It's interesting to consider that these "Japan is backwards" takes might persist in part simply because it hasn't melded with the global first world culture. I can go to various countries and very similar experiences at an electronics store, a hotel and a gas station. In Japan all of those (and many others) are distinctively Japanese. I've read travelogues from the 17th-19th centuries, and in a lot of them, all of th…
I'd rather live in a culturally diverse world that either learns to get along or perishes than one that defeated racism and prejudice through creating a singular global culture and race.
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