hotaru29

I've never seen somebody hate Japan so much!

I don’t hate Japan, I absolutely love it! This country paid for my PhD studies not asking anything in return.

But that does not mean that there are serious societal issues and it should not be criticized.

For example, the culture of forcing employees to work overtime. Is it good that so many men have no relationship with their children because of it? In what world is that good? Power harassment and maternity harassment in the workplace is absolutely sickening.

Corporate Japan’s success is built on the exploitation of its employees. Traditional Japanese companies are absolutely horrible places for most people. Do you think that the level of suicide is normal in any functional society (1)? What about the phenomena of young employees dying of heart attacks(2)?

What about the treatment of woman as second-tier employees? Do you really think the function of a grown and educated woman is to serve tea for men?

Many people have an overly romanticized view of Japan and Japanese. But the fact is that Japan is in serious need of reform in many areas. In some areas Japan competes globally (e.g. autos). But in some areas are seriously dysfunctional. Examples of this is the dysfunctional university/research system. Second example is the small scale unproductive agriculture with its over-sized political influence. Third example it the legal system: 99% conviction rate, and the extreme difficulty of getting access to the courts. Until recently, the supply of lawyers were also severely restricted.

In all of this you've failed to explain why the American auto industry, with our superior company culture, can't make competitive cars.

I did not discuss the auto industry. One of the reasons that the American auto-industry failed was because of out of control labour unions (as the article states).

Clearly the Japanese auto-industry excels. That is due to many things, such as attention to detail and the responsible actions of employees at all levels. These are some really good aspects of Japanese culture. (Another is cleanliness, the ability to plan and timeliness. Just compare Tokyo’s train system to Paris’ subway).

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

USA companies also cover up embarassing failures, until caught our by the public.

I did not say that US companies are evil. But American employees are much less cooperative with evil companies.

Americans in general are much less submissive and obedient to authority figures. Americans also tend the view morally questionable things as wrong or right (evil/not evil), while in Japan it is more gray.

Furthermore, Americans can exit and enter the job market. If you are unhappy with how things are going at your company, you can quit and work somewhere else. That will not happen in Japan: top companies hire new graduates and someone who quit or was fired in middle age is unwanted in the job market.

In America, if your employer unfairly discriminates against you (for example whistleblowing\refusing to do morally wrong things) you can go to court. In Japan problems are solved via the existing power hierarchy, and courts are fairly inaccessible.

In America, a new CEO digs up all the wrong things that the previous CEO did and “cleans house”. In Japan, new CEOs are the previous CEO’s proteges and continue to hide their predecessors secrets (cf. Toshiba and Olympus scandals).

Lastly, in America, corrupt CEOs get send to jail (e.g. Enron). Three years after the Olympus scandal, everyone just retired.

(There is an exception: if you are a foreign executive in Japan, and you have 50 painkillers, you are held for 18 days without charge until you quit and return to your country).

Sorry, I brought up another topic :)

In Japan there are two types of universities: national universities (such as University of Tokyo/University of Kyoto) and many private universities.

For Bachelor students, getting into national universities (especially prestigious ones) are extremely difficult. But when someone successfully entered a university, no special effort is needed to graduate. Passing is the norm, even with minimum effort on the part of the student. The first three years are spent mostly on club activities. The last year-and-a-half is spend on job search. After someone secured a job, they have very little incentive to work for the remainder of their stay. So, it is basically a question of doing as little as possible and holding out until the job starts.

There are perhaps 3 or 4 good private universities (Keio, Waseda, etc...). (They are actually fairly mediocre by international standards, but many in Japan think they are great. ())

The rest of the private universities are absolute garbage. The majority of people will go to this type of university. Many of these were upgraded "colleges" for women who had ambitions to become housewives, but have not yet found suitable husbands. Especially with the falling number of students, these universities will accept literally anyone. In these universities it is also extremely easy to graduate, so any degree from them is essentially worthless. A big problem with these universities is truancy (e.g., http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7716805). These places are very similar to bad high schools (in the way classes are given and students are treated).

() Many in Japan think that Waseda is one of the best elite universities in Japan and well regarded world wide. Yet, international rankings shows that it is lower-ranked than the University of Belgrade, Beihang University, and Federal University of Minas Gerais.

http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2014.html

our work force just did not compare to Japan in its devout dedication to the customer and making sure that parts

That is true. But a big problem with Japanese companies is the insider/outsider mentality. Japanese employees are loyal to their boss and their company before any other person. These “other people” include the general public (and their safety) and the actual stockholders of the companies.

If something goes wrong, everyone in the company will hide it. Whistleblowing is completely against Japanese culture and obedience to authority.

This mentality showed itself in numerous cases, most recently with Takata airbags (employees know about the problem but covered it up). Japanese cosmetics giant Kanebo had a product that caused permanent blemishes on the face. Even after the company was well aware of the problem, they covered it up. Other examples include the Toshiba and Olympus scandals.

Japanese quality is good, but I would never trust Japanese products in any safety related thing (such as pharmaceuticals).

PS: IMHO, Japanese universities are mediocre. Japanese corporate success is mostly due to the exploitation of their employees.

/rant

After 5 years in the country I can apply for permanent residence

AFAIK, IANAL, you can get a permanent resident after 5 years on a preferential/highly skilled visa. This may be difficult for some people to get. See this Excel table:

http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/evaluate/index.htm...

To get permanent residence on a normal visa, you have to stay at least 10 years. That is problematic for people who stayed in Japan before the preferential visa system was introduced: previous stay does not count towards the 5 years of preferential visa.

See here:

http://www.tokyoimmigration.jp/eng/eijyu.html

Furthermore, Japanese permanent residency is much weaker than other countries. Children born to permanent residents do not get citizenship (this is okay if you are from a 1st world country, but problematic for those from 3rd world countries who want to improve their situation). In Australia&UK, permanent residents' children can obtain citizenship. In Canada, USA it is unconditional.

And getting citizenship, when not married to a Japanese person, is next to impossible.

Fake because it was not designed to work - it was designed to require essentially no new funds.

Isn't this policy a federal intervention? If school funding is an issue, why not increase it at state or local level?

Known solutions to school problems exist,

You fogot to mention getting rid of teacher unions and starting evaluation of teacher performance. The idea of teacher tenure is simply insane!

Why do you reject the person's website out of hand because you found one thing that does not agree with your worldview? The goal of science is to challenge our worldview and assumptions (whether we like it or not).

A quick google scholar search shows that the person has a quite strong publication record:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Peter+Frost&btnG=&...

I won't dismiss a person who wrote articles/books with citation counts of 500+ out of hand.