Font woes aside, this is an extremely interesting series on economic adjustment; in many ways, Japan provides a leading indicator for changes in American and European economies.
On the surface Japan can seem like it has some things in common (comparable) with the West; however, it's more or less comparing superficial manifestations.
1. Japan while you will see 'international' this and that everywhere and people are taught English from an early age, Japan is very insular (geographically, obviously and mentally) and inward looking (provincial not reflective) and hardly international. People (employees) in the international depts can't expect to rise much within an org. --with few exceptions). All talk and no walk.
2. Japan is very xenophobic (not just a little like Italy might be or France might be about undocumented Roma or Albanians). This could be traced back to how Japan dealt with foreigners (and trade) back in the Edo period as exemplified by Dejima island. Foreigners (dutch) were relegated to an island and had to be back by sundown and could not leave. This attitude has not changed in over a hundred years. 3rd generation Koreans are still considered foreigners (and they must assume a Japanese name, and oddly none the less considered foreign). The foreign population in Japan is actually on the wane for various reasons (economic and also people just get tired of the politics)
3. Japanese industry found their stride in the late 60s; however, few have revisited their assumptions, systems, technologies, methods, etc. For an example, look at their film industry. Almost complete implosion due to stagnation.
4. Conformity. While on the surface these niche 'diverse' groups would seem to indicate break with conformity, it does not. As someone observed, these movements and subcultures are de-coupled from politics, completely.
That's just the beginning. There are many other reasons a 1:1 comparison with the West is not helpful.
There is a kind of parallel withe the US. It's the maturity regression. However, while many in the US recognize and decry the eternal adolescence of American adults (viz toilet humor, frat culture), in Japan it's rather infantilization (viz Hello Kitty, stuffed animals, Pokemon --whose main audience are adults, not children).
Edit: I guess what I mean is that one would extrapolate Japan onto the West at one's own expense (of understanding). In this agree with Japan --they are unique, in this regard.
They don't have to assume a Japanese name. Most do, probably the legal alias they have used all their lives when speaking in Japanese. East Asian countries do not have the same attitudes to names as unique identifiers, invariant across languages as western countries do. The third generation Koreans you refer to are Zainichi Koreans who don't hold Japanese nationality.
However, the Japanese Diet has not yet passed a resolution regarding this matter [Zainich Koreans voting rights in Japanese elections] despite several attempts by a section within Liberal Democratic Party of Japan to do so, and there is considerable public and political opposition against granting voting rights to those who have not yet adopted Japanese nationality. Instead, the requirements for naturalization has been steadily lowered for Zainichi to the point that only criminal records or affiliation to North Korea would be a hindrance for naturalisation.
I'm not saying that Japan isn't very xenophobic but if they want Japanese citizenship most Zainichi Koreans can have it with relatively little difficulty.
It's not even ironic that zainichi just means someone 'residing/staying' temporarily, ie. not considered permanent -but they've been born and lived in Japan all their lives, as well as their parents and grandparents.
Zainichi people of Korean ancestry are not Korean nationals. Korea (South) can't call them up to serve in the military for their compulsory army duty. It's like saying 4th generation Americans of Italian or Mexican descent aren't 'Americans' if their parents were not officially naturalized Americans. Zainichi for this intent means 'guest' Korean.
Zainichi Koreans can get North or South Ko
rean passports. They are exempt from military service unless they move to Korea. Connotations and denotations of language change, zainichi means temporary and chosen means korea but zainichi chosen refers to born and raised on Japan people with Korean citizenship or an entitlement to same, not people studying abroad or similar.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zainichi_Korean
See footnote 1
Wait... are you one of those exceeedingly rare Japanese citizens who have no Japanese blood ancestry or are you just foreign-born Japanese?
And I do agree with you. Japan is a leading indicator in many respects.
Is that exceedingly rare? I am surprised, I would assume the Japanese equivalent of a green card would be highly sought after for much the same reasons
A person with no Japanese ancestry becoming a citizen is exceedingly rare. It does happen, but not very often, and the process is onerous.
Applying for PR is more common, but still a burdensome procedure and is ostensibly only granted to those who either have a direct connection to Japanese family, either through ancestry or marriage (especially marriage resulting in procreation), or who have achieved some kind of major conventionally recognized accomplishment (e.g., winning the Nobel Prize):
If a child would otherwise be stateless, then they will acquire Japanese citizenship if they are born in Japan. But since Korea has a similar system, Korean children aren't stateless, they are Koreans.
You know how we have crunchyroll? That doesn't exist in Japan. Amazon, Netflix; numerous industries just don't exist. The #1 search engine in Japan? Yahoo, although even they can't explain this last bastion. So first of all we got a weird issue of lack of technological disruption in a very wired country.
Secondly, and this is a lot weirder, it all really comes down to lack of being able to fix their own issues. Japan does not sell B2B software at all, and large companies like Sony/Mitsubishi/Fujitsu basically keep programmers fucked by making everything private gardens. Because no one can compete with the internal services, it is a slow death through incestuous defense of certain technology choices with no alternatives.
Everything basically comes down to that oh-so-famous Japanese proverb: "the nail that stands out gets hammered down."
Your other remarks are spot on though.