Quote Originally Posted by nurizeko View Post
Japan is a seperate country seperated by geography and the haze of history from the rest of the world for a long time.
So are each European country.
It boils down to one simple thing, this one simple thing I mentioned a long time ago on this forum and this is it.
You either love or hate Japan.
You hated it, nearly everyone else managed to find part of it they loved.
False. I don't see things in black or white. I try to weigh the good and the bad in each culture and country. So country just happen to have more good or less bad than others. There are many things that I like about Japan (see this thread).

I came to Japan with a very postive approach. In fact it was so positive that I embraced Japan completely, learn the language, experience all I could, read a lot about it, met lots of peolpe, and try to be interested in things that I wasn't really interested in before (manga, kabuki, Japanese literature, Shintoism...). The more I learnt and discovered about Japan, the more people I met, the more fluent I became in Japanese, and the more I came to dislike Japan because I felt that my good expectations were going to be fulfilled. The deeper I scratched over the surface and the more dirt I found, despite my attempts to find more positive things.
Japan simply pushed the limits of what YOU find acceptable, fine, your an individual, free to your own specifics.
That's true, but my values are deeply influenced by European cultural values. So if I feel the way I do about Japan, chances are high that other Europeans/Westerners will be the same way too, if they experience the same things as me and judge Japanese culture by the same standards.
While you found many examples of descrimination or ignorance nearly unbearable, Many others could look past it, so it didnt ruin their visit/life there, for others, they simply never suffered any really note-worthy examples of descrimination or ignorance.
This tells me more about you than about Japanese people...
Applying strict European standards to a country that only really opened up to it in any real way a few hundred years ago is hardly fair.
With that kind of argument I could say that Belgium wasn't a country until 175 years ago. It is hardly fair to compare a 175-year old country with the oldest monarchy in the world !