Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Who rags on Japan because it's not multicultural?
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Japan has a litany of societal issues that seem to me to be hard to separate from it's homogeneous insular nature.
Top of mind is the reluctance and persistent denial of war crimes during world war 2. German collective guilt is such a stark contrast to the blasé attitudes of the Japanese considering what they did to China. I believe the homogeneous nature of their demographics contributes to such attitudes. Perhaps you think such attitudes are desirable. Would those attitudes fly in a country like Germany, where almost 10% of the population is from Poland, Russia, and other places in Eastern Europe? Probably not.
Aside from concepts of "shame" being so ridiculously prevalent that
police cover up crimes due to it, their seriously
workaholic culture which is also intimately intertwined with shame, and persistent suicide problems
which extent to school children.
I always find it strange how some people hold up Japanese culture as a ideal, calling them polite and other such nonsense, and gloss over the rest.
In any case, while you may not hear Japan being directly criticized for it's homogeneous nature (although you might have recently considering it's refusal
of 99% of refugees, it's hard to separate some of these issues from it's perpetual homogenous nature.