prewett 6y ago
  Japan seems fairly adaptive. Unlike China in the 1800s, they recognized that they had to open up to the West and did so, taking the West at their own game. They were pretty successful at that for about 100 years, going from feudalism to a modern colonial power faster than anyone else, until the people in charge decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Contrast with China, which refused to open up, got invaded several times, and then embraced Communism which destroyed their economy, and they are still lagging behind Japan in many areas (fashion, literature, manufacturing quality, building quality, general living standard, etc.) It's hard to say that living in Beijing/Shanghai is a better quality of life than Japan, and outside those two cities Japan is definitely better. China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.

asutekku 6y ago

I’ve lived in japan and believe me, what you see as a tourist does not translate into reality. Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world and in some places even more. Sure, tourist facing areas and central tokyo are pretty nice, but that’s not the reality in most places.

bergstromm466 6y ago
> Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world In which areas is Japan behind? What are some of your observations?
- robjan 6y ago
  When was the last time you used a fax machine? We maintain one specifically for communicating with Japanese companies.
  - cbzbc 6y ago
    It's possible this is for legislative reasons rather than anything else.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      If that's the case, then a fax isn't too bad (compared to some of the bureaucratic contortionism in the west).
    - andi999 6y ago
      At least until a few years back only fax was considered 'in writing', so if like a lawyer wanted to submit an appeal to a court it either had to be a letter or a fax, no email. Now the government invented a new authenticated email system which supposedly is like 'in writing'
  - mrob 6y ago
    Japanese has the most complicated writing system of any language. For a long time handwriting was the easiest means of written communication, and faxes can transmit handwriting. There are good Japanese IMEs now, but if faxes already work why change them?

netcan 6y ago

It's partly related to economics: 2 generations of extremely rapid growth followed by a generation of stagnation. It's partly demographic. An aging population. It's partly cultural phenomenons that seem pathological, particularly among youth. These seem to be connected to the earlier two.

eru 6y ago

> I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been]. Have you been to Singapore?

latch 6y ago
Yes, lived there for 4 years.
- eru 6y ago
  Do you think Japan is a decade ahead of Singapore as well? If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects. (Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)
  - latch 6y ago
    Yes. And I love Singapore. I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality and are more self sustainable (not too much Singapore can do here, but it might become increasingly important). I don't want to speak too much subjectively. Because I've lived in Singapore and I've only visited Japan. So maybe I just haven't seen Japan's dirty side - which was kind of what I was asking in my original post. I've heard (and seen (maid cafe)) that Japan has a sexism issue, but so does Singapore, and I wouldn't know how to quantify them.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      Doesn't Singapore run on $1/hr workers from other countries? It has much higher inequality than Japan.
      - eru 6y ago
        Global inequality doesn't go away just because we close our eyes to it. Yes, Singapore has special visas for people to come as construction workers or maids. Some Google suggests they make about 800 SGD/month in basic pay in construction Alas, if Singapore wouldn't hire them, not only would the city lose out on infrastructure projects, but the construction workers would lose out on high paying jobs. (High paying relative to the alternatives for them.) Yes, not hiring them would technically decrease measured inflation in Singapore, but that would be functionally equivalent to deporting your poor people in an effort to decrease measured inequality inside your borders.

gfxgirl 6y ago

What about Japan seems like the future? Maybe you should try Singapore or many of the big cities in China. Singapore's architecture looks far more in the future than anything in Japan at this point. So do many other more modern Asian cities. China has lots of poverty but the big cities are far further along in their switch to digital than Japan. It was a big deal during lockdown that so much of Japan's government runs on paper documents that have to be stamped with official personal seals (hanko). The new prime minister has claimed it's one of this top priorities because Japan is so far behind.

latch 6y ago
I've lived for multiple years in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I think they're all great. For the sake of argument, I'll try to keep this about Tokyo, but a key observation of mine is that _all_ of Japan is like this. Objectively, Tokyo has the lowest pollution. Singapore is close, on average, but it can have awful week-long spikes. Tokyo has the lowest crime rate. Again, Singapore is basically the same, but it does have a high incarceration rate. Japan has the lowest income inequality gap (couldn't find Tokyo-specific statistics). Japan has the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate (tied with Singapore re infant mortality). Japan also has the highest rate of people who completed tertiary education. Pollution and income inequality are, for me, major indicators. Income equality benefits everyone; and, as much as I love Singapore (I really do), it's hard for me to consider it an ideal future city because of this (and the inequality has a racial aspect which, I think, is the source of its persistence). The lockdown highlighted the worst in every country. Both China and Singapore had clear failings (and successes). I guess we're measuring "future" differently. Technology vs [e]quality of life.
- andi999 6y ago
  What I thought as the most striking difference between singapore and tokyo is the noise level feels much less in tokyo.
- golemiprague 6y ago
  Singapore is boring, the whole place seems like a plastic copy of whatever the original is. Tokyo has its own culture and vibe and it shows, it is just much more fun. Every day in Tokyo you can discover new things, in Singapore the only thing you discover is another international food franchise. So apart from all the technicalities those are not even comparable places.