Switzerland is even more orderly. As a German, if you travel to Switzerland you feel like people from other nations feel when they come to Germany. Especially far more cleaner.
I've been to Germany and Japan many times, and my impression is that while the Germans tend toward orderliness (rule-abiding), the Japanese tend toward perfectionism (details).
As a foreigner, it was fascinating to observe how systems in each country manifest these attributes.
From what I observed (and I could be all wrong here), Germans have "opinionated" systems where everybody understands and follows the rules, even if sometimes the system itself doesn't always make sense. Deviation is not well tolerated (except perhaps in bohemian places like Berlin -- or that's what I've been told).
The Japanese tend to have systems that assiduously accommodates humans. They drive compliance through coaxing rather than coercion. The systems tolerates, even accounts for, deviations from the norm. It's like they've thought of everything, and try to make things as convenient as possible.
These differences are obvious when comparing trains/subways in Germany and Japan.
German and Japanese cars also exhibit this difference. German cars generally have opinionated designs (the opinion of the designer trumps the opinions of the users). They're fun to drive but generally require the owners to follow a strict maintenance schedule without deviation, otherwise the car will fail prematurely.
Japanese cars on the other hand are often designed for owner negligence and can accommodate all kinds of abuse while still continuing to chug along (especially Toyotas), contributing to the notion that Japanese cars are super reliable, when in fact they're simply designed for variation.
> The Japanese tend to have systems that assiduously accommodates humans. [...] The systems tolerates, even accounts for, deviations from the norm.
That’s totally untrue. The systems here don’t allow for any, even the slightest, deviation. If that means crushing a life, well, that life will be crushed.
Personal anecdote: I was registered at the university and had to change my status. I had to submit a complete application (despite my data already being somewhere in their system). I was missing certified copy of my master degree. I had the original one but they wouldn’t make copies themselves (impossible to forge) because there was nothing about it in rulebook. Finally I was able the register thanks to a paper certifying I passed a master degree in another totally unrelated field! Hopefully the rulebook didn’t state that the master degree one graduated from had to do anything with the PhD one is entering! This whole story is wrong on so many level. I was lucky this time, but that’s not always the case for everyone.
As usual, reality is somewhere between these two extremes. I'll posit a halfway: Japanese life is indeed bound by strictly observed rules and regulations divorced from common sense, but Japanese bureaucrats tend to also know how to navigate these thickets to get stuff done.
One thing I've often seen in Japanese offices is the "form to the form", instructing applicants in extreme detail how to fill out the actual form, so it will be accepted on the first try.
I happened to recently read this blog post [0] by Patrick MacKenzie's (i.e. HN's own patio11) which, among other things, covers some of his early time in Japan. Part of it shows how things can work out -- towards the end, he relates how he wanted to get a credit card but he couldn't -- there was an official reason but, unofficially, because he was a foreigner. But then a co-worker put him in touch with a bank manager he'd gone to school with who took care of him and kept up a connection with him for an extended period of time (the story, and the stuff that follows, is interesting, as is the whole blog post, for that matter, if you're interested in how business and startups work in Japan, at least as of 2014).
They tolerate deviations from others. But not between themselves.
It is a reason why Japan is so great as a tourist, but maybe not so much if you live there.
For example, in a shop, they will tolerate clueless customers with a (fake) smile. But if you work there, they will not tolerate the slightest deviation.
My experiences are more toward to the consumer side of things. As a consumer, my perception is that the service culture there is unbelievably good. But I also understand that the experiences between the tourist and the local ones differ.
Bureaucracy I've had no experiences with except with immigration. I guess being a non-resident foreigner has advantages too. I once ran into some issues due to a mixup, but Japan immigration fixed it, told me something to the effect "next time, please be mindful of this issue and avoid doing this", and let me into the country anyway.
Japanese order is severely overhyped in most Western analyses. Women routinely get groped in public, organized crime is a big deal, and political campaigns drive around residential streets with truck-mounted megaphones. I'm not saying it's a bad country, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't match the crystal-pure image a lot of people seem to have.
I think that’s attacking a straw man. Head down to Ginza and watch how people don’t jay walk even though the cross walks are blocks apart. Then do the same thing on Fifth Avenue where people can’t be arsed to get to the cross walk that’s on every block. I don’t think anyone thinks Japan is perfect, but the contrast is stark.
My only experience with Switzerland was a layover on my way to Prague. I expected things to be super-orderly there but found the airport to be dirty and disorganized (the bathroom was memorably disgusting).
Now, in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the asking. There are many things in Germany that you must not do that are quite easy to do. To any young Englishman yearning to get himself into a scrape, and finding himself hampered in his own country, I would advise a single ticket to Germany; a return, lasting as it does only a month, might prove a waste.
In the Police Guide of the Fatherland he will find set forth a list of the things the doing of which will bring to him interest and excitement. In Germany you must not hang your bed out of window. He might begin with that. By waving his bed out of window he could get into trouble before he had his breakfast. At home he might hang himself out of window, and nobody would mind much, provided he did not obstruct anybody’s ancient lights or break away and injure any passer underneath.
In Germany you must not wear fancy dress in the streets. A Highlander of my acquaintance who came to pass the winter in Dresden spent the first few days of his residence there in arguing this question with the Saxon Government. They asked him what he was doing in those clothes. He was not an amiable man. He answered, he was wearing them. They asked him why he was wearing them. He replied, to keep himself warm. They told him frankly that they did not believe him, and sent him back to his lodgings in a closed landau. The personal testimony of the English Minister was necessary to assure the authorities that the Highland garb was the customary dress of many respectable, law-abiding British subjects. They accepted the statement, as diplomatically bound, but retain their private opinion to this day. The English tourist they have grown accustomed to; but a Leicestershire gentleman, invited to hunt with some German officers, on appearing outside his hotel, was promptly marched off, horse and all, to explain his frivolity at the police court.
From "Three Men On The Bummel", the semisequel to "three men on a boat", 1914.
The first example in the article isn't particularly insightful, since America also has train quiet cars that are somewhat notorious for how seriously they're taken.
The most clean, orderly, mindnumbingly elegant country ever.
Their literature and media, though, is a complete contrast.
Their TV shows are loud (visually), with many overlays, graphics, transitions, etc. Their print media is the poster boy for chaos. Their information density is so huge, I wonder if anyone even reads 10% of what is on the page.
edit: I guess the insane information density in their language and printed media is perhaps an outcome of obsession with conciseness.
Miller's Japan's Modern Myth, though published in the 1970s, is still relevant in this regard. He wrote of how it is odd how Japan has managed to export a reputation of being a country of peace and contemplation when it likes its loudspeakers (another poster already mentioned the election-season cars with loudspeakers, goddamn) and you can find them even in some Zen rock gardens.
Part of it is a reaction - Japanese pop culture starting in the 60s and 70s included a strong element of youth rebellion against parentally-mandated elegance and minimalism.
Similar to how European and European-derived cultures adopted a very traditional clean Japanese aesthetic in rebellion against a baroque tradition.
Just in case somebody thinks that European minimalism started with Apple or Braun or whatever: it started much earlier in the 1910s latest, with Neues Bauen, De Stijl, Bauhaus etc. I'm a bit of a fan of these movements and the things they produced.
Japanese people, operating according to their culture's very stringent rules of etiquette, are so demure and polite at work and in public that it stresses them out. They need a release and a chance to go nuts. That release seeps through in places like their anime, game shows, and the behavior of bar patrons on a Friday night.
As for Japanese print media -- there seems to be a prevailing culture of space economy. Maybe paper was expensive to get/import at one time and that had a lasting effect on how Japanese laid out printed matter. It's bled through to their web sites too, which are very dense and "busy" compared to Western web sites, in which the trend seems to be to make a statement with white space to the detriment of available space for text.
> They need a release and a chance to go nuts. That release seeps through in places like their anime, game shows, and the behavior of bar patrons on a Friday night.
Not to mention the deranged stuff I remember watching on Japanese TV at 4am while jet lagged.
Germany has a similar concept in Winter, it's called Fasching. From 11.11 on everything absurd and stupid is allowed. But different to Japan it's not much needed anymore. Germany is an extremely liberal country now (after WW1) and Japan still one of the most illiberal and strict. It got a big better in the 90ies in the labor market, but it's still extreme.
No, WW1 explicitly. The society totally opened up after, with all its social reforms.
Even if military pressed for "total war" (ie civilian support as in the USA), society largely liberalized in the golden 20ies. And if you look at culture, the 20-40ies were THE golden age. (much more golden than the 60/70ies)
This is quite an interesting perspective. What I've read on more 'right' leaning sites, is that post-WW1 Weimar became so 'degenerate', it directly led to support for the Nazi party. Had it not gone so liberal, it's unlikely Germans would have supported such an authoritarian regime.
IMHO the nazis won their support in the end by two major events. The French occupying the Ruhr area, and Black Friday, with extreme unemployment. And of course US money backing the Nazis and the German war industry to fight communism. Communism was the major threat to fight. The US still has this same mindset.
The Nazi party were not thought to be so authoritarian really, more a fresh new modern party solving a lot of problems. The military and some other parties were more authoritarian. Just the SA and SS were considered a problem. Before, the right and left had their own private armies also, and there were constant street fights. Nazis were softer than the military in the total war efforts. (before 33 of course, but even until 43 it was only military penalizing the famous Treachery Act, which came directly from WW1 stab-in-the-back myth). Antisemitism was extremely widespread because of the Black Friday crash.
If you want to see orderliness and "going nuts" on simultaneous display, I recommend a Japanese baseball game.
I went a few years ago to see the Hanshin Tigers play at home. The Tigers are famous for their raucous fans, their iconic stadium, for their "curse" (involving a statue of Colonel Sanders which was seized from a KFC and thrown into a river), and for losing records.
The atmosphere was incredible. Everyone in the stadium was on their feet, chanting, the entire time the home team was at bat. Every batter had their own unique chant, which every fan seemed to know. It was total bedlam, choreographed to a T.
What is with the Portuguese-language text at the bottom? Is this an attempt to advertise to people coming back to Japan from the Japanese diaspora in Brazil?
I’ve noticed many Japanese homes and apartments are either museum perfect, or borderline hoarder chaos. I’d guess one reason for the focus on order and cleanliness is thats its actually kind of hard to maintain with so little space and so much packaging, plastic and consumer junk around so there are many bad counterexamples. In America you can be kind of lazy without your living space becoming unvisitable.
City planning and architecture (facades) are generally not orderly and elegant either. The practical benefits of the Japanese approach have been discussed on HN before, but they don't produce the most pretty looking results. The cities are very clean, though.
It's a culture and people rooted in efficiency. For them, function comes light years ahead of form.
For example, I remember reading an article, a few years ago, about the cup holders in Honda / Toyota cars sold in America. The author noticed a small, hinged notch, deep inside the cup holder. Initially thinking it was some loose part. But then he realized it's function is to automatically drop when the car is on an upward slope and hold the cup in place. The notch automatically retracts (due to gravity) when the car is on normal roads.
The attention to detail, at such a small level, is prevalent at every level in their society.
I think a better explanation is that buildings have traditionally been seen as temporary in Japan because of earthquakes and wood construction.
There is actually a lot of inefficiency, like people standing there waving batons to warn about construction sites. In other countries you'd have signs. But it's debatable if that is plain inefficiency - maybe it gives people with no other abilities something to do, which can be positive.
No argument about attention to detail and especially customer service - it feels like the Japanese wouldn't even know how to do bad customer service or a bad product. (You can find examples of both if you go looking, though.)
> Their TV shows are loud (visually), with many overlays, graphics, transitions, etc. Their print media is the poster boy for chaos. Their information density is so huge, I wonder if anyone even reads 10% of what is on the page.
It's not just media, it's everything. Most horizontal surfaces in a train will be filled with colourful advertisements [0], many major city streets have bright attention-grabbing signs not only at street level but at every level of every building [1], stores will have visual noise everywhere too [2].
And it's not just visual noise either. Indoors, trains have numerous announcements, elevators tell you when the doors are opening and closing and most shops have some music playing, sometimes quiet, sometimes blaring and obnoxious. Outside it's not uncommon to see giant TV's mounted on buildings (complete with audio) or to loud music or people yelling advertisements for their store.
Though that was mostly my experience in some of the more active parts of Tokyo. Smaller cities and quieter reasons are less noisy.
Maybe I am alone in this opinion, but I believe it is bordering on tasteless to write an article like this without even a token mention of how this cultural desire for order helped lead to likely the most sophisticated and orderly genocide in human history.
This is a low value comment. You should at least state why you think referencing WWII is irrelevant. I think it is completely relevant in a discussion about a historical trait of the German people. Just posting a link to Godwin's law doesn't contribute anything and makes this thread more likely to spin out of control.
It is a low effort comment, not necessarily a low value one. It summarizes people's response to it well.
Every aspect of German culture can be linked to WW2 without much effort and has been for decades. Here is a humorous look at this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfFxoyxQAh4 instead of a sarcastic wikipedia link.
I do understand where you are coming from but sometimes you just have to let it go, as most others have done. WW2 ended in Germany over 75 years ago, people don't want to be reminded of it underneath a fun travel blog.
Except your argument doesn't match with Godwin's law at all. It isn't "don't mention Nazis, people are tired about hearing about them." It is about making unnecessary and hyperbolic comparison's to Nazis or Hitler. So if you are going to argue why Godwin's law applies here, you should focus on why my reference was irrelevant and hyperbolic.
My point started with "I think [WW II] is completely relevant". Therefore Godwin's law is the original goalpost. I have no idea how you can look at my comment and think I was moving the goalpost. Because without further explanation, this last comment certainly seems like trolling by responding with another low effort post.
It's actually very tasteless. So if we have to write like you suggest, an article on German engineering should also mention the Holocaust? You should be embarrassed.
I don't think German engineering is particularly tied to the Holocaust in the same way German order is. It was used by countless people as a defense of their actions [1].
Now if you were writing an article about German engineering, I would be mildly surprised if there was no reference to their rocket program in WWII. But given the topic, I think that wouldn't leave the same negative taste in my mouth.
I grew up in Sweden, traveled a lot across Europe and lived 5 years in Germany.
From my experience, Germans tend to do what they're told without questioning.
They will happily line up at an empty street and wait for the light to turn green, and they get really upset if you mention the Holocaust; because those are the rules.
I have no trouble seeing how these traits contributed to what happened.
I think it’s often tempting for people to, on considering the holocaust, look for a reason that Germany is special and something like that couldn’t happen elsewhere. It’s reassuring.
It doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, though; genocides have been committed from everything from borderline failed states to states that appeared a lot more functional than Nazi Germany (which really wasn’t all that ordered).
Recently I’ve been traveling to Germany and Japan for business. My return flights are through New York. My chest actually tightens when I get off the plane at La Guardia.
I fly to Frankfurt 2-3 times a year for work. It pisses me off that the US based carriers (United, American) line up their cattle in the main thoroughfare of the airport and block everyone trying to get to other gates. All the other gates and airlines seem to be able to board without lining everyone up like pre-kindergarteners.
Curious, how do you end up at Laguardia on a transatlantic flight? It isn't an international airport -- the only international inbound is from Canada with preclearance. I know Shannon in Ireland has preclearance too but didn't know you could fly into LGA.
So for Germany I do in fact go through JFK. But for Japan I have a hard time with such a long direct so I look specifically for a flight with a domestic connection. (Those flights are also often cheaper when booking last minute.)
Dystopic for some. I studied in Finland and learned Finnish. I could have settled down there after uni, but I didn't. It is a perfect country if you can accept an ordinary working life with your 6 weeks of holiday per year, but it is almost as if people are intentionally prevented from bohemianism by the high cost of living and the insistence on long-term flat rental contracts. It is very rare to meet Finns who spend half of the year working and half of the year traveling. I returned to Eastern Europe and in spite of the lower salaries here, I feel like I can achieve a much better work/life balance than in Finland.
Do you like delicious artisanal beers or aged whiskies from around the world? Tough luck, alcohol in Finland is sold only by a state monopoly that chooses only a narrow range of products to offer and with very high taxes to discourage purchase (because historically Nordic males imbibed large quanties of pure liquor).
You mention cheap beer, but you can actually get that in Finland. Lapin Kulta or Karhu, available from supermarkets because they are under whatever alcohol limit, are very cheap. On any weekend night you can see people young and old in city streets getting drunk on this (or on something brought over from Estonia). I was actually shocked the first time I saw all this public drunkenness; it did not live up to Finland's reputation for order. No, I meant good beer for degustation purposes being available and at an affordable price.
That Finland is a good place to raise a family has its dark side. Every time I go back to Finland I am annoyed by children being allowed in places they wouldn't be tolerated in other countries. The fancy new Helsinki central library gives adult patrons no barriers against all the noise from the children's section.
But as for "being part of a community", there is a big problem with loneliness in Finland. There are few opportunities to truly connect with other people after uni or the army. Religious observance is extremely low in Finland now, but apparently nothing ever replaced the parish church as a hub to actually interact with your local community. Few people living in blocks know their neighbours, and many feel that it would be a faux pas to even speak to those neighbours.
Berlin is… a bit special. I've lived in several different German cities for months at a time, and one of those stints was in Berlin. Some parts are remarkably orderly. The Dahlem area in particular is quite tranquil and organized. Other sections of Berlin are a bit more lively. :)
Tegel is a nightmare. It was designed for maybe half the capacity it currently serves. Hopefully opening the BER airport will relieve some of that pressure. That they can handle such a high volume at all is remarkable. Do avoid Tegel if you can help it though.
In the other cities I've lived in, this article rings very true: you stop at crosswalks even when no cars are coming. Most people's houses are kept in immaculate order. (Exceptions of course exist.) "Deutcher pünklich heißt fünf Minuten früh sein" ("German punctuality means being five minutes early." — paraphrase of something I heard from a German friend of mine one time.)
City transit is remarkably accessible: I used to visit unfamiliar parts of cities and small towns occasionally armed with a map—an never with a phone with GPS. I never got lost. Transit maps and signage are clear and easy to understand.
I've visited Germany twice now since my two-year stay there. Each time I explore more—it's easy because of how much order there is in the transit to latch onto.
spent a little more than two in Berlin last year. I didn't find Germany particularly orderly
Berlin is a sort of internal exile colony for those who reject or are rejected by the German lifestyle but don’t for whatever reason want to leave Germany
The reason they don't want to leave Germany is Berlin is only place they can find people like themselves.
There is a reason Berlin is famous for leaving work at 6 pm on a Friday, going to a club, and exiting only at 4am next Monday to go back to work.
Not saying this is good/healthy thing, but Berlin has history of being the hotspot for misfits. That is why a lot of Germans or even Europeans move here.
That's what I hear. Maybe that's why there are so many startups in Berlin? I hear you can live in Berlin without speaking any German. There's quite an international community there.
Problem is, Berlin isn't where the money is -- Munich is. So startups get started in Berlin and get funded in Munich?
Cultural psyche is a curious subject. I would absolutley feel suffocated in Germany. I think what a society blieves the individual's role in society is and what the purpose of life is factors into it. National pride too perhaps?
I am living in Germany. Most people I know are very happy to live and/or have German citizenship. Most people I know here do care for the collective, want to improve things (or rather fantasize about it). Why do you need to dumb this down into nationalism/patriotism, inviting all the hostility towards others as it always has?
Germany is rich and shares the wealth quite a bit with its people, the amount of suffering and existential threat is low compared to most other countries. For some people the lack of purpose, selfefficacy and the overwhelming complexity of the modern world is becoming a problem... Maybe we do need some national identity to fill that gap. Maybe around the Grundgesetz and solidarity. Either way patriotism/nationalism doesn't help there since, the "WhatsApp" idiots are happening everywhere.
Sorry, I forgot some people see nationalism as a bad thing. Why would you be offended by that. I would be very proud of my country if I was german.Like you said you care for the collective as a nation. In the US most people care for their "tribe" at most when they see themselves as a collective. I was contrasting with that, I know that even with immigrants Germany is very open but expects them to assimilate and become proper German. In the US whatever your native culture is you bring it with you and to the most part that's it, we don't even have a national language or ID.
Again, I think my wording has caused a misunderstanding and I do apologize.
Most people I know see nationality as the low hanging fruit of identities. You did nothing, no achievement, no struggle, you feast on other people's work. As I said people here tend to be grateful to be born or at least live in such a rich and somewhat sane country. I may be proud of actions done by the larger collective, but "being proud of the nation"... Does this include all the wars, weapon exports, economic extortions, environmental crimes, racism, ... ? Nationalism is blind on one eye and flirts with exclusion with the other. It's the feeling of agency for those fearing complexity and diversity.
Europe also is different than the US in terms of borders: they changed all the time. They are obviously artificial constructs.
I asked you what good does nationalism serve? Don't you see the inherent danger at all?
In Germany all the right wing/covid19 conspiracy/... Bullshit is spread in WhatsApp groups. I think it's more important than Facebook for spreading "hate over facts".
This article is quite far off from reality. Germany does have many rules and regulations and looks like citizens want law and order.
The reality is quite different: Germans want others to behave in order, and as soon as you stop looking at them or they feel like not being watched, they will be the first ones to break laws and order.
90 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadAs a foreigner, it was fascinating to observe how systems in each country manifest these attributes.
From what I observed (and I could be all wrong here), Germans have "opinionated" systems where everybody understands and follows the rules, even if sometimes the system itself doesn't always make sense. Deviation is not well tolerated (except perhaps in bohemian places like Berlin -- or that's what I've been told).
The Japanese tend to have systems that assiduously accommodates humans. They drive compliance through coaxing rather than coercion. The systems tolerates, even accounts for, deviations from the norm. It's like they've thought of everything, and try to make things as convenient as possible.
These differences are obvious when comparing trains/subways in Germany and Japan.
German and Japanese cars also exhibit this difference. German cars generally have opinionated designs (the opinion of the designer trumps the opinions of the users). They're fun to drive but generally require the owners to follow a strict maintenance schedule without deviation, otherwise the car will fail prematurely.
Japanese cars on the other hand are often designed for owner negligence and can accommodate all kinds of abuse while still continuing to chug along (especially Toyotas), contributing to the notion that Japanese cars are super reliable, when in fact they're simply designed for variation.
That’s totally untrue. The systems here don’t allow for any, even the slightest, deviation. If that means crushing a life, well, that life will be crushed.
Personal anecdote: I was registered at the university and had to change my status. I had to submit a complete application (despite my data already being somewhere in their system). I was missing certified copy of my master degree. I had the original one but they wouldn’t make copies themselves (impossible to forge) because there was nothing about it in rulebook. Finally I was able the register thanks to a paper certifying I passed a master degree in another totally unrelated field! Hopefully the rulebook didn’t state that the master degree one graduated from had to do anything with the PhD one is entering! This whole story is wrong on so many level. I was lucky this time, but that’s not always the case for everyone.
One thing I've often seen in Japanese offices is the "form to the form", instructing applicants in extreme detail how to fill out the actual form, so it will be accepted on the first try.
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
It is a reason why Japan is so great as a tourist, but maybe not so much if you live there.
For example, in a shop, they will tolerate clueless customers with a (fake) smile. But if you work there, they will not tolerate the slightest deviation.
Bureaucracy I've had no experiences with except with immigration. I guess being a non-resident foreigner has advantages too. I once ran into some issues due to a mixup, but Japan immigration fixed it, told me something to the effect "next time, please be mindful of this issue and avoid doing this", and let me into the country anyway.
There is much that other countries can learn from Japan while steering clear of its faults.
In the Police Guide of the Fatherland he will find set forth a list of the things the doing of which will bring to him interest and excitement. In Germany you must not hang your bed out of window. He might begin with that. By waving his bed out of window he could get into trouble before he had his breakfast. At home he might hang himself out of window, and nobody would mind much, provided he did not obstruct anybody’s ancient lights or break away and injure any passer underneath.
In Germany you must not wear fancy dress in the streets. A Highlander of my acquaintance who came to pass the winter in Dresden spent the first few days of his residence there in arguing this question with the Saxon Government. They asked him what he was doing in those clothes. He was not an amiable man. He answered, he was wearing them. They asked him why he was wearing them. He replied, to keep himself warm. They told him frankly that they did not believe him, and sent him back to his lodgings in a closed landau. The personal testimony of the English Minister was necessary to assure the authorities that the Highland garb was the customary dress of many respectable, law-abiding British subjects. They accepted the statement, as diplomatically bound, but retain their private opinion to this day. The English tourist they have grown accustomed to; but a Leicestershire gentleman, invited to hunt with some German officers, on appearing outside his hotel, was promptly marched off, horse and all, to explain his frivolity at the police court.
From "Three Men On The Bummel", the semisequel to "three men on a boat", 1914.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2183/2183-h/2183-h.htm
FDR as a youth was arrested four times in one day while in the Black Forest.
https://fortune.com/2014/09/17/amtrak-quiet-car/
Very few joggers, and they took care of their Jewish problem.
The most clean, orderly, mindnumbingly elegant country ever.
Their literature and media, though, is a complete contrast.
Their TV shows are loud (visually), with many overlays, graphics, transitions, etc. Their print media is the poster boy for chaos. Their information density is so huge, I wonder if anyone even reads 10% of what is on the page.
edit: I guess the insane information density in their language and printed media is perhaps an outcome of obsession with conciseness.
Similar to how European and European-derived cultures adopted a very traditional clean Japanese aesthetic in rebellion against a baroque tradition.
As for Japanese print media -- there seems to be a prevailing culture of space economy. Maybe paper was expensive to get/import at one time and that had a lasting effect on how Japanese laid out printed matter. It's bled through to their web sites too, which are very dense and "busy" compared to Western web sites, in which the trend seems to be to make a statement with white space to the detriment of available space for text.
Not to mention the deranged stuff I remember watching on Japanese TV at 4am while jet lagged.
Even if military pressed for "total war" (ie civilian support as in the USA), society largely liberalized in the golden 20ies. And if you look at culture, the 20-40ies were THE golden age. (much more golden than the 60/70ies)
The Nazi party were not thought to be so authoritarian really, more a fresh new modern party solving a lot of problems. The military and some other parties were more authoritarian. Just the SA and SS were considered a problem. Before, the right and left had their own private armies also, and there were constant street fights. Nazis were softer than the military in the total war efforts. (before 33 of course, but even until 43 it was only military penalizing the famous Treachery Act, which came directly from WW1 stab-in-the-back myth). Antisemitism was extremely widespread because of the Black Friday crash.
I went a few years ago to see the Hanshin Tigers play at home. The Tigers are famous for their raucous fans, their iconic stadium, for their "curse" (involving a statue of Colonel Sanders which was seized from a KFC and thrown into a river), and for losing records.
The atmosphere was incredible. Everyone in the stadium was on their feet, chanting, the entire time the home team was at bat. Every batter had their own unique chant, which every fan seemed to know. It was total bedlam, choreographed to a T.
I've never witnessed anything like it.
http://www.hm.aitai.ne.jp/~naitonet/
(Yes, this is completely non-ironic and kept updated in 2020, it's a local pharmacy...)
For example, I remember reading an article, a few years ago, about the cup holders in Honda / Toyota cars sold in America. The author noticed a small, hinged notch, deep inside the cup holder. Initially thinking it was some loose part. But then he realized it's function is to automatically drop when the car is on an upward slope and hold the cup in place. The notch automatically retracts (due to gravity) when the car is on normal roads.
The attention to detail, at such a small level, is prevalent at every level in their society.
There is actually a lot of inefficiency, like people standing there waving batons to warn about construction sites. In other countries you'd have signs. But it's debatable if that is plain inefficiency - maybe it gives people with no other abilities something to do, which can be positive.
No argument about attention to detail and especially customer service - it feels like the Japanese wouldn't even know how to do bad customer service or a bad product. (You can find examples of both if you go looking, though.)
It's not just media, it's everything. Most horizontal surfaces in a train will be filled with colourful advertisements [0], many major city streets have bright attention-grabbing signs not only at street level but at every level of every building [1], stores will have visual noise everywhere too [2].
And it's not just visual noise either. Indoors, trains have numerous announcements, elevators tell you when the doors are opening and closing and most shops have some music playing, sometimes quiet, sometimes blaring and obnoxious. Outside it's not uncommon to see giant TV's mounted on buildings (complete with audio) or to loud music or people yelling advertisements for their store.
Though that was mostly my experience in some of the more active parts of Tokyo. Smaller cities and quieter reasons are less noisy.
[0]: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tokyo-japan-january...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabukich%C5%8D,_Tokyo#/media/F...
[2]: https://www.maximimages.com/image/MXI25982/stock-photo-of-pe...
Every aspect of German culture can be linked to WW2 without much effort and has been for decades. Here is a humorous look at this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfFxoyxQAh4 instead of a sarcastic wikipedia link.
I do understand where you are coming from but sometimes you just have to let it go, as most others have done. WW2 ended in Germany over 75 years ago, people don't want to be reminded of it underneath a fun travel blog.
Now if you were writing an article about German engineering, I would be mildly surprised if there was no reference to their rocket program in WWII. But given the topic, I think that wouldn't leave the same negative taste in my mouth.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
From my experience, Germans tend to do what they're told without questioning.
They will happily line up at an empty street and wait for the light to turn green, and they get really upset if you mention the Holocaust; because those are the rules.
I have no trouble seeing how these traits contributed to what happened.
It doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, though; genocides have been committed from everything from borderline failed states to states that appeared a lot more functional than Nazi Germany (which really wasn’t all that ordered).
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The La Guardia perimeter rule prohibits nonstop flights to or from points beyond 1,500 miles.
All international traffic goes via JFK.
La Guardia has flights to Canada, Aruba and the Bahamas, possibly others based on its Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport
Do you like delicious artisanal beers or aged whiskies from around the world? Tough luck, alcohol in Finland is sold only by a state monopoly that chooses only a narrow range of products to offer and with very high taxes to discourage purchase (because historically Nordic males imbibed large quanties of pure liquor).
as far as a place to raise a family, be a part of a community, general quality of life, it fits.
if it was always summer there, i'd be there no question.
That Finland is a good place to raise a family has its dark side. Every time I go back to Finland I am annoyed by children being allowed in places they wouldn't be tolerated in other countries. The fancy new Helsinki central library gives adult patrons no barriers against all the noise from the children's section.
But as for "being part of a community", there is a big problem with loneliness in Finland. There are few opportunities to truly connect with other people after uni or the army. Religious observance is extremely low in Finland now, but apparently nothing ever replaced the parish church as a hub to actually interact with your local community. Few people living in blocks know their neighbours, and many feel that it would be a faux pas to even speak to those neighbours.
Tegel is a nightmare. It was designed for maybe half the capacity it currently serves. Hopefully opening the BER airport will relieve some of that pressure. That they can handle such a high volume at all is remarkable. Do avoid Tegel if you can help it though.
In the other cities I've lived in, this article rings very true: you stop at crosswalks even when no cars are coming. Most people's houses are kept in immaculate order. (Exceptions of course exist.) "Deutcher pünklich heißt fünf Minuten früh sein" ("German punctuality means being five minutes early." — paraphrase of something I heard from a German friend of mine one time.)
City transit is remarkably accessible: I used to visit unfamiliar parts of cities and small towns occasionally armed with a map—an never with a phone with GPS. I never got lost. Transit maps and signage are clear and easy to understand.
I've visited Germany twice now since my two-year stay there. Each time I explore more—it's easy because of how much order there is in the transit to latch onto.
Berlin is a sort of internal exile colony for those who reject or are rejected by the German lifestyle but don’t for whatever reason want to leave Germany
There is a reason Berlin is famous for leaving work at 6 pm on a Friday, going to a club, and exiting only at 4am next Monday to go back to work.
Not saying this is good/healthy thing, but Berlin has history of being the hotspot for misfits. That is why a lot of Germans or even Europeans move here.
Problem is, Berlin isn't where the money is -- Munich is. So startups get started in Berlin and get funded in Munich?
Germany is rich and shares the wealth quite a bit with its people, the amount of suffering and existential threat is low compared to most other countries. For some people the lack of purpose, selfefficacy and the overwhelming complexity of the modern world is becoming a problem... Maybe we do need some national identity to fill that gap. Maybe around the Grundgesetz and solidarity. Either way patriotism/nationalism doesn't help there since, the "WhatsApp" idiots are happening everywhere.
Again, I think my wording has caused a misunderstanding and I do apologize.
Also,I don't know what the "whatsapp" people are.
Europe also is different than the US in terms of borders: they changed all the time. They are obviously artificial constructs.
I asked you what good does nationalism serve? Don't you see the inherent danger at all?
In Germany all the right wing/covid19 conspiracy/... Bullshit is spread in WhatsApp groups. I think it's more important than Facebook for spreading "hate over facts".
The reality is quite different: Germans want others to behave in order, and as soon as you stop looking at them or they feel like not being watched, they will be the first ones to break laws and order.
But it is nice to know that marketing works.
(Grew up in Germany and now live since ~5 years in Switzerland)
a: because it's against the law.