> It’s always fascinating to see how Westerners idealize Japan on platforms like HN
Most HNers tend to be in their mid-30s to 50s so a lot of Japan-philia does appear to stem from an older mental image from the 1990s to 2010s.
> This essay on Japan's corporate diversification and physical tacit knowledge is an interesting read. However, as an East Asian, my assessment is that this system is heavily driven by Japan's unique, subtle classism. It's a highly collectivist society with strict age-based milestones and immense pressure to secure traditional employment. In Japan, your corporate affiliation often dictates your social standing...
The Japanese Keiretsu and later Trust Bank model is the norm in South Korea, Taiwan, China, and other Asian countries as well due to a mix of colonial, financial, and policymaking ties.
This is still a form of orientalism which OP is pointing out. Japanese people don't work better or worse than anyone else, and most commenters think all yellow faces look the same and thus can't differentiate between a Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese working behind the counter at a konbini let alone other services jobs where Westerners are most likely to interface with.
> and most commenters think all yellow faces look the same and thus can't differentiate between a Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese working behind the counter at a konbini let alone other services jobs where Westerners are most likely to interface with.
This seems quite presumptuous, and not all that different from the orientalism you're accusing OP of.
Orientalism in the standard definition means the Western tendency to view non-Western societies in an "othered" or exotic gaze, be it in either a pedestaling or derogatory context.
Think yellow fever, weebs, ad nauseum conversations about Japan (and Asia in general) on HN and Reddit.
You are correct.
Japans system was ahead of its time back then and was heavily imported into Korea. The flaws I pointed out are not strictly a Japanese problem it's really an issue shared across all of East Asia.
1. Japan has become much "chiller" from a work culture perspective, with hours worked being comparable to those of the UK and Ireland [0] thanks to regulatory changes in the 2010s.
2. While conglomerates remain prominent, a new generation of large Western-style employers like Rakuten, Mercari, LY, SoftBank, etc have arisen and operate with American-style (and -educated) management, and the stereotypical "salaryman" lifestyle is on it's last legs.
3. Japan has quietly become an immigration driven society. A major reason behind the rise of Takechi's faction in the LDP as well as Sanseito is because of the post-2019 immigration boom [1]. Going from less that 1% overseas born residents to around 4% in roughly 5 years was a massive shift socially and impacted both blue and white collar employment in Japan.
4. Japan has culturally shifted to be accepting of an offensive military posture. You see this shift in Japanese media (eg. SnK, Nippon Sangoku) as well as Japanese foreign policy [2]. A more muscular Japan with a chip on their back is arising.
5. Younger Japanese are more open to calling out tourists and Westerners when they do weird or weeb s#it or treat Japan as their own Disneyland. They now treat Westerners the same way they treat other non-Japanese people now. The mindset shift I've noticed is an "us" (which now includes Koreans and Taiwanese) versus "them" which now includes everyone else.
----
Ironically, I think contemporary South Korea is closer to the image that HNers have of Japan versus Japan today.
I'd largely question the accuracy of point 1 IN PRACTICE.
Japan is notorious for uncounted and unpaid overtime, vacation days no one takes, and paternal leave you'd better not think of if you don't want to instantly become your division's outcast.
I worked in a host of countries, including the UK and Japan (the latter about a decade ago - I'd be surprised if things had diametrally changed since that time). The actual work hours are not remotely comparable.
(In fact the UK is one of the locales where I worked the least in terms of actual hours. Much less than in France, where they're supposed to be slackers... So generally I call BS on these stats.)
Yes but 2 ends up being a good check on 1 in the higher productivity ends of the knowledge work economy in Japan. I'd disagree a bit in degree to what alephnerd says and additionally think a lot of the actual "zangyou" ("overtime") work that Japanese do today involves drinking with the boss or going on business trips, but think his comment is largely correct. I also think the insistence in Japanese doing on-site work in Japan leads to a lot of inefficiency that Western businesses and governments have largely left behind 10-15 years ago.
I actually find the Western unawareness of how Japan has become an immigrant society, especially in service roles, to be hilarious. It's by far the biggest Japanese social change in the last 20 years probably up there with growing acceptance of LGBT lifestyles and is a massive, divisive political issue in Japan now. Also further goes to show how much idealized othering happens in these discussions.
The average konbini service worker a foreigner interacts with in Tokyo is going to be an immigrant. 12 years ago, I only met a handful of immigrant service workers.
> I also think the insistence in Japanese doing on-site work in Japan leads to a lot of inefficiency that Western businesses and governments have largely left behind 10-15 years ago.
A lot of that is operational as well - historically, the only other country with a large Japanese speaking population was South Korea, but salaries there have largely aligned and the post-1990s generation switched to concentrating on English instead of Japanese fluency. China has started to fill that gap though (hence why Chinese immigrants in Japan are viewed the same way as Indians are in Canada).
Basically, a company that whose entire internal documentation, communication, archive, and processes were always in Japanese will always bias in favor of hiring Japanese fluent employees, most of whom live in Japan and are Japanese.
You see the same thing in European countries as well, but the difference is it's easier for a German or French company to find talent somewhere else that is German or French fluent (eg. Turkiye/Poland or Morocco/Romania/ respectively).
The newer gen companies have a strong English muscle, but those are also the kinds of companies that are happy shifting hiring overwhelmingly to India or ASEAN.
Sorry I don't mean Japanese firms hiring Japanese workers, I understand that's largely due to language fluency. I meant how much in-person work happens in remote branches. So many Japanese shakaijin friends at Japanese companies are taking constant business trips around the country to do things that a video call and an email thread would do in the West. It helps that transportation in Japan is ubiquitous and cheap so it's fairly easy to go on-site, but it still ends up wasting a lot of time and productivity that I don't think Western firms have to deal with.
See, this is the issue. Karoshi/unpaid overtime in white collar work largely ended as a practice in Japan by the 2010s due to legal changes and enforcement via the 2018 labor reforms and a tight labor market.
Yet you see the same tropes peddled ad nauseum. I may as well use the same priors for Poland in 2026 as I would in the 2000s then when it was Europe's punching bag.
Most HNers tend to be in their mid-30s to 50s so a lot of Japan-philia does appear to stem from an older mental image from the 1990s to 2010s.
> This essay on Japan's corporate diversification and physical tacit knowledge is an interesting read. However, as an East Asian, my assessment is that this system is heavily driven by Japan's unique, subtle classism. It's a highly collectivist society with strict age-based milestones and immense pressure to secure traditional employment. In Japan, your corporate affiliation often dictates your social standing...
The Japanese Keiretsu and later Trust Bank model is the norm in South Korea, Taiwan, China, and other Asian countries as well due to a mix of colonial, financial, and policymaking ties.