[coldtea]

There is such a thing as culture, and different cultures have different characteristics and values. This is well known to ethnologics and social scientists, and has been studied extensively.

Those are not "racial generalizations" (and the fact that the Japanese are asian has little to do with that, it could have as easily been about differences between French and German attitudes).

Of course you can find Japanese who are totally sloppy and against the description given above. But you wouldn't find a Japanese culture where sloppiness is OK, and shame is not important.

Outliers exists everywhere -- but the importance of observation is to find larger patterns and be able to summarily understand your subject. Science starts with labelling things -- and it's perfectly rational.

And of course, observations and conclusions can be corrected as more data arrive.