To think japan and uk have so much in common?

[Valeriane]

I have never been to Japan so 100% open to posters correcting me/adding things! But the other day I was thinking it's funny, the two seem to actually have a lot in common

Driving on the left
Love of tea and codified ceremonies/rituals around tea
Island nations
Big former empires
Hardcore monarchies
A strange contrast between a tightly buttoned aspect on one hand, and then eccentricity and subcultures on the other
Big importance placed on social niceties and possibly repression
Love of whiskey and whiskey making culture
Feeling separate to the rest of their continent (is this true for Japan?)
Very densely populated
Important in developing trains (steam, bullet)
Love of fancy dress/costume

Main different their demographics are very homogeneous.

@Lowlifeinhighplaces

Nope nothing alike, I have lived in Japan and visited many times. UK and Japan for many reasons are totally different, which if you visit you would see for yourself.

Agreed.

Used to travel a lot and the differences smacked you in the face the minute you got off an aircraft (smartly uniformed white gloved officials throughout the airport terminals being just one example).

IMHO Japan really stood out as one of the few places in the world where the culture really was totally at odds (in a very interesting way) with most of the rest of the world.

The differences sma

Wait, if this is true then Lost in Translation makes no sense?!

I think your comparisons are pretty superficial. They seem to pinpoint Britain at some point of yesteryear which is becoming increasingly irrelevant in our hugely diverse and multicultural society. Whilst I’ve never lived in Japan, I think the comments on this thread from those who’ve had would suggest difference v similarity.

Do you live in the same country as me OP (England), because fetishisation of cats and tea rituals are generally not an English tradition.

Do you often talk in extremes?

@MiddleParking

Wait, if this is true then Lost in Translation makes no sense?!

Now you’ve gone and done it..I’d just about forgotten the feeling of having flown in and then still being awake at some awful time in the AM with the fish tank of doom on TV…

Broadly speaking they may seem like similarities but our cultures are like night and day and you do not need to visit to understand that.

The Japanese as a people make us look like a nation of wild dogs in comparison to their civility.

You are sadly not finger-on-the-pulse of what’s going on in British society and culture right now OP. Your list reads a bit like observations made during Michael Portillos railway journeys……

…is that you Michael Portillo?

love it that the OP is just ignoring everyone who posts how different they actually are! 😂

I’ve never felt so far away from home, mentally, anywhere else in the world, than I did in Japan.

@Trixiefirecracker
I'm happy to be told I'm wrong. I realise these are superficial observations by someone who has never been.

@TinySaltLick

I think that whilst there is enough similarity on some of the line items to articulate a comparison of sorts, I found Japan to be the most different from life in the UK of any country I have visited. It has in many ways evolved in isolation so almost everything is different - even down to things like door handles or the shape of a paperclip - every tiny problem has been solved differently and it adds up to the be the most amazing and engaging immersion in a culture so detailed and completely different to our own. The one time I had the opportunity to spend a few weeks there is probably my most treasured life experience.

@TinySaltLick that’s really interesting perspective. I actually want to visit now to mark those differences. Thank you.

I lived there and second what WineismyCarb and EileenGC say.

Have you actually seen a tea ceremony? Having a tea time, tea being the national drink to the extent that its mildly fetishised by some, just doesn't compare.

I loved Japan, visit regularly and still have close friends there and a family who 'adopted' me which I dearly love. But I absolutely could not live there for more than a few years at a time as the VERY DIFFERENT societal mores are suffocating for a European.

Yeh totally agree with you. We Brits also produce violent anime cartoons for the consumption of young children. We also have an assortment of maid cafés and blind date cafés ( where underaged girls and prostitute themselves). Like the Japanese, we bow to one another, treat business cards as an extension of the person and our standards of female beauty / behaviour are identical. Deffo.

No surprise you’ve never been to Japan.

It’s a fascinating and truly amazing country. However, it is very very different. Of course lots of what I’ve written above is a small snapshot of what is happening in major cities but the cultures and countries couldn’t be more different.

I think they're interesting observations OP (and yes. I have been to Japan...twice). Whilst it does feel very different there are interesting parallels which is all the OP is really saying...they are interesting because the countries are miles apart geographically and culturally.

I didn't feel like I was in that much of an alien country in Japan, certainly not to the extent of other posters. I felt more like that in the mountains of North Africa or in the Sahara...and that's where half my family are from! Nothing has ever made me feel more alien than having to politely decline roasted dog, or being in a room full of relatives screaming at each other (or so it felt like) when actually they were just having a conversation several decibels higher than would be acceptable in the UK.

On paper I can see where you are coming from but it really is quite different.

• British people have a reputation for liking tea (seems correct). Japanese people also drink a lot of tea but it’s on a different level. You go into a lot of small restaurants and your options for drinks will probably be water, beer and green tea. The actual tea ceremony is an absolute honour to attend when prepared by a skilful practitioner and takes years and years of studying before being allowed to conduct one. To add another layer there are a huge number of intricacies to be the recipient of the tea in a real ceremony. Offering a cuppa when someone’s comes to your house doesn’t compare.

• Japan also takes social niceties to the extreme. Sometimes it’s nice, other times it’s insane. I still don’t know how deep to bow or with what honorific to address most of the people I meet. The Japanese make the British stiff upper lip look like a wet noodle. Unfortunately this probably has a huge part to play in the high suicide rates, overwork and number of recluses (hikikomori).

• with the ‘feeling separated from the rest of their continent’ I honestly don’t think plays on anyone’s mind here. Japan was never really bound (in a positive way) to the rest of Asia so there isn’t any reason to feel ‘separate’.

• I’m wondering where the idea that the Japanese love fancy dress comes from?

• I can’t speak to the development side of things but The trains here occasionally make me want to weep with joy because they are so clean, punctual and well run. I’ve never felt that way about a British train 😂

So maybe superficially they might look the same, but I wouldn’t consider them to be similar. (Sources: currently living in Japan, riding a beautiful train at the moment.)

Op are you ab anime/manga fan? I got that same sort of sense of kinship without ever having been there, because I loved the creative output so much. And being small but influential islands with high population density does create a few similarities. However the differences far outweigh them. Definitely go if you can, it was an amazing experience.

I have never been to Japan but went on a virtual trade mission there a few months ago. We had 3 days of learning about cultural differences and how to do business there and there were some huge differences between The UK and Japan. A lot of them were psychological and really hard to quantify

In some respects we align, more than say Portugal and Japan, or UK and China. But they also have a lot of stereotypes in common with Germany:

Powerhouse economy
Punctual
Meticulous
Excellent manufacturing
Strong automotive industry
Traditional dress for cultural festivals
Reverence for global peacemaking/shame over history

Lost in translation is about Americans! Brits & Americans are pretty different culturally in many ways.

Also we totally do have tea rituals they're just so ingrained in the culture we don't notice. I've worked with overseas students for years and remember laughing with my colleagues because one of them came expecting everything to stop dead at 4pm every day for a cup of tea. But then 4 pm came around and we noticed that one of us did put the kettle on... Every day. Plus, tea v with a fry up everyone?

I'm not saying we're the same culturally as Japan (although I think Japanese/British sense of humour had some common points too) but wedefinitely have tea rituals.

There are more differences that similarities.

1. Their trains are punctual, if they are late you get a certificate so you don't get punished by your employer.
2. They have the death penalty, where the condemned don't know the time of their execution until shortly before it happens.
3. They have a very different attitude to suicide, it is a much more honourable thing to do over there, provided you don't do it on the railways and cause trains to be late (if you do, the train companies can sue your relatives for the inconvenience).
4. They are very insular - until the Americans forced them to open up to the world in the latter 19th century there was very little trade or interaction with the outside world.
5. It's hard to imagine Britain doing a Pearl Harbor on someone.
6. They have a very different attitude to sexual activity with schoolgirls, the age of consent is 13 and you can buy schoolgirls' (used) underwear from vending machines.
7. They have a much better record than us for long-term employment, it is much more common to have a "job for life".
8. Whaling - in the words of REM's Michael Stipe, "Eat, eat whale meat when you need a treat"

@GlumyGloomer
No! I can see the appeal but anime leaves me cold 🙈 However I am in a phase of reading Japanese novels at the moment and am devouring them!

@Tokyo89
Thanks for such an interesting reply. Maybe "fancy dress" was the wrong way of putting it (and possibly a bit offensive 👀), I was referring to those japanese subcultures where people dress up really outlandishly. It feels like they are almost costumes and I was thinking there's kind of a similarity there with fancy dress and themed parties you get in the UK, maybe a shared taste for "becoming a character".

Interesting that so many posters with experience of Japan say social niceties and society are much more hardcore over there, it makes me think that Japanese people who come to Europe must find it quite terrifying and almost "pagan" feeling.

@ThePlantsitter
What do you think the similarities in humour are?

I've never been to Japan either OP and I think it's worth remembering that what we see - media that's filtered for us, news that's filtered for us, tourists who are the kind of people who actually want to come here - is likely to be quite different from what in-country culture is like. I would love to go, it's on my list.