>But for the average US person for example, the culture, historical legacy and customs of Japan can seem totally foreign.
It's no more true for Japan than it is for anywhere. People who get all their information from the western press and then actually go to Japan come away shocked at how normal everything is. It would be like people in other countries forming their opinions on the US based on the Castro district in San Francisco during the '70s.
>Second, yes, if Japanese people aren't having kids, Japan can be doomed, in the sense of population decline, economic and job issues, etc.
There are 127 million people in Japan. If the population shrinks by 35 million or so they'll have about the same number of people they had at the start of WW II. And they'll be a lot better for it, too. Certainly any time you have a pay-go pension scheme there are difficulties with a shrinking population, but it's nothing they can't manage.
As far as taking in immigrants, what Japan is doing makes a lot more sense that what the US or the Europeans are doing. I don't blame people who don't want to have to choose, at age 60, between immersion in a foreign culture and moving from the place they've lived for decades.
>It's no more true for Japan than it is for anywhere.
That's obviously false. There are places that share far more culturally and in the way of life with one another. Canada or Australia, for an obvious example, will be much more relatable to the average white American that most of Africa or Asia. Belgium will mostly familiar to a French or Dutch. Austria will be far closer to a German than China, etc.
>People who get all their information from the western press and then actually go to Japan come away shocked at how normal everything is.
If by "how normal" this means that people in Japan are also eat, work, sleep, etc, well, this is obvious. People are people. That doesn't mean that other aspects of Japanese society will be equally easy to relate to or accept.
From the mere fact that you can go back and find your laptop you left for a couple of hours in a public square, to attitudes towards work, marriage, parents, individualism, size of the average house, etc., there are lots of things that go beyond the surface commonalities.
>There are 127 million people in Japan. If the population shrinks by 35 million or so they'll have about the same number of people they had at the start of WW II.
That's not how it works. It's not a simple act of deducting people. The demographic changes that would have be in work for decades to make the population shrink by 35 million would also mean that the remaining 90 million million will be much older (in average) than back in the past when they were 90 million again, and this also has effects in society, economy, pension systems, etc.
No it isn't. The culture shock for a westerner is no more than you'd find going to any other country in the far east. Sure, you'll find it less in countries with which you share a cultural heritage. That's sort of obvious and irrelevant. Is Japan any weirder than China, or Vietnam, or Thailand? No.
>From the mere fact that you can go back and find your laptop you left for a couple of hours in a public square...
Not actually true. At least, not true enough that you'd want to chance it in real life.
>...attitudes towards work
Less foreign to me than attitudes in most of Europe.
>...marriage
Not strange at all.
>parents
Only strange if you'd never been anywhere else in Asia.
>individualism
Again, no more foreign to me as much of Europe.
>size of the average house
That's just Tokyo. And London, too, for that matter.
>That's not how it works. It's not a simple act of deducting people. The demographic changes that would have be in work for decades to make the population shrink by 35 million would also mean that the remaining 90 million million will be much older (in average) than back in the past when they were 90 million again, and this also has effects in society, economy, pension systems, etc.
Which I didn't think I had to spell out. Yes, it will cause some difficulties. No, that doesn't mean they can't take it in stride. Again, Japan is a wealthy country, and these are problems that can be papered over with wealth.
Will Japan's GDP be smaller as a result? Sure. Does it matter? No. What matters is GDP per capita.
Now you say that the cultural shock for a westerner "is no more than you'd find going to any other country in the far east".
The problem is I never said it wasn't and that Japan is somehow more shocking that other far east places. You were the one that attempted to trivialize it, saying that the shock would be the same for Japan "as for anywhere". In fact I specifically mentioned several places that would be more foreign to a westerner and some that wouldn't, not just Japan. At least now you seem to concur that Japan would be as foreign as those "far east" places.
>Which I didn't think I had to spell out. Yes, it will cause some difficulties. No, that doesn't mean they can't take it in stride. Again, Japan is a wealthy country, and these are problems that can be papered over with wealth.
You said: "they'll be a lot better for it, too", when in fact there will be ONLY difficulties. What would be better about an aging and shrinking population, plus economic difficulties? More parking space?
That they can "paper over these problems with wealth" (and for a country with a huge national debt and an problematic economy compared to the eighties early nineties), doesn't diminish the problem. It's just another way to say it would be costly. If you mean that they'll survive and still exist, yeah, duh.
Jumping in and having spent time in all those countries (I'm in China right now), I think Japan does have some uniqueness as a country that, until the Allied occupation which didn't last long, never was under a Western form of government or ideology (colonialism, communism, or Christianity / Islam).
Thus they retain some traditional forms that tend to get destroyed when a country is colonized or goes under a Western ideology.
Beyond that, I don't disagree with you but worth keeping in mind.
It's no more true for Japan than it is for anywhere. People who get all their information from the western press and then actually go to Japan come away shocked at how normal everything is. It would be like people in other countries forming their opinions on the US based on the Castro district in San Francisco during the '70s.
>Second, yes, if Japanese people aren't having kids, Japan can be doomed, in the sense of population decline, economic and job issues, etc.
There are 127 million people in Japan. If the population shrinks by 35 million or so they'll have about the same number of people they had at the start of WW II. And they'll be a lot better for it, too. Certainly any time you have a pay-go pension scheme there are difficulties with a shrinking population, but it's nothing they can't manage.
As far as taking in immigrants, what Japan is doing makes a lot more sense that what the US or the Europeans are doing. I don't blame people who don't want to have to choose, at age 60, between immersion in a foreign culture and moving from the place they've lived for decades.