[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.