Ragebait is the only way to get noticed on social media and this guy found the perfect way to do it: shit on Japan.

10M views, 3.3K retweets, 1.1K replies.

People had a looot of things to say about it.

It started a war between those of love Japan and those who hate it, with nuanced people in the middle.

If I had to summarize each side, it would be like that:

Heaven

• Unrivaled trust: kids walk alone, women at night, no guns.

• Spotless streets/transit, no trash/vomit issues.

• Konbini masterpieces to kaiseki; "tops all places."

• Public transportation is punctual, cities are walkable and designed for humans, parks/shops galore.

• Everything “just works.”

• Kindness, low conflict, respect is higher principle.

• “Most beautiful country.”

Hell

• Karoshi (death by overwork).

• Nomikai (drinking with coworkers).

• Suppressed expression, superficial politeness.

• Hard friendships.

• Paperwork, outdated systems.

• Taxes extra, small spaces, no salary growth.

• Suffocating density.

• Heaven for rich, hell for workers.

• Earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Some said Japan is uniquely heaven and uniquely hell. And while I’d say it’s kinda true, most aspects are not unique, it’s more the combination of these aspects that is making Japan unique.

While some aspects don’t really need more explanation, I wanted to add more context based on some tweets I’ve seen in this debate.

“Being quiet and drinking with coworkers beats bullsh*t 'team-building' at a laser-tag park.”

→ Both are awful frankly.

“I was in Tokyo earlier this year - it has every luxury imaginable of a first world country - yet you don't see enough happy faces in metros or on the streets. In fact everyone is almost always stressed out.“

→ Almost every capital I’ve visited was full of stressed out people.

“people are just working like machines”

→ That’s mostly untrue. They are usually in the office longer, they don’t work more there and compared to other countries productivity is the same.

“The root cause is the excessive number of bullshit jobs, starting with pointless meetings.”

→ I talked to someone once who told me he was only starting to be productive at 5PM because the rest of the day was filled with meetings.

“The same nation that let's a chunk of their population die due to overwork and insanely unsafe work standards don't give two shits about ‘mental wellbeing.’”

→ France has a higher suicide rate right now.

“For people who can earn over 500,000 yen a month from passive income, Japan is seriously heaven”

→ That’s really it. Passive income not even needed. I used to work at a local tech startup, I was earning around 500k yen, and it was as relax as companies in other countries.

If there’s any aspect you’d like to see expanded into its own post, contact me and tell me what you want to learn more about.

“Most beautiful country”

As I said in my post about the best season to visit Japan, November is my favorite month and that’s why I’m there right now.

And because I’ve upgraded my camera, I thought I’d give you some photos to illustrate one of the heavenly aspect of Japan.