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RE: This Is Japan
Always fun to have eyes open for the subtle differences - and for the big ones. Beer vending is big for me - tells me there is a level of self control we do not see in our societies.
Keep up the lookout for this sort of thing - I love it.
Will do.
And, actually, I just remembered a TV show that I saw recently about the differences between Japanese and Chinese culture. A Japanese TV show set up a box in a park in China and a box in a shopping mall in Japan. Both boxes had a curtain covering a hole in the box and a sign that said don't look inside this box. Many people in China stopped and looked in the box, but only two or three people in Japan did. Many people in Japan looked at the box with apparent curiosity but ended up walking away without looking in the box.
The point of the show was to say that people in Japan are wary about taking risks and disobeying commands. I suspect this has something to do with why more minors don't buy beer out of vending machines. I also think the structure of schools over here has a lot to do with this too.