[uranusjr]

I live in Taiwan. News from Japan usually needs accompanying cultural explanations even here. People from Taiwan, China, and South Korea have difficulties understanding the situation even we’re lifelong neighbours. Yes, Japan is that freaking unique.

[tasogare]

Any link to an article that would illustrate that? I’ve been in Taiwan a bunch of times, live in Japan and on the contrary Japan, while having a good image there, is not a single-outed as it is in the West. The cultural gap between Taiwan and Japan is infinitely smaller than between Japan and more remote places. Taiwan was even part of Japan at some point, so while only the most elderly lived it, I really doubt cultural explanations are needed as you claim they are.

[bluepizza]

Uniqueness does not really relate to my point.

If coronavirus is contained in South Korea, it is due to smart government, if it is contained in New Zealand, it is due to good policies... but if we are discussing Japan, suddenly we are talking about a "collectivist society" with face masks explanations extrapolating to some daimyo actions 400 years ago.

This makes it quite hard to reach the central points of anything that happens here - there's always a random cultural sidetracking. Maybe when a government official is caught lying and apologizes, he is just trying to save himself, and a shame oriented collectivist society is not the central point - a lying politician is.