Japan is at the top of my list of countries I want to teach in. I have a friend teaching over there right now, and he really recommends it, so obviously I've done quite a bit of research into it.
Every Japanese person I've met was doing International Politics at my university (I guess my university had a good International Politics department). I made a film with them all. And I think the quiet Japanese stereotype is a bit of a myth, because they were as varied a group of personalities as any other group of people. As a whole they were quieter than British people, but I put that down to them speaking a foreign language, because when they were speaking Japanese in a big group, they got louder and more confident.
From the outside, Japan seems like a very insular society. Japanese people I've spoken to on the internet often seem surprised that, for example, we have Japanese food in Britain, or I've seen a particular Japanese film or have been a member of a Judo club. And I haven't had first-hand experience with this, but I hear that a lot of Japanese people are shocked when they hear a westerner speaking their language. In the west it's opposite. We're more shocked if you
don't eat American food,
haven't heard of British bands, and
don't speak English.
I think Japan has a lot of exports that it doesn't stamp "Japan" on in huge letters in the same way that other countries do. Japanese cars for example, are just cars, whereas other cars are distinctly German cars, Italian cars, French cars or American cars, and that becomes part of the selling point. American films always come with a healthy dose of American patriotism and cultural references, which isn't watered down when it's exported (I can't count the number of thanksgivings I sat through on American programmes, without having a clue what it is). Japanese exports on the other hand seem to be more universal, as if they've been specifically designed to lack a national identity, even down to the electrical companies renaming their brands with western names like Panasonic, Pioneer and Sharp. Then you seem to have a lot more obscure things that stay
in Japan, perhaps deemed not suitable for the outside world.
I think this is why a lot of Japanese people are surprised when you've sampled things that are distinctly Japanese, like the food or the sports.
But from the outside, I'd say the following things sum up Japan: excellent transport, rampant consumerism, very image conscious, good electrical and mechanical products, very insular, excellent art, lots of emphasis on tradition, lots of very attractive people, awful pop music, and a safe country to live in.