We Japanese have been living in small islands.
For about 300 years, Japan closed the doors to western countries and took the isolated diplomacy.
So that the unique calture was developed in that period.
However 150 years ago, Japan opened the doors to western countries on their strong pressure.
After that, Japan started to absorb western culture and suceeded in indsutrializing very rapidly. However, we are still not good at communicating with other countries and Japanese are still going on our way.
Probably for the people outside of Japan, it must be difficult to understand Japanese. I hope to explain the Japanese mentality.
What is happening in this country ?
Japan is suffering for the last 20 years badly.
After world war II, Japan made the very rapid economical recovery.
Especially based on the weak Yen exchange rate, Japan exported the electronic and automobile products to all over the world and it brought this country large profits.
Due to the large trade deficit caused by import from Japan, the U.S goverment requested Japan to make Yen value much stronger.
As the result, Yen became as strong as twice. However the export from Japan did not stop and instead, the high Yen value brought Japan the bubble economy which we have never experienced before.
The prices of stock continued to go up along with those of lands. Finally they said 2 United States can be bought for 1 Japanese land price.
There are words here that "If the moutain is high, the valley is deep also." All the Japanese went crazy with bubble economy and a lot of people wounded very badly. I feel we have not recovered from the damage yet.
In the meantime, China made the rapid growth and Japanese companies are losing the competitiveness.
I understand other countries are much interested in China which has more than 10 times bigger population.
Once before, U.S made Japan-bashing but now they say Japan-passing and more, Japan-nothing.
