Restacking my own post to add a note: I’m not used to so many people reading my essays, and I’m a bit overwhelmed. Very grateful too of course! It’s lovely to find out your worldview resonates with others.

I will say, as grim as my most recent essay seems, I’m actually pretty optimistic about Japan! As with any country, Japan faces many social, political, and economic issues —I mostly wanted to segregate the consequences of economic precarity on a society from lazy cultural stereotyping that often is projected. I grew up hearing from Americans that Japan was “perverted”, “crazy”, “lonely”, or “suicidal”. Or that Japan was just weird for weirdness’ sake.

Japan is a unique country, very opposite to the West in many ways. But Japanese people are normal with similar hopes, dreams, and needs. The impacts of a financialized, mature capitalist economy is not neutral to this reality, and I wanted to express that.