Quote:
Originally Posted by RickOShay
I am sorry what exactly do you mean by "cutting edge people"? Like Japan is some sort of technological utopia? This is a common stereotype people who have never lived here (Japan) tend to have, you should give this article a read: BBC News - Revealing Japan's low-tech belly |
I agree with what the article is saying, but they picked a couple of lame points and eleborated on some good points in misleading ways.
As far as I can tell the iphone is like a Japanese phone from 10 years ago. The touch-panel feature (at least I think that's what it has) is what's important.
With that said, the internet is accessed by most Japanese that I know with their phones. I'd say that WAY more Japanese people use the internet. Japanese text messages are based off e-mail addresses. The only thing is, it's hard to use things like wikipedia or youtube or even google as you can on a computer, so it's not the "internet" as I see it. That is where the problem is. I'm surprised at how many people over 25 don't seem to have a decent handle on computers.
On the contrary though, the Nintendo DS came out like 5 years ago and that seemed to be the precurser to the itouch, in my opinion. I think that Japan is still innovating, but like the article says some areas are slow to implement certain new technology.
Something that surprised me was learning that a lot of houses didn't have plumbing until the mid-late 80's around here! I don't know if that is all of Japan or just country-side areas... but still. People used to have to discard of their "stuff" on their own. I guess people would use it as fertilizer. Look at things now, they have some of the best toilets I've ever laid my... on
.
Edit: I see there were many posts made about this while I typed mine up. I like and agree with the idea that if there is no clear and immediate need for something by the people, then it probably won't be made and promoted by a Japanese company (which in a sense could be the "conservative"ness that the poster was talking about a while back.)
------
Getting back on topic, I think a love hotel is in a weird way a conservative approach to
that. I think so because it provides people an opportunity to do it completely anonymously. What's more, it provides a clean place with plenty of protection available. To borrow a term that I seem to hear a lot lately, I think this could be considered damage reduction. That's the way I see it anyways.
On the flip side, though... I'm surprised nobody has brought up onsens or bath houses yet. Bathing with complete strangers seems like a potential hazard to me, yet nobody seems to worry about that. If there were to be a big hike of cases in Japan I wonder what would happen to the bathing culture here.
With all things considered, I think theres a couple of reasons (which people have covered). It is an island country, so it's hard for people to sneak in and out of. More important than that is what MMM was talking about. To live here as a foreigner, you basically have to work. To work you have to get tested for many different things. There are many competant people who are willing to work here, so I think it's in Japans best interest to filter through people who have certain diseases (as cold as that may seem... that's my opinion). After all, if it affects ones ability to work, then it is a problem. With that said, the biggest worry for Japan, I'd think, would be Japanese people living abroad for periods of time. Although I'm saying that without any idea of the tests they have to go through when coming to and leaving the country.