I think the OP is correct, though probably not in the way they mean.
I love living in Japan, but I’ll never be able to adopt that mindset, or be able to eat all those disgusting fishes they love.
That’s fine. A lot of Japanese people think it’s valuable to have different perspectives too, even if they could never convince themselves that it’s ok to just walk up to someone and ask them what their problem is.
IIUC you are saying OP is correct in that culture exists in the world. And you are affirming that Japanese people believe this too and are fine with people that don't eat "disgusting fishes", like me (cooked I can't do, sashimi I'm fine).
So the sentiment that somehow Japanese are incompatible for culture reasons, which is the message I got from the thread I replied to, is not correct in your opinion too, right?
I think you got wrong what I said. I said that becoming part of a group of japanese people where japanese people accept you is more difficult than in other countries.
That is different from going around and just interacting with them, which I found smooth and polite.
If you think that interacting eith japanese at work or shops or restaurants is the same as becoming part of them, well, that is ok, you seem to live there. I think it is more difficult than in other countrues and by this I am not meaning they are bad.
For example, far fewer japanese speak english than other developed countries, which is a trait of ehat they care about.
Also, when working or interacting with japanese myself, I found they follow rules really strictly compared to the "flexibility mindset" that westerners tend to have when solving problems.
They will not go and correct their bosses if they see mistakes because "they will notice themselves". So there is a lot of room to make innocent mistakes when interacting with them and many, face it, are not even that interested beyond a trivial and polite conversation and I am not meaning bad. Every culture has their priorities and taste.
> For example, far fewer japanese speak english than other developed countries
My point was specifically about decoupling culture from language. And notably you didn't clarify about the Romanian who I guess must have spoke Spanish.
Sorry but there are many eastern countries that are considered "developed" while the English speaking population is nothing compared to Western countries like in the Europe. Of course I wish they taught if better to open global opportunities but that doesn't mean anything in terms of culture. It's a language issue and luckily AI is much better at dealing with them than culture.
Language and culture are intimately tied. You cannot just make them separated things.
You can pretend to do it. In some way it is similar to religion: you can pretend the westerner world has no religion. However, in our conduct and behavior, there is a huge christian remnant.
The same, in some way, happens with languages: the words used, the words that exist in one language and not in another, the connotations a word has...
there is lots of culture embedded in a language and when you change language, culture cannot stay the same anymore. It varies bc the culture itself is embedded in languages.
I kind of suspect it might be worth clarifying what a language is and how it's differentiated from culture. I've heard that honorifics works differently in Korean language e.g. for a supervisor in work situation where one is not expected to use one for his own supervisor in Japanese, while one absolutely is in Korean, and I feel that's more towards culture while also possible to include in grammatical ruleset.
> cooked I can't do, sashimi I'm fine
btw completely understand this. My technical brain says just pure NaCl and pure heat for a whole fish as caught with absolutely no herbs allowed is technically crazy. I hated the brown chiai regions in buri slices growing up. It's crazy that yaki-zakana, literally "roast fish" is one of characteristic dish of the country.
I love living in Japan, but I’ll never be able to adopt that mindset, or be able to eat all those disgusting fishes they love.
That’s fine. A lot of Japanese people think it’s valuable to have different perspectives too, even if they could never convince themselves that it’s ok to just walk up to someone and ask them what their problem is.